ISON is a sungrazer. But there were legendary comets like the Kreutz Family of Sungrazing comets. The Great comet of 1843 is a member of the kreutz family and it passed even more close to the sun at perihelion. It was a time before SOHO was deployed and there are not accurate observations of the speed of the Great Comet.
Since, it was travelling closer to the sun, considering the angular momentum created by the gravity of the sun, The great comet might have been a bit faster than the ISON.
You cannot just term, speed of the comet. Comets travel with higher speeds due to the sun's gravitational pull and can be accelerated to extreme speeds when they catapult around the sun. However, when the comet is moving away from the sun, it'll be travelling slower because of the gravitational pull of the sun.
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