Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood Part 7

But what does it matter to the dead, how many "deadly enemies" are made? They have us at unfair advantage. We may deny, we may cry out, but we cannot make them apologize, or retract, or modify the cruel sarcasm, or more cruel ridicule. They seem to stealthily open the door of the tomb, to shoot Parthian arrows at the very mourners who have just piled wreaths before it. Carlyle fired a perfect mitrailleuse from his grave. The Prince's English biographer calls the Humboldt publication "scandalous." Yet the English, who sternly condemn the most kindly personalities of living authors (especially American authors), seem to have rather a relish for these peppery posthumous revelations of genius, -often saddening post-mortem exhibitions of its own moral weaknesses and disease. No great English author dies nowadays, without his most attached, faithful and familiar friends being in mortal terror lest they be found spitted on the sharp shafts of his, or worse, her satire.

During those Windsor festivities, the little Prince of Wales was shown to the people at an upper window and p.r.o.nounced satisfactory. A Court lady described him at the time, as "the most magnificent baby in the Kingdom." And perhaps he was. He was fair and plump, with pleasant blue eyes. It seems to me that after all the years, he must look to-day, with his fresh, open face, a good deal as he did on the day when his nurse dandled him at the Castle window. He still has the fairness, the plumpness, the pleasant blue eyes. It is true he has not very abundant hair now, but he had not much then.

Tytler, the historian, gives a charming picture of him. as he appeared some two years later. He was waiting one morning in the corridor at Windsor with others to see the Queen, who came in bowing most graciously, and having by the hand the Prince of Wales, "trotting on, looking happy and merry." When she came to where Mr. Tytler stood, and saw him "bowing and looking delightedly" at the little Prince and her, she bowed and said to the little boy, "Make a bow, sir!" "When the Queen said this, the Duke of Cambridge and the rest stood still, and the little Prince, walking straight up to me, made a bow, smiling all the while, and holding out his hand, which I immediately took, and bowing low, kissed it." The Queen, he added, "smiled affectionately on the little Prince, for the gracious way in which he deported himself."

CHAPTER XVIII.

Miscreants and Monarchs-A visit from Mendelssohn-The Queen's first visit to Scotland-Anecdote-A trip to France and Belgium-Death of the Duke of Suss.e.x and of Prince Albert's father-The Dwarf and the Giant.

This year of 1842 was not all joy and festivity. It was the year of the ma.s.sacres of the British forces in Cabul; there was financial distress in England, which a charitable masked ball at Buckingham Palace did not wholly relieve; and in May occurred the second attempt on the life of the Queen-that of John Francis.

The Queen behaved with her own wonderful courage on this occasion-which was expected by her and Prince Albert, from their having a strong impression that the same wretch had the day before pointed at them, from the midst of a crowd, a pistol which had missed fire. They drove out alone together, keeping a pretty sharp lookout for the a.s.sa.s.sin-and at last, they saw him just as he fired. The ball pa.s.sed under the carriage, and Francis was at once arrested. Lady Bloomfield, who was then Maid of Honor, gives an account of the excitement at the Palace that evening, and quotes some words of the Queen, very beautiful because revealing her rare consideration for others. She says that Sir Robert Peel was there, and showed intense feeling about the risk Her Majesty had run, and that the Queen, turning to her, said: "I dare say, Georgy, you were surprised at not driving with me to-day-but the fact was, that as we were returning from church yesterday, a man presented a pistol at the carriage window. It flashed in the pan, and we were so taken by surprise that he had time to escape. I knew what was hanging over me to-day, and was determined not to expose any life but my own."

Francis was tried and sentenced to death, but through the Queen's clemency the sentence was commuted to transportation for life, and the very day after, Bean, the hunchback, essayed to shoot Her Majesty with a charge of paper and bits of clay-pipe. He was such a miserable, feeble- minded creature, that they only gave him eighteen months' imprisonment.

Soon after, the Queen was called to mourn with her aunt of Belgium, and the rest of the family of Louis Philippe of France, for the death of the Duke of Orleans, who was killed by being thrown from his carriage. If he had lived, Louis Napoleon would hardly have been Emperor of France.

So it was hardly a gay summer for the Queen, though she had some pleasure, especially in receiving Prince Albert's brother, Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Coburg, and his bride, who came to England for their honeymoon. They had also a pleasant visit from the great composer, Mendelssohn, who thus wrote from Windsor to his mother, "Add to this the pretty and most charming Queen Victoria, who looks so youthful, and is so gently courteous and gracious, who speaks such good German, and knows all my music so well,"-great praise from a Teutonic and Mendelssohnian point of view. In the autumn, the Queen and Prince made their first visit to Scotland-were received with immense enthusiasm everywhere, and had a charming and health-bracing tour. They took Edinburgh by surprise- entering the city from the sea, so early in the morning, that the authorities, who had made great preparations to receive them, and rain flowers and speeches upon them, were still in bed. Still the Queen made up for it, by afterwards making a grand State-procession through the grand old town. All the country for many miles about, poured into the city on that day, and among some amusing anecdotes of the occasion, I find this: "A gentleman living near Edinburgh, said to his farm-servant, 'Well, John, did you see the Queen?' 'Troth did I that, sir.' 'Well, what did you think of her?' 'In truth, sir, I was terrible 'feared afore she came forrit-my heart was maist in my mouth, but whan she did come forrit, I was na feared at a'; I just lookit at her, and she lookit at me, an' she bowed her heid at me, an' I bowed my heid at her.'"

The Queen traveled then with a much larger Court than she takes with her nowadays, and to this were added the escorts of honor which the great Scottish n.o.bles and Highland chiefs furnished her, till it grew to be a monster of a caravan. Among the items, I find that in conveying Her Majesty and suite from Dalkeith to Taymouth, and from Taymouth back to Dalkeith, 656 horses were employed. Yet this was nothing to the number of animals engaged on the royal progresses of former times. It is stated that 20,000 horses were in all employed in conveying Marie Antoinette, her enormous suite and c.u.mbrous belongings, from Vienna to Paris. Poor woman!-it took all those horses to bring her into her kingdom, but only one to carry her out of her kingdom, via the Place de la Revolution.

In the spring of the year following this tour, another Princess was born in Buckingham Palace, and christened Alice Maud Mary. The summer went by as usual, or even more pleasantly, for every new baby seemed to make this family happier and gayer.

Lady Bloomfield gives some charming pictures of the happy home-life at Windsor-of the children, pretty, merry, healthy, and well-bred; tells very pleasant things of the Queen, and of the sweet and n.o.ble d.u.c.h.ess of Kent-but gives only now and then, a glimpse of that gracious and graceful presence, Prince Albert. Her Majesty made the life of her maids of honor almost too easy. No long, tiresome waiting on their poor, tired feet-no long hours of reading aloud, such as poor Miss Burney had to endure, in the time of old Queen Charlotte. Lady Bloomfield-then Georgiana Ravensworth-had little to do but to hand the Queen her bouquet at dinner-to ride out with her and sing with her.

In the summer of 1843, the Queen and Prince made their first visit to the King and Queen of France, at the Chateau d'Eu, near Treport, on the coast. The King and several of his sons came off in the royal barge to meet their yacht, which they boarded. One account says that Louis Philippe, most unceremonious of monarchs, caught up the little Queen, kissed her on both cheeks, and carried her bodily on to his barge.

Two Queens-Marie Amelie of France and her daughter, Louise of Belgium, and two of her daughters-in-law-were at the landing to receive the first Sovereign of England who had ever come to their sh.o.r.es on a friendly, neighborly visit. It was a visit "of unmixed pleasure," says the Queen, and the account of it is very pleasant reading now; but I have not s.p.a.ce to reproduce it. One little pa.s.sage, in reference to the widowed d.u.c.h.esse d'Orleans, strikes my eye at this moment: "At ten, dear Helene came to me with little Paris, and stayed till the King and Queen came to fetch us to breakfast."

"Little Paris" is the present Bourbon-Orleanist bugbear of the French Republic-a very tame and well-behaved bete noir, but distrusted and dreaded all the same.

After this French visit, the Queen and Prince went over to see their uncle and aunt, at Brussels, and had a very interesting tour through Belgium. Prince Albert, writing to the Baron soon after, said: "We found uncle and aunt well. ... The children are blooming. Little Charlotte is quite the prettiest child you ever saw." This "little Charlotte" afterwards married Maximilian of Austria, the imperial puppet of Louis Napoleon in Mexico. So Charlotte was for a brief, stormy time an Empress -then came misfortune and madness. She is living yet, in that world of shadows so much sadder than "the valley of the shadow of death."

In the spring of this year, the Duke of Suss.e.x died, and at the next prorogation of Parliament I read that the Queen, no longer fearing to wound the susceptibilities of her proud old uncle, said to her husband, "Come up higher!"-and had a chair for him, precisely like her own, on a level with her own. It was on her left. The smaller chair, on her right, belonged to "little Bertie," who was not yet quite ready to occupy it.

In the autumn, came a visit to the University of Cambridge, where the Queen had the delight of seeing the degree of LL.D. conferred on her husband. So he mounted, step by step, into the honorable position which belonged to him. In this year also, he won laurels which he cared little for, but which counted much for him among a cla.s.s of Englishmen who lightly esteemed his literary, artistic, and scientific taste and knowledge. In a great hunting-party he carried off the honors by his fearless and admirable riding. Sporting men said: "Why, there really is something in the man beside good looks and German music and metaphysics. He can take hedges and ditches as well as degrees."

I do not think Prince Albert did justice to the English people, when, after his father's death, in the following year, he wrote in the first gush of his grief, to the Baron: "Here we sit together, poor Mama, Victoria and I, and weep, with a great, cold public around us, insensible as stone."

I cannot believe that the British public is ever insensible to royal sorrow.

The Prince-Consort went over to Coburg on a visit of condolence. Some pa.s.sages in his letters to the Queen, who took this first separation from him hard, are nice reading for their homely and husbandly spirit. From the yacht, before sailing, he wrote: "I have been here an hour, and regret the lost time which I might have spent with you. Poor child! you will, while I write, be getting ready for luncheon, and you will find a place vacant where I sat yesterday. In your heart, however, I hope my place will not be vacant. I at least, have you on board with me in spirit. I reiterate my entreaty, 'Bear up! and don't give way to low spirits, but try to occupy yourself as much as possible.'" ... "I have got toys for the children, and porcelain views for you." ... "Oh! how lovely and friendly is this dear old country. How glad I should be to have my little wife beside me, to share my pleasure."

Miss Mitford, speaking of a desire expressed by the Queen, to see that quaint old place, Strawberry Hill and all its curiosities, says: "Nothing can tend more to ensure popularity than that Her Majesty should partake of the national amus.e.m.e.nts and the natural curiosity of the more cultivated portion of her subjects."

In such directions, certainly, the Queen was never found wanting in those days. In "natural curiosity" she was a veritable daughter of Eve, and granddaughter of George the Third. She was interested not only in the scientific discoveries, new mechanical inventions, and agricultural improvements which so interested her husband, but in odd varieties of animals and human creatures. She accepted with pleasure the gift of a Liliputian horse, supposed to be the smallest in the world-over five years old, and only twenty-seven and a half inches high-brought from Java, by a sea-captain, who used to take the gallant steed under his arm, and run down-stairs with him; and she very graciously received and was immensely entertained with the distinguished young American, who should have been the Alexander of that Bucephalus-General Tom Thumb. This little lusus naturae, under the masterly management of Mr. Barnum, had made a great sensation in London-which, after the Queen had summoned him two or three times to Windsor, grew into a fas.h.i.+onable furor. Mr. Barnum's description of those visits to the royal palaces is very amusing. They were first received in the grand picture-gallery by the Queen, the d.u.c.h.ess of Kent, Prince Albert, and the usual Court ladies and gentlemen. Mr. Barnum writes: "They were standing at the farther end of the room when the doors were thrown open, and the General walked in, looking like a wax-doll gifted with the powers of locomotion. Surprise and pleasure were depicted on the faces of the royal circle, at beholding this remarkable specimen of humanity, so much smaller than they had evidently expected to see him. The General advanced with a firm step, and as he came within hailing distance, made a graceful bow, and said, 'Good- evening, ladies and gentlemen!'

"A burst of laughter followed this salutation. The Queen then took him by the hand, and led him about the gallery, and asked him many questions, the answers to which kept the party in continual merriment. The General informed the Queen, that her picture-gallery was 'first-rate,' and said he should like to see the Prince of Wales. The Queen replied that the Prince had gone to bed, but that he should see him on a future occasion." The General then gave his songs, dances, and imitations; and after an hour's talk with Prince Albert and the rest, departed as coolly as he had come, but not as leisurely, as the long backing-out process being too tedious, he varied it with little runs, which drew from the Queen, Prince, and Court peels of laughter, and roused the ire of the Queen's poodle, who attacked the small Yankee stranger. The General defended himself with his little cane, as valiantly as the original Tom Thumb with his mother's darning-needle. On the next visit, he was introduced to the Prince of Wales, whom he addressed with a startling, "How are you, Prince?" He then received a costly souvenir from the Queen, and, each time he performed, generous pay in gold. The Queen Dowager was also much taken with him, and presented him with a beautiful little watch. She called him "dear little General," and took him on her lap. The time came (when this "full-grown" dwarf was fuller-grown) that the most powerful Queen Dowager would have found it difficult to dandle him, Charles Stratton, Esq., a husband and father, on her knee: The fact is the General was a bit of a humbug, being considerably younger than he was given out to be. But he was an exceedingly pretty, amusing little humbug, so it was no matter then. But when the truth came out, the Queen's faith in Yankee showmen must have suffered a shock, as must that of the honest old Duke of Wellington, who used to drop in at Egyptian Hall so often to see the tiny creature a.s.sume the dress and the pensive pose of Napoleon "thinking of the loss of the battle of Waterloo," and looking so like his old enemy, seen through a reversed field-gla.s.s. Very likely the Queen's "full-grown" Java horse turned out to be a young colt.

After the dwarf, came the giant-the tallest and grandest of the sovereigns of Europe, Nicholas, the Emperor of all the Russias. He came on one of his war-s.h.i.+ps, but with the friendliest feelings, and "just dropped in" on the Queen, with only a few hours' notice. It was a pleasant little way he had of surprising his friends. However, he was made welcome, and everything possible was done to entertain and do him honor during his stay. He had visited England before, when he was much younger and handsomer. Baron Stockmar met him at Claremont, in the time of the Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold, and quotes a compliment paid him by a Court lady, in the refined language of the Regency: "What an amiable creature! He is devilish handsome! He will be the handsomest man in Europe." And so he might have been, had he possessed a heart and soul. But his expression was always, if not actually bad, severe and repellant. The look his large, keen eyes, which had very pale lashes, and every now and then showed the white all round the iris, is said to have been quite awful. He was a soldier above all things, and told the Queen he felt very awkward in evening-dress, as though in leaving off his uniform he had "taken off his skin." He must have been rather a discommoding guest, from a little whim he had of sleeping only on straw. He always had with him a leathern case, which at every place he stopped, was filled with fresh straw from the stables.

He was an excessively polite man-this towering Czar; but for all that, a very cruel man-a colossal embodiment of the autocratic principle- selfish and cold and hard-though he did win upon the Queen's heart by praise of her husband. He said: "Nowhere will you find a handsomer young man; he has such an air of n.o.bility and goodness." It was a mystery how he could so well appreciate that pure and lovable character, for the Prince Consort must always have been a mystery to men like the Czar Nicholas.

CHAPTER XIX.

Old homes and new-A visit from the King of France-The Queen and Prince Albert make their first visit to Germany-Incidents of the trip-A new seaside home on the Isle of Wight-Repeal of the Corn Laws-Prince Albert elected Chancellor of Cambridge University-Benjamin Disraeli.

This year-1844-there was a death in the household at Windsor, and a birth. The death was that of Eos, the favorite greyhound of Prince Albert. "Dear Eos," as the Queen called her, was found dead one morning. The Prince wrote the next day to his grandmother, "You will share my sorrow at this loss. She was a singularly clever creature and had been for eleven years faithfully devoted to me. How many recollections are linked with her."

This beautiful and graceful animal, almost human in her love, and in something very like intellect and soul, appears in several of Landseer's pictures. I will not apologize for keeping a Royal Prince waiting while I give this s.p.a.ce to her. This Prince, born at Windsor, in August, was the present Duke of Edinburgh. He was christened Alfred Ernest Albert. The Queen in her journal wrote: "The scene in the chapel was very solemn. ... To see those two children there too" (the Princess Royal and the Prince of Wales), "seemed such a dream to me. May G.o.d bless them all, poor little things!" Her Majesty adds that all through the service she fervently prayed that this boy might be "as good as his beloved father." How is it, your Royal Highness?

This year they went again to the Highlands for a few weeks. The Queen's journal says: "Mama came to take leave of us. Alice and the baby were brought in, poor little things! to bid us good-bye. Then good Bertie came down to see us, and Vicky appeared as voyageuse, and was all impatience to go."

"Bertie" is the family name for the Prince of Wales. I believe that at heart he is still "good Bertie." "Vicky" was the Princess Royal. The Queen further on remarks: "I said to Albert I could hardly believe that our child was traveling with us; it put me so in mind of myself when I was the little Princess.'"

This year Louis Philippe came over to return the visit of the Queen and the Prince, and there were great festivities and investings at Windsor with all possible kindness and courtesy, and I hope the wily old King went home with grat.i.tude in his heart, as well as the garter on his leg. This year too the Queen and Prince made their first visit to Germany together. The picture the Queen paints of the morning of leaving and the parting from the children is very domestic, sweet, and motherly: "Both Vicky and darling Alice were with me while I dressed. Poor dear Puss wished much to go with us and often said, 'Why am I not going to Germany?' Most willingly would I have taken her. I wished much to take one of dearest Albert's children with us to Coburg; but the journey is a serious undertaking and she is very young still." ... "It was a painful moment to drive away with the three poor little things standing at the door. G.o.d bless them and protect them-which He will."

The English Queen and the Prince-Consort were received with all possible royal honors and popular respect at Aix-la-Chapelle and Cologne, and at the Royal Palace at Bruhl. It was past midnight when they reached that welcome resting-place, and yet, as an account before me states, they were regaled by a military serenade "in which seven hundred performers were engaged!" A German friend of ours from that region supplements this story by stating that five hundred of those military performers were drummers; that they were accompanied by torch-bearers; that they came under the Queen's windows, wakened her out of her first sleep, and almost drove her wild with fright. With those tremendous trumpetings and drum-beatings, "making night hideous" with their storm of menacing, barbaric sound, and with the fierce glare of the torchlight, it might have seemed to her that Doomsday had burst on the world, and that the savage old Huns of Attila were up first, ready for war.

The next day they all went up the Rhine to the King's Palace of Stolzenfels. Never perhaps was even a Rhine steamer so heavily freighted with royalty-a cargo of Kings and Queens, Princes and Archdukes. It was all very fine, as were the royal feasts and festivals, but the Queen and Prince were happiest when they had left all this grandeur and parade behind them and were at Coburg amid their own kin-for there, impatiently awaiting them, were the mother of Victoria and the brother of Albert, and "a staircase full of cousins," as the Queen says. They stopped at lovely Rosenau, and the Queen, with one of her beautiful poetic impulses, chose for their chamber the room in which her husband was born. She wrote in her journal, "How happy, how joyful we were, on awaking, to find ourselves here, at the dear Rosenau, my Albert's birth-place, the place he most loves. ... He was so happy to be here with me. It was like a beautiful dream."

The account of the rejoicings of the simple Coburg people, and especially of the children, over their beloved Prince, and over the visit of his august wife, is really very touching. Their offerings and tributes were mostly flowers, poems and music-wonderfully sweet chorales and gay reveils and inspiriting marches. There was a great fete of the peasants on Prince Albert's birthday, with much waltzing, and shouting, and beer-quaffing, and toast-giving. The whole visit was an Arcadian episode, simple and charming, in the grand royal progress of Victoria's life. But the royal progress had to be resumed-the State called back its bond-servants; and so, after a visit to the dear old grandmother at Gotha-the parting with whom seemed especially hard to Prince Albert, as though he had a presentiment it was to be the last- they set out for home. They took their yacht at Antwerp, and after a flying visit to the King and Queen of France at Eu, were soon at Osborne, where their family were awaiting them. The Queen wrote: "The dearest of welcomes greeted us as we drove up straight to the house, for there, looking like roses, so well and so fat, stood the four children, much pleased to see us!"

Ah, often the best part of going away is coming home.

During this year the Royal Family were very happy in taking possession of their new seaside palace on the Isle of Wight, and I believe paid no more visits to Brighton, which was so much crowded in the season as to make anything like the privacy they desired impossible. During her last stay at the Pavilion the Queen was so much displeased at the rudeness of the people who pressed about her and Prince Albert, when they were trying to have a quiet little walk on the breezy pier, that I read she appealed to the magistrates for protection. There was such a large and ever-growing crowd of excited, hurrying, murmuring, staring Brightonians and strangers about them that it seemed a rallying cry had gone through the town, from lip to lip: "The Queen and Prince are out! To the pier! To the pier!"

The Pavilion was never a desirable Marine Palace, as it commanded no good views of the sea; so Her Majesty's new home in the Isle of Wight had for her, the Prince and the children every advantage over the one in Brighton except in bracing sea-air. Osborne has a broad sea view, a charming beach, to which the woods run down-the lovely woods in which are found the first violets of the spring and to which the nightingales first come. The grounds were fine and extensive, to the great delight of the Prince Consort, who had not only a peculiar pa.s.sion, but a peculiar talent for gardening. Indeed, when this many-sided German was born a Prince, a masterly landscape-gardener was lost to the world-that is, the world outside the grounds of Windsor, Osborne and Balmoral, which indeed "keep his memory green." The Queen writing from Osborne says: "Albert is so happy here-out all day planting, directing, etc., and it is so good for him. It is a relief to get away from the bitterness which people create for themselves in London."-But I am not writing the Life of Prince Albert;-I often forget that.

The year of 1846 was gloriously marked by the repeal of the Corn Laws; a measure of justice and mercy, the withholding of which from the people had for several years produced much distress and commotion. Some destructive work had been done by mobs on the houses of the supporters of the old laws; they had even stoned the town residence of the Duke of Wellington, Apsley House. The stern old fighter would have been glad at the moment to have swept the streets clear with cannon, but he contented himself with putting shutters over his broken windows, to hide the shame. I believe they were never opened again while he lived. The great leaders in this Corn Laws agitation were Mr. Cobden and Mr. Bright. These great- hearted men could not rest for the cries which came up to them from the suffering people. There were sore privations and "short commons" in England, and in Ireland, starvation, real, honest, earnest starvation. The poverty of the land had struck down into the great Irish stand-by, the potato, a deadly blight. A year or two later the evil took gigantic proportions; the news came to us in America, and an alarm was sounded which roused the land. We sent a divine Armada against the grim enemy which was wasting the Green Isle; s.h.i.+ps, which poured into him broadsides of big bread-b.a.l.l.s, and grape-shot of corn, beans and potatoes. It is recorded that "in one Irish seaport town the bells were kept ringing all day in honor of the arrival of one of these grain-laden vessels." I am afraid these bells had a sweeter sound to the poor people than even those rung on royal birthdays.

Strangely enough, after the pa.s.sage of measures which immortalized his ministerial term, Sir Robert Peel was ejected from power. The Queen parted from him with great regret, but quietly accepted his successor, Lord John Russell.

Six years had now gone by since the marriage of Victoria and Albert, and the family had grown to be six, and soon it was seven, for in May the Princess Helena Augusta Victoria was born. Her G.o.dmother was Helene, the widowed d.u.c.h.ess of Orleans, the mother of the gallant young men, the Count de Paris and the Duke de Chartres, who during our great war came over to America to see service under General McClellan.

About this time the Prince-Consort was called to Liverpool to open a magnificent dock named after him, which duty he performed in the most graceful manner. The next day he laid the foundation-stone for a Sailors' Home. The Queen, who was not able to be with him on these occasions, wrote to the Baron: "I feel very lonely without my dear master, and though I know other people are often separated, I feel that I could never get accustomed to it. ... Without him everything loses its interest. It will always cause a terrible pang for me to be separated from him even for two days, and I pray G.o.d not to let me survive him. I glory in his being seen and loved."

In September they went into the new Marine Palace at Osborne. On the first evening, amid the gaieties of the splendid house-warming festival, the Prince very solemnly repeated a hymn of Luther's, sung in Germany on these occasions. Translated it is:

"G.o.d bless our going out, nor less Our coming in, and make them sure; G.o.d bless our daily bread, and bless Whate'er we do-whate'er endure; In death unto His peace awake us, And heirs of His salvation make us."

They were very happy amid all the political trouble and perplexity- almost too happy, considering how life was going on, or going off in poor Ireland. Doubtless the cries of starving children and the moans of fever- stricken mothers must often have pierced the tender hearts of the Queen and Prince; but the calamity was so vast, so apparently irremediable, that they turned their thoughts away from it as much as possible, as we turn ours from the awful tragic work of volcanoes in the far East and tornadoes in the West. It was a sort of charmed life they lived, with its pastoral peace and simple pleasures. Lady Bloomfield wrote: "It always entertains me to see the little things which amuse Her Majesty and the Prince, instead of their looking bored, as people so often do in English society." One thing, however, did "bore" him, and that, unfortunately, was riding-"for its own sake." So it was not surprising that after a time the Queen indulged less in her favourite pastime. She still loved a romping dance now and then, but she was hardly as gay as when Guizot first saw and described her. Writing from Windsor to his son he gives a picture of a royal dinner party: "On my left sat the young Queen whom they tried to a.s.sa.s.sinate the other day, in gay spirits, talking a great deal, laughing very often and longing to laugh still more; and filling with her gaiety, which contrasted with the already tragical elements of her history, this ancient castle which has witnessed the career of all her predecessors."

The political affairs which tried and troubled the Queen and the Prince were not merely English. They were much disturbed and shocked by the unworthy intrigues and the unkingly bad faith shown by Louis Philippe in the affair of the "Spanish Marriages"-a complicated and rather delicate matter, which I have neither s.p.a.ce nor desire to dwell upon here. It had a disastrous effect on the Orleans family, and perhaps on the history of France. It has been mostly interesting to me now for the manner in which the subject was, handled by the Queen, whose letters revealed a royal high spirit and a keen sense of royal honor. She regretted the heartless State marriage of the young Queen of Spain, not only from a political but a domestic point of view. She saw poor Isabella forced or tricked into a distasteful union, from which unhappiness must, and something far worse than unhappiness might, come. Many and great misfortunes did come of it and to the actors in it.

In the spring of 1847 the Prince-Consort was elected Chancellor of the University of Cambridge-a great honor for so young a man. The Queen was present at the installation, and there was a splendid time. Wordsworth wrote an ode on the occasion. It was not quite equal to his "Ode on the Intimations of Immortality." In truth, Mr. Wordsworth did not s.h.i.+ne as Poet Laureate. Mr. Tennyson better earns his b.u.t.t of Malmsey.

Seated on the throne in the great Hall of Trinity, the Queen received the new Chancellor, who was beautifully dressed in robes of black and gold, with a long train borne by two of his officers. He read to her a speech, to which she read a reply, saying that on the whole she approved of the choice of the University. "I cannot say," writes the Queen, "how it agitated and embarra.s.sed me to have, to receive this address, and hear it read by my beloved Albert, who walked in at the head of the University, and who looked dear and beautiful in his robes."