THE WITHDRAWAL TO OSBORNE--THE PRINCE CONSORT'S FUNERAL.
The tolling of the great bell of St. Paul's, borne on the wintry
midnight air, thrilled many a heart with grief and dismay, as London
was roused to the melancholy fact of the terrible bereavement which
had befallen the Queen and the country.
To the Prince indeed death had come without terror, even without
recoil. Some time before he had told the Queen that he had not her
clinging to life, that if he knew it was well with those he cared for,
he would be quite ready to die to-morrow. He was perfectly convinced
of the future reunion of those who had loved each other on earth,
though he did not know under what circumstances it would take place.
During one of the happy Highland excursions in 1861, the Prince had
remarked to one of the keepers when talking over with him the choice
and planting of a deer-forest for the Prince of Wales, "You and I may
be dead and gone before that." "He was ever cheerful, but ever ready
and prepared," was the Queen's comment on this remark.
But for the Queen, "a widow at forty-two!" was the lamenting cry of
the nation which had been so proud of its young Queen, of her love-
match, of her happiness as a wife. Now a subtler touch than any which
had gone before won all hearts to her, and bowed them before her feet
in a very passion of love and loyalty. It was her share in the common
birthright of sorrow, with the knowledge that she in whose joy so many
had rejoiced was now qualified by piteous human experience to weep
with those who wept--that thenceforth throughout her wide dominions
every mourner might feel that their Queen mourned with them as only a
fellow-sufferer can mourn. [Footnote: "The Queen wrote my mother, Lady
Normanby, such a beautiful letter after Normanby's death, saying that
having drunk the dregs of her cup of grief herself, she knew how to
sympathise with others."--LADY BLOOMFIELD.] All hearts went out to her
in the day of her bitter sorrow. Prayers innumerable were put up for
her, and she believed they sustained her when she would otherwise have
sunk under the heavy burden.
On the Sunday which dawned on the first day of her Majesty's
widowhood, when the news of her bereavement--announced in a similar
fashion in many a city cathedral and country church, was conveyed to
the people in a great northern city by Dr. Norman MacLeod's praying
for the Queen as a widow, a pang of awe and pity smote every hearer;
the minister and the congregation wept together.
The disastrous tidings had to travel far and wide: to the Princess
Royal, the daughter in whom her father had taken such pride, who had
so grieved to part from him when she left England a happy young bride,
who had been so glad to greet him in his own old home only a few
months before; to the sailor son on the other side of the globe; to
the delicate little boy so lately sent in search of health, whose
natural cry on the sorrowful tale being told to him was, "Take me to
mamma."
Deprived in one year of both mother and husband, alone where family
relations were concerned, save for her children; with her eldest son,
the Prince of Wales, a lad of not more than twenty years, the devoted
servants of the Queen rallied round her and strove to support and
comfort her.
In the absence of the Princess Royal and the Princess of Hohenlohe,
the Duchess of Sutherland, one of the Queen's oldest friends, herself
a widow, was sent for to be with her royal mistress. Lady Augusta
Bruce watched day and night by the daughter as she had watched by the
mother. The Queen's people did not know how sore was the struggle, how
near they were to losing her. Princess Alice wrote years afterwards of
that first dreadful night, of the next three terrible days, with a
species of horror, and wondered again and again how she and her mother
survived that time. The Queen's weakness was so great that her pulse
could hardly be felt. "She spoke constantly about God's knowing best,
but showed herself broken-hearted," Lady Bloomfield tells us. It was a
sensible relief to the country when it was made public that the Queen
had slept for some hours.
The doctors urgently advised that her Majesty should leave Windsor and
go to Osborne, but she shrank unconquerably from thus quitting all
that was mortal of the Prince till he had been laid to rest. The old
King of the Belgians, her second father, afflicted in her affliction
as he had gloried in her happiness, added his earnest entreaty to, the
medical men's opinion, in vain, till the plea was brought forward that
for her children's sake--that they might be removed from the fever-
tainted atmosphere, the painful step ought to be taken. Even then it
was mainly by the influence of the Princess Alice that the Queen, who
had proved just and reasonable in all her acts, who had been confirmed
by him who was gone in habits of self-control and self-denial, who was
the best of mothers, gave up the last sad boon which the poorest might
claim, and consented to go immediately with her daughters to Osborne.
But first her Majesty visited Frogmore, where the Duchess of Kent's
mausoleum had been built, that she might choose the spot for another
and larger mausoleum where the husband and wife would yet lie side by
side. It was on the 18th of December that the Queen, accompanied by
Princess Alice, drove from the Castle on her melancholy errand. They
were received at Frogmore by the Prince of Wales, Prince Louis of
Hesse, who had arrived in England, Sir Charles Phipps, and Sir James
Clark. Her Majesty walked round the gardens leaning on her daughter's
arm, and selected the place where the coffin of the Prince would be
finally deposited. Shortly afterwards the sad party left for Osborne,
where a veil must be drawn over the sorrow which, like the love that
gave it birth, has had few parallels.
The funeral was at Windsor on the 23rd of December. Shortly before
twelve o'clock the cortège assembled which was to conduct the remains
of the late Prince Consort the short distance from the state entrance
of Windsor Castle, through the Norman Tower Gate to St. George's
Chapel. Nine mourning-coaches, each drawn by four horses, conveyed the
valets, foresters, riders, librarian, and doctors; the equerries,
ushers, grooms, gentlemen, and lords in waiting of his late Royal
Highness; and the great officers of the Household. One of the Queen's
carriages drawn by six horses contained the Prince's coronet borne by
Earl Spencer, and his baton, sword, and hat by Lord George Lennox. The
hearse, drawn by six horses, was escorted by a detachment of Life
Guards.
The carriages of the Queen, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of
Cambridge, and the Duchess of Cambridge followed. The company which
had received commands to be present at the ceremony, including the
foreign ambassadors, the Cabinet Ministers, the officers of the
household, and many of the nobility and higher clergy, entered St.
George's Chapel by the Wolsey door and were conducted to seats in the
choir. The Knights of the Garter occupied their stalls. The royal
family, with their guests, came privately from the Castle and
assembled in the chapter-room. The members of the procession moved up
the nave in the same order in which they had been driven to the South
porch. Among them were the representatives of all the foreign states
connected by blood or marriage with the late Prince, the choir,
canons, and Dean of Windsor. After the baton, sword, and crown,
carried on black velvet cushions, came the comptroller in the
Chamberlain's department, Vice-Chamberlain, and Lord Chamberlain, then
the crimson velvet coffin, the pall borne by the members of the late
Prince's suite. Garter-King-at-Arms followed, walking before the chief
mourner, the Prince of Wales, who was supported by Prince Arthur, a
little lad of eleven, and the Duke of Saxe-Coburg, and attended by
General Bruce. Behind came the son-in-law, the Crown Prince of
Prussia, the cousins--the sons of the King of the Belgians--with the
Duc de Nemours, Prince Louis of Hesse, Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar,
the Queen's nephew, Count Gleichen, and the Maharajah Dhuleep Singh.
The gentlemen in waiting on the foreign princes wound up the
procession.
When the coffin arrived within the choir, the crown, baton, sword, and
hat were placed on it. That morning a messenger had come from Osborne
with three wreaths and a bouquet. The wreaths were simple garlands of
moss and violets woven by the three elder princesses; the bouquet of
violets, with a white camellia in the centre, was from the Queen.
These were laid between the heraldic insignia. The Prince of Wales
with his brother and uncle stood at the head, the Lord Chamberlain at
the foot, the other mourners and the pallbearers around. Minute-guns
were fired at intervals by Horse Artillery in the Long Walk. A guard
of honour of the Grenadier Guards, of which the Prince Consort had
been colonel, presented arms on the coming of the body and when it was
lowered into the grave. During the service the thirty-ninth Psalm,
Luther's Hymn, and two chorales were sung.
The Prince of Wales bore up with a brave effort, now and then seeking
to soothe his young brother, who, with swollen eyes and tear-stained
face, when the long wail of the dirge smote upon his ear, sobbed as if
his heart were breaking. At the words--
"To fall asleep in slumber deep,
Slumber that knows no waking,"
part of a favourite chant of the Prince Consort's, both his sons hid
their faces and wept. The Duke of Coburg wept incessantly for the
comrade of his youth, the friend of his mature years.
Garter-King-at-Arms proclaimed the style and title of the deceased.
When he referred to her Majesty with the usual prayer, "Whom God bless
and preserve with long life, health, and happiness," for the first
time in her reign the word "happiness" was omitted and that of
"honour" substituted, and the full significance of the change went to
the hearts of the listeners with a woeful reminder of what had come
and gone. The Prince of Wales advanced first to take his last look
into the vault, stood for a moment with clasped hands and burst into
tears. In the end Prince Arthur was the more composed of the two
fatherless brothers.
As the company retired, the "Dead March in Saul" was pealed forth.
The whole ceremony was modelled on the precedent of other royal
funerals, but surely rarely was mourning so keen or sorrow so deep.