EARLY MARRIED LIFE
At the outset of their married life King Edward and Queen Alexandra
were called upon to perform the public duties of the Sovereign, which,
since the Prince Consort’s death, had in some measure necessarily
developed upon the Duke of Cambridge and his family. The late Duchess
of Teck’s biographer records that Society did its utmost to give the
beautiful young bride a right royal welcome. A memorable event of
the London season was the Guards’ ball in honour of the Prince and
Princess of Wales, held in the picture galleries of the International
Exhibition. The decorations were unusually magnificent, and Queen
Victoria graciously lent some splendid plate from Buckingham Palace.
Many members of the aristocracy, too, placed at the disposal of the
Duke of Cambridge, as head of the Committee, their collections of gold
and silver plate, the contributions being valued at £2,000,000. The
guests, limited in number to 1400, began to arrive at nine o’clock, and
soon after ten the ball was opened by a royal quadrille, in which eight
couples took part, the Duke of Cambridge dancing with the Princess of
Wales, and the Prince of Wales with Princess Mary (afterwards Duchess
of Teck). The Prince and Princess of Wales showed their appreciation of
the entertainment which their soldier hosts had provided by remaining
almost till dawn.
One of the first public appearances made by King Edward after his
marriage was at the Royal Academy dinner, where he made an excellent
short speech, greatly impressing those who were present by his modesty
and good sense. Sir Charles Eastlake was then President of the Royal
Academy, and Lady Eastlake gives this amusing account of the affair in
her reminiscences:--
“All went perfectly well at the Royal Academy dinner. My husband was
quite enchanted with the Prince of Wales, and with his natural manners
and simplicity. The Prince hesitated in the middle of his speech, so
that everybody thought it was all up with him; but he persisted in
thinking till he recovered the thread, and then went on well. The very
manner in which he did this was natural and graceful. He was so moved
when mentioning his father that it was feared he would break down.
After the speech the Prince turned to my husband and told him he was
quite provoked with himself. ‘I knew it quite by heart in the morning’;
but he evidently had no vanity, for he laughed at his own ‘stupidity,’
and immediately recovered his spirits. ‘Hesse’ was next the Prince, who
chaffed him from time to time, and told him he would have to sing a
song.”
William Makepeace Thackeray was among the other speakers at the Academy
dinner, which was very shortly before the famous novelist’s lamented
death. At the anniversary of the Royal Literary Fund some months later
King Edward made some graceful and appropriate allusions to the great
writer whom the Empire had lost. He spoke with evident feeling of the
fact that Thackeray had been the life of the Fund, always ready to open
his purse for the relief of literary men struggling with pecuniary
difficulties.
This spring was a very busy time for both King Edward and Queen
Alexandra. On 8th June they were sumptuously entertained by the
Lord Mayor at the Guildhall, when the Prince took up the freedom of
the City, to which he was entitled by patrimony. The entertainments
included a great ball, which the Princess opened, dancing a quadrille
with the Lord Mayor, while the Prince had the Lady Mayoress for his
partner.
A week later the Royal couple attended “Commem.” at Oxford. They
received a splendid welcome both from the University authorities and
the undergraduates. The honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law was
conferred on King Edward in the Sheldonian Theatre, where the wildest
uproar prevailed, till amid a sudden lull of perfect silence Queen
Alexandra entered with Dr. Liddell, the then Dean of Christ Church.
Scarcely had she traversed half the distance to her seat when a cheer
loud and deep arose, and seemed to shake the theatre to its foundation,
to the evident gratification of her Royal husband.
After the ceremony was over their Royal Highnesses escaped from all
their friends and entertainers and took the opportunity of going over
what had been the Prince’s rooms as an undergraduate. That same evening
a ball was given in the Prince’s honour in the Corn Exchange by the
Apollo Lodge of Freemasons.
Shortly after their visit to Oxford the Prince and Princess celebrated
their house-warming at Marlborough House by an evening party and a
ball. During the summer months they spent some time at Sandringham in
the original house, which at that time stood in an isolated park, and
which was afterwards pulled down and superseded by the present very
much larger and more comfortable mansion. There can be no doubt that
Queen Alexandra’s strong affection for her country home is based on the
tender recollections of her early married life. It is a significant
fact that when the new Sandringham House was built, she begged that
her boudoir in the new mansion might be arranged so as to be an exact
reproduction of her boudoir in the old house.
Among the very first visitors entertained at Sandringham by the Royal
bride and bridegroom was Dr. Stanley, who spent Easter Sunday with them
there.
[Illustration: QUEEN ALEXANDRA IN 1863
_From the Painting by Lauchert, published by Colnaghi_]
“On the evening of Easter Eve,” he writes, “the Princess came to
me in a corner of the drawing-room with her Prayer Book, and I went
through the Communion Service with her, explaining the peculiarities
and the likenesses and differences to and from the Danish Service.
She was most simple and fascinating.… My visit to Sandringham gave me
intense pleasure. I was there for three days. I read the whole Service,
preached, then gave the first English Sacrament to this ‘angel in the
Palace.’ I saw a great deal of her, and can truly say that she is as
charming and beautiful a creature as ever passed through a fairy tale.”
Much satisfaction was felt by the nation when the interesting fact
became known that Queen Victoria hoped to welcome the first of her
British grandchildren in the month of March. One Friday evening, early
in January, shortly after Queen Alexandra, who was staying, had been
skating on Virginia Water, near Windsor, her eldest child appeared
so unexpectedly that for a while the Royal baby had to be wrapped in
cotton wool, for all the beautiful layette which was in course of
preparation was at Marlborough House.
The rejoicings over the event, both in this country and in Denmark,
were naturally very great, more especially when it became known that
the Royal infant was none the worse for his early arrival. Among
the two Royal families most immediately concerned the interest and
excitement were intense. Princess Alice wrote to Queen Victoria on
9th January 1864, “I was aghast on receiving Bertie’s telegram this
morning announcing the birth of their little son.” But this feeling
of trepidation quickly gave place to one of relief when the bulletins
announced the steady progress of both mother and babe, and soon the
British public saw many charming photographs and portraits of Queen
Alexandra in her new _rôle_ of mother. At the time of the birth of
the Duke of Clarence Queen Alexandra was not yet twenty, but, like
Queen Victoria, she seems to have been wholly absorbed in her maternal
duties, and at any moment she would joyfully give up attending a State
function or ball in order to spend an hour in her nursery.
It need hardly be said that the first portion of the Prince and
Princess’s married life was overshadowed by the war between Denmark
and Prussia. The young Princess was naturally strongly patriotic in
her sympathies. At breakfast one morning a foolish equerry read out
a telegram which announced a success of the Austro-Prussian forces,
whereupon Her Royal Highness burst into tears, and the Prince, it is
said, thoroughly lost his temper for once, and rated his equerry as
soundly as his ancestor, King Henry VIII., might have done. An amusing
story went the round of the clubs about this time. It was said that a
Royal visitor at Windsor asked Princess Beatrice what she would like
for a present. The child stood in doubt, and begged the Princess of
Wales to advise her. The result of a whispered conversation between the
two was that the little Princess declared aloud that she would like to
have Bismarck’s head on a charger!
In July 1864 the Prince laid the foundation-stone of the new West
Wing of the London Hospital. He was accompanied by the Princess. This
was one of the first occasions on which King Edward showed his great
interest in hospital management. The fact that there was a separate
ward for the Jews aroused his keen interest. In the same month King
Edward and his Consort went to the Fourth of June at Eton, and also
stayed at Goodwood for the races. In the middle of August they went to
the Highlands, visiting Stirling Castle on the way. They spent some
weeks at Abergeldie, entertaining a great deal. Dr. Norman Macleod
stayed with them there. It was during this stay in Scotland that the
Prince and Princess first became intimate with the family of their
future son-in-law, and the Countess of Fife, his mother, gave a great
picnic in their honour.
That autumn they went from Dundee to Denmark, being accompanied by
their baby, now nearly a year old. This was King Edward’s first visit
to his wife’s home. They received a most enthusiastic welcome, and
were splendidly entertained. At Bernsdorf, where the Royal party spent
several days, a number of shooting parties were organised in honour of
the Prince, who, certainly for the first time in his life, was invited
to shoot foxes. He bagged two, and some of the teeth of the animals
were set as breast-pins for him.
From Elsinore the Prince and Princess went in their yacht to Stockholm
in order to pay a visit to the King and Queen of Sweden. In Sweden also
the Prince was invited to take part in several hunting expeditions. One
odd bag resulted in ten foxes, six hares, and seventeen stags.
[Illustration: QUEEN ALEXANDRA IN 1864
_From the Painting by Lauchert, published by Henry Graves and Co._]
[Illustration: QUEEN ALEXANDRA WITH THE BABY PRINCE ALBERT VICTOR
_Photograph in 1864 by Vernon Heath, published by McQueen_]
After sending Prince Albert Victor home with Countess de Grey, the
Royal couple travelled back _via_ Germany and Belgium, visiting on the
way Prince and Princess Louis of Hesse at Darmstadt, and making a short
stay at Brussels. Then they came home for the rest of the autumn to
Sandringham, where Queen Alexandra spent her twentieth birthday.
The year 1865 proved an eventful one to both King Edward and his
wife. King Edward paid his first State visit to Ireland, opening the
International Exhibition of Dublin on 9th May, and a little less than a
month later Prince George of Wales was born at Marlborough House.
Although there have at various times been more or less serious fires
in Royal residences, Sandringham, for instance, having been almost
destroyed by a conflagration within the last few years, the King has
only once been really in a fire, and this was just a month after his
second son’s birth. The fire began in the floor then styled the nursery
floor, and after Queen Alexandra had been moved to another part of the
house with her two children, King Edward set to work with the utmost
energy to check the flames. It need hardly be said that very soon the
whole of London seemed to be congregated in Pall Mall and St. James’s
Park. At first it could not be made out where the fire was coming from,
and the King helped to rip up the whole of the nursery floor before
the mischief could be traced, and while doing so he nearly had a bad
accident, for he fell some distance through the rafters.
At last, however, the fire was got under, and it was found that
comparatively little harm had been done. Then for the first time it
occurred to some one to ask if Marlborough House was insured. Strangely
enough this very important precaution had not been taken. Now, however,
both Marlborough House and Sandringham are insured to their full value.
King Edward from childhood has always shown the keenest interest
in firemen and fires. During many years of his life he used to be
informed whenever a really big blaze was signalled, and he has attended
_incognito_ most of the great London fires during the last thirty years.
[Illustration: KING EDWARD, QUEEN ALEXANDRA, AND PRINCE ALBERT VICTOR
_Photograph in 1864 by Vernon Heath, published by McQueen_]
About this time the King visited the gigantic steamship _Great
Eastern_, off Sheerness, in order to see the Atlantic telegraph cable,
which had just been completed. He was received by a number of prominent
engineers, and while he was present the last section of the cable was
being wound into the tanks on board the _Great Eastern_ from the vessel
alongside which had brought it from the works at Greenwich. A message
was sent through one of the coils, the length of which was equivalent
to the distance from Sheerness to Valentia. The signals transmitted,
“God Save the Queen,” were received at the other end of the coil in
the course of a few seconds, a fact which, commonplace as it may now
seem, struck the onlookers in the year 1865 with amazement. The King
visited every portion of the huge ship, and accepted specimen pieces of
portions of the cable in various stages of manufacture.
In that same year, that is two years after her marriage, Queen
Alexandra performed her first public act by opening the Cambridge
School of Art. It was in 1865 also that the King attended his first
public dinner as President of the Royal Literary Fund, and on this
occasion he toasted the ladies in the following graceful words:--“In
the presence of a society accustomed to cultivating with such success
the flowers of literature, it would be unpardonable to forget the
flowers of society.”
During that summer the Prince and Princess visited Cornwall, and went
down the Botallack tin mine, near St. Just, the depth of which is about
200 fathoms. The bottom level of the mine extends horizontally about
half a mile beneath the sea. A part of this mine then belonged to the
Prince as Duke of Cornwall. During the same tour he visited Land’s End.
The day was exceptionally clear and fine, and the Prince lingered for
some time among the grim rocks which form the western-most point of
England.
All this time Queen Victoria was living in the strictest retirement,
and the great shadow of the Prince Consort’s death had thrown scarcely
less gloom over the life of his eldest son. King Edward mourned deeply
for his father, and it is significant that he never lost an opportunity
of testifying in his public speeches to the high purpose and noble
aims which had distinguished Prince Albert’s life. To the cost of the
mausoleum at Frogmore the King contributed from his private purse no
less a sum than £10,000. At the end of 1865 he sustained another severe
blow in the death of Lord Palmerston, whom he had honoured with his
special friendship, and whom he had been accustomed to consult in his
private affairs.
Not till February 1866 did Queen Victoria consent to open Parliament
again in person. She was accompanied by the Prince of Wales and two of
her daughters, the Princess of Wales being accommodated with a seat on
the Woolsack facing the Throne.
[Illustration: QUEEN VICTORIA WITH PRINCE ALBERT VICTOR
_Photograph by Hughes and Mullins, Ryde_]
It was in this year, when the Austro-German war was going on, that
King Edward established special telegraphic communication between
Marlborough House and the seat of war. Like his lamented mother, he
is a shrewd observer of foreign politics, and now that he is called
upon to reign, he will be, as she was, the greatest help to the
Foreign Minister of the day. He has since kept up in every important
war the practice of securing the earliest possible telegraphic
information, notably in the Franco-Prussian, the Russo-Turkish, and the
Greco-Turkish wars, but most of all in the Boer war.
In the summer of 1866 the King laid the foundation-stone of the new
building of the British and Foreign Bible Society, when he was received
by the venerable Earl of Shaftesbury, President of the Society, the
Lord Mayor, the Archbishop of York, and the Bishop of Winchester.
In his speech the King recalled the fact that only sixty-three years
previously Mr. Wilberforce had met with a few friends in a small room
in a dingy counting-house and had established the Bible Society, while
in the interval the Society had already spent six millions of money
in the furtherance of its objects, and that it had contributed to
the translation of the Bible into two hundred and eighty different
languages and dialects. The King further said:--
“I have an hereditary claim to be here on this occasion. My
grandfather, the Duke of Kent, warmly advocated the claims of the
Society, and it is gratifying to me to reflect that the two modern
versions of the Scriptures more widely circulated than any others--the
German and English--were both in their origin connected with my family.
The translation of Martin Luther was executed under the protection
of the Elector of Saxony, the collateral ancestor of my lamented
father; whilst that of William Tyndale--the foundation of the present
Authorised English Version--was introduced with the sanction of the
Royal predecessor of my mother, the Queen who first desired that ‘the
Bible shall have free course through all Christendom, but especially in
my own realm.’ It is my hope and trust that, under the Divine guidance,
the wider diffusion and a deeper study of the Scriptures will, in this
as in every age, be at once the surest guarantee of the progress and
liberty of mind, and the means of multiplying in the present form the
consolations of our holy religion.”
In the autumn following, King Edward and Queen Alexandra, accompanied
by their two sons, visited the Duke and Duchess of Sutherland at
Dunrobin. At that time the most northern point of railway communication
was at Ardgay, and thence the King and Queen had to drive a distance of
twenty-five miles before they could reach Dunrobin Castle. All along
the route they received a most enthusiastic welcome. They arrived at
night at the Castle, and were received in Royal Highland style. Among
those asked to meet them were the Duke of Edinburgh, the Prince of
Saxe-Weimar, and many members of the leading Scotch nobility. The King
reviewed the Sutherland Volunteers in the grounds of the Castle, and
later, on the same day, the Duke of Sutherland announced that it was
the wish of the King that the whole of the corps should adopt the kilt
as their uniform, His Majesty having a preference for the national
costume.
Shortly after their return from Scotland the King and Queen had the
pleasure of entertaining the Queen of Denmark and her two younger
children, and they spent some time at Sandringham with Queen
Alexandra, while the King went to Russia in order to be present at
the marriage of his sister-in-law, Princess Dagmar, to the then
Cesarewitch. It was quite late in the year, and it was considered that
the cold in St. Petersburg would be too severe for Queen Alexandra to
accompany her husband. The King, who attended the Imperial marriage
in his official capacity, was accompanied by a considerable suite,
including Lord Frederick Paulet, Viscount Hamilton, the Marquis of
Blandford, and Major Teesdale. On his arrival at St. Petersburg he was
met at the railway terminus by the Emperor of Russia, the Cesarewitch,
and the Grand Dukes; and he was given splendid quarters at the
Hermitage Palace.
King Edward has always been known to have a great liking for Russia and
the Russian people, and he is himself very popular in St. Petersburg.
After the Imperial marriage he visited Moscow, being accompanied by
the Crown Prince of Denmark. The Princes went over the Kremlin, and
the King paid a call on the Metropolitan Archbishop, the highest
dignitary of the Russian Church. The aged ecclesiastic received him in
a perfectly plain cell. They conversed for a quarter of an hour, and as
the King took his leave, the Metropolitan gave him his blessing, and
with the assistance of his monks accompanied his Royal visitor to the
door.
The year 1867 was, if not very eventful, an anxious one, for both
before and after the birth of Princess Louise, now the Duchess of
Fife, on 20th February, Queen Alexandra suffered from acute rheumatism
and inflammation of a knee-joint. Her illness caused so much anxiety
at the Danish Court that her father and mother came over and spent
some time in London. King Edward was most devoted in his attentions
to the invalid, and actually had his bureau moved into her sick-room
in order that he might not be separated from her in her convalescence
even by the imperious demands of his enormous correspondence. Happily
Queen Alexandra grew quite strong again, but the serious nature of her
illness may be judged from the fact that she was not able to drive out
until 9th July. Naturally for the rest of that year the King and Queen
lived very quietly and went about as little as possible.
Five years after their marriage the King and Queen paid a visit to
Ireland, and their reception was marked by a very genuine demonstration
of cordiality and even of enthusiasm. On arriving in Kingstown Harbour
Queen Alexandra was presented, as Queen Victoria had been in 1849,
with a white dove, emblematic of the affection and goodwill which she
was supposed to be bringing to the distressful country. King Edward,
with his usual tact, declared it to be his wish that no troops should
be present in the streets of Dublin. Entire reliance was accordingly
placed on the loyalty and hospitable spirit of the people, and, in
spite of many doleful prognostications to the contrary, the Royal visit
was successful from every point of view.
It has often been asserted that King Edward is fonder of the Emerald
Isle than is any other member of his family; he certainly numbers
several Irishmen among his closest friends. Although he thoroughly
enjoyed his visit, this one week in 1868 was one of the most tiring
ever spent by the King. Like his younger son, twenty-nine years later,
the King was installed with great pomp as a Knight of the Order of St.
Patrick, on which occasion he used the sword worn by King George IV.
The King also unveiled with much ceremony a statue of Edmund Burke.
The _Times_ described the exertions entailed by the Royal visit in the
following vivid passage:--
“There were presentations and receptions, and receiving and answering
addresses, processions, walking, riding and driving, in morning and
evening, military, academic, and medieval attire. The Prince had to
breakfast, lunch, dine, and sup, with more or less publicity, every
twenty-four hours. He had to go twice to races, with fifty or a hundred
thousand people about him; to review a small army and make a tour in
the Wicklow mountains, of course everywhere receiving addresses under
canopies and dining in State under galleries full of spectators. He
visited and inspected institutions, colleges, universities, academies,
libraries, and cattle shows. He had to take a very active part in
assemblies of from several hundred to several thousand dancers, and
always to select for his partners the most important personages.… He
had to listen to many speeches sufficiently to know when and what to
answer. He had to examine with respectful interest, pictures, books,
antiquities, relics, manuscripts, specimens, bones, fossils, prize
beasts, and works of Irish art. He had never to be unequal to the
occasion, however different from the last, or however like the last,
and whatever his disadvantage as to the novelty or dulness of the
matter and the scene.”
[Illustration: KING EDWARD AT THE AGE OF TWENTY-THREE
_From a Painting by Weigall, published by Henry Graves and Co._]
Some amusing incidents happened. A loyal Irish girl, determined to
have a good look at her future King and Queen, defied all rails and
barriers, and, mounted on horseback, dashed through the crowd of
sightseers and galloped past the Royal visitors, exclaiming, “Oh, thank
you all, I have seen them and shall go home happy now.” King Edward,
with a smile, raised his hat, which was certainly the most sensible
thing he could have done in the circumstances.
The King has always shown great interest in Ireland and Irish matters,
so much so that it has been more than once whispered that he is a Home
Ruler. He gave his warm support and help to a fund for the relief of
distress in Ireland, and more recently, during the annual Show of the
Royal Agricultural Society, he took the opportunity to receive and
entertain at Sandringham no fewer than three hundred and fifty Irish
tenant-farmers.
On their way back from Dublin the Prince and Princess of Wales visited
North Wales, and on landing at Holyhead they passed along the pier
through a double line of aged Welshwomen, who were all wearing the tall
hat and national dress of the Principality. At Carnarvon the Prince
inaugurated some new waterworks, and after this ceremony the Royal
party proceeded to the famous castle, where they were presented with an
address from the Council of the National Eisteddfod. The Prince replied
in a neat little speech, in which he observed that he and the Princess
received the address with peculiar satisfaction on the anniversary of
the birth, on 25th April 1284, and in the very birthplace, of the first
Prince of Wales, “Edward of Carnarvon,” the son of Edward I.
King Edward’s fourth child, the Princess Victoria, was born on 6th
July, and after a quiet summer spent at Sandringham the King and Queen,
attended by a small suite, left Marlborough House in November for a
long Continental tour, which extended over some months and enabled them
to renew old ties and make new friendships. They spent a few days
in Paris, and paid a visit to the Emperor and Empress of the French
at Compiègne, where, during a stag hunt organised in honour of King
Edward, an accident happened which might easily have cost him his life.
As he was galloping along one of the grassy drives of the forest, a
stag rushed from one of the cross-paths and knocked him and his horse
completely over. Fortunately he was not hurt, though much bruised and
shaken. Without alarming those about him, he again mounted and went on
hunting to the end of the day. At this house-party the King and Queen
had as fellow-guests Marshal Bazaine, Count von Moltke, and a number of
other notable people destined to make history.
[Illustration: QUEEN VICTORIA, QUEEN ALEXANDRA, AND PRINCESS CHRISTIAN
_Photograph by Hughes and Mullins, Ryde_]
[Illustration: QUEEN ALEXANDRA ABOUT THE YEAR 1865
_From a Photograph by Hughes and Mullins_]
Queen Alexandra’s birthday, 1st December, was spent in Denmark. After
a short stay there the travellers went to Berlin, where a large family
party was assembled to meet them, and on 18th January, which is,
curiously enough, one of the only two days of the year in which it
can be held, a Chapter of the Order of the Black Eagle was convened,
and King Edward was formally invested with the insignia of this, the
highest Order in Germany, by the King of Prussia, to whom he was
introduced by his brother-in-law, the Crown Prince, and by Prince
Albert of Prussia.
Then followed an interesting sojourn in Vienna, where the Royal party
were splendidly entertained by the Emperor and Empress of Austria, a
suite of apartments in the Burg having been specially prepared for them.
These Continental visits, however, were all preliminary to a prolonged
tour in Egypt and the Mediterranean, which must be described in a
separate chapter.