The government's plans for the coronation attracted considerable criticism from its opponents. It decided to allow a budget of £70,000, which represented a compromise between two extremes of £240,000 (1821) and £30,000 (1831). In terms of the cost, the government was torn between the extremes of George IV's lavish coronation in 1821 and the 'cut-price' event, dubbed the 'Half-Crown-ation', that had been held for William IV in 1831. He later concluded that the 'great merit' of the coronation was that so much had been done for the people. The diarist Charles Greville commented that the principal object of the government plan was to amuse and interest the ordinary working people. that was unoccupied with galleries or scaffolding'. According to contemporary reports, this was achieved, with one report stating that there was scarcely '.a vacant spot along the whole.

Scaffolding for spectators would be built all along the route. Victoria's procession would be the longest since that of Charles II in April 1661. Earlier processions had run from the Tower of London to the Abbey. There had been a procession in 1831, but a much longer route was planned for 1838, that included a new startpoint at Buckingham Palace. A greater consideration was the need to somehow involve the general public, and Melbourne championed the centuries-old custom of a public procession taking place through the streets of London.

In terms of the ceremony itself, the extension of the franchise meant that some 500 members of Parliament would be invited to attend, in addition to the peerage.

A major factor in the planning was that the coronation was the first to be held since the Reform Act of 1832, when the government radically reshaped the monarchy. Melbourne's Cabinet began formal discussions of the subject of the coronation during March 1838. Another part of the procession, from a long 'tableau' print, by Robert Tyas, the carriages of the representatives of Sweden, Portugal and France

Sapphire gaze