LAST VISIT TO IRELAND--HIGHLAND EXCURSIONS--MEETING OF THE PRINCE OF
WALES AND THE PRINCESS ALEXANDRA OF DENMARK--DEATH OF THE KINO OF
PORTUGAL AND HIS BROTHERS
In the retirement of Osborne the Queen mourned her mother with the
tender fidelity which her people have learnt to know and reverence.
In April the Court returned to Buckingham Palace, when the Queen
announced the marriage of the Princess Alice to the Privy Council It
was communicated to Parliament, and was very favourably received. The
Princess had a dowry of thirty thousand, and an annuity of six
thousand pounds from the country.
The Queen's birthday was celebrated at Osborne without the usual
festivities. During the Whitsun holidays Prince Louis, who was with
the family, had the misfortune to be attacked by measles, which he
communicated to Prince Leopold. The little boy had the disease
severely, and it left bad results.
In June King Leopold and one of his sons paid the Queen a lengthened
visit of five weeks. The Princess Royal, with her husband and
children, arrived afterwards, and there was a happy family meeting,
tinged with sorrow.
In July the most exalted Order of the Star of India was instituted,
and conferred first on the Maharajah Dhuleep Singh, Lord Clyde, Sir
John Lawrence, &c., &c. That summer saw the death of two statesmen who
had been men of mark in the Crimean war--Count Cavour, the Sardinian
Prime Minister, and Lord Herbert of Lea. The royal visitors in London
and at Osborne included the Archduke Maximilian and his young wife,
and the King of Sweden and his son.
Towards the close of August the Queen went to Frogmore with the Prince
and Princess Alice, in order to keep the birthday of the late Duchess
of Kent, whose remains had been already removed from St. George's
chapel to the mausoleum prepared for them in the grounds of her former
home. The Queen wrote of the first evening at Frogmore as "terribly
trying;" but it comforted her in the beautiful morning to visit the
grand simple mausoleum, and to help to place on the granite
sarcophagus the wreaths which had been brought for the purpose.
The day after the return of Prince Alfred from the West Indies, the
Queen and the Prince, their second son and the Princesses Alice and
Helena, sailed from Holyhead in the _Victoria and Albert_ for
Kingstown. This visit to Ireland meant also the royal presence on a
field-day in the Curragh camp, where the Prince of Wales was serving,
and a run down to Killarney in very hot weather. At the lakes the
Queen was the guest of Lord Castleross and Mr. Herbert. The wild
luxuriant scenery, the size and beauty of the arbutus-trees, and the
enthusiastic shriek of the blue-cloaked women, made their due
impression. In a row on one of the lakes her Majesty christened a
point. The Prince's birthday came round during the stay in Ireland,
and was marked by the usual loving tokens, though the Queen noted
sadly the difference between this and other anniversaries: the lack of
festivities, the absence from home, the separation from the younger
children, and the missing the old invariable gift from the Duchess of
Kent.
Balmoral was reached in the beginning of September. Prince Louis came
speedily, and another welcome guest, Princess Hohenlohe, who travelled
north with Lady Augusta Bruce. Dr. Norman Macleod gives a glimpse of
the circumstances and the circle. He preached to the Queen, and she
thanked him for the comfort he gave her. Lady Augusta Bruce talked to
him of "that noble, loving woman, the Duchess of Kent, and of the
Queen's grief." He found the Queen's half-sister "an admirable woman"
and Prince Alfred "a fine gentlemanly sailor."
The Queen's greatest solace this year was in long days spent on the
purple mountains and by the sides of the brown lochs, and in a second
private expedition, like that of the previous year to Grantown, when
she slept a night at the Ramsay Arms in the village of Fettercairn,
and Prince Louis and General Grey were consigned to the Temperance
Hotel opposite. The whole party walked out in the moonlight and were
startled by a village band. The return was by Blair, where the Queen
was welcomed by her former host and hostess, the Duke and Duchess of
Athole. Her Majesty had a look at her earlier quarters, at the room in
which the little Princess Royal had been put to bed in two chairs, and
saw Sandy Macara, grown old and grey.
After an excursion to Cairn Glaishie, her Majesty recorded in her
journal, "Alas! I fear our last great one." Six years afterwards the
sorrowful confirmation was given to words which had been written with
a very different meaning, "It was our last one."
The Prince of Wales was on a visit to Germany, ostensibly to witness
the manoeuvres of the Prussian army, but with a more delicate mission
behind. He was bound, while not yet twenty, to make the acquaintance
of the Princess Alexandra of Denmark, not quite seventeen, with the
probability of their future marriage--a prospect which, to the great
regret of the Prince Consort, got almost immediately into the
newspapers. The first meetings of the young couple took place at
Speyer and Heidelberg, and were altogether promising of the mutual
attachment which was the desired result.
On the 18th of October the King of Prussia was crowned at Könisburg--a
splendid ceremonial, in which the Princess Royal naturally, as the
Crown Princess, bore a prominent part.
On the return of the Court to Windsor, Prince Leopold, then between
eight and nine years of age, was sent, with a temporary household, to
spend the winter in the south of France for the sake of his health.
Suddenly a great and painful shock was given to the Queen and the
Prince by the news of the disastrous outbreak of typhoid fever in
Portugal among their royal cousins and intimate friends, the sons of
Maria de Gloria. When the tidings arrived King Pedro's brother, Prince
Ferdinand, was already dead, and the King ill. Two more brothers, the
Duke of Oporto and the Duke of Beja, were in England, on their way
home from the King of Prussia's coronation. The following day still
sadder news arrived--the recovery of the young king, not more than
twenty-five, was despaired of. His two brothers started immediately
for Lisbon, but were too late to see him in life. The younger, the
Duke of Beja, was also seized with the fatal fever and died in the
course of the following month. The Queen and the Prince lamented the
King deeply, finding the only consolation in the fact that he had
rejoined the gentle girl-wife for whose loss he had been inconsolable.