Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood Part 12

All this time while the Queen was absorbed by anxious care, or pa.s.sionate grief for her mother, the health of the Prince-Consort was slowly but surely failing. The keen blade of his active mind was wearing out its sheath. His vital forces must have begun to give out long before actual illness, or he would not so easily have resigned himself to the thought of the long rest,-still young as he was, with so much to enjoy in life, and so much to do. It is said that he had premonitions of early death, and tried to prepare the Queen for his going first-but the realization of a loss so immense could not find lodgment in her mind. Yet though often feeling weak and languid, he did not relax his labors-spurring up his flagging powers. He never lost his interest in public affairs, or in his children's affairs of the heart. He was happy in contemplating the happiness of his daughter Alice, and followed with his heart the journey of his son, Albert Edward, in his visit to the country of the fierce old Vikings, to woo the daughter of a King of another sort-a Princess so fair and fresh that she could

-"with lilies boast, And with the half-blown rose."

That summer his daughter Victoria, with her husband (now Crown Prince) and their children, came again, for a long visit, and there were many other guests, and much was done to cheer the Queen; but her first birthday in orphanage was hopelessly sad, and when that of the Prince came round, his last-though she wrote to her uncle, "This is the dearest of days, and one which fills my heart with love and grat.i.tude," she murmured, because her "beloved mama" was not there to wish him joy. Ah, what an acting, unreasoning thing is the human heart!

Yet the Queen seems to have had a brief return of happiness-to have been upborne on a sudden tide of youthful joyance, during their autumn stay at Balmoral. She wrote: "Being out a good deal here and seeing new and fine scenery does me good." Of their last great Highland excursion, she said: "Have enjoyed nothing so much, or felt so much cheered by anything since my great sorrow."

Because of this intense love of nature-not the holiday, dressed-up nature, of English parks, streams and lakes-but as she appears in all her wildness, ruggedness, raggedness and simple grandeur, in the glorious land of Scott and Burns, the Queen's journal, though a little clouded at the last, by that "great sorrow," is very pleasant, breezy reading. It gives one a breath of heather, and pine and peat-smoke.

After coming from Balmoral, and its bracing outdoor avocations and amus.e.m.e.nts, the Prince-Consort's health seemed to decline again. He suffered from rheumatic pains and sleeplessness, and he began to feel the chill shadows of the valley he was nearing, creeping around him. The last work of his beneficent life was one of peculiar interest to Americans. It was the amicable arrangement, in conjunction with the Queen, of the ugly affair of the Trent. That was a trying time for Americans in England, unless they were of the South, southerly. We of the North, in the beginning of our war for the Union, found to our sad surprise that the sympathies of perhaps the majority of the English were on the side of our opponents. These very people had been ever before, so decidedly and ardently anti-slavery in their sentiments-had counseled such stern and valiant measures for the removal of our "national disgrace," that their new att.i.tude amazed us. We could not understand what sort of a moral whirlwind it was that had caught them up, turned them round, borne them off and set them down on the other side of Mason and Dixon's Line. It was strange, but with the exception of a few such clear-headed, steadfast "friends of humanity" as Cobden and Bright, and such heroes as those glorious operatives of Lancashire, all seemed changed. Even the sentiments of prominent. Exeter Hall, anti-slavery philanthropists had suffered a secession change, "into something new and strange," especially after the battle of Bull Run-that fortunate calamity for us, as it proved. Most people here were captivated by the splendid qualities of the Confederates-their gallantry, their enthusiasm, their bravery. Before these practical revolutionists, those "moral suasion" agitators, the Northern Abolitionists, made no great show. Garrison with his logic, Burritt with his languages, Douglas with his magnificent eloquence, were as naught to Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee, and that soldier of the fine old Cromwellian type-Stonewall Jackson. The "inst.i.tution" was p.r.o.nounced in Parliament "not so bad a thing, after all," and the pathetic "Am-I-not-a-Man-and-a-Brother" of Clarkson, became the Sambo of Christie and the "Quashee" of Carlyle. In the midst of this ill-feeling on one side, and sore-feeling on the other, the rash act of a U. S. Naval Officer, in boarding the British steamer Trent and seizing the Confederate Envoys, Mason and Slidell, gave England cause, had our Government endorsed that act, for open hostility. So ready, so eager did the English Government seem for a war with America, that it did not wait for an apology, before making extensive military preparations. With that brave but cool-headed Captain on our Ship of State, Abraham Lincoln, and that prudent helmsman, William H. Seward, we could not easily have been driven into a war with England at this time; but we might have been humiliated even more than we were, by the peremptory demands of Lord Palmerston-might have been obliged to eat a piece of "humble pie," so big, hot, and heavy, that it would have remained undigested to this day- had it not been for the prudence, the courtesy, good sense, and admirable tact of the Queen and Prince-Consort in modifying and softening the tone of that important State paper, the demand for an official apology, and the liberation of the Confederate Envoys. It is for this that Americans of the North, and I believe of the South, love Queen Victoria, and not alone for her sake, bless the memory of "Albert the Good."

I know of nothing in literature so exquisite in its pathos and childlike simplicity, as the Queen's own account, in the diary kept faithfully at the time, of the last illness of the Prince-Consort. In it we see the very beatings of her heart, in its hope and fear, love and agony-can mark all the stages of the sacred pa.s.sion of her sorrow. It is a wonderful psychological study.

That illness in its serious phases, lasted about two weeks. It was a low, slow fever, which at first was not recognized as fever at all, but only a heavy cold. I have been told that the Prince himself had from the first, an impression that he should not recover, and that he talked of his probable death very calmly with his n.o.ble daughter Alice, saying: "Your mother cannot bear to hear me speak of it yet." The Queen, though very restless and distressed, and at times shaken with wild alarms, could not face the coming calamity; could not admit the possibility that the sands of that precious life-golden sands, were running out. The alternations of hope and fear, must have been terrible. One morning the Queen records that on going to the Prince she found him looking very wretched: "He did not smile, or take much notice of me. His manner all along was so unlike himself, and he had sometimes, such a strange, wild look." In the evening she writes: "I found my Albert most dear and affectionate and quite himself, when I went in with little Beatrice, whom he kissed. He laughed at some of her new French verses which I made her repeat, then he. held her little hand in his for some time, and she stood looking, at him."

For several days he wished to be read to, and the Queen and faithful Alice read his favorite authors; he also asked for music, and Alice played for him some fine German airs. He even wished often to look at a favorite picture, one of Raphael's Madonnas, saying, "It helps me through the day."

At length the fever took on a typhoid form, congestion of the lungs set in, and there was no longer reason for hope,-though they did hope, till almost the last hour. Now, it seems that from the first, even when he did not apparently suffer, except from mortal weariness, there were little fatal indications. One morning he told the Queen that as he lay awake he heard the little birds outside, and "thought of those he used to hear at the Rosenau, in his childhood"; and on the last morning the Queen writes that he "began arranging his hair just as he used to do when well and he was dressing."

It seemed to the poor Queen as though he were "preparing for another and a greater journey" than they had ever taken together. His tenderness towards her through all this sad fortnight, was very touching. It was not calculated to loosen the detaining, clinging clasp of her arms; but it must be very sweet for her to remember. After the weariness of watching, the prostration of fever, he welcomed always the good-morning caress of his "dear little wife." Through the gathering mists of unconsciousness, through the phantom-shades of delirium, his love for her struggled forth, in a tender word, a wistful look, a languid smile, a feeble stroking of the cheek. It was "wondrous pitiful," but it was very beautiful. Even at the last, when he knew no one else, he knew her; and when she bent over him and whispered, "Tis your own little wife," he bowed his head and kissed her.

After she knew that all hope must be given up, the Queen still was able to sit calmly by his bedside, and not trouble with the sound of weeping the peace of that loving, pa.s.sing soul. Occasionally she felt that she must leave the room and weep, or her suppressed grief would kill her. But she counted the moments and stayed her soul with prayer, to go back to her post.

It was on the night of December 14, 1861, that the beloved Prince-Consort pa.s.sed away,-quietly and apparently painlessly, from the station he had enn.o.bled, from the home he had blessed. Unconsciously he drifted out on the unknown, mysterious sea, nor knew that loving feet followed him to the strand, and that after him were stretched yearning arms.

That death-bed scene pa.s.sed in a solemn hush, more mournful than any outcry of pa.s.sionate grief could be. On one side, knelt the Queen, holding her husband's hand, trying to warm it with kisses and tears; on the other, knelt the Princess Alice. At the foot of the bed, the Prince of Wales and the Princess Helena were kneeling together. It is probable that all the younger children were sleeping in quiet unconsciousness of the presence of the dread angel in the Castle. The Dean of Windsor, Prince Ernest Leiningen,-secretaries, physicians and attached attendants were grouped around. All was silent, save that low, labored breathing, growing softer and softer, and more infrequent, and then-it ceased forever.

I have been told by a lady who had had good opportunities of knowing about the sad circ.u.mstances of that death, that the Queen retained perfect possession of herself to the last, and that after the lids had been pressed down over the dear eyes whose light had pa.s.sed on, she rose calmly, and courteously thanked the physicians in attendance, saying that she knew that everything which human skill and devotion could accomplish, had been done for her husband, whom G.o.d had taken. Then she walked out of the death-chamber, erect,-still the Queen, wearing "sorrow's crown of sorrow," and went to her chamber, and shut herself in-her soul alone with G.o.d, her heart alone for evermore.

Ah, we may not doubt that this royal being, in whose veins beats the blood of a long, long race of Kings, was brought low enough then,-to her knees, to her face,

"For grief is proud and makes his owner stoop."

So absorbing and unwavering had been the love of the Queen for her husband, who to her, was "n.o.bler than the n.o.blest"; such a proud homage of the soul had there been-such a dear habit of the heart, in one with whom habit counted for much, that her people were filled with the most intense anxiety on her behalf. They feared that this cruel stroke which lopped off the best part of her life, would kill her, or plunge her into a depth of melancholy, sadder than death. For some time she was not able to sleep. The thought of that chamber, so lately the scene of all the anxious activity of the sickroom, wherein softly moved troubled physicians and nurses, tearful attendants and awe-struck children, but where now there were shadowed lights, and solemn silence, and where lay that beautiful, marble-like shape, so familiar, yet so strange-that something which was not he, yet was inexpressibly dear, kept her awake, face to face with her sorrow,-and when at last, the bulletin from Windsor announced, "The Queen has had some hours' sleep," her people all in mourning as they were, felt like ringing joy-bells.

The friend from whom I have before quoted, Mrs. Crosland, a most loyal lady, wrote on this text a very sweet poem, from which I am tempted to give a few verses:

"Sleep, far the night is round thee spread, Thou daughter of a line of kings; Sleep, widowed Queen, white angels' wings Make canopy above thy head!

"Sleep, while a million prayers rise up To Him who knew all earthly sorrow, That day by day, each soft to-morrow May melt the bitter from thy cup.

"Long life ask for thee, dear Queen, And moonlight peace, since joy is set.

And Time's soft touch on dark regret.

And memories calm of what has been!

"Long life for thee-for our best sake.

To be our stay 'mid hopes and fears.

Through many far-off future years, Till thou by Albert's side shall wake!"

It seems Her Majesty could not bear the thought of her beloved Albert, whose nature was so bright and joyous, and beauty-loving, resting amid the darkness and heavy silence and "cold obstruction" of the royal vault; so, as early as the 18th of December, she drove with the Princess Alice to Frogmore, where they were-received by the Prince of Wales, Prince Louis of Hesse, and several officers of the Royal Household. Then, leaning on the arm of her n.o.ble daughter, the Queen walked about the pleasant gardens, till she fixed upon the spot, where now stands the magnificent mausoleum, which, splendid and beautiful as art can make it, is like a costly casket, for the dust, infinitely more precious to her than all the jewels of her crown. It was sweet for her to feel that thus under the shadow of her mother's dear home, the two most sacred loves and sorrows of her life would be forever a.s.sociated.

There was great and sincere mourning in England among all cla.s.ses, not alone for the Queen's sake, but for their own, for the Prince-Consort had finally endeared himself to this too long jealous and distrustful people. They had named him "alien," at first; they called him "angel," at last. He was not that, but a most rare man, of a nature so sweet and wholesome, of a character so well-balanced and symmetrical, of a life so pure and blameless, that the English cannot reasonably hope to "look upon his like again," not even among his own sons.

Some of his contemporaries, while admitting his grace and elegance, were blind to his strength of character, forgetting that a shining column of the Parthenon may be as strong as one of the dark rough-hewn columns of Paestum. Morally, I believe, the Prince-Consort stands alone in English royal history. What other youth of twenty-one, graceful, beautiful and accomplished, has ever forborne what he forbore?-Ever fought such a good fight against temptations manifold? He was the Sir Galahad of Princes. Being human, he must have been tempted,-if not to a life of sybaritic pleasure, to one of ease, through his delicate organization,-and, through his refined tastes, to one of purely artistic and esthetic culture, which for him, where he was, would have been but splendid selfishness.

Though my estimate of the Prince-Consort is based on his own good words and works, to which I have paid tribute of sincerest praise, it is strengthened and justified by a knowledge of the loving reverence in which his name is held to this day, by the English people of the better cla.s.s, who honor the Queen for her love stronger than death, and love her the better for it; for I hold,

--"the soul must cast All weakness from it, all vain strife, And tread G.o.d's ways through this sad life, To be thus grandly mourned at last."

CHAPTER XXVIII.

The Twilight Life after-Marriage of the Princess Alice-Incidents of the Queen's life at Balmoral-John Brown-A letter from the Queen to the d.u.c.h.ess of Sutherland.

"There is no one near me to call me 'Victoria' now!" is said to have been the desolate cry of the Queen, when, on waking from that first sleep, the cruel morning light, smote upon her with a full consciousness of her bereavement, and a new sense of her royal isolation. She was on a height where the storm beat fiercest and there was the least shelter. Her sacred grief was the business of the world;-she could not long shut herself up with it, and fold her hands in "blameless idleness"; but as the widowed mother and housekeeper in humble life struggles up from the great stroke, and staggers on, resolutely driving back the tears which "hinder needle and thread," and choking down her sobs, to go wearily about her household tasks,-so Victoria, after a little time, rose trembling to her feet, and went through with such imperative State duties as could be delegated to no one. To a near friend, who expressed joy to find her more calm than at the time of her mother's death, she said simply, "I have had G.o.d's teaching, and learned to bear all He lays upon me."

There is a record by Lord Beaconsfield of her faithful discharge of such duties a few years later; but what was true of her then, was almost as true an account of the routine of her official life, during a large part of the first years of her widowhood. In a public speech, Beaconsfield said: "There is not a dispatch received from abroad, or sent from this country abroad, which is not submitted to the Queen. The whole of the internal administration of this country greatly depends upon the sign- manual of our Sovereign, and it may be said that her signature has never been placed to any public doc.u.ment of which she did not know the purpose and of which she did not approve. Those cabinet councils of which you all hear, and which are necessarily the scene of anxious and important deliberation, are reported, on their termination, by the Minister to the Sovereign, and they often call from her critical remarks requiring considerable attention; and I will venture to say that no person likely to administer the affairs of this country would be likely to treat the suggestions of Her Majesty with indifference, for at this moment there is probably no person living who has such complete control over the political condition of England as the Sovereign herself."

I have come upon few incidents of that first sad year. The Princess Alice was married very quietly at Osborne, and went away to her German home, where she lived for seventeen happy years, a n.o.ble and beneficent life. In character she was very like her father-to whose soul hers was so knit, that, when in her last illness, the anniversary of his death came round, she seemed to hear his call, and went to him at once in child- like obedience. She took that fatal illness-the diphtheria-from a dear child in a kiss, "the kiss of death," as Lord Beaconsfield called it.

The Rev. Norman McLeod has left a record of the widowed Queen's first visit to Balmoral. It seems he thought she was too unreconciled to her loss, and felt it his duty to preach what he believed to be "truth in G.o.d's sight, and that which I believe she needed," he said, "though I felt it would be very trying for her to receive it." She did receive it very sweetly, and wrote him "a kind, tender letter of thanks for it," She afterwards summoned him to the castle, and to her own room. He writes: "She was alone. She met me with an unutterably sad expression, which filled my eyes with tears, and at once began to speak about the Prince. ... She spoke of his excellencies-his love, his cheerfulness; how he was everything to her. She said she never shut her eyes to trials, but liked to look them in the face; how she would never shrink from duty, but that all was at present done mechanically; that her highest ideas of purity and love were obtained from him, and that G.o.d could not be displeased with her love."

No, we cannot love enough to displease the G.o.d of love, who is not, whatever men may preach, a "jealous G.o.d," in that small way; but perhaps we may grieve too much to please the Master of Life, of which, in His eyes, what we call death, is the immortal blossom and crowning.

It seems to me that in her loving tribute to the Prince, the Queen was a little unjust to her mother, to whose precepts and example she owed very high "ideas of purity" and that strong sense of duty, and that fort.i.tude, essentially a womanly, not a manly, virtue, which preserved her through the temptations of a glad and splendid youth-through the trials and sorrows of maturer years, and which, when that time of bitterest trial came, braced up her shattered forces, and held together her broken heart.

Balmoral-the dear mountain-home, so entirely her husband's creation-now became more than ever dear to the Queen, and has never lost its charm for her. Her life there has been, from the first, almost pastoral in its simplicity.

The Highlanders about them, a primitive, but very proud people, regarded their Sovereign and her husband with no servile awe. With them, even respect begins, like charity, at home; what there is left, they give loyally to their superiors in rank. To the Queen and her family they have given more,-love and free-hearted devotion. Her Majesty has always gone about among the poorer tenants of the estate, like any laird's wife, in an unpretending, neighborly way; and they, thanks to their good Scotch sense and Highland pride, never take advantage of the uncondescending condescension, to offend her by too great familiarity, or shock her by servility. Taking up her "Journal," I have chanced upon an account given by Her Majesty of a round of visits to the cottages of certain "poor old women," and here is an entry or two:

"Before we went into any, we met a woman who was very poor, and eighty- eight years old. I gave her a warm petticoat, and the tears rolled down her old cheeks, and she shook my hands and prayed G.o.d to bless me: it was very touching.

"I went into a small cabin of old Kitty Kear's, who is eighty-six years old, quite-erect, and who welcomed us with a great air of dignity. She sat down and spun. I gave her, also, a warm petticoat. She said, 'May the Lord ever attend ye and yours, here and hereafter; and may the Lord be a guide to ye, and keep ye fra all harm.'"

Now, some readers, whose ideas of royal charities are derived from the kings and queens of melodrama, who fling about golden largess, or "chuck" plethoric purses at their poor subjects, may be amused at these entries in a great Queen's journal, but "let them laugh who win"-the flannel petticoats.

During a later visit to the widowed Queen at Balmoral, Dr. McLeod writes: "After dinner, the Queen invited me to her room, where I found the Princess Helena and the Marchioness of Ely. The Queen sat down to spin on a fine Scotch wheel, while I read Burns to her-'Tam O'Shanter,' and 'A Man's a Man for a' That'-her favorites."

In the Queen's book I find frequent pleasant mention of the young Highlander, John Brown-a favorite personal attendant, first of Prince Albert, and afterwards of Her Majesty.

She had the misfortune to lose this "good and faithful servant," in the early part of this year. In a foot-note in her "Journal," she paid a grateful tribute to his "attention, care and faithfulness"-to his rare devotion to her, especially during a period of physical weakness and nervous prostration, when such service as his was invaluable. She also says of him, "He has all the independence and elevation of feeling peculiar to the Highland race, and is singularly straightforward, simple- minded, kind-hearted and disinterested."

If there is something touching in the nearly life-long service and devotion of the Highlander, almost always seen so close behind his Liege Lady, when she appeared in public, that he was named "the Queen's shadow"-there is something admirable in her grateful appreciation of that service, in her frank acknowledgment of all she has owed of comfort, in a constant sense of security, to this man's steadfast faithfulness; and now that the "shadow" has gone before, I hold it is only fitting and loyal in her to acknowledge for him, as she does, "friendship," and even "affection"-not only to lay flowers on his grave, but to pay more enduring tribute to his honest memory. He was a Highland gillie, of simple Highland ways and words but "A man's a man for a' that." If Byron could nurse his dying dog, Boatswain, and erect a monument to his memory, and not lose, but gain, our respect by so doing, we surely might let pa.s.s, unquestioned, the Queen's grief for a faithful human creature- for thirty-four years devoted to her-ever at her call-looking up to her, yet watching over her; a friend, whose humble good sense and canny bits of counsel must often, in the simpler, yet not simple, affairs of her complex life, be sorely missed.

That is how it strikes an American, of democratic tendencies.

About a year after the death of Prince Albert, the d.u.c.h.ess of Sutherland presented to the Queen a richly-bound Bible, the offering of loyal "English widows."

In her letter of acknowledgment, Her Majesty gives very strong and clear expression to her faith, not only in the happy continued existence of her beloved husband, but in his "unseen presence" with her-a faith which she has often expressed. The letter runs thus:

"MY DEAREST d.u.c.h.eSS:-I am deeply touched by the gift of a Bible 'from many widows,' and by the very kind and affectionate address which accompanied it. ... Pray express to all these kind sister-widows the deep and heartfelt grat.i.tude of their widowed Queen, who can never feel grateful enough for the universal sympathy she has received, and continues to receive, from her loyal and devoted subjects. But what she values far more is their appreciation of her adored and perfect husband. To her, the only sort of consolation she experiences is in the constant sense of his unseen presence and the blessed thought of the Eternal Union hereafter, which will make the bitter anguish of the present appear as naught. That our Heavenly Father may impart to 'many widows' those sources of consolation and support, is their broken-hearted Queen's earnest prayer ... Believe me ever yours most affectionately, VICTORIA."

Dean Stanley is reported as telling of a touching little circ.u.mstance which he received from the Princess Hohenlohe (Feodore), from which it seems that Her Majesty was for a long time in the habit of going every morning to look at the cows on Prince Albert's model farm, because "he had been used to do so," feeling, perhaps, that the gentle creatures might miss him-that somewhere in their big dull brains, they might wonder where their friend could be, and why he did not come. The Princess also said that her poor sister found her only comfort in the belief that her husband's spirit was close beside her-for he had promised her that it should be so.