Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen Volume II Part 25

On the 12th June the Queen's cousin, who had been the blind King of Hanover, died in exile at Paris. His body was brought to England and was buried in the royal vault below St. George's Chapel, Windsor.

The Queen saw a naval review off Spithead in August. In the end of the month the Queen, with Princess Beatrice and Prince Leopold, stopped at Dunbar on the way north in order to pay a visit to the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Roxburgh at Broxmouth. During her Majesty's stay she heard of the death of Madame Van de Weyer at the New Lodge, and wrote in her journal, "Another link with the past gone! with my beloved one, with dearest Uncle Leopold, and with Belgium."

In September a terrible accident occurred in the Thames off Woolwich, when the _Princess Alice steamboat_ on a pleasure trip was run down by the _Bywell Castle_, and about six hundred pa.s.sengers perished.

In the end of the month the Queen had the misfortune to lose her old and faithful servant Sir Thomas Biddulph, who died at Abergeldie Mains. When she went to see him in his last illness and took his hand, he said, "You are very kind to me," to which she answered, pressing his hand, "You have always been very kind to me."

The Marquis of Lorne had been appointed Governor-General of Canada, for which he and Princess Louise sailed, arriving at Ottawa on the 23rd of November.

Already the Queen, who was still at Balmoral, had heard of the disastrous outbreak of diphtheria in the Darmstadt royal family. It attacked every member in succession, the youngest, Princess Marie, a child of four years of age, dying on the 16th of November. It was supposed that the d.u.c.h.ess had caught the infection from having once, in an abandonment of sorrow for the death of her little daughter, forgotten the necessary precautions, and rested her head on the Duke's pillow. Her case was dangerous from the first, and she gave orders lest she should die, but did not seem to expect death. In her sleep she was heard to murmur, "Four weeks--Marie--my father." On the morning before she died she read a letter from her mother. Her last words when waking from sleep, she took the refreshment offered her, were, "Now I will again sleep quietly for a longer time." Then she fell back into the slumber from which she never awoke. She died on the 14th December, exactly four weeks from the death of her child, and seventeen years from the death of her father. She was thirty-five years of age. Princess Alice was a woman of rare qualities and remarkable benevolence.

The Prince of Wales and Prince Leopold went to Darmstadt and followed the funeral from the church to the Rosenhohe, where all that was mortal of Princess Alice rests beside the dust of her children. A fine figure in white marble of the Princess, rec.u.mbent, clasping her little daughter to her breast, has been placed close to the spot as a token of the loving remembrance of her brothers and sisters. The engraving represents this beautiful piece of monumental sculpture.

In 1879 the Zulu war broke out. On the 11th of March Princess Louise of Prussia arrived in England, and on the 13th she was married in St.

George's Chapel, Windsor, in the presence of the Queen and all the members of the royal family and the bride's father and mother, Prince and Princess Frederick Charles of Prussia. The bridegroom was supported by his brothers, the Prince of Wales and the Duke of Edinburgh. The bride walked between her father and the Crown Prince of Germany, and was followed by eight n.o.ble bridesmaids. The Duke of Connaught was in his twenty-ninth and Princess Louise of Prussia in her nineteenth year. Their residence is Bagshot Park.

Twelve days later the Queen left with Princess Beatrice and, travelling by Cherbourg and Paris, reached Lake Maggiore on the 28th.

Immediately after their arrival the news came of the death, from diphtheria of one of the Crown Princess of Germany's sons, Prince Waldemar of Prussia, a fine boy of eleven years of age.

Her Majesty left on the 23rd of April, and returned by Milan, Turin, Paris, and Cherbourg, to England.

CHAPTER XL.

BIRTH OF THE FIRST GREAT-GRANDCHILD--MARRIAGE OF THE DUKE OF ALBANY-- CONCLUSION.

The Queen's first great-grandchild, the child of the Princess of Saxe- Meiningen, was born on the 12th of May.

On her Majesty's arrival at Balmoral on the 22nd of May she went to see the granite cross erected to the "dear memory" of Alice, d.u.c.h.ess of Hesse, by her "sorrowing mother"

The Queen remained at Balmoral till after the 19th of June, when the melancholy tidings arrived that the Prince Imperial had been killed in the Zulu war. Her Majesty left on the 20th, and crossed over the Tay Bridge, which was destroyed in the terrible gale of the 29th December of the same year.

In 1880 the Queen opened Parliament in person. Her Majesty, accompanied by Princess Beatrice, left Windsor on the 25th of March for Baden-Baden and Darmstadt. The Queen was present at the confirmation of the Princesses Victoria and Elizabeth, and visited the Rosenhohe, where their mother was buried.

About the same time the ex-Empress Eugenie embarked at Southampton for the Cape of Good Hope, that she might see the place where her son fell on the anniversary of his death.

On the 24th of April the Princess Frederica of Hanover, elder daughter of the late King, was married to Baron von Pawel-Rammingen, who had been equerry to her father, in St. George's Chapel, Windsor. The Queen and several members of the royal family witnessed the ceremony.

In September the Duke of Connaught and his bride were welcomed to Balmoral, and a visit paid to the cairn erected in their honour when their healths were drunk with "three times three" in the presence of the Queen, Princess Beatrice, and the ladies and gentlemen of the household. Later in the autumn the childless widow, the Empress Eugenie, stayed for a little time at Abergeldie.

At the close of 1880 Lord Beaconsfield published his last novel of "Endymion." George Eliot died on the 22nd December, and in 1881 Thomas Carlyle died, on the 5th of February, in the eighty-sixth year of his age.

Her Majesty's eldest grandson, Prince William of Prussia, was married at Berlin on the 27th of February to Princess Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein. The bride was the granddaughter of the Queen's sister, Princess Hohenlohe, and the niece of Prince Christian.

On March 13th the Emperor of Russia was a.s.sa.s.sinated.

Lord Beaconsfield died on the 19th of April at his house in Curzon Street. Ten days later the Queen and Princess Beatrice visited Hughenden while the vault was still open, and placed flowers on the coffin.

In June Prince Leopold took his seat in the House of Peers on his creation as Duke of Albany.

On the 19th of September President Garfield died, after a long struggle, with the effects of his a.s.sa.s.sination, when the Queen wrote to Mrs. Garfield her indignation and pity as she had expressed them to the widow of President Lincoln.

In 1882 a monument was erected in Hughenden Church to Lord Beaconsfield "by his grateful and affectionate sovereign and friend,

"VICTORIA R. I.

Kings love him that speaketh right.

PROVERBS xvi 13."

The Queen's speech on the opening of Parliament in 1882 announced the approaching marriage of the Duke of Albany to Princess Helen of Waldeck.

On the 2nd of March, as her Majesty was entering her carriage at Windsor station, she was fired at by a man named Roderick Maclean, the ball pa.s.sing between her Majesty and Princess Beatrice. The criminal, who proved to be of respectable antecedents, was arrested and committed for high treason. He was tried, found not guilty on the plea of insanity, and sentenced to be confined during her Majesty's pleasure. Much sympathy and indignation were felt, and addresses were voted by both Houses of Parliament.

The Queen left with Princess Beatrice, twelve days afterwards, by Portsmouth, Cherbourg, and Paris for Mentone, where her Majesty stayed a fortnight.

Princess Helen of Waldeck, accompanied by her parents, arrived on the 25th of April. The King and Queen of the Netherlands, the bride's brother-in-law and sister, came next day, and the marriage was celebrated on the 27th of April in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, before the Queen and the royal family. The Duke of Albany was in his twenty-ninth, and Princess Helen in her twenty-first year. Claremont was a.s.signed to the young couple as their future residence. Eight days after the marriage a sad event broke in on the marriage rejoicings; the bride's sister, Princess William of Wurtemberg, died in childbirth at the age of twenty-three.

On the 6th of May the Queen, with Princess Beatrice, went in state to Epping Forest, where they were received by the Lord Mayor, the Sheriffs, and the Duke of Connaught as ranger of the forest. After an address the Queen declared the forest dedicated to the people's use.

On the same day Lord Frederick Cavendish and Mr. Burke were a.s.sa.s.sinated in the Phoenix Park, Dublin.

Garibaldi died at Caprera on the 2nd of June.

The Egyptian war broke out, and among the officers who sailed with the troops under Sir Garnet Wolseley in August was the Duke of Connaught.

The d.u.c.h.ess and her little daughter were with the Queen at Balmoral, where anxious days were spent as mother and wife waited for the news of battle. Successive telegrams announced that an attack was determined on, that the army had marched, that fighting was going on, and that the enemy had been routed with heavy loss at Tel-el-Kebir.

The Queen wrote in her journal "How anxious we felt I need not say, but we tried not to give way.... I prayed earnestly for my darling child, and longed for to-morrow to arrive. Read Korner's beautiful, '_Gebet vor der Schlacht_,' '_Vater ich rufe Dich_,' ('Prayer before the Battle,' 'Father, I call on Thee'). My beloved husband used to sing it often...."

At last came the welcome telegram, "A great victory, Duke safe and well," and a further telegram with details and the concluding sentence, "Duke of Connaught is well and behaved admirably, leading his brigade to the attack," and great was the joy and thankfulness.

In the meantime the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Albany had been expected on their first visit after their marriage, and were met at Ballater. When their healths were drunk with Highland honours, the happy Queen asked her son to propose another toast "to the victorious army in Egypt"

coupled with the Duke of Connaught's name, and the health was drunk in the hearing of his proud wife and his unconscious infant in her nurse's arms.

In November the Queen reviewed the troops returned from Egypt in St.

James Park, and afterwards distributed war medals to the officers and men.

On the 4th December her Majesty opened the New Law Courts. She was received by the judges and the representatives of the Bar. Lord Chancellor Selborne was raised to the rank of an earl, and knighthood was conferred on the Governors of the Inns of Court.

The Duke of Connaught, accompanied by the d.u.c.h.ess, went to fill a military post in India.

We have seen that Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, her Majesty's fourth and youngest son, who was born on the 7th of April, 1853, had a delicate childhood and boyhood. He suffered from a tendency to haemorrhage on the slightest provocation. Ailments in the joints are apt to accompany such const.i.tutional weakness, and one of Prince Leopold's knees was affected. As he grew up he was again and again brought to the brink of the grave by sudden and violent fits of indisposition. It is hardly necessary to say that the precariousness of Prince Leopold's health, combined as it was with an amiable disposition and intellectual gifts, only served to endear him the more to his family and friends.

The bodily weakness which set the Duke of Albany apart from his elder brothers and from lads of his age, which prevented his being regularly trained either as a soldier or a sailor, in the two professions which have been long held fit for princes, made him peculiarly the home-son of the Queen, and caused him to be much longer a.s.sociated with her than he might otherwise have been, in her daily life and in her public appearances during the later years of her reign.

It did not follow from this circ.u.mstance that Prince Leopold relinquished an independent career or led an idle life. In 1872, when he was in his twentieth year, he matriculated at Oxford, where he kept his terms with credit alike to his original abilities and his conscientious diligence. His honourable and pleasant connection with his university remained a strong tie to the end of his short life, and it was doubtless in relation to Oxford that he came sensibly under the influence of Mr. Buskin.