Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen Volume II Part 22

The Queen's destination in Germany was Reinhardtsbrunn, the lovely little hunting-seat among the Thuringian woods and mountains, which had so taken her fancy on her first happy visit to Germany. There she was joined by the Crown Prince and Princess of Prussia and their children, Prince Louis and Princess Alice, and Prince Alfred.

Her Majesty could not quit Germany without revisiting Coburg, hard as the visit must have been to her. One of the chief inducements was to go to one who could no longer come to her, the aged Baron Stockmar, whose talk was still of "the dear good Prince," and of how soon the old man would rejoin the n.o.ble pupil cut off in the prime of his gifts and his usefulness.

Prince and Princess Louis of Hesse spent the winter with the Queen in England, and in the month of November Princess Alexandra of Denmark paid a short visit to her Majesty, when the Princess's youthful beauty and sweetness won all hearts.

Early in the morning on the 18th of December the Prince Consort's remains were removed from the entrance of the vault beneath St.

George's Chapel to the mausoleum already prepared for them at Frogmore. The ceremony, which was attended by the Prince of Wales, Prince Arthur, Prince Leopold, and Prince Louis of Hesse, was quite private. Prince Alfred had a severe attack of fever in the Mediterranean.

The d.u.c.h.ess of Sutherland presented the Queen with a Bible from "many widows of England," and to "all those kind sister widows" her Majesty expressed the deep and heartfelt grat.i.tude of "their widowed Queen."

As a consequence of the failure of the cotton crop in America, caused by the civil war rending the country asunder, the Lancas.h.i.+re operatives were in a state of enforced idleness and famine, calling for the most strenuous efforts to relieve them.

When Parliament was opened by commission on the 5th of February, 1863, the Queen's speech announced the approaching marriage of the Prince of Wales. On the 7th of March Princess Alexandra, accompanied by her father and mother, brother and sister, arrived at Gravesend, where the Prince of Wales met her. Bride and bridegroom drove, on the chill spring day which ended in rain, through decorated and festive London, where great crowds congregated to do the couple honour.

In the afternoon at Windsor the Queen was seen seated with her two younger daughters at a window of the castle which commanded the entrance drive. The little party waited there in patient expectation till it grew dark.

On Tuesday, the 10th of March, the marriage took place in St. George's Chapel. The Queen in her widow's weeds occupied the royal closet, from which she could look down on the actors in the ceremony. She was attended by the widow of General Bruce. Among the English royal family were Prince and Princess Louis of Hesse, and the Crown Princess of Prussia leading her little son, Prince William.

The Prince of Wales, who wore a general's uniform with the star of the Garter, was supported by the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and the Crown Prince of Prussia.

Princess Alexandra came in the last carriage with her father, Prince Christian of Denmark, and the Duke of Cambridge. The bride's dress was of white satin, and Honiton lace, with a silver moire train. She had a wreath of orange-blossoms and myrtle. She wore a necklace, earrings, and brooch of pearls and diamonds, the gift of the Prince of Wales, rivieres of diamonds, the City of London's gift, an opal and diamond bracelet, presented by the Queen, &c., &c. The bride's train was borne by eight unmarried daughters of English dukes, marquises, and earls.

Princess Alexandra was in her nineteenth, the Prince of Wales in his twenty-second year.

On reaching the _haut pas_, the bride made a deep reverence to the Queen. During the service her Majesty was visibly affected. Indeed an interested spectator, Dr. Norman Macleod, remarked as a characteristic feature of the marriage that all the English princesses wept behind their bouquets to see--not the Prince of Wales, not the future king, but their brother, their father's son, standing alone before the altar waiting for his bride.

The bride and bridegroom on leaving the chapel occupied the second of the twelve carriages, and were preceded by the Lord Chamberlain, &c., &c. Her Majesty received her son and new daughter at the grand entrance. The wedding breakfast for the royal guests was in the dining-room, for the others in St. George's Hall. At four the Prince and Princess of Wales left in an open carriage drawn by four cream- coloured horses for the station, where the Crown Princess of Prussia had already gone to bid her brother and his bride good-bye, as they started for Osborne to spend their honeymoon.

That night there were great illuminations in London and in all the towns large and small in the kingdom. Thousands of hearts echoed the poet-laureate's eloquent words--

Sea kings daughter from over the sea, Alexandra.

Saxon and Norman and Dane are we, But all of us Danes in our welcome to thee, Alexandra.

Among the Princess of Wales's wedding presents was a parure of splendid opals and brilliants from a design by the late Prince Consort, given in his name as well as in the Queen's.

The town and country houses selected for the Prince and Princess of Wales were Marlborough House and Sandringham.

On the 4th of April Princess Alice's first child, a daughter, was born at Windsor.

On the 8th of May the Queen paid a visit to the military hospital at Netley, in which the Prince Consort had been much interested.

Her Majesty left England on the 11th of August for Belgium and Germany. She was accompanied by the Princes Alfred and Leopold and the Princesses Helena and Beatrice. Their destination was Rosenau, near Coburg, where the Queen was again joined by the Crown Prince and Princess of Prussia and Prince and Princess Louis of Hesse. In the house which was so dear and so sad, the late Prince's birthplace, his widow and children spent his birthday. During the Queen's stay in Coburg she went to see the widow of Baron Stockmar, and Mr.

Florschutz, the late Prince's tutor. The venerable superintendent Meyer was still alive and able to preach to her. Her Majesty's health continued feeble, but she was able to receive visits at Rosenau from the King of Prussia and the Emperor of Austria. She quitted Coburg on the 7th of September, spending the 8th at Kranichstein, near Darmstadt, the country house of Princess Alice and her husband.

Later on in autumn the Queen with nearly the whole of her family was at Balmoral and Abergeldie. The cairn on Craig Lowrigan was finished.

It formed a pyramid of granite thirty feet high, seen for many a mile.

The inscription was as follows:--

"TO THE BELOVED MEMORY

of

ALBERT, THE GREAT AND GOOD,

PRINCE CONSORT,

RAISED BY HIS BROKEN-HEARTED WIDOW,

VICTORIA B.,

AUGUST 21, 1862.

He being made perfect in a short time, fulfilled a long time, for his soul pleased the Lord, therefore hastened He to take him away from among the wicked.

_Wisdom of Solomon, iv. 13, 14._

The appropriate verse is said to have been suggested by the Princess Royal.

Immediately after her Majesty's arrival at Balmoral she went to Blair to see the Duke of Athole, who was hopelessly ill with cancer in the throat. The poor Duke bore up bravely. He had to receive the Queen in his own room, "full of his rifles and other implements and attributes of sport now for ever useless to him." But he was able to present the white rose, the old tribute from the Lords of Athole to their sovereign, and he was gratified by the gracious and kindly mark of attention shown in her Majesty's visit. He insisted on accompanying her to the station, where she gave him her hand, saying, "Dear Duke, G.o.d bless you." He had asked permission that the same men who had gone with the Queen and the Prince Consort through the glen two years before might give her a cheer. "Oh! it was so dreadfully sad," was the Queen's comment in her journal.

About three weeks afterwards, on the 7th of October, the Queen had an alarming accident. She was returning from Altnagiuthasach with two of her daughters in the darkness of an autumn evening, when the carriage was upset in the middle of the moorland. Her Majesty was thrown with her face on the ground, but escaped with some bruises and a hurt to one of her thumbs. No one else was injured. The ladies sat down in the overturned carriage after the traces had been cut and the coachman despatched for a.s.sistance. There was no water to be had, nothing but claret to bathe the Queen's hand and face. In about half an hour voices and horses' hoofs were heard. It was the ponies which had been sent away before the accident, but the servant who accompanied them, alarmed by the non-appearance of the Queen and by the sight of lights moving about, rode back to reconnoitre. Her Majesty and the Princesses mounted the ponies, which were led home. At Balmoral no one knew what had happened; the Queen herself told the accident to her two sons-in- law who were at the door awaiting her.

Six days afterwards the Queen made her first appearance in public since the Prince's death a year and nine months before, at the unveiling of his statue in Aberdeen. She was accompanied by the Crown Prince and Princess of Prussia, Prince and Princess Louis of Hesse, Princesses Helena and Louise, and Princes Arthur and Leopold. The day was one of pouring rain, and the long silent procession was sad and strange. The Queen was trembling; she had no one as on former occasions to direct and support her. She received the Provost's address, and returned a written reply. She conferred the honour of knighthood on the magistrate, the first time she had performed the ceremony "since all was ended."

On the 14th of December the Queen and her family visited the mausoleum, [Footnote: Dr. Norman Macleod describes an earlier visit in March, 1863 "I walked with Lady Augusta to the mausoleum to meet the Queen. She was accompanied by Princess Alice. She had the key, and opened it herself, undoing the bolts, and alone we entered and stood in silence beside Marochetti's beautiful statue of the Prince. I was very much overcome. She was calm and quiet."] to which she went constantly on every return to Windsor. Princess Alice in her published letters calls the sarcophagus--with the exquisite decorations which were in progress, and cost more than two hundred thousand pounds paid from her Majesty's private purse--"that wonderfully beautiful tomb" by which her mother prayed. It became the practice to have a religious service celebrated there in the presence of the Queen and the royal family on the anniversary of the Prince's death.

In December Lady Augusta Bruce left the Queen's service on her marriage with Dean Stanley. On the night of the 23rd of December Thackeray died.

Prince Albert Victor of Wales was born unexpectedly at Frogmore, where the Prince and Princess of Wales then resided occasionally, on the 8th of January, 1864. The child was baptised in the chapel at Buckingham Palace on the first anniversary of his parents' marriage, as the Princess Royal had been baptised there on the first anniversary of the Queen and Prince Albert's marriage. The Queen and the old King of the Belgians were present among the sponsors.

When the Queen went north this year she was accompanied by the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Saxe-Coburg.

On the 14th of March, 1865, her Majesty visited the Hospital for Consumption at Brompton, walking over the different wards and speaking to the patients.

The news of the a.s.sa.s.sination of President Lincoln reached England in April, when the Queen became, as she has so often been, the mouthpiece of her subjects, writing an autograph letter expressing her horror, pity, and sympathy to Mrs. Lincoln.

Prince Alfred on the 6th of August, his twenty-first birthday, was formally acknowledged heir to his childless uncle, the Duke of Saxe- Coburg.

Two days later the Queen embarked with Prince Leopold, the three younger Princesses, the d.u.c.h.ess of Roxburgh, Lady Churchill, &c., &c., at Woolwich for Germany. She arrived at Coburg on the 11th and went to Rosenau. On the 26th, the birthday of the Prince Consort, perhaps the most interesting of all the inaugurations of monuments to his memory took place at Coburg. A gilt-bronze statue ten feet high was unveiled with solemn ceremony in the square of the little town which Prince Albert had so often traversed in his boyhood. After the unveiling, the Queen walked across the square at the head of her children and handed to the Duke of Saxe-Coburg flowers which he laid on the pedestal. Each of her sons and daughters followed her example, till "the fragrant ma.s.s" rose to the feet of the statue. Princess Alice writes of "the terrible sufferings" of the first three years of the Queen's widowhood, but adds that after the long storm came rest, so that the daughter could tenderly remind the mother, without reopening the wound, of the happy silver wedding which might have been this year when the royal parents would have been surrounded by so many grandchildren in fresh young households.

While the Queen was in the Highlands during the autumn, her journal, in its published portions, records a few days spent with the widowed d.u.c.h.ess of Athole at her cottage at Dunkeld. This visit was something very different from the old royal progresses. It was a private token of friends.h.i.+p from the Queen to an old friend bereaved like herself.

There was neither show, nor gaiety, nor publicity. The life was even quieter than at Balmoral. Her Majesty breakfasted with the daughter who accompanied her, lunched and dined with the Princess, the d.u.c.h.ess, and one or more ladies. There were long drives, rides, and rows on the lochs--sometimes in mist and rain, among beautiful scenery, like that which had been a solace in the days of deepest sorrow, tea among the bracken or the heather or in some wayside house, friendly chats, peaceful readings.

This year Princess Helena was betrothed to Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg, a brother of the husband of her cousin, Princess Adelaide of Hohenlohe. The family connection and the personal character of the bridegroom were high recommendations, while the marriage would permit the Princess to remain in England near her mother.