What's Up Wednesday (Imperial Mews of Scot-Britania Restored)

The past few months have seen many Imperial restoration projects underway in Scotney and Britania. All of these have found new impetus with the discovery of the Crown of St Christian a few weeks ago. One of the very large scale projects of historical value has been the remainder of the Royal and Imperial carriages still surviving after the 1996 revolution destroyed many Royal artifacts. These have now finally been completely restored and they will be displayed in the Imperial Mews at the Aldarian Palace from the 15th of March 2015.

The Crown Prince Imperial took our photographer on a tour of the Mews especially for this blog post before the grand opening. The "Mews" is the traditional name for what one may call the Imperial garage. Here His Imperial Highness is welcomed at the entrance to the facility by a liveried postilion.

Three historic transports have traditionally been kept here for use by the former Royal and Imperial Families. They will now be on display along with other exhibits at the Aldarian Palace Royal Museum Initiative. 

The Crown Prince Imperial was said to be very excited about this particular part of the vast restorations currently underway as he has always had a "strange" fascination with horse drawn carriages growing up. The Prince who spent his youth in Muren unaware of his Royal status was always drawn to horse and their role in history and never knew how closely he was linked to the concept in reality.

Of the three carriages, the smallest is known as the Queen Victoria Landau. It was made for the great great grand mother of the Crown Prince as a less formal parade carriage. Queen Victoria who most often preferred her carriages over the newly invented cars at the time needed a new small and convenient carriage and this was the result. 

Next we have the Royal Britanian Parade Landau which has always been the official open top parade carriage for the Royal House of Britania. No closed top coaches from Britania nor any landaus of Scotney have survived the destruction of the 1996 Revolution.

The Coronation Coach of Scot-Britania was luckily considered to be of important historical value and due to its links with bot Scotney and Britania, was kept intact, albeit locked away from public view, by the revolutionary governments of Scotney and Britania. It form the highlight of the Mews' Exhibit and is sure to draw thousands of tourists. It is as spectacularly grand as it is a testament of period artistry and craftsmanship. The coach was made in 1777 for the coronation of King James of Scotney and was eventually selected to be the coronation coach for the United Empire of Scot-Britania. At that stage in 1994 the original Royal Crown that surmounted the top of the coach was replaced wit an effigy of Emperor Christian and Empress Crystobel and it remains so to this day.

The front of the coach displays another effigy but this time of "the Word of God". When the coach was made it was still popularly considered that Kings rule by Divine Right and proclaimed by the will and word of God. So when the King rode to his coronation he was preceded by the declaration of God as portrayed by the image of the Mithrandir seated on the front of the coach holding a scroll. At the back, two supporting angels rounded off the celestial procession. The actual Mithrandir would then follow to crown the King in the Cathedral of the Lionheart.

The Crown Prince Imperial was visibly moved when he showed us the Coronation Coach while mentioning that his father and mother were the last to ride in it. He is quoted as being very proud to be so closely involved with its restoration and hope many will find it enjoyable to view and to learn of its historic significance and artistic value.