The funeral of Admiral Nelson, 9 January 1805. St Paul's cathedral is draped in enemy ensigns captured at Trafalgar.
from /r/vexillology Top comment: edit: 1806. Apart from the fact I thought it would be interesting flag-related content, I also have a question: what are all the flags? Clearly there are French and Spanish flags, but the others I don't know. I thought perhaps some of them were Sardinia and Wurttemberg but looking closer they're not. Surely someone here will know. Thanks :) edit 2: someone asked for an explanation so: this is the funeral of Lord Horatio Nelson, a Royal Navy admiral during the Napoleonic Wars. He was the most famous naval officer of his day, and years before his death he was already a national hero due to his command of the British fleet at the famous battles of Copenhagen and the Nile, the latter against the forces of the First French Empire, ruled by Napoleon Bonaparte. At the time, France was in the process of conquering all of mainland Europe, and seemed unstoppable despite the efforts of most of the other European powers to form a series of coalitions against France. At sea, however, the UK was still the number one power, and while this kept Britain safe from French invasion (unlike so many other countries), Napoleon was determined to defeat the Royal Navy and clear the way to launch an invasion of Britain. Britain at the time was incredibly rich from its empire and trade abroad, and it funded a lot of the other European powers' wars against France, so if Britain had fallen, it would have put the French in a very good position to defeat the remaining countries that stood against them. So, in 1805, Napoleon's admirals gathered together a huge fleet of French and Spanish ships in order to defeat the Royal Navy once and for all. They met the British fleet off the coast of Trafalgar (in southern Spain) on 21 October 1805, and the Royal Navy won despite being heavily outnumbered and outgunned, in no small part due to the unconventional tactics employed by Nelson. During the battle, however, Admiral Nelson was shot by a French sharpshooter and died of his wounds a few hours after his greatest victory. He became even more of a national hero in the UK, and remains so to this day.
