Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen Volume II Part 26

On leaving college Prince Leopold continued to lead the quiet yet busy life of a scholarly and somewhat artistic young man to whom robust health has been denied. In addition to the many dignities of his rank, including four orders of knighthood, belonging to the Garter, the Thistle, the Star of India, and the Order of St. Michael and St.

George, he became a D.O.L. of Oxford in 1876, and in the following year a bencher of Lincoln's Inn. A less characteristic honour given him was the rank of a colonel in the army.

It was a marked feature in Prince Leopold's individuality, as it had been in that of the Prince Consort, that he sought to turn all his gifts and pursuits to practical use, not only in the interests of science and art, but in order to improve the condition and increase the happiness of the Queen his mother's people. His speeches on the increasing occasions when he took the chair at public meetings in aid of the objects he had at heart, were remarkable in so young a man, not only for good taste and for the amount of carefully acquired knowledge they displayed, but for the spirit of enlightened humanity and benevolence which breathed through them. Gradually but surely Prince Leopold's graceful, well-considered, kindly utterances, with which he was ready whenever his services were required, were making a most favourable and permanent impression on the public which was too soon to mourn his loss. The extension of education and of innocent amus.e.m.e.nts through all cla.s.ses, the Kyrle Society for the fostering of Art among the homeliest surroundings, the higher and more general cultivation of music, the introduction of lessons in cookery into the poorest schools; were among the schemes which the Duke of Albany warmly advocated.

The Duke's marriage took place, as we have recorded, on the 27th of April, 1882, and in 1883 a daughter was born to him, who received the dear and hallowed name of "Alice."

In March, 1884, the Duke of Albany went to Cannes in order to escape the spring east winds, leaving the d.u.c.h.ess, who was in a delicate state of health, behind him at Claremont. He appeared to profit by his stay of a few weeks in the south of France, was unusually well in health and in excellent spirits, entering generally into the society of the place. But on the 27th of March, in ascending a stair at the Cercle Nautique, he slipped and fell, injuring his ailing knee in a manner in which he had hurt it several times before. He was conveyed in a carriage to the Villa Nevada, at which he was residing, and no danger was apprehended, the Duke writing with his own hand to the d.u.c.h.ess, making light of the accident. During the following night, however, he was observed to breathe heavily, was found to be in a fit, and in a few minutes afterwards, early on the morning of the 28th of March, 1884, he died in the arms of his equerry, Captain Perceval. The melancholy news was telegraphed to Windsor, and broken to the Queen by the Master of her Household, Sir Henry Ponsonby. Under the shock and grief, with which the whole country sympathised, her Majesty's first and constant thought seems to have been for the young widow at desolate Claremont.

The Prince of Wales started for Cannes, and accompanied the remains of his brother to England, the royal yacht _Osborne_ landing them at Portsmouth. On the arrival of the melancholy cavalcade at Windsor, on Friday, the 4th of April, the Queen went with her daughters, Princess Christian and Princess Beatrice, to the railway station to meet the body of the beloved son who had been the namesake of King Leopold, her second father, and the living image in character of the husband she had adored. The coffin was carried by a detachment of the Seaforth Highlanders through the room in which her Majesty awaited the procession, and conveyed to the chapel, where a short service was afterwards held in the presence of the Queen and the near relatives of the dead, and where the nearest of all, the widowed d.u.c.h.ess, paid one brief last visit to the bier.

On the following day, Sat.u.r.day, the 5th of April, towards noon, the funeral took place, with all the pomp of the late Prince's rank, and all the sorrow which his untimely end and many virtues might well call forth. The Prince of Wales, as chief mourner, was supported by the Crown Prince of Germany, the Duke of Hesse-Darmstadt, Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, Prince Albert Victor of Wales, and the Duke of Cambridge. The coffin, with its velvet pall nearly hidden by flowers, was again borne by a party of the Seaforth Highlanders to the solemn music of Chopin's "Funeral March" and the firing of the minute-guns, to the princ.i.p.al entrance of St. George's Chapel. Among the same company that had been a.s.sembled when the Duke of Albany had been married not two years before, were his father-in-law and sister-in- law, the Prince of Waldeck-Pyrmont, and the Queen of Holland.

While the dirge-like music and the booming of the cannon filled the air, the Queen in deep mourning entered, leaning on the arm of the Princess of Wales, and followed by Princess Christian, the Princesses Louise and Beatrice, and Princess Frederica of Hanover, the royal party being conducted by the Lord Chamberlain to seats near the choir steps. The d.u.c.h.ess of Albany and the d.u.c.h.ess of Edinburgh were unable, from the state of their health, to attend the funeral. As the coffin, every movement of which was regulated by the word of command spoken by the officer appointed for the duty, pa.s.sed through the screen and entered the choir, the Queen and Princesses rose as if to greet him who came thus for the last time among them. The rest of the company had remained standing from the moment of the Queen's entrance. The Dean of Windsor read the Funeral Service. When the choir sang the anthem, "Blessed are the Departed," the Queen again rose. Lord Brooke, a young man like the Prince who was gone, who had been with him at Oxford, was one of the most intimate of his friends, and had been named one of the executors of his will, threw, with evident emotion, the handful of earth on the coffin while the Dean recited "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust."

After the singing of the hymn, "Lead kindly light," during which her Majesty stood, she and the Princesses quitted the chapel. Garter-King- at-Arms having proclaimed the style and t.i.tles of the deceased, the coffin was lowered into the vault below St. George's Chapel, the Prince of Wales gazing sadly on its descent. The Queen, with her long discipline of sorrow, had in the middle of her affliction preserved her coolness throughout the trying ceremony. Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, had almost completed his thirty-first year. The anniversary of his birthday was on the second day after his funeral.

The Queen has left her mark on the palaces and humbler houses which have been her homes. In indicating it we have nothing to do with grey Windsor in its historical glories, or even in its more picturesque lights. We leave behind the Waterloo Gallery, the Garter-room and the quaint cottages of the Poor Knights in order to point out the touches which are the tokens of Queen Victoria's presence. Though she dwelt here princ.i.p.ally in the bright days of her early reign, the chief signs which she will leave behind her are those of her widowhood and of the faithful heart which has never forgotten its kindred dead. The most conspicuous work of the Queen's is the restoration and rechristening of the Wolsey Chapel. As the Albert Chapel, the beautiful little building is fall of the thought of him who was once master here. Its rich mosaics, stained gla.s.s, "pictures for eternity"

fretted in marble, scriptural allegories of all the virtues--the very medallions of his children which surmount these unfading pictures, are all in his honour. Specially so is the pure white marble figure of the Prince, represented as a knight in armour, lying sword in hand, his feet against the hound--the image of loyalty, while round the pedestal is carved his name and state, and the place of his burial, with the epitaph which fits him well, "I have fought the good fight, I have finished my course."

In St. George's Chapel her Majesty has erected five monuments. A rec.u.mbent marble figure on an alabaster sarcophagus is to her father, who was so fond of the infant daughter whom he left a helpless baby. A white marble statue, larger than life, in royal robes, is to the man who took the Duke of Kent's place, Leopold I., King of the Belgians, of whom his niece could cause to be written with perfect truth "who was as a father to her, and she was to him as a daughter." This statue is reared near the well-known monument to the dead King's never forgotten first wife, Princess Charlotte of Wales. [Footnote: Princess Alice mentions in one of her published letters that King Leopold had entertained a wish that he might be buried in England.] The third and fourth monuments are to the Queen's aunt and cousin, the good d.u.c.h.ess of Gloucester and the late King of Hanover. The last was executed by the Queen's nephew, Count Gleichen (Prince Victor Hohenlohe). The inscription has several pathetic allusions. "Here has come to rest among his kindred, the royal family of England, George V., the last King of Hanover." "Receiving a kingdom which cannot be moved." "In this light he shall see light." The fifth monument has been raised to a young eastern prince, son of Theodore, King of Abyssinia, who came to England as a lad and died here "I was a stranger and ye took me in"

is the epitaph.

At the entrance to the fine corridor which runs round two sides of the quadrangle of the Castle, and forms a matchless in-door promenade, is Theed's beautiful group of the Queen and the Prince, conceived and worked out after his death, with the solemn parting of two hearts tenderly attached as the motive of the whole. The figures are not only ideally graceful while the likeness in each is carefully preserved, the expression is beyond praise. The wife clings, in devotion so perfect that impa.s.sioned hope contends with chill despair, to the arm of the husband who looks down on her whom he loves best, with fond encouragement and the peace of the blessed already settling on the stainless brow. The inscription is from Goldsmith's "Deserted Village"--

"Allur'd to brighter worlds and led the way,"

It is part of an exquisite pa.s.sage:--

"And as a bird each fond endearment tries To tempt its new-fledg'd offspring to the skies, He tried each art, reprov'd each dull delay, Allur'd to brighter worlds, and led the way."

The corridor, among its innumerable vases, cabinets, and pictures of kings and great men--including a fine portrait of Sir Walter Scott-- has a whole series of pictures ill.u.s.trating, the leading events of her Majesty's life, from her "First Council," by Wilkie, through her marriage, the baptisms of the Princess Royal and the Prince of Wales, the first reception of Louis Philippe, &c., &c., to the Princess Royal's marriage.

The white drawing-room, said to be a favourite room of her Majesty's, is not far from her private sitting-room on the south-east side of the quadrangle which looks out on the Long Walk and Windsor Forest, the white drawing-room commanding the Home Park.

Going down the stately double avenue of elms called the Long Walk, a lodge and side walk at no great distance lead to Frogmore, with its mausoleum half hidden in luxuriant foliage. In the octagonal building, which forms a cross, and is richly decorated with coloured marbles, is the famous rec.u.mbent figure of the Prince in white marble by Baron Marochetti. When the Queen's time comes, which her people pray may still be far distant, she will rest by her husband's side, and a similar statue to his will mark where she lies. Memorials of Princess Alice and of her Majesty's dead grandchildren are also here.

The late d.u.c.h.ess of Kent is buried in a separate vault beneath a dome supported by pillars of polished granite and surrounded by a parapet with balconies. In the upper chamber, lit from the top by stained gla.s.s, is a statue of the d.u.c.h.ess, by Theed.