THE FIRST MONTHS OF WIDOWHOOD--MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF WALES, ETC.,
ETC.
The Princess of Hohenlohe arrived in England on the 20th of December,
and immediately joined the Queen at Osborne before the funeral of the
Prince. The old King of the Belgians came to Osborne on the 29th of
December--one can imagine his meeting with the widowed Queen.
On the 10th of January, 1862, occurred the terrible Hartley Colliery
accident, by which upwards of two hundred miners perished. The Queen's
grief for the Prince was not a month old when she telegraphed from
Osborne her "tenderest sympathy for the poor widows and mothers."
The Prince of Wales left Osborne on the 6th of February in strict
privacy to accomplish the tour in the East projected for him by his
father. The Prince was accompanied by Dean Stanley, General Bruce, &c.
In the Queen's solitude at Osborne Princess Alice continued to be the
great medium of communication between her Majesty and her Ministers.
(_Times_.)
The opening of the second great Exhibition in the month of May must
have been full of painful associations. At the State ceremony on the
first day the royal carriages with mourning liveries were empty, but
for the Crown Prince of Prussia, Prince Oscar of Sweden, and the
Duchess of Cambridge with her daughters. Tennyson's ode was sung. It
contained the pathetic lines--
"O silent father of our kings to be,
Mourned in this golden hour of jubilee,
For this, for all we weep our thanks to thee."
It was decided that the Queen's birthday should be spent at Balmoral,
a practice which became habitual. Dr. Norman Macleod was summoned
north to give what consolation he could to his sorrowing Queen. He has
left an account of one of their interviews. "May 14th. After dinner I
was summoned unexpectedly to the Queen's room; she was alone. She met
me, and, with an unutterable expression which filled my eyes with
tears, at once began to speak about the Prince.... She spoke of his
excellences, his love, his cheerfulness, how he was everything to her;
how all now on earth seemed dead to her...."
On the 4th of June the Prince of Wales arrived in England from his
eastern tour. A melancholy incident occurred on his return--General
Bruce, who had been labouring under fever, died soon after reaching
England on the 24th of June. Another sad death happened four days
later--that of Lord Canning, Governor-General of India. He had also
just come back to England. He survived his wife only six months.
Princess Alice's marriage, which had been delayed by her father's
death, took place at Osborne at one o'clock on the afternoon of the
1st of July, in strict privacy. The ceremony was performed by the
Archbishop of York in room of the sick Archbishop of Canterbury. The
Queen in deep mourning appeared only for the service. Near her was the
Crown Princess of Prussia--already the mother of three children--and
her Majesty's four sons.
The father and mother, brothers and sister of the bridegroom, and
other relatives, were present. The Duke of Saxe-Coburg in the Prince
Consort's place led in the bride. Her unmarried sisters, Princesses
Helena, Louise, and Beatrice, and the bridegroom's only sister,
Princess Anna of Hesse, were the bridesmaids. Prince Louis was
supported by his brother, Prince Henry.
The guests were all gone by four o'clock. No contrast could be greater
than that of the brilliant and glad festivities at the Princess
Royal's wedding and the hush of sorrow in which her sister was
married. The young couple went for three days to St. Clare, near Ryde,
and left England in another week. The English people never forgot what
Princess Alice had proved in the hour of need, and her departure was
followed by prayers and blessings.
In August the Queen was at Balmoral with all her children who were in
this country. On the 21st she drove in a pony carriage, accompanied by
the elder Princes and Princesses on foot and on ponies, to the top of
Craig Lowrigan, and each laid a stone on the foundation of the Prince
Consort's cairn. On the late Prince's birthday another sad tender
pilgrimage was made to the top of Craig Gowan to the earlier cairn
celebrating the taking of the Malakoff.
Her Majesty, whose health was still shaken and weakened, sailed on the
1st of September for Germany. She was accompanied by the Prince of
Wales, Prince Arthur, and Prince Leopold, Princesses Helena, Louise,
and Beatrice, and the Princess Hohenlohe. During the Queen's stay with
her uncle, King Leopold, at Laeken, in passing through Belgium, she
had her first interview with her future daughter-in-law, Princess
Alexandra of Denmark. The Princess with her father and mother drove
from Brussels to pay a private visit to her Majesty.
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 noble 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 Duchess 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 gratitude 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 Lancashire
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 moiré 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,
rivières 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.
Florschütz, 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,
God 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 assistance. 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 Duchess 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 assassination 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 Duchess 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
mass" 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
Duchess of Athole at her cottage at Dunkeld. This visit was something
very different from the old royal progresses. It was a private token
of friendship 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 Duchess,
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.