It is remarkable how adoring the 19th century governments, local and national, were to the celebrity of Queen Victoria, even in the first 20 or so years of her reign when it could not have been known that she would outlive all previous monarchs. The statue above from Pearson Park, Hull was created in the 1860s, in the early days of the Park, to commemorate the monarch’s visit to Hull in the early 1850s; Queen Victoria never saw the statue herself but she may have necessarily agreed to it. For the Lottery-funded restoration of the Park three years ago the statue was cleaned and the surrounding railing was made by a heritage structural firm from the evidence of early photographs, this including the lions rampant at each corner.
The royal arms for the nation-state of England were first standardised during the reign of William I followed by his Norman successors in the 12th and 13th centuries. Throughout the centuries and dynasties the detail in the four quarters of the shield changed and changed again but throughout the lions were shown (usually three) as passant. It was the supporting figures of the lion and the unicorn in the full arms that were rampant. The issue as to why the lion should have been the figurehead representing England for over a millennia and from the 11th century is an interesting line of thought, and one on which I cannot throw light. Had William, Duke of Normandy ever seen a lion? Perhaps of more interest is, had he ever seen a unicorn?
Incidentally, from the evidence above, it seems that a fundamentalist cell of republican common gulls are at work in central Kingston upon Hull. One of the first things they will change, come the revolution, is the name (proper name) of the town.
(to be continued)