BIRTH OF PRINCE WILLIAM
On January 27, 1859, Berlin was on the tip-toe of expectation. The
custom is that 101 guns announce the birth of a Prince, and only
twenty-one that of a Princess, and as in Prussia the Salic Law still
obtains, it may easily be imagined with what anxiety the Berliners
counted the successive discharges. There was indeed no need to wait for
the whole tale of the 101 guns, for the firing of the twenty-second was
enough to spread the glad news.
The story goes that when old Field-Marshal Wrangel, "Papa Wrangel" as
the Berliners affectionately called him, left the palace, the populace
crowded round him and demanded to know what he could tell them.
"Children," he answered, "all is well! It is as fine and sturdy a
recruit as one could wish!"
It soon became known, however, that all had not gone well with the young
mother and her child. There had been one of those unfortunate mishaps,
the exact truth of which it is always so difficult to disentangle, but
the following account, we believe, represents what actually happened:
It had been Queen Victoria's wish that the Princess should be attended
in her confinement by Dr. Martin, her English doctor, as well as the
German Court physicians. About eight o'clock in the morning of January
27, one of the latter wrote to his English colleague, asking him to come
at once to the Palace. But the servant to whom the letter was entrusted,
instead of taking it to Dr. Martin's house, put it in the post, and it
never reached him till the afternoon. To that fact the Princess Royal's
friends always attributed the circumstances which resulted in the
weakness of the infant's left arm. Be that as it may, both mother and
baby were for a time in imminent danger. No anæsthetic was administered,
and the Princess with characteristic courage looked up to her husband,
who held her in his arms the whole time, and asked him to forgive her
for being impatient. None of those about her thought her strength would
hold out, and one of the German doctors actually said in her presence
that he thought she would die, and her baby too. But at last her ordeal
came to an end, and to her intense joy she was told that she had given
birth to a fine healthy boy.
The news of the birth of their first grandchild was quickly flashed to
the anxious parents at Windsor. "A boy," ran the telegram, and Queen
Victoria characteristically replied, "Is it a fine boy?" But it was not
till the following day, so Prince Albert told Stockmar, that the courier
brought "our first information of the severe suffering which poor Vicky
had undergone, and of the great danger in which the child's life had
hovered for a time." To King Leopold the Prince wrote, "The danger for
the child and the sufferings for the mother were serious. Poor Fritz and
the Prince and Princess must have undergone terrible anxiety, as they
had no hope of the birth of a living child, and their joy over a strong,
healthy boy is therefore all the greater."
On the evening of the baby's birth, the Prince Regent, also a
grandfather for the first time, held a reception of which we have a
vivid description from the pen of the dramatist, Gustav zu Putlitz, then
a member of the Prussian Landtag, and afterwards chamberlain to Princess
Frederick William. He says:
"It was like a great family festival. Everyone hurried there with
congratulations, and when the young father, beaming with happiness,
appeared, the rejoicings increased. This delight is shared by all
classes of society, and is a testimony to the extent of the popularity
of the Prince and Princess."
Prince Frederick William received on January 29 the congratulations of
the Prussian Chambers, to which he made the following reply:
"I thank you very heartily for the interest you have shown in the joyful
event, which is of such consequence to my family and to the country. If
God should preserve my son's life, it shall be my chief endeavour to
bring him up in the opinions and sentiments which bind me to the
Fatherland. It is nearly a year to-day since I told you how deeply
moved I was by the universal sympathy which was exhibited towards me, as
a young married man, by the country as a whole. This sympathy it was
which made the Princess, my wife, who had left her home to come to a new
Fatherland, realise those ties of affection which have now, owing to the
birth of this son, become unbreakable. May God therefore bless our
efforts to bring up our son to be worthy of the love which has been thus
early manifested towards him. The Princess, to whom I was able to
communicate your intention, desires me to express her most sincere
thanks."
The christening was fixed for March 5, but neither of the parents of the
Princess could be present. "I don't think I ever felt so bitterly
disappointed," wrote the Queen to Uncle Leopold. "It almost breaks my
heart. And then it is an occasion so gratifying to both nations and
brings them so much together that it is peculiarly mortifying." However,
the Queen consoled herself by doing all she could to mark the importance
of the occasion. She sent a formal mission to represent her and the
Prince Consort at the christening, consisting of Lord Raglan, the son of
the victor of the Alma, Inkerman, and Balaclava, and Captain (afterwards
Lord) de Ros, equerry to Prince Albert. They were both old friends of
the Princess, to whom her father wrote:
"I was certain that the presence of Lord Raglan and Captain de Ros would
give you pleasure. Ours will come when they return, and we can put
questions to them. My first will be: Has the Princess gone out and does
she begin to enjoy the air, to which alone she can look for regaining
strength and health? Or is she in the way to grow weak and watery by
being baked like a bit of pastry in hot rooms? My second: Is she grown?
I will spare you my others.
"Your description of the Prince's kindness and loving sympathy for you
makes me very happy. I love him dearly, and respect and value him, and I
am glad too, for his sake, that in you and my little grandchild he has
found ties of family happiness which cannot fail to give him those
domestic tastes, in which alone in the long run life's true contentment
is to be found."
The baby Prince was duly christened on March 5, when he received the
names of Frederick William Victor Albert, and on the following day his
parents issued a touching expression of their gratitude for the sympathy
and congratulations they had received from the public. In it they
pledged themselves afresh to bring up their son, with the help of God,
to the honour and service of the Fatherland.
After the special envoys had returned from Berlin, the Prince writes to
his daughter a letter on the duties of motherhood, which was decidedly
candid for those rather prudish days:
"Lord Raglan's and Captain de Ros's news of you have given me great
pleasure. But I gather from them that you look rather languid and
exhausted. Some sea air would be the right thing for you; it is what
does all newly-made mothers the most good when their 'campaign is over.'
I am, however, delighted to hear you have begun to get into the air. Now
pass on as soon as possible to cold washing, shower baths, &c., so as to
brace the system again, and to restore elasticity to the nerves and
muscles.
"You are now eighteen years old, and you will hold your own against many
a buffet in life; still, you will encounter many for which you were not
prepared and which you would fain have been spared. You must arm
yourself against these, like Austria against the chance of war,
otherwise you will break down and drop into a sickly state, which would
be disastrous to yourself, and inflict a frightful burden upon poor
Fritz for life; besides which, it would unfit you for fulfilling all the
duties of your station.
"In reference to having children, the French proverb says: _Le premier
pour la santé, le second pour la beauté, le troisième gâte tout_. But
England proves that the last part of the saying is not true, and health
and beauty, those two great blessings, are only injured where the wife
does not make zealous use of the intervals to repair the exhaustion,
undoubtedly great, of the body, and to strengthen it both for what it
has gone and what it has to go through, and where also the intervals
are not sufficiently long to leave the body the necessary time to
recruit."
The Princess had a favourable convalescence, during which her active
mind was troubled by an article on Freemasonry. Her father, to whom of
course she turned for counsel, had never consented to be initiated as a
Mason, though his sons, King Edward and the Duke of Connaught, both
became enthusiastic members of the craft. The Princess seems to have
been troubled by the idea that her husband's connection with the
order--he had been appointed patron of the Masonic Lodges of Prussia and
head of the Grand Lodge in Berlin--would in some way lessen the
confidence between them. Prince Albert endeavours to reassure her with a
paradox which she probably found quite unconvincing:
"I will get Alice to read to me the article about Freemasons. It is not
likely to contain the whole secret. The circumstance which provokes you
only into finding fault with the Order, namely that husbands dare not
communicate the secret of it to their wives, is just one of its best
features. If _to be able to be silent_ is one of the chief virtues of
the husband, then the test which puts him in opposition to that being
towards whom he constantly shows the greatest weakness, is the hardest
of all, and therefore the most compendious of virtues, and the wife
should not only rejoice to see him capable of withstanding such a test,
but should take occasion out of it to vie with him in virtue by taming
the inborn curiosity which she inherits from her mother Eve. If the
subject of the secret, moreover, be nothing more important than an
apron, then every chance is given to virtue on both sides, without
disturbing the confidence of marriage, which ought to be complete."
The baby Prince William thrived, in spite of the defect in his left arm,
which was shorter than the other. We have some entertaining glimpses of
him, and of his parents' pride in him, in the correspondence of
Priscilla Lady Westmorland. A German friend of hers, a lady of high
rank, wrote to Lady Westmorland when the Prince was only about a week
old:
"I must tell you of my wonderful good fortune--I have actually seen this
precious child in his father's arms! You will ask me what this child of
so many prayers and wishes is like. They say all babies are alike: I do
not think so: this one has a beautiful complexion, pink and white, and
the most lovely little hand ever seen! The nose rather large; the eyes
were shut, which was as well, as the light was so strong. His happy
father was holding him in his arms, and himself showed traces of all he
has gone through at the time. The child was believed to be dead, so you
may conceive the ecstasy of everyone at his first cry."
Prince Frederick William was indeed, as this lady put it, beside himself
with joy. He delighted in showing his baby to his friends and loyal
servants, calling him "mein Junge."
In the early summer of 1859 the Princess Royal spent a happy holiday at
Osborne, and her English relatives and friends thought her
extraordinarily well and happy; it was also considered that she had
become much better looking. The Queen describes her as "flourishing, and
so well and gay," and as "a most charming companion," while Prince
Albert tells Stockmar that "We found Vicky very well, and looking
blooming, somewhat grown, and in excellent spirits. The short stay here
will certainly be beneficial both to her health and spirits."
While the Princess was in England, she was asked by her parents if she
would make private inquiries as to any German princesses who might be
suited to become Princess of Wales, but the search does not seem to have
been successful. It was then that Sir Augustus Paget, who had been for
two years British Minister in Copenhagen, spoke to his fiancée, the
Princess Royal's lady-in-waiting, of Princess Alexandra. It was from
this lady, now Walpurga Lady Paget, that Queen Victoria and the Prince
Consort first heard of the beauty and many endearing graces of the
Danish princess. So impressed were they by her account that it was
arranged that the Princess Royal should meet Princess Alexandra
informally at Strelitz, in the palace of the Grand Duchess of
Mecklenburg.
This meeting duly took place, and the Princess Royal wrote most
enthusiastically of the result of their informal interview. It was
directly owing to this fact that it was settled that the Prince of Wales
and Princess Alexandra should meet, as if by chance, in the cathedral of
Spiers with a view to making close acquaintance.
The birth of Prince William brought a considerable change in the lives
of his parents. Babelsberg had become too small to make a convenient
summer home, and so the King granted them the use of the New Palace at
Potsdam, which is only about half an hour's journey from Berlin.
This enormous rococo building with its two hundred rooms was erected by
Frederick the Great at the end of the Seven Years' War, in order to show
his enemies that he had plenty of money still left with which to go to
war again if necessary. Prince Frederick William was very fond of the
New Palace, where he had himself been born, and which was full of
reminders of his great namesake. Apparently the only thing he did not
like about it was its name, for it will be remembered that during his
brief reign he altered it to Friedrichskron.
Queen Victoria, on her visit to Babelsberg in August, 1858, had gone to
see the Palace, and she describes it in her diary as "a splendid
building that reminded me much of Hampton Court--the same colour, same
style, same kind of garden, with splendid orange trees which in the cool
calm evening sent out a delicious smell. The Garten-Saal, one enormous
hall, all in marble with incrustations of stones, opening into a
splendid room or gallery, reminded me of the Salle des Glaces at
Versailles. There is a theatre in the Palace, and many splendid fêtes
have been given there. There are some rooms done in silver, like those
at Sans Souci and Potsdam, and all in very rich Renaissance style. The
millions it must have cost! But none of these palaces is _wohnlich_
(liveable in). None like dear Babelsberg!"
The Princess Royal was determined to make at any rate her own rooms in
the Palace _wohnlich_. After the fashion of the period, she surrounded
herself with portraits of her relations, and with paintings of her
various beloved English homes. There were endless souvenirs of her
childhood scattered about in her rooms--souvenirs of her Christmases and
of birthdays, little gifts presented to her as a child and young girl by
her grandmother, by her "Aunt Gloucester," and by all those who had
surrounded her during the days of her happy youth.
It is curious to reflect that, twenty years after the Princess Royal
first took up her residence there, an English visitor was to write:
"Without Carlyle's _Frederick the Great_, Potsdam would be a collection
of mere dead walls enclosing a number of costly objects. Illuminated by
the book, each room, each garden wall thrills with human interest." But
when the Princess Royal first went there to make the New Palace her home
for a part of each year, it might much more truly have been described
as an arid and dusty waste, and that though it was surrounded by many
waters. The gardens were very stiff, indeed ugly, but the Princess's
active, creative mind saw their possibilities, and under her fostering
hand and taste they were transformed and made to yield the utmost of
beauty and delight.
The New Palace henceforth became associated, in the minds of all those
who were truly attached to the Princess, with all that was best and most
peaceful in her life. It was there that she was able to set the example
of that helpful and happy country life which she had learned to value in
England, and it was not long before its simple domestic character became
known far and wide, and exercised an influence the extent of which it is
impossible to estimate.
The Prince and Princess had a farm at Bornstedt, not far off, and there
the Prince delighted to become for the time a simple farmer, managing
himself all the details of the crops and the labourers, while the
Princess occupied herself with the poultry and her model dairy. It may,
indeed, be doubted whether the Prince and Princess found the farm a very
good investment financially, but that was of small importance compared
with the spiritual refreshment which they derived from this close
periodical contact with the simple, natural gifts of mother earth.
Among the neighbouring villagers, too, they found plenty of scope for
the exercise of an intelligent philanthropy, in gradually modifying the
primitive ideas then prevalent on sanitation, and in caring for the
children and the old people. The Prince would himself sometimes teach in
the village schools. A pretty story is told that one day, when he was
questioning a class, he asked a little girl to what kingdom his
watch-chain and a flower in his button-hole respectively belonged, and
when she had answered correctly, he went on to ask, "To what kingdom do
I belong?" and the child replied, "To the kingdom of Heaven."
In June, 1859, the war between Austria and the allied French and
Sardinian armies, culminating in the defeat of the Austrians at
Solferino, brought natural anxieties to the Princess. The Prince Regent,
while declaring the neutrality of Prussia, nevertheless ordered a
mobilisation of the Army for the protection of Germany, and
Major-General Prince Frederick William, commanding the First Infantry
Brigade of Guards, was appointed to the command of the First Infantry
Division of Guards. Though the Princess, thus early in her married life,
showed by her quietude that she was a true soldier's wife, it was a
great relief to her when the threatened danger was over and the
mobilisation rescinded on the conclusion of the Peace of Villafranca in
July. Prince Frederick William's promotion to command a division was
then confirmed by his father.
The political situation, however, remained difficult, and Prince Albert
and his daughter watched it with anxious concern. The following passage
in a letter of his dated September is no doubt in reply to some comments
of hers on the position of Prussia and Germany in view of the rising
agitation for unity in Italy:
"I am for Prussia's hegemony; still _Germany_ is for me first in
importance, Prussia as Prussia second. Prussia will become the chief if
she stand at the head of Germany: if she merely seek to drag Germany
down to herself, she will not herself ascend. She must, therefore, be
magnanimous, act as one with the German nation in a self-sacrificing
spirit, prove that she is not bent on aggrandisement, and then she will
gain pre-eminence, and keep it," and he goes on to point the moral in
the sacrifices which Sardinia had already made for the Italian idea.
In November the Princess Royal paid a visit to England with her husband
in time to celebrate the Prince of Wales's birthday on the 9th, and
Prince Albert tells Stockmar:
"We find the Princess Royal looking extremely well, and in the highest
spirits, infinitely lively, loving, and mentally active. In knowledge of
the world, she has made great progress." The visit lasted till December
3, and Prince Albert wrote to the Dowager Duchess of Coburg that Prince
Frederick William "has delighted us much. Vicky has developed greatly of
late, and yet remains quite a child; of such indeed is the kingdom of
Heaven."
And after his daughter had gone back to Berlin, the loving father wrote
to her:
"Your dear visit has left upon us the most delightful impression; you
were well, full of life and freshness, and withal matured. I may
therefore yield to the feeling, sweetest of all to my heart as your
father, that you will be lastingly happy. In this feeling I wait without
apprehension for what fate may bring."
On this visit to England the Princess did not fail to see her old friend
and ruler, Sarah Lady Lyttelton, who records:
"The dear Princess came in, habited and hatted and cockfeathered from
her ride, looking very well though in a _very_ bad cold. She embraced me
and received me _most_ kindly, and took me into her magnificent
sitting-room, where I spent almost an hour with her, till she had to go
and change her dress for luncheon. She talked much of her baby and
inquired after everybody belonging to me and seemed as happy as ever."