THE BEGINNINGS OF SORROWS.
[Illustration: Windsor Castle.]
IT has been the Queen's good fortune to see her own true-love match
happily repeated in the marriages of her children. One would almost
say that the conspicuous success of that union, the blessing that it
brought with it to the nation, had set a new fashion to royalty.
There is quite a romantic charm about the first marriage which broke
the royal home-circle of England--that of the Queen's eldest child
and namesake, Victoria, Princess Royal, with Prince Frederick
William, eldest son of the then Prince of Prussia, whose exaltation
to the imperial throne of Germany lay dimly and afar--if not
altogether undreamed of by some prophetic spirits--in the future. The
bride and bridegroom had first met, when the youth was but nineteen
and the maiden only ten, at the great Peace Festival, the opening of
the first Exhibition. Already the charming grace and rare
intelligence of the Princess had attracted attention; and it is on
record that at this early period some inkling of a possible
attraction between the two had entered one observer's mind, who also
notes that the young Prince, greatly interested by all he saw of free
England and its rulers, was above all taken with the "perfect
domestic happiness which he found pervading the heart, and core, and
focus of the greatest empire in the world." Four years later the
Prince was again visiting England, a guest of the royal family in its
Scottish retreat of Balmoral, where they had just been celebrating
with beacon fires and Highland mirth and music the glad news of the
fall of Sebastopol. He had the full consent of his own family for his
wooing, but the parents of his lady would have had him keep silence
at least till the fifteen-year-old maiden should be confirmed. The
ease and unconstraint of that mountain home-life, however, were not
very favourable to reserve and reticence; a spray of white heather,
offered and received as the national emblem of good fortune, was made
the flower symbol of something more, and words were spoken that
effectually bound the two young hearts, though the formal betrothal
was deferred until some time after the Princess, in the following
March, had received the rite of Confirmation; and "the actual
marriage," said the Prince Consort, "cannot be thought of till the
seventeenth birthday is past." "The secret must be kept _tant bien
que mal_," he had written, well knowing that it would be a good deal
of an open secret.
[Illustration: Prince Frederick William.]
[Illustration: Princess Royal.]
The engagement was publicly announced in May, 1857, and though, when
first rumoured, it had been coldly looked on by the English public,
now it was accepted with great cordiality. The Prince was openly
associated with the royal family; he and his future bride appeared as
sponsors at the christening of our youngest Princess, Beatrice; he
rode with the Prince Consort beside the Queen when she made the first
distribution of the Victoria Cross, and was a prominent and heartily
welcomed member of the royal group which visited the Art Treasures
Exhibition of Manchester. The marriage, which was in preparation all
through the grim days of 1857, was celebrated with due splendour on
January 25th, 1858, and awakened a universal interest which was not
even surpassed when, five years later, the heir to the throne was
wedded. "Down to the humblest cottage," said the Prince Consort, "the
marriage has been regarded as a family affair." And not only this
splendid and entirely successful match, but every joy or woe that has
befallen the highest family in the land, has been felt as "a family
affair" by thousands of the lowly. This is the peculiar glory of the
present reign.
[Illustration: Charles Kingsley. _From a Photograph by_ Elliott &
Fry.]
Happy and auspicious as this marriage was, it was nevertheless the
first interruption to the pure home bliss that hitherto had filled
"the heart of the greatest empire in the world." The Princess Royal,
with her "man's head and child's heart," had been the dear companion
of the father whose fine qualities she inherited, and had largely
shared in his great thoughts. Nor was she less dear to her mother,
who had sedulously watched over the "darling flower," admiring and
approving her "touching and delightful" filial worship of the Prince
Consort, and who followed with longing affection every movement of
the dear child now removed from her sheltering care, and making her
own way and place in a new world. There she has indeed proved
herself, as she pledged herself to do, "worthy to be her mother's
child," following her parents in the path of true philanthropy and
gentle human care for the suffering and the lowly. So far the ancient
prophecy has been well fulfilled which promised good fortune to
Prussia and its rulers when the heir of the reigning house should wed
a princess from sea-girt Britain. But the wedding so propitious for
Germany seemed almost the beginning of sorrows for English royalty.
Other betrothals and marriages of the princes and princesses ensued;
but the still lamented death of the Prince Consort intervened before
one of those betrothals culminated in marriage.
Another event which may be called domestic belongs to the year
following this marriage--the coming of age of the Prince of Wales,
fixed, according to English use and wont, when the heir of the crown
completes his eighteenth year. Every educational advantage that
wisdom or tenderness could suggest had been secured for the Prince.
We may note in passing that one of his instructors was the Rev.
Charles Kingsley, whom Prince Albert had engaged to deliver a series
of lectures on history to his son. This honour, as well as that of
his appointment as one of Her Majesty's chaplains, was largely due to
royal recognition of the practical Christianity, so contagious in its
fervour, which distinguished Mr. Kingsley, not less than his great
gifts; of his eagerness "to help in lifting the great masses of the
people out of the slough of ignorance and all its attendant suffering
and vice"--an object peculiarly dear to the Queen and to the Prince,
as had been consistently shown on every opportunity.
When the time came that the youth so carefully trained should be
emancipated from parental control, it was announced to him by the
Queen in a letter characterised by Mr. Greville or his informant as
"one of the most admirable ever penned. She tells him," continues the
diarist, "that he may have thought the rule they adopted for his
education a severe one, but that his welfare was their only object;
and well knowing to what seductions of flattery he would eventually
be exposed, they wished to prepare and strengthen his mind against
them; that he was now to consider himself his own master, and that
they should never intrude any advice upon him, although always ready
to give it him whenever he thought fit to seek it. It was a very long
letter, all in that tone; and it seems to have made a profound
impression on the Prince.... The effect it produced is a proof of the
wisdom that dictated its composition."
We have chosen this as a true typical instance of the blended
prudence and tenderness that have marked the relations between our
Sovereign and her children. Aware what a power for good or evil the
characters of those children must have on the fortunes of very many
others, she and her husband sedulously surrounded them with every
happy and healthy influence, never forgetting the supreme need of due
employment for their energies. "Without a vocation," said the Prince
Consort, "man is incapable of complete development and real
happiness": his sons have all had their vocation.
It was the same period, marked by these domestic passages of mingled
joy and sorrow, that became memorable in another way, through the
various troublous incidents which gave an extraordinary impetus to
our national Volunteer movement, which were not remotely connected
with the War of Italian Independence, and for a short time overthrew
the popular Ministry of Lord Palmerston, who was replaced in office
by Lord Derby. The futile plot of Felice Orsini, an Italian exile and
patriot, against the life of Louis Napoleon, provoked great anger
among the Imperialists of France against England, the former asylum
of Orsini. A series of violent addresses from the French army,
denouncing Great Britain as a mere harbour of assassins, did but give
a more exaggerated form to the representations of French diplomacy,
urging the amendment of our law, which appeared incompetent to touch
murderous conspirators within our borders so long as their plots
regarded only foreign Powers. The tone of France was deemed insolent
and threatening; Lord Palmerston, who, in apparent deference to it,
introduced a rather inefficient measure against conspiracy to murder,
fell at once to the nadir of unpopularity, and soon had no choice but
to resign; and the Volunteer movement in England--which had been
begun in 1852, owing to the sinister changes that then took place in
the French Government--now at once assumed the much more important
character it has never since lost. The immense popularity of this
movement and its rapid spread formed a significant reply to the
insensate calls for vengeance on England which had risen from the
French army, and which seemed worthy of attention in view of the vast
increase now made in the naval strength of France, and of other
preparations indicating that the Emperor meditated a great military
enterprise. That enterprise proved to be the war with Austria which
did so much for Italy, and which some observers were disposed to
connect with the plot of Orsini--a rough reminder to the Emperor,
they said, that he was trifling with the cause of Italian unity, to
which he was secretly pledged. But Englishmen were slow to believe in
such designs on the part of the French ruler. "How should a despot
set men free?" was their thought, interpreted for them vigorously
enough by an anonymous poet of the day; and they enrolled themselves
in great numbers for national defence. With this movement there might
be some evils mixed, but its purely defensive and manly character
entitles it on the whole to be reckoned among the better influences
of the day.
[Illustration: Lord Palmerston.]
Palmerston's discredit with his countrymen was of short duration, as
was his exile from office; he was Premier again in the June of 1859,
and was thenceforth "Prime Minister for life." His popularity, which
had been for some time increasing, remained now quite unshaken until
his death in 1865. Before Lord Derby's Government fell, however, a
reform had been carried which could not but have been extremely
grateful to Mr. Disraeli, then the Ministerial leader of the House of
Commons. The last trace of the disabilities under which the Jews in
England had laboured for many generations was now removed, and the
Baron Lionel de Rothschild was able quietly to take his seat as one
of the members for the City of London. The disabilities in question
had never interfered with the ambition or the success of Mr.
Disraeli, who at a very early age had become a member of the
Christian Church. But his sympathies had never been alienated from
the own people, with whom indeed he had always proudly identified
himself by bold assertion of their manifold superiority. There are
still, undoubtedly, persons in this country whose convictions lead
them to think it anything but a wholesome change which has admitted
among our legislators men, however able and worthy, who disclaim the
name of _Christian_. But the change was brought about by the
conviction, which has steadily deepened among us, that oppression of
those of a different faith from our own, either by direct severities
or by the withholding of civil rights, is a singularly poor weapon of
conversion, and that the adversaries of Christianity are more likely
to be conciliated by being dealt with in a Christlike spirit;
further, that religious opinion may not be treated as a crime,
without violation of God's justice. On the point as to the claim of
_irreligious_ opinion to similar consideration, the national feeling
cannot be called equally unanimous. In the case of the English Jews,
it may be said that the tolerant and equal conduct adopted towards
them has been well requited; the ancient people of God are not here,
as in lands where they are trampled and trodden down, an offence and
a trouble, the cause of repeated violent disturbance and the object
of a frenzied hate, always deeply hurtful to those who entertain it.
Other changes and other incidents that now occurred engrossed a
greater share of the public attention than this measure of relief.
The rapid march of events in Italy had been watched with eager
interest, divided partly by certain ugly outbreaks of Turkish
fanaticism in Syria, and by our proceedings in the Ionian islands,
which finally resulted in the quiet transfer of those isles to the
kingdom of Greece. The commercial treaty with France effected,
through the agency of Mr. Cobden, on Free Trade lines, and Mr.
Gladstone's memorable success in carrying the repeal of the paper
duty, and thereby immensely facilitating journalistic enterprise,
were hailed with great delight as beneficial and truly progressive
measures. But events of a more gigantic character now took place,
which at the moment affected our prosperity more directly than
any fiscal reform, and appealed more powerfully to us than the
savagery of our Turkish _protégés_ or even than the union of
Italy under Victor Emmanuel into one free and friendly State. The
long-smouldering dissensions between the Northern and Southern States
of the American Union at last broke into flame, and war was declared
between them, in 1861.
The burning question of slavery was undoubtedly at the bottom of this
contest, which has been truly described as a struggle for life
between the "peculiar institution" and the principles of modern
society. The nobler and more enthusiastic spirits in the Northern
States beheld in it a strife between Michael and Satan, the Spirit of
Darkness hurling himself against the Spirit of Light in a vain and
presumptuous hope to overpower him; and their irritation was great
when an eminent English man of letters was found describing it
scornfully as "the burning of a dirty chimney," and when English
opinion, speaking through very many journalists and public men,
appeared half hostile to the Northern cause. Indeed, it might have
been thought that opinion in England--England, which at a great cost
had freed its own slaves, and which had never ceased by word and deed
to attack slavery and the slave-trade--would not have faltered for a
moment as to the party it would favour, but would have declared
itself massively against the slave-holding South. But the contest at
its outset was made to wear so doubtful an aspect that it was
possible, unhappily possible, for many Englishmen of distinction to
close their eyes to the great evils championed by the Southern
troops. The war was not avowedly made by the North for the
suppression of slavery, but to prevent the Southern States from
withdrawing themselves from the Union: the Southerners on their side
claimed a constitutional right so to withdraw if it pleased them, and
denounced the attempt to retain them forcibly as a tyranny.
[Illustration: Abraham Lincoln and his son.]
This false colouring at first given to the contest had mischievous
results. English feeling was embittered by the great distress in our
manufacturing districts, directly caused up the action of the
Northern States in blockading the Southern ports, and thus cutting
off our supply of raw material in the shape of cotton. On its side
the North, which had calculated securely on English sympathy and
respect, and was profoundly irritated by the many displays of a
contrary feeling; and the exasperation on both sides more than once
reached a point which made war appear almost inevitable--a war above
all others to be deprecated. First came the affair of the
_Trent_--the English mail-steamer from which two Southern envoys
were carried off by an American naval commander, in contempt of the
protection of the British flag. The action was technically illegal,
and on the demand of the English Government its illegality was
acknowledged, and the captives were restored; but the warlike and
threatening tone of England on this occasion was bitterly resented at
the North, and this resentment was greatly increased when it became
known that various armed cruisers, in particular the notorious
_Alabama_, designed to prey on the Northern commerce, were being
built and fitted by English shipbuilders in English dockyards under
the direction of the Southern foe, while the English Government could
not decide if it were legally competent for Her Majesty's Ministers
to interfere and detain such vessels. The tardy action at last taken
just prevented the breaking out of hostilities. Out of these
unfortunate transactions a certain good was to ensue at a date not
far distant, when, after the restoration of peace, America and
England, disputing as to the compensation due from one to the other
for injuries sustained in this matter, gave to the world the great
example of two nations submitting a point so grave to peaceful
arbitration, instead of calling in the sword to make an end of it--an
example more nearly pointing to the possible extinction of war than
any other event of the world's history.
Yet another hopeful feature may be noted in connection with this time
of trouble. While the Secession war lasted, "the cotton famine" had
full sway in Lancashire; unwonted and unwelcome light and stillness
replaced the dun clouds of smoke and the busy hum that used to tell
of fruitful, well-paid industry; and the patient people, haggard and
pale but sadly submissive, were kept, and just kept, from starving by
the incessant charitable effort of their countrymen. Never had the
attitude of the suffering working classes shown such genuine
nobility; they understood that the calamity which lay heavy on them
was not brought about by the careless and selfish tyranny of their
worldly superiors, but came in the order of God's providence; and
their conduct at this crisis proved that an immense advance had been
made in kindliness between class and class, and in true intelligence
and appreciation of the difficulties proper to each. It was
significant of this new temper that when at last peace returned,
bringing some gleam of returning prosperity, the workers, who greeted
with joyful tears the first bales of cotton that arrived, fell on
their knees around the hopeful things and sang hymns of thanksgiving
to the Author of all good.
Such were the fruits of that new policy of care and consideration for
the toilers and the lowly which had increasingly marked the new
epoch, and which had been sedulously promoted by the Queen, in
association with her large-thoughted and well-judging husband.
It was in the midst of the troubles which we have just attempted to
recall that a new and greater calamity came upon us, affecting the
royal family indeed with the sharpest distress, but hardly less felt,
even at the moment, by the nation.
The year 1861 had already been darkened for Her Majesty by the death
in the month of March, of her mother, the Duchess of Kent, to whose
wise guardianship of the Queen's youth the nation owed so much, and
who had ever commanded the faithful affection of this her youngest
but greatest child, and of all her descendants. This death was the
first stroke of real personal calamity to the Queen; it was destined
to be followed by another bereavement, even severer in its nature,
before the year had closed. The Prince Consort's health, though
generally good, was not robust, and signs had not been wanting that
his incessant toils were beginning to tell upon him. There had been
illnesses, transitory indeed, but too significant of "overwork of
brain and body." In addition to personal griefs, such as the death of
the Duchess of Kent and of a beloved young Coburg prince and kinsman,
the King of Portugal, which had been severely felt, there were the
unhappy complications arising out of "the affair of the _Trent_,"
which the Prince's statesmanlike wisdom had helped to bring to a
peaceful and honourable conclusion. That wisdom, unhappily, was no
longer at the service of England when a series of negligences and
ignorances on the part of England's statesmen had landed us in the
_Alabama_ difficulty.
All these agitations had told upon a frame which was rather
harmoniously and finely than vigorously constituted. "If I had an
illness," he had been known to say, "I am sure I should not struggle
for life. I have no tenacity of life." And in the November of 1861 an
illness came against which he was not able to struggle, but which
took all the country by surprise when, on December 14th, it
terminated in death. Very many had hardly been aware that there was
danger until the midnight tolling of the great bell of St. Paul's
startled men with an instant foreboding of disaster. _What_ disaster
it was that was thus knelled forth they knew not, and could hardly
believe the tidings when given in articulate words.
At first it had been said, the Prince had a feverish cold; presently
the bulletin announced "fever, unattended with unfavourable
symptoms." It was gastric fever, and before long there _were_
unfavourable symptoms--pallid changes in the aspect, hurried
breathing, wandering senses--all noted with heart-breaking anxiety by
the loving nurses, the Queen and Princess Alice--the daughter so
tender and beloved, the "dear little wife," the "good little wife,"
whose ministerings were so comfortable to the sufferer overwearied
with the great burden of life. He was released from it at ten minutes
to eleven on the night of Saturday, December 14th; and there fell on
her to whom his last conscious look had been turned, his last caress
given, a burden of woe almost unspeakable, and for which the heart of
the nation throbbed with well-nigh unbearable sympathy. Seldom has
the personal grief of a sovereign been so keenly shared by subjects.
Indeed, they had cause to lament; the removal of the Prince Consort,
just when his faculties seemed ripest and his influence most assured,
left a blank in the councils of the nation which has never been
filled up. "We have buried our _king_" said Mr. Disraeli, regretting
profoundly this national loss; but for once the English people forgot
the public deprivation in compassionating her who was left more
conspicuously lonely, more heavily burdened, than even the poor
bereaved colliers' wives in the North for whom _her_ compassion was
so quick and so sharply sympathetic. Something remorseful mingled
then, and may mingle now, with the affection felt for this lost
benefactor, who had not only been somewhat jealously eyed by certain
classes on his first coming, but who had suffered much silently from
misunderstanding and also from deliberate misrepresentation, and only
by patient continuance in well-doing had at last won the favour which
was his rightful due.
"That which we have we prize not to the worth
While we enjoy it; but being lacked and lost,
Why, then we rack the value, then we find
The virtue that possession would not show us
While it was ours."
A peculiar tenderness was ever after cherished for Princess Alice,
who in this dark hour rose up to be her mother's comforter,
endeavouring in every way possible to save her all trouble--"all
communications from the Ministers and household passed through the
Princess's hands to the Queen, then bowed down with grief.... It was
the very intimate intercourse with the sorrowing Queen at that time
which called forth in Princess Alice that keen interest and
understanding in politics for which she was afterwards so
distinguished. The gay, bright girl suddenly developed into a wise,
far-seeing woman, living only for others."
[Illustration: Princess Alice.]
This ministering angel in the house of mourning had been already
betrothed, with her parents' full approval, to Prince Louis of Hesse;
and to him she was married on July 1st, 1862, at Osborne, very
quietly, as befitted the mournful circumstance of the royal family.
Many a heartfelt wish for her happiness followed "England's
England-loving daughter" to her foreign home, where she led a
beautiful, useful life, treading in her father's footsteps, and
continually cherished by the love of her mother; and the peculiarly
touching manner of her death, a sort of martyrdom to sweet domestic
affections, again stirred the heart of her own people to mournful
admiration. A cottager's wife might have died as Princess Alice died,
through breathing in the poison of diphtheria as she hung, a
constant, loving nurse, over the pillows of her suffering husband and
children. This beautiful _homeliness_ that has marked the lives of
our Sovereign and her children has been of inestimable value, raising
simple human virtues to their proper pre-eminence before the eyes of
the English people of to-day, who are very materially, if often
unconsciously, swayed by the example set them in high places.
In the May after Prince Consort's death the second International
Exhibition was opened, amid sad memories of the first, so joyful in
every way, and a certain sense of discouragement because the golden
days of universal peace seemed farther off than ten years before.
"Is the goal so far away?
Far, how far no tongue can say;
Let us dream our dream to-day."
Far indeed it seemed, with the fratricidal contest raging in America,
and shutting out all contributions to this World's Fair from the
United States.
[Illustration: The Mausoleum.]
The Queen had betaken herself that May to her Highland home, whose
joy seemed dead, and where her melancholy pleased itself in the
erection of a memorial cairn to the Prince on Craig Lorigan, after
she had returned from Princess Alice's wedding. But in May she had
sent for Dr. Norman Macleod, who was not only distinguished as one of
her own chaplains, but was also a friend already endeared to the
Prince and herself; and she found comfort in the counsels of that
faithful minister and loyal man, who has left some slight record of
her words. "She said she never shut her eyes to trials, but liked to
look them in the face; she would never shrink from duty, but all was
at present done mechanically; her highest ideas of purity and love
were obtained from the Prince, and God could not be displeased with
her love.... There was nothing morbid in her grief.... She said that
the Prince always believed he was to die soon, and that he often told
her that he had never any fear of death." It seemed that in this
persuasion the Prince had made haste to live up to the duties of his
difficult station to the very utmost, and "being made perfect in a
short time fulfilled a long time [Footnote]."
[Footnote: Inscription on the cairn on Craig Lorigan.]
"The more I learn about the Prince Consort," continues Dr. Macleod,
"the more I agree with what the Queen said to me about him: 'that he
really did not seem to comprehend a selfish character, or what
selfishness was.' And on whatever day his public life is revealed to
the world, I feel certain this will be recognised."
[Illustration: Dr. Norman Macleod.]
The Queen, by revealing to the world, with a kind of holy boldness,
what the Prince's public and private life was, has justified this
confidence of her faithful friend.
Early in 1863, Dr. Macleod was led by the Queen into the mausoleum
she had caused to be raised for her husband's last resting-place.
Calm and quiet she stood and looked on the beautiful sculptured image
of him she had lost: having "that within which passeth show," her
grief was tranquil. "She is so true, so genuine, I wonder not at her
sorrow; it but expresses the greatest loss that a sovereign and wife
could sustain," said the deeply moved spectator.
An event was close at hand which was to mingle a little joy in the
bitter cup so long pressed to our Sovereign's lips. The Prince of
Wales had formed an attachment to the Princess Alexandra of Denmark,
a singularly winning and lovely lady, whose popularity, ever since
her sweet face first shone on the surging crowds that shouted her
welcome into London, has seemed always at flood-tide. Faithful to her
experience and convictions, the Queen smiled gladly on the marriage
of affection between this gentle princess and the heir to the throne,
and was present as a spectator, though still wearing her sombre
weeds, at the splendid show of her son's wedding on March 10th, 1863.
"Two things have struck me much," writes Dr. Macleod, from whose
Journal we again quote: "one was the whole of the royal princesses
weeping, though concealing their tears with their bouquets, as they
saw their brother, who was to them but their 'Bertie' and their dear
father's son, standing alone waiting for his bride. The other was the
Queen's expression as she raised her eyes to heaven while her
husband's _Chorale_ was sung. She seemed to be with him alone before
the throne of God."
[Illustration: Prince of Wales. _From a Photograph by W. & D. Downey,
Ebury Street, W._]
"No possible favour can the Queen grant me, or honour bestow," said
the manly writer of these words, "beyond what the poor can give the
poor--her friendship." It is rarely that one sitting amid "the fierce
light that beats upon the throne" has been able to enjoy the simple
bliss of true, disinterested friendship with those of kindred soul
but inferior station. Such rare fortune, however, has been the
Queen's; and it is worthy of note that her special regard has been
won by persons distinguished not less by loftiness and purity of
character than by mental power or personal charm. She has not escaped
the frequent penalty of strong affection, that of being bereaved of
its objects. She has outlived earlier and later friends alike--Lady
Augusta Stanley and her husband, the beloved Dean of Westminster; the
good and beautiful Duchess of Sutherland; the two eminent Scotchmen,
Principal Tulloch and Dr. Macleod himself; and the Archbishop of
Canterbury, Dr. Tait, with his charming wife. To these might be
added, among the more eminent objects of her regard, the late poet
laureate, who shared with Macaulay the once unique privilege of
having been raised to the peerage more for transcendent ability than
for any other motive--a distinction that never would have been so
bestowed by our early Hanoverian kings, and which offers a marked
contrast to the sort of patronage with which later sovereigns have
distinguished the great writers of their time. A new spirit rules
now; of this no better evidence could be given than this recently
published testimony to the relations between Queen and poet: "Mrs.
Tennyson told us that the poet laureate likes and admires the Queen
personally very much, and enjoys conversation with her. Mrs. Tennyson
generally goes too, and says the Queen's manner towards him is
childlike and charming, and they both give their opinions freely,
even when those differ from the Queen's, which she takes with perfect
good humour, and is very animated herself [Footnote]."
[Footnote: "Anne Gilchrist: her Life and Writings." London: 1887.]
[Illustration: Princess of Wales. _From a Photograph by Walery._]