Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen Volume II Part 24

On the 3rd of April her Majesty visited the Emperor of the French at Chislehurst--a trying interview.

On the 21st of June the Queen opened St. Thomas's Hospital, knighting the treasurer.

This summer the Emperor and Empress of Brazil visited London, while the Tichborne trial was running its long course.

On the Queen's return from Balmoral in November, she was met by the alarming tidings that the Prince of Wales lay ill of typhoid fever at Sandringham. The Queen went to her son on the 29th and remained for a few days. The disease seemed progressing favourably, and she returned to Windsor in the beginning of December, leaving the invalid devotedly nursed by the Princess of Wales and Princess Alice--who had been staying with her brother when the fever showed itself, and by the Duke of Edinburgh. On the 8th there was a relapse, when the Queen and the whole of the royal family were sent for to Sandringham. During many days the Prince hovered between life and death. The sympathy was deep and universal. The reading of the bulletins at the Mansion House was a sight to be remembered. A prayer was appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury for "Albert Edward Prince of Wales, lying upon the bed of sickness," and for "Victoria our Queen and the Princess of Wales in this day of their great trouble." Supplications were sent up alike in Catholic churches and Jewish synagogues. On the night of Wednesday the 14th, a date which had been dreaded as that of the Prince Consort's death ten years before, a slight improvement took place, sleep at last was won, and gradual recovery established. The Queen returned to Windsor on the 19th, and wrote on the 26th of December to thank her people for their sympathy.

On the 8th of February, 1872, the Governor-General of India, Lord Mayo, was a.s.sa.s.sinated.

The 27th was the Thanksgiving Day for the Prince of Wales's recovery.

No public sight throughout her Majesty's reign was more moving than her progress with the Prince and Princess of Wales and Princess Beatrice to and from St. Paul's. The departure from Buckingham Palace was witnessed by the Emperor and Empress of the French, who stood on a balcony. The decorated streets were packed with incredible ma.s.ses of people, the cheering was continuous. The Queen wore white flowers in her bonnet and looked happy. The Prince insisted on lifting his hat in return for the people's cheers. The royal party were met at Temple Bar by the Lord Mayor and a deputation from the Common Council. The City sword was presented and received back again, when the chief magistrate of London remounted and rode before the Queen to St. Paul's. Thirteen thousand persons were in the City cathedral. The pew for the Queen and the Prince was enclosed by a bra.s.s railing. The _Te Deum_ was sung by a picked choir. There was a special prayer, "We praise and magnify Thy glorious name for that Thou hast raised Thy servant Albert Edward Prince of Wales from the bed of sickness." The sermon was preached by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The return was led by the Lord Mayor and Aldermen to the bounds of the City. When Buckingham Palace was reached the Queen showed herself with the Prince for a moment on the central balcony. There was an illumination in the evening.

On the 29th of February, as the Queen was returning from a drive in the Park, having come down Const.i.tution Hill and entered the courtyard, when about to alight, a lad with a paper in one hand and a pistol in the other rushed first to the left and then to the right side of the carriage, with arms extended to the Queen, who sat quite unmoved. Her Majesty's attendant, John Brown, seized the a.s.sailant. He was a half-witted Irish lad, named Arthur O'Connor, about seventeen years of age, who had been a clerk to an oil and colour merchant. He had climbed over the railings. There was no ball in the pistol, which was broken. The paper was a pet.i.tion for the Fenians. The public indignation was great against the miserable culprit, who was dealt with as in former outrages of the kind, according to the nature of the offence and with reference to the mental condition of the offender.

The Queen, who had been about to inst.i.tute a medal as a reward for long and faithful service among her domestics, gave a gold medal and an annuity of twenty-five pounds to John Brown for his presence of mind and devotion on this occasion.

Her Majesty had gone to Balmoral for her birthday, and was still there on the 16th of June when she heard of the death of her valued friend, Dr. Norman Macleod. He had preached to her and dined with her so recently as the 26th of May. What his loss was to her she has expressed simply and forcibly in a pa.s.sage in her journal.... "When I thought of my dear friend Dr. Macleod and all he had been to me--how in 1862, '63, '64, he had cheered and comforted and encouraged me--how he had ever sympathised with me ... and that this too like so many other comforts and helps was for ever gone, I burst out crying."

On the 1st of July the Queen, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh and Prince Leopold and the two younger princesses, visited the Albert Memorial, Hyde Park, which was complete save for the statue.

Three days afterwards, in very hot weather, her Majesty was present at a great review at Aldershot.

CHAPTER x.x.xIX.

STAY AT HOLYROOD--DEATHS OF PRINCESS HOHENLOHE AND OF PRINCE FREDERICK OF DARMSTADT--MARRIAGE OF THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH.

The Queen arrived at Holyrood on the 14th of August, and made a stay of a few days in Edinburgh for the first time during eleven years. A suite of rooms called the "Argyle rooms" had been freshly arranged for her occupation. She went over Queen Mary's rooms again for the gratification of Princess Beatrice, and with the Princess and Prince Leopold took the old drives to Dalkeith and Leith which her Majesty had first taken thirty years before.

A favourite project in the past had been that her Majesty should go so far north as to visit Dunrobin, and rooms had been prepared for her reception. When the visit was paid the castle was in the hands of another generation, and the Queen laid the foundation stone of a cross erected to the memory of the late d.u.c.h.ess.

Soon after her Majesty's return to Balmoral, on the 23rd September, she had the grief to receive a telegram announcing the death of her sister, Princess Hohenlohe. Though not more than sixty-five years of age the Princess had been for some time very infirm. She had received a great shock in the previous spring from the unexpected death by fever, at the age of thirty-three, of her younger surviving daughter, Princess Feodore, the second wife of the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen.

The Emperor Napoleon III, who had long been labouring under sore disease, laid down his wearied and vanquished life at Chislehurst on the 9th of January, 1873.

The coming marriage of the Duke of Edinburgh to the Grand d.u.c.h.ess Marie of Russia was announced to Parliament.

On the 2nd of April the Queen was present at the opening of the Victoria Park. Prince Arthur was created Duke of Connaught.

A fatal accident to the younger son of Prince and Princess Louis of Hesse happened at Darmstadt on the 29th of May. The nurse had brought the children to see the Princess while she was in bed, and had left the two little boys playing beside her. The windows of the bedroom and of a dressing-room beyond were open. Princess Louis, hearing Prince Ernest, the elder brother, go into the dressing-room, leapt out of bed and hurried after him. In her momentary absence Prince Frederick, between two and three years of age, leant out of one of the bedroom windows, lost his balance, and fell on the pavement below, receiving terrible injuries, from which he died in a few hours, to the great sorrow of his parents.

In September the Queen and Princess Beatrice, with Lady Churchill and General Ponsonby, spent a week at Inverlochy, occupying the house of Lord Abinger at the foot of Ben Nevis, among the beautiful scenery which borders the Caledonian Ca.n.a.l, and is specially a.s.sociated with Prince Charlie--in pity for whom her Majesty loved to recall the drops of Stewart blood in her veins.

This year more than one figure, well-known in different ways to the Queen in former years, pa.s.sed out of mortal sight--Bishop Wilberforce, Landseer, Macready.

In January, 1874, the Duke of Edinburgh was married at the Winter Palace, St. Petersburg, to the Grand d.u.c.h.ess Marie of Russia. The Duke was in his thirtieth, the Grand d.u.c.h.ess in her twenty-first year. The royal couple arrived at Gravesend on March 7th, and entered London on March 12th in a heavy snowstorm. In spite of the weather the Queen and the d.u.c.h.ess, with the Duke of Edinburgh and Princess Beatrice seated opposite, drove slowly through the crowded streets in an open carriage drawn by six horses. The Prince and Princess of Wales, Princess Louise, &c., were at the windows of Buckingham Palace. The Queen went out with the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess on the balcony. The Duke and d.u.c.h.ess's town and country houses are Clarence House and Eastwell Park.

In March her Majesty, accompanied by all her family in England, reviewed the troops returned from the Ashantee War in Windsor Great Park, and gave the orders of St. Michael and St. George to Sir Garnet Wolseley and the Victoria Cross to Lord Gifford.

The first volume of the "Life of the Prince Consort," by Sir Theodore Martin, came out and made a deep impression on the general public.

Her Majesty had for many years honoured with her friendship M. and Madame Van de Weyer, who were the Queen's near neighbours at Windsor, the family living at the New Lodge. In addition they had come for several seasons to Abergeldie, when the Court was at Balmoral. M. Van de Weyer was not only the trusted representative of the King of the Belgians, he was a man highly gifted morally and intellectually. This year the friendship was broken by his death.

On the 15th of October the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Edinburgh's son--was born.

The news of Livingstone's death reached England.

Early in 1875 Prince Leopold, then twenty-two years of age, suffered from typhoid fever. So great were the fears entertained for his life that the Queen was prevented from opening Parliament in person.

Already Princess Alice in her letters had referred to her youngest brother as having been three times given back to his family from the brink of the grave.

During the spring the Queen was deprived by death of her Clerk to the Council and literary adviser in her first book, Sir Arthur Helps.

Charles Kingsley, whose work was much admired by the Prince Consort, died also.

On the 18th of August, when the Queen was sitting on the deck of the royal yacht as it crossed from Osborne to Gosport, the yacht _Mistletoe_ ran across its bows and a collision took place, the _Mistletoe_ turning over and sinking. The sister-in-law of the owner of the yacht was drowned. The master, an old man, who was struck by a spar, died after he had been picked up. The rest of the crew were rescued. Her Majesty, who was greatly distressed, aided personally in the vain efforts to restore one of the sufferers to consciousness.

In September the Queen, in paying a week's visit to the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Argyle at Inverary, had the pleasure of seeing Princess Louise in her future home. It was twenty-eight years since her Majesty had been in the house of MacCallummore, and then her son-in-law of to- day had been a little fellow of two years, in black velvet and fair curls.

Towards the end of the year the Prince of Wales left for his lengthened progress through her Majesty's dominions in India, which was accomplished with much eclat and success.

In 1876 the Queen opened Parliament in person.

On the 25th of February her Majesty, accompanied by the Princess of Wales, Princess Beatrice, and Prince Leopold, and received by the Duke of Edinburgh, attended a state concert given in the morning at the Albert Hall. Since 1866 the Queen had been able gradually to hear and enjoy again the music in which she had formerly delighted, but she had taken the gratification in her domestic life. Her royal duties had been only intermitted for the briefest s.p.a.ce. Every act of beneficence and gracious queenliness had been long ago resumed. But no place of public amus.e.m.e.nt had seen the face of the widowed Queen.

Lady Augusta Stanley died, after a lingering illness, on the 1st of March. It was the close--much lamented from the highest to the lowest-- of a n.o.ble and beautiful life. The Queen afterwards erected a memorial cross to Lady Augusta Stanley's memory in the grounds at Frogmore.

On the 7th of March her Majesty, accompanied by Princess Beatrice, opened a new wing of the London Hospital.

Two days afterwards the statue of the Prince Consort in the Albert Memorial was unveiled without any ceremony. The whole memorial thus completed stood, as it stands to-day, one of the most splendid tokens --apart from its artistic merit--of a nation's grat.i.tude and a Queen's love. Opinions may differ on the use of gilding and colours, as they have been rarely employed in this Country, upon the towering facades and pinnacles, and on the choice of the central gilt figure of the Prince, colossal, in robes of state. But there can hardly be a doubt as to the striking effect of the magnificent monument taken altogether, especially when it has the advantage of a blue sky and brilliant sunshine, and of the charm of the four white marble groups which surround the pedestal, seen in glimpses through the lavish green of Kensington Gardens. An engraving of the statue of the Prince is given in Vol. I., p. 172.

In the end of the month the Queen, travelling incognito as Countess of Kent, having crossed to Cherbourg, arrived at Baden-Baden accompanied by Princess Beatrice. Her Majesty visited the Princess Hohenlohe's grave. She continued her journey to Coburg. In pa.s.sing through Paris on her return to England towards the end of April, her Majesty had an interview with the President of the French Republic.

On the 1st of May the Queen was proclaimed Empress of India.

In the season the Empress of Germany and the ex-royal family of Hanover visited England. On the 17th of August the Queen, with the Princes Arthur and Leopold and Princess Beatrice, stayed two nights at Holyrood for the purpose of unveiling the equestrian statue to the late Prince in Charlotte Square. Her Majesty recalled the coincidence that the last public appearances of both her husband and mother were in Edinburgh--the Prince Consort in laying the foundation stone of the new post-office in October, 1861, only six weeks before his death, the d.u.c.h.ess of Kent at the summer volunteer review in 1860. The town was gay and bright and crowded with company. In Charlotte Square the Duke of Buccleuch, chairman of the committee, read the address, to which the Queen read a reply. On her return to the palace she knighted the sculptor, Sir John Steel, and Professor Oakeley, the composer of the chorale which was sung on the occasion. In the evening there was once more a great dinner at Holyrood--Scotts, Kerrs, Bruces, Primroses, Murrays, &c., &c, being gathered round their Queen.

A month afterwards at Ballater, amidst pouring rain, her Majesty presented new colours to the 79th regiment, "Royal Scots," of which her father was colonel when she was born. She spoke a few kind words to the soldiers, and accepted from them the gift of the old colours, which are in her keeping.

On the 15th December the Queen and the Princess Beatrice paid a visit to Lord Beaconsfield at Hughenden, lunched, and remained two hours, during which the royal visitors planted trees on the lawn.

In consequence of fever in the Isle of Wight her Majesty held her Christmas at Windsor for the first time since the death of the Prince Consort.

On New Year's day, 1877, the Queen was proclaimed Empress of India at Delhi. Her Majesty opened Parliament on the 8th of February.

In September, when the war between Russia and Turkey was raging, her Majesty, Princess Beatrice, the d.u.c.h.ess of Roxburgh, &c., spent a week at Loch Maree Hotel, enjoying the fine Ross-shire scenery, making daily peaceful excursions, to which such a telegram as told of the bombardment of Plevna must have been a curious accompaniment.

In February, 1878, the Queen's grandchild, Princess Charlotte of Prussia, was married at Berlin to the hereditary Prince of Saxe- Meiningen, at the same time that her cousin, Princess Elizabeth of Prussia, was married to the hereditary Grand Duke of Oldenburg.