The Boy "Jones" and his singular pranks—A change in the Ministry—SirRobert Peel becomes Premier—Prince Albert made Chairman of the Fine ArtsCommission—Birth of the Prince of Wales—The Queen commemorates theevent by a beautiful act.
The next sensation in connection with the Court was the discovery of the famous "boy Jones" in Buckingham Palace. This singular young personage was by no means a stranger in the Palace. He had made himself very familiar with, and at home in that august mansion, about two years before. He was then arrested, and had lived an exceedingly retired life ever since. On that first occasion he was discovered by one of the porters, very early one morning, leisurely surveying one of the apartments. He was caught and searched; nothing of any consequence was found on him, but in a hall was a bundle, evidently made up by him, containing such incongruous articles as old letters, a sword, and a pot of bear's grease. He had he appearance of a sweep, being very sooty, but disclaimed the chimney-cleaning profession. He had occupied, for a while, the vacant room of one of the Equerries, leaving in the bed the impress of his sooty figure. He declared that he had not entered the Palace for the purpose of theft, but only to gratify his curiosity, as to how royal people and "great swells" like royal footmen, lived. The young rascal's examination before the Magistrate caused much amusement. In answer to questions, he admitted, or boasted that he had been in the Palace previously, and for days at a time—in fact, had "put up" there—adding, "And a very comfortable place I found it. I used to hide behind the furniture and up the chimneys, in the day-time; when night came, I walked about, went into the kitchen, and got my food, I have seen the Queen and her ministers in Council, and heard all they had to say."
Magistrate: "Do you mean to say you have worn but one shirt all the time?"
Prisoner: "Yes; when it was dirty, I washed it out in the kitchen. The apartment I like best is the drawing-room."
Magistrate: "You are a sweep, are you?"
Prisoner: "Oh, no; it's only my face and hands that are dirty; that's from sleeping in the chimneys…. I know my way all over the Palace, and have been all over it, the Queen's apartments and all. The Queen is very fond of politics."
He was such an amusing vagabond, with his jolly ways and boundless impudence, and so young, that no very serious punishment was then meted out to him, nor even on his second "intrusion," as it was mildly denominated, when he was found crouched in a recess, dragged forth, and taken to the police-station. This time he said he had hidden under a sofa in one of the Queen's private apartments, and had listened to a long conversation between her and Prince Albert. He was sent to the House of Correction for a few months, in the hope of curing him of his "Palace- breaking mania"; but immediately on his liberation, he was found prowling about the Palace, drawing nearer and nearer, as though it had been built of loadstone. But finally he was induced to go to Australia, where, it is said, he grew up to be a well-to-do colonist. Perhaps he met the house- painter Oxford there, and they used to talk over their exploits and explorations together, after the manner of heroes and adventurers, from the time of Ulysses and Æneas. We can imagine themanJones being a particularly entertaining boon companion, with his reminiscences of high life, not only below, but above stairs, in Buckingham Palace. That he ever made an entrance into those august precincts, and was so long undiscovered, certainly speaks not well for the police and domestic arrangements of the household; and it is little wonder that Baron Stockmar was finally sent for to suggest some plan for the better regulation of matters in both the great royal residences. And he did work wonders,—though mostly by inspiring others, the proper officers, to work. This extraordinary man seemed to have a genius for order, discipline, economy, and dispatch. He found the palaces grand "circumlocution offices,"—with, in all the departments, an entangling network of red-tape, which needed to be swept away like cobwebs. He himself entered the Royal Nursery finally with the besom of reform. It is said in his "Memoirs"—"The organization and superintendence of the children's department occupied a considerable portion of Stockmar's time"; and he wrote, "The Nursery gives me more trouble than the government of a King would do." Very likely the English nurses and maids questioned among themselves the right of an old German doctor to meddle with their affairs, and dictate what an English Princess Royal should eat, drink, and wear; but they lived to see the Baron's care and skill make of a delicate child—"a pretty, pale, erect little creature," as she is described, a ruddy and robust little girl, of whom the Baron wrote: "She is as round as a little barrel"; of whom the mother wrote: "Pussy's cheeks are on the point of bursting, they have grown so red and plump."
After the domestic reforms in the Palace, no such adventure could have happened to a guest as that recorded by M. Guizot, who having been unable to summon a servant to conduct him to his room at night, wandered about the halls like poor Mr. Pickwick at the inn, and actually blundered into Her Majesty's own dressing-room. The boy Jones, too, had had his day.
At the very time of the "intrusions" into Buckingham Palace, there was in London another young man, with a "mania for Palace-breaking," of a somewhat different sort. He, too, was "without visible means of support," but nobody called him a vagabond, or a burglar, but only an adventurer, or a "pretender." He had his eye particularly on Royal Windsor, and once a cruel hoax was played off upon him, in the shape of a forged invitation to one of the Queen's grand entertainments at the Castle. He got himself up in Court costume, with the aid of a friend, and went, to be told by the royal porter that his name was not down on the list, and afterwards by a higher officer of the household that really there must be some mistake, for Her Majesty had not the honor of knowing him, so could not receive him. We shall see how it was when he came again, nine or ten years later.
But after all, the French royal palaces were more to this young man's taste, for he was French. He longed to break into the Tuileries—not to hide behind, or under any furniture, but to sit on the grandest piece of furniture there. He had a strange longing for St. Cloud, and Fontainebleau, and even stately Versailles. Said of him one English statesman to another, "Did you ever know such a fool as that fellow is? Why, he really believes he will yet be Emperor of France."
That "fellow" was Louis Napoleon Bonaparte.
In August of this year, the Whig Ministry finding themselves a minority in the new Parliament, resigned, and a Conservative one was formed, with Sir Robert Peel as Premier. It came hard for the Queen to part with her favorite Minister and faithful friend, Lord Melbourne, but she soon became reconciled to his Tory successor, and things went on very harmoniously. The benign influence and prudent counsels of Prince Albert, with some lessons of experience, and much study of her constitutional restrictions, as well as obligations, had greatly modified Her Majesty's strong partisan prejudices, and any proclivities she may have had toward personal and irresponsible government.
One great thing in favor of the new Minister, was that he thoroughly appreciated Prince Albert. One of his early acts was to propose a Fine Arts Commission—having for its chief, immediate object, the superintendence of the artistic work on the new Houses of Parliament. This was formed—composed of some of the most eminent artists andconnaisseursin the kingdom, and Prince Albert was the chairman. He used to speak of this as his "initiation into public life." The Queen rejoiced in it, as in every stage of her husband's advance—which it is only just to say was the advance of the liberal arts in England, as well as of social and political reforms. I believe it is not generally known that to the humane influence of the Prince-Consort with the Duke of Wellington, was owing the new military regulation which finally put an end to duelling in the English army. Lord, keep his memory green!
The second year of the Queen's marriage wore on to November, and again the Archbishops and Bishops, the statesmen and "Medicine men," the good mother-in-law, and the nurses were summoned by the anxious Prince to Buckingham Palace. This time it was a boy, and the holy men and wise men felt that they had not come out so early in the morning and waited four hours in an ante-room for nothing. Prince Albert was overjoyed. Everybody at the Palace was wild with delight, so wild that there was great confusion. Messengers were dispatched right and left to royal relatives. It is said that no less than three arrived within as many minutes, at Marlborough House, to acquaint the Queen Dowager of the happy event. As they came in breathless, one after another, Her Majesty might have supposed that Victoria and Albert had been blessed with triplets. The biggest guns boomed the glad tidings over London,—the Privy Council assembled to consider a form of prayer and thanksgiving, to relieve the overcharged hearts of the people; the bells in all the churches rang joyous peals. So was little Albert Edward ushered into the kingdom he is to rule in God's own time.
No such ado was made over the seven brothers and sisters who came after; but they were made welcome and comfortable, as, alas! few children can be made, even by loving hearts and willing hands. The Queen may have thought of this, and of what a sorry chance some poor little human creatures have, from the beginning, for she did a beautiful thing on this occasion. She notified the Home Secretary that all those convicts who had behaved well, should have their punishment commuted, and that those deserving clemency, on the horrible prison-hulks, should have their liberty at once. She had a right to be happy, and that she was happy, a beautiful picture in her journal shows:
"Albert brought in dearest little Pussy, in such a smart, white morino dress, trimmed with blue, which mama had given her, and a pretty cap, and placed her on my bed, seating himself next to her, and she was very dear and good, and as my precious invaluable Albert sat there, and our little love between us, I felt quite moved with happiness and gratitude to God.".
The next month she wrote from Windsor Castle to her Uncle Leopold: "I wonder very much whom our little boy will be like. You will understand how fervent are my prayers, and I am sure everybody's must be, to see him resemble his father, in every respect, both in mind and body." Later still she writes: "We all have our trials and vexations—but ifone's home is happy, then the rest is comparatively nothing."
They had an unusually merry Christmas-time at Windsor, and they danced into the new year, in the old English style—only varying it by a very poetic and impressive German custom. As the clock struck twelve, a flourish of trumpets was blown.
The Prince of Wales was christened in the Royal Chapel, at Windsor, with the greatest state and splendor, King Frederick William of Prussia, who had come over for the purpose, standing as chief sponsor. Then followed all sorts of grand festivities and parades—both at Windsor and in London. The Queen did honor to her "brother of Prussia" in every possible way—in banquets and balls, in proroguing Parliament, in holding a Chapter of the Garter, and investing him with the splendid insignia of the Order, and in having a grand inspection for him, of "Prince Albert's Own Hussars," he being a little in the military line himself.
Among the suite of the Prussian King was Baron Alexander Von Humboldt. The greatsavantwas treated by the Queen and the Prince with distinguished consideration, then and ever after. The Prince, on hearing of his death in 1859, wrote to the Crown Princess: "What a loss is the excellent Humboldt! You and Berlin will miss him greatly. People of this kind do not grow on every bush, and they are the glory and the grace of a country and a century." When the Baron's private correspondence was published, and found to contain certain slurs and sarcasms regarding him, and, as he affirmed, misrepresentations—probably based on misunderstandings of his political opinions—the Prince showed no resentment, though he must have been wounded. I know nothing more sensible and charitable in all his admirable private writings, than his few words on this unpleasant incident. He says: "The matter is really of no consequence, for what does not one write or say to his intimate friends, under the impulse of the moment. But the publication is a great indiscretion. How many deadly enemies may be made if publicity be given to what one man has said of another, or perhaps hasnotsaid!"
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 perfectmitrailleusefrom 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,hersatire.
During those Windsor festivities, the little Prince of Wales was shown to the people at an upper window and pronounced 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."
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 Sussex 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 massacres 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 assassin—and at last, they saw him just as he fired. The ball passed 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 nobles 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 cumbrous 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,viathe 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 noble Duchess 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 Amélie 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 shores 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 space to reproduce it. One little passage, in reference to the widowed Duchesse d'Orleans, strikes my eye at this moment: "At ten, dear Hélène 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-behavedbête 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 Sussex 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 class 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 passages 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 amusements 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 littlelusus naturæ, 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 fashionable 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 Duchess 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 assume 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-glass. 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-ships, 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 nobility 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.
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 space 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 God 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 asvoyageuse, 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 gratitude 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. God 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 Brühl. 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 gayréveilsand inspiriting marches. There was a greatfêteof 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 passion, 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; ships, which poured into him broadsides of big bread-balls, 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 passage 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 godmother was Hélène, the widowed Duchess 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 God 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:
"God bless our going out, nor lessOur coming in, and make them sure;God bless our daily bread, and blessWhate'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 assassinate 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 space 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 shine as Poet Laureate. Mr. Tennyson better earns his butt 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 embarrassed 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."
Happy woman! When ordinary husbands make long, grave speeches to their wives, they do not often look "dear and beautiful!"
This year a new prima-donna took London by storm and gave the Queen and Prince "exquisite enjoyment." Her Majesty wrote: "Her acting alone is worth going to see, and thepianoway she has of singing, Lablache says, is unlike anything he ever heard. He is quite enchanted. There is a purity in her singing and acting which is quite indescribable."
That singer was Jenny Lind.
About this time lovers of impassioned oratory felt the joy which the astronomer knows "when a new comet swims into his ken" in the appearance of a brilliant political orator, of masterly talent and more masterly will. This still young man of Hebraic origin, rather dashing and flashing in manner and dress, had not been thought to have any very serious purpose in life, and does not seem to have much impressed the Queen or Prince Albert at first; but the time came when he, as a Minister and friend, occupied a place in Her Majesty's respect and regard scarcely second to the one once occupied by Lord Melbourne. This orator was Benjamin Disraeli.
A Troublous Time—Louis Philippe an Exile—The Purchase of Balmoral—ALetter of Prince Albert's—Another attempt on the Queen's Life—TheQueen's instructions to the Governess of her Daughters—A visit toIreland—Death of Dowager Queen Adelaide.
At last came 1848—a year packed with political convulsions and overthrows. The spirit of revolution was rampant, bowling away at all the thrones of Europe. England heard the storm thundering nearly all round the horizon, for in the sister isle the intermittent rebellion broke out, chiefly among the "Young Ireland" party, led by Mitchel, Meagher and O'Brien. This plucky little uprising was soon put down. The leaders were brave, eloquent, ardent young men, but their followers were not disposed to fight long and well—perhaps their stomachs were too empty. The Chartists stirred again, and renewed their not unreasonable or treasonable demands; but all in vain. There is really something awful about the strength and solidity and impassivity of England. When the French monarchy went down in the earthquake shock of that wild winter, and a republic came up in its place, it surely would have been no wonder if a vast tidal-wave of revolution caused by so much subsidence and upheaving had broken disastrously on the English shores. But it did not. The old sea-wall of loyalty and constitutional liberty was too strong. There were only floated up a few waifs, and among them a "forlorn and shipwrecked brother," calling himself "John Smith," and a poor, gray- haired, heart-broken woman, "Mrs. Smith," for the nonce. When these came to land they were recognized as Louis Philippe and Marie Amélie of France. Afterwards most of their family, who had been scattered by the tempest, came also, and joined them in a long exile. The English asylum of the King and Queen was Claremont, that sanctuary of love and sorrow, which the Queen, though loving it well, had at once given over to her unfortunate old friends, whom she received with the most sympathetic kindness, trying to forget all causes of ill-feeling given her a year or two before by the scheming King and his ambitious sons.
In the midst of the excitement and anxiety of that time, a gentle, loving, world-wearied soul passed out of our little mortal day at Gotha, and a fresh, bright young soul came into it in London. The dear old grandmother of the Prince died, in her palace of Friedrichsthal, and his daughter, Louise Caroline Alberta, now Marchioness of Lorne, was born in Buckingham Palace.
Among those ruined by the convulsions in Germany were the Queen's brother, Prince Leiningen, and her brother-in-law, Prince Hohenlohe. So the thunderbolt had struck near. At one time it threatened to strike still nearer, for that spring the Chartists made their great demonstration, or rather announced one. It was expected that they would assemble at a given point and march, several hundred thousand strong, on Parliament, bearing a monster petition. What such a mighty body of men might do, what excesses they might commit in the capital, nobody could tell. The Queen was packed off to Osborne with baby Louise, to be out of harm's way, and 170,000 men enrolled themselves as special constables. Among these was Louis Napoleon, longing for a fight of some sort in alliance with England. He did net get it till some years after. There was no collision, in fact no large compact procession; the Chartists, mostly very good citizens, quietly dispersed and went home after presenting their petition. The great scare was over, but the special constables were as proud as Wellington's army after Waterloo.
When the Chartist leaders had been tried for sedition and sentenced to terms of imprisonment, and the Irish leaders had been transported, things looked so flat in England that the young French Prince turned again to France to try his fortune. It was his third trial. The first two efforts under Louis Philippe to stir up a revolt and topple the citizen king from the throne had ended in imprisonment and ridicule; but now he would not seem to play a Napoleonic game. He would fall in with republican ideas and run for the Presidency, which he did, and won. But as the countryman at the circus, after creating much merriment by his awkward riding in his rural costume, sometimes throws it off and appears as a spangled hero and the very prince of equestrians; so this "nephew of his uncle," suddenly emerging from the disguise of a republican President, blazed forth a full-panoplied warrior-Emperor. But this was not yet.
In September of this year the Queen and Prince first visited a new property they had purchased in the heart of the Highlands. The Prince wrote of it: "We have withdrawn for a short time into a complete mountain solitude, where one rarely sees a human face, where the snow already covers the mountain-tops and the wild deer come creeping stealthily round the house. I, naughty man, have also been creeping stealthily after the harmless stags, and today I shot two red deer." … "The castle is of granite, with numerous small turrets, and is situated on a rising-ground, surrounded by birchwood, and close to the river Dee. The air is glorious and dear, but icy cold."
What a relief it must have been to them to feel themselves out of the reach of runaway royalties, and "surprise parties" of Emperors and Grand Dukes.
In March, 1849, the Prince laid the foundation-stone for the Great Grimsby Docks, and made a noble speech on the occasion. From that I will not quote, but I am tempted to give entire a charming note which he wrote from Brocklesby, Lord Yarborough's place, to the Queen.
It runs thus:
"Your faithful husband, agreeably to your wishes, reports: 1. That he is still alive. 2. That he has discovered the North Pole from Lincoln Cathedral, but without finding either Captain Ross or Sir John Franklin. 3. That he arrived at Brocklesby and received the address. 4. That he subsequently rode out and got home quite covered with snow and with icicles on his nose. 5. That the messenger is waiting to carry off this letter, which you will have in Windsor by the morning. 6. Last, but not least, that he loves his wife and remains her devoted husband."
We may believe the good, fun-loving wife was delighted with this little letter, and read it to a few of her choicest friends.
A few months later, while the Queen was driving with her children in an open carriage over that assassin-haunted Constitution Hill, she was fired at by a mad Irishman—William Hamilton. She did not lose for a moment her wonderful self-possession, but ordered the carriage to move on, and quieted with a few calm words the terror of the children.
We have seen that at the time of Oxford's attempt she "laughed at the thing"; but now there had been so many shootings that "the thing" was getting tiresome and monotonous, and she did not interfere with the carrying out of the sentence of seven years' transportation. This was not the last. In 1872 a Fenian tried his hand against his widowed sovereign, and we all know of the shocking attempt of two years ago at Windsor. In truth, Her Majesty has been the greatest royal target in Europe.Messieurs les assassinsare not very gallant.
All this time the Prince-Consort was up to his elbows in work of many kinds. That which he loved best, planning and planting the grounds of Osborne and Balmoral and superintending building, he cheerfully sacrificed for works of public utility. He inaugurated and urged forward many benevolent and scientific enterprises, and schools of art and music. This extraordinary man seemed to have a prophetic sense of the value and ultimate success of inchoate public improvements, and when he once adopted a scheme allowed nothing to discourage him. He engineered the Holborn Viaduct enterprise, and I notice that at a late meeting of the brave Channel Tunnel Company, Sir E. W. Watkin claimed that "the cause had once the advocacy of the great Prince-Consort, the most sagacious man of the century."
With all these things he found time to carefully overlook the education of his children. The Prince of Wales was now thought old enough to be placed under a tutor, and one was selected—a Mr. Birch (let us hope the name was not significant), "a young, good-looking, amiable man," who had himself taken "the highest honors at Cambridge";—doubtless a great point those highest Cambridge honors, for the instructor of an eight-years-old boy. For all the ability and learning of his tutor, it is said that the Prince of Wales never took to the classics with desperate avidity. He was never inclined to waste his strength or dim his pleasant blue eyes over the midnight oil.
Prince Albert never gave the training of his boys up wholly to the most accomplished instructors. His was still, while he lived, the guiding, guarding spirit. The Queen was equally faithful in the discharge of her duties to her children—especially to her daughters. In her memoranda I find many admirable passages which reveal her peculiarly simple, domestic, affectionate system of home government. The religious training of her little ones she kept as much as possible in her own hands, still the cares of State and the duties of royal hospitality would interfere, and, writing of the Princess Royal, in 1844, she says: "It is a hard case for me that my occupations prevent me from being with her when she says her prayers."
Some instructions which she gave to this child's governess should be printed in letters of gold:
"I am quite clear that she should be taught to have great reverence for God and for religion, but that she should have the feeling of devotion and love which our heavenly Father encourages His earthly children to have for Him, and not one of fear and trembling; and that thoughts of death and an after life should not be represented in an alarming and forbidding view; and that she should be made to know as yet no difference of creeds, and not think that she can only pray on her knees, or that those who do not kneel are less fervent or devout in their prayers."
In August of this year the Queen and Prince sailed in their favorite yacht, theVictoria and Albert, for Ireland, taking with them their three eldest children, the better to show the Irish people that their sovereign had not lost confidence in them for their recent bit of a rebellion, which she believed was one-half Popery and the other half potato-rot. The Irish people justified that faith. At the Cove of Cork, where the Royal party first landed, and which has been Queenstown ever since, their reception was most enthusiastic, as it was also in Dublin, so lately disaffected. The common people were especially delighted with the children, and one "stout old woman" shouted out, "Oh, Queen, dear, make one o' thim darlints Patrick, and all Ireland will die for ye!" They afterwards got their "Patrick" in the little Duke of Connaught, but I fear were none the more disposed to die for the English Queen. Perhaps he came a little too late.
The Queen on this trip expressed the intention of creating the Prince of Wales Earl of Dublin, by way of compliment and conciliation, and perhaps she did, but still Fenianism grew and flourished In Ireland.
The passage from Belfast to Loch Ryan was very rough—a regular rebellion against, "the Queen of the Seas," as the Emperor of France afterwards called Victoria. She records that, "Poor little Affie was knocked down and sent rolling over the deck, and was completely drenched." The poor little fellow, Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, the bold mariner of the family, probably cried out then that he would "never, never be a sailor."
In a letter from Balmoral, written on his thirtieth birthday, the Prince- Consort says: "Victoria is happy and cheerful—the children are well and grow apace; the Highlands are glorious."
I do not know that the fact has anything to do with Her Majesty's peculiar love for Scotland, but she came very near being born in that part of her dominions—the Duke of Kent having proposed a little while before her birth to take a place in Lanarkshire, belonging to a friend. Had he done so his little daughter would have been a Highland lassie. I don't think the Queen would have objected. She said to Sir Archibald Alison, "I am more proud of my Scotch descent than of any other. When I first came into Scotland I felt as if I were coming home."
With the occupation of Balmoral this home feeling increased: The Queen was ever impatient to seek that mountain retreat and regretful to leave it. She loved above all the outdoor life there—the rough mountaineering, the deer hunts, the climbing, the following up and fording streams, the picnics on breezy hill-sides; she loved to get out from under the dark purple shadow of royalty and nestle down among the brighter purple of the heather; she loved to go off on wild incognito expeditions and be addressed by the simple peasants without her awesome titles; even loved to be at times like the peasants in simplicity and naturalness, to feel with her "guid mon," like a younger Mistress Anderson with her "jo John." She seemed to enjoy all weathers at Balmoral. I am told that she used to delight in walking in the rain and wind and going out protected only by a thick water-proof, the hood drawn over her head; and that she liked nothing better than driving in a heavy snow-storm. After the return from Scotland, the Queen was to have opened the new Coal Exchange in London, but was prevented by an odd and much-belated ailment, an attack of chicken-pox. Prince Albert went in her place and took the Princess Royal and the Prince of Wales, who, Lady Lyttelton writes: "behaved very civilly and nicely." There was an immense crowd, all shouting and cheering, and smiling kindly on the children. Some official of immense size, with a big cloak and wig, and a big voice, is described as making a pompous speech to little Albert Edward, looking down on him and addressing him as "Your Royal Highness, the pledge, and promise of a long race of Kings." Lady Lyttelton adds: "Poor Princey did not seem to guess at all what he meant."
Soon after this grand affair, a verygrand personagecame not unwillingly to the end of all earthly affairs. Adelaide, Dowager Queen of England, died after a long and painful illness. She had lived a good life; she was a sweet, charitable, patient, lovable woman. The Queen and Prince-Consort were deeply grieved. The Queen wrote: "She was truly motherly in her kindness to us and our children. … Poor mama is very much cut up by this sad event. To her the Queen is a great and serious loss."
Queen Adelaide left directions that her funeral should be as private as possible, and that her coffin should be carried by sailors—a tribute to the memory of the Sailor-King.
From an English gentleman, who has exceptional opportunities of knowing much of the private history of Royalty, I have received an anecdote of this good woman and wife, when Duchess of Clarence—something which our friend thinks does her more honor than afterwards did her title of Queen. When she was married she knew, for everybody knew, of the left-hand marriage of the Duke with the beautiful actress, Mrs. Jordan, from whom he was then separated. The Duke took his bride to Bushey Park, his residence, for the honeymoon, and himself politely conducted her to her chamber. She looked about the elegant room well pleased, but was soon struck by the picture of a very lovely woman, over the mantel. "Who is that?" she asked. The poor Duke was aghast, but he had at least the kingly quality of truth-telling, and stammered out: "That, my dear Adelaide, is a portrait of Mrs. Jordan. I humbly beg your pardon for its being here. I gave orders to have it removed, but those stupid servants have neglected to do it. I will have it done at once—only forgive me."
The Duchess took her husband's hand and said: "No, my dear William, you must not do it! I know what Mrs. Jordan has been to you in the past—that you have loved her—that she is the mother of your children, and I wish her portrait to remain where it is." And it did remain. This was very noble and generous, certainly; but I cannot help thinking that the Duchess was not very much in love.
The Great Exhibition—Birth of the Duke of Connaught—Death of Sir Robert Peel and Louis Philippe—Prince Albert's speech before the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.
Early in this year of 1850, Prince Albert, though not in his usual health, began in deadly earnest on his colossal labors in behalf of the great "World's Exhibition." England owed that magnificent manifestation of her resources and her enterprise far more to him than to any other man. He met with much opposition from that conservative class who, from the start, denounce all new ideas and innovations, shrinking like owls from the advancing day; and that timid class who, while admitting the grandeur of the idea, feared it was premature. "The time has not come," they said; "wait a century or two." Some opposed it on the ground that it would bring to London a host of foreigners, with foreign ideas and perilous to English morals and religion.
In the garden of a certain grand English country-place there is a certain summer-house with a closed door, which, if a curious visitor opens, lets off some water-works, which give him a spray-douche. So the Prince received, at door after door, a dash of cold water for his "foreign enterprise." But he persevered, letting nothing dishearten him—toiling terribly, and inspiring others to toil, till at last the site he desired for the building was granted him, and the first Crystal Palace—the first palace for the people in England—went slowly up, amid the sun-dropped shades of Hyde Park. Temporary as was that marvelous structure, destined so soon to pass away, like "the baseless fabric of a vision," I can but think it the grandest of the monuments to the memory of the Prince- Consort, though little did he so regard it. To his poetic yet practical mind it was the universal temple of industry and art, the valhalla of the heroes of commerce, the fane of the gods of science—the caravansery of the world. That Exhibition brought together the ends of the earth,—long- estranged human brethren sat down together in pleasant communion. It was a modern Babel, finished and furnished, and where there was almost a fusion, instead of, a confusion, of tongues. The "barbarous Turk" was there, the warlike Russ, the mercenary Swiss, the passionate Italian, the voluptuous Spaniard, the gallant Frenchman,—and yet foreboding English citizens did not find themselves compelled to go armed, or to lock up their plate, or their wives and daughters. In fact, this beautiful realized dream, this accomplished fact, quickened the pulses of commerce, the genius of invention, the soul and the arm of industry, the popular zeal for knowledge, as nothing had ever done before.
To go back a little to family events:—On May 1st, 1850, Prince Albert, in writing to his step-mother at Coburg, told a bit of news very charmingly: "This morning, after rather a restless night (being Walpurgis night, that was very appropriate), and while the witches were careering on the Blocksberg, under Ernst Augustus' mild sceptre, a little boy glided into the light of day and has been received by the sisters withjubilates. 'Now we are just as many as the days of the week!' was the cry, and a bit of a struggle arose as to who was to be Sunday. of well-bred courtesy the honor was conceded to the new-comer. Victoria is well, and so is the child."
This Prince was called Arthur William Patrick Albert. The first name was in honor of the Duke of Wellington, on whose eighty-first birthday the boy was born; William was for the Prince of Prussia, now Emperor of Germany; Patrick was for Ireland in general, and the "stout old woman" of Dublin in particular.
This year both the Queen and the country lost a great and valued friend in Sir Robert Peel, who was killed by being thrown from his horse. There was much mourning in England among all sorts of people for this rarely noble, unennobled man. The title of Baronet he had. inherited; it is said he declined a grander title, and he certainly recorded in his will a wish that no one of his sons should accept a title on account ofhisservices to the country—which was a great thing for a man to do in England; and after his death, his wife was so proud of bearing his name that she declined a peerage offered to her—which was a greater thing for a woman to do in England.
Not long after, occurred the death of the ex-King of France, at Claremont. McCarthy sums up his character very tersely, thus: "The clever, unwise, grand, mean old man." Louis Philippe's meanness was in his mercenary and plotting spirit, when a rich man and a king—his grand qualities were his courage and cheerfulness, when in poverty and exile.
The Royal Family again visited Edinburgh, and stopped for a while at Holyrood—that quaint old Palace of poor Mary Stuart, whose sad, sweet memory so pervades it, like a personal atmosphere, that it seems she has only gone but for a little walk, or ride, with her four Maries, and will soon come in, laughing and talking French, and looking passing beautiful. Queen Victoria had then a romantic interest in the hapless Queen of Scots. She said to Sir Archibald Alison, "I am glad I am descended from Mary; I have nothing to do with Elizabeth."
From Edinburgh to dear Balmoral, from whence the Prince writes: "We try to strengthen our hearts amid the stillness and solemnity of the mountains."
The Queen's heart especially needed strengthening, for she was dreading a blow which soon fell upon her in the death of her dearest friend, her aunt, the Queen of the Belgians. She mourned deeply and long for this lovely and gifted woman, this "angelic soul," as Baron Stockmar called her.
On April 29, 1851, the Queen paid a private visit to the Exhibition, and wrote: "We remained two hours and a half, and I came back quite beaten, and my head bewildered from the myriads of beautiful and wonderful things which now quite dazzle one's eyes. Such efforts have been made, and our people have shown such taste in their manufactures. All owing to this great Exhibition, and to Albert—all tohim!"
May 1st, which was the first anniversary of little Arthur's birth, was the great opening-day, when Princes and people took possession of that mighty crystal temple, and the "Festival of Peace" began.
The Queen's description in her diary is an eloquent outpouring of pride and joy, and gratitude. One paragraph ends with these words: "God bless my dearest Albert. God bless my dearest country, which has shown itself so great to-day! One felt so grateful to the great God, who seemed to pervade and bless all."
Her Majesty wrote that the scene in the Park as they drove through—the countless carriages, the vast crowd, the soldiers, the music, the tumultuous, yet happy excitement everywhere, reminded her of her coronation day; but when she entered that great glass house, over which floated in the sunny air the flags of all nations, within which were the representatives of all nations, and when she walked up to her place in the centre, conducted by the wizard who had conjured up for the world that magic structure, and when the two stood there, with a child on either hand, before the motley multitude, cheering in all languages— then, Victoriafelt her name, and knew she had come to her real coronation, as sovereign, wife, and mother.
Shortly after this great day, Prince Albert distinguished himself by a remarkably fine speech at an immense meeting of the "Society for the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts." Such shoals of foreigners being then in London, the Society felt that they must be casting in their nets. Lord John Russell wrote to congratulate the Queen, who, next to the heathen, was most interested in the success of this speech. Her reply was very characteristic. After saying that she had been quite "sure that the Prince would say the right thing, from her entire confidence in his tact and judgment," she added, "The Queen at the risk of not appearing sufficiently modest (and yet why should a Woman ever be modest about her husband's merits?) must say that she thinks Lord John will admit now that the Prince is possessed of very extraordinary powers of mind and heart. She feels so proud of being his wife, that she cannot refrain from paying herself a tribute to his noble character."
Ah, English husbands should be loyal beyond measure to the illustrious lady, who has set such a matchless example of wifely faith, pride and devotion. But it will be a pity if in preaching up to their wives her example, they forget the no less admirable example of the Prince-Consort.