Life Of Her Most Gracious Majesty The Queen - free ebook by Sarah Tytler

LIFE OF HER MOST GRACIOUS MAJESTY THE QUEEN

Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada, in the year Eighteen Hundred and Eighty-five, by GEORGE VIRTUE, in the office of the Minister of Agriculture....

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PREFACE.

I have been asked to write a few words of preface to this work. If the life-long friendship of my mother with her Majesty, which gained for me the honour of often seeing the Queen, or a deep feeling of loyalty and affection for our sovereign, which is shared by all her subjects, be accepted as a qualification, I gratefully respond to the call, but I feel that no written words of mine can add value to the following pages. Looking over some papers lately, I found the following note on a sketch whi

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VOL. I.

CHAP. I. Sixty-Three Years Since. II. Childhood. III. Youth. IV. The Accession. V. The Proroguing Of Parliament, The Visit To Guildhall; And The Coronation. VI. The Maiden Queen. VII. The Betrothal. VIII. The Marriage. IX. A Royal Pair. X. Royal Occupations.—An Attempt On The Queen's Life. XI. The First Christening.—The Season Of 1841. XII. Birth Of The Prince Of Wales.—The Afghan Disasters.—Visit Of The King Of Prussia.—The Queen's Plantagenet Ball. XIII. Fresh Attempts Against Th

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CHAPTER II CHILDHOOD.

In the months of March and May, 1819, the following announcements of royal births appeared in succession in the newspapers of the day, no doubt to the satisfaction alike of anxious statesmen and village politicians beginning to grow anxious over the chances of the succession:— "At Hanover, March 26, her Royal Highness the Duchess of Cambridge, of a son; and on March 27, her Royal Highness the Duchess of Clarence, of a daughter, the latter only surviving a few hours." "24th May, at Kensington Pal

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CHAPTER III. YOUTH.

In the month of August, 1831, the Princess went with her mother to profit by the soft, sweet breezes of the Isle of Wight. The Duchess and her daughter occupied Norris Castle for three months, and the ladies of the family were often on the shore watching the white sails and chatting with the sailors. Carisbrooke and King Charles the Martyr were brought more vividly home to his descendant, with the pathetic little tale of the girl-Princess Elizabeth. We do not know whether the Queen then learnt t

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CHAPTER IV. THE ACCESSION.

On the day after that on which Princess Victoria celebrated her majority. Baron Stockmar arrived at Kensington. He came from the King of the Belgians to assist King Leopold's niece in what was likely to be the great crisis of her life. During Baron Stockmar's former stay in England he had been in the character first of Physician in Ordinary to Prince Leopold, and afterwards of Private Secretary and Comptroller of his household. In those offices he had spent the greater part of his time in this c

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CHAPTER V. THE PROROGUING OF PARLIAMENT, THE VISIT TO GUILDHALL, AND THE CORONATION.

Buckingham Palace had been a seat of the Duke of Buckingham's, which was bought by George II., and in the next reign was settled on Queen Charlotte instead of Somerset House, and called the "Queen's House." It was rebuilt by George IV. but not occupied by him, and had been rarely used by King William. Besides its gardens, which are of some extent, it shares with St. James's, which it is near, the advantage of St. James's Park, one of the most agreeable in London, and full of historic memories. T

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CHAPTER VI. THE MAIDEN QUEEN.

When the great event of the coronation was over the Queen was left to fulfil the heavy demands of business and the concluding gaieties of the season. It comes upon us with a little pathetic shock, to think of one whom we have long known chiefly in the chastened light of the devoted unflagging worker at her high calling, of our lady of sorrows, as a merry girl—girl-like in her fondness, in spite of her noble nature and the serious claims she did not neglect, of a racket of perpetual excitement. W

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CHAPTER VII. THE BETROTHAL.

The Queen's remaining unmarried was becoming the source of innumerable disturbing rumours and private intrigues for the bestowal of her hand. To show the extent to which the public discussed the question in every light, a serious publication like the Annual Register found space in its pages for a ponderous joke on the subject which was employing all tongues. Its chronicle professes to report an interview between her Majesty the Queen and Lord Melbourne, in which the Premier gravely represents to

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CHAPTER VIII. THE MARRIAGE.

The 10th of February rose dark and foggy, with a lowering sky discharging at frequent intervals heavy showers. But to many a loyal heart far beyond the sound of Bow bells the date brought a thrill of glad consciousness which was quite independent of the weather. What mattered dreary skies or stinging sleet! This was the day on which the young Queen was to wed the lover of her youth, the man of her choice. The marriage was to take place at noon, not in the evening, like former royal weddings, and

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CHAPTER IX. A ROYAL PAIR.

The Queen and the Prince were only one whole day holding state by themselves at Windsor. It is not given to a royal couple to flee away into the wilds or to shut themselves up from their friends and the world like meaner people; whether a prolonged interval of retirement be spent in smiling or in sulking, according to cynical bachelors and spinsters, it is not granted to kings and queens. On the single day of grace which her Majesty claimed she wrote to Baron Stockmar the emphatic estimate of th

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CHAPTER X. ROYAL OCCUPATIONS.—AN ATTEMPT ON THE QUEEN'S LIFE.

The family arrangements in the marriage of the Queen and Prince Albert appear to have been made with the kindest, most judicious consideration for what was due to former ties, that all the relations of life might be settled gradually and naturally, on the footing which it was desirable they should assume. The connection between the Queen and the Duchess of Kent was very close. It was that of a mother and child who had been nearly all in all to each other, who, till Queen Victoria's marriage, had

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CHAPTER XI THE FIRST CHRISTENING.—THE SEASON OF 1841.

The Queen was able to open Parliament in person at the end of January. The first christening in the royal household had been fixed to take place on the 10th of February, the first anniversary of the Queen's wedding-day, which was thus a double gala in 1841. The day before the Prince again had a dangerous accident. He was skating in the presence of the Queen and one of her ladies on the lake in the gardens of Buckingham Palace when the ice gave way a few yards from the bank, where the water was s

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CHAPTER XII. BIRTH OF THE PRINCE OF WALES.—THE AFGHAN DISASTERS.—VISIT OF THE KING OF PRUSSIA.—"THE QUEEN'S PLANTAGENET BALL."

On the 9th of November, 1841, the happiness of the Queen and Prince was increased by the birth of the Prince of Wales. The event took place on the morning of the Lord Mayor's Day, as the citizens of London rejoiced to learn by the booming of the Tower guns. In addition to the usual calls of the nobility and gentry, the Lord Mayor and his train went in great state to offer their congratulations and make their inquiries for the Queen-mother and child. The sole shadow on the rejoicing was the dange

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CHAPTER XIII. FRESH ATTEMPTS AGAINST THE QUEEN'S LIFE.—MENDELSSOHN.—DEATH OF THE DUC D'ORLEANS.

On the 30th of May a renewed attempt to assassinate the Queen, almost identical in the circumstances and the motive—or no motive, save morbid vanity—with the affair of Oxford, awoke the same disgust and condemnation. This was a double attack, for on the previous day, Sunday, at two o'clock, as the Queen and the Prince were driving home from the Chapel Royal, St. James's, in passing along the Mall, near Stafford House, amidst a crowd of bowing, cheering spectators, the Prince saw a man step out a

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CHAPTER XIV. THE QUEEN'S FIRST VISIT TO SCOTLAND.

The Queen had never been abroad. It was still well-nigh an unconstitutional step for a sovereign of England to claim the privilege, enjoyed by so many English subjects, of a foreign tour, let it be ever so short. However, this year the proposal of a visit to her uncle King Leopold at Brussels, where several members of Louis Philippe's family were to have met her, was made. But the lamentable death of the Duc d'Orleans put an end for the present to the project. Neither were affairs at home in so

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CHAPTER XV. A MARRIAGE, A DEATH, AND A BIRTH IN THE ROYAL FAMILY.—A PALACE HOME.

The rest of the autumn and early winter passed in busy quiet and domestic happiness. In November, the Queen honoured the Duke of Wellington by a second visit to Walmer. She was no longer the girl-princess—a solitary figure, but for her devoted mother, she was the Queen-wife, taking with her not only her good and noble husband, but her two fine children, to show her old servant, the great soldier of a former generation, who had known her from her childhood, how rich she had become in all womanly

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CHAPTER XVI. THE CONDEMNATION OF THE ENGLISH DUEL.—ANOTHER MARRIAGE.—THE QUEEN'S VISIT TO CHATEAU D'EU.

On the 1st of July, 1843, duelling received its death-blow in England by a fatal duel—so unnatural and so painful in its consequences that it served the purpose of calling public attention to the offence—long tolerated, even advocated in some quarters, and to the theory of military honour on which this particular duel took place. Two officers, Colonel Fawcett and Lieutenant Munro, who were also brothers-in-law, had a quarrel. Colonel Fawcett was elderly, had been in India, was out of health and

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CHAPTER XVII. THE QUEEN'S TRIP TO OSTEND:—VISITS TO DRAYTON, CHATSWORTH, AND BELVOIR.

"Ce n'est que le premier pas qui coute." In the course of another week the Queen took a second trip to the Continent, sailing to Ostend to pay the most natural visit in the world—the only thing singular about it was that it had been so long delayed—to her uncle, King Leopold. The yacht, which had been lying off Brighton, was accompanied by eight other steamers, and joined at Walmer by two ships of the line. At Dover a salute was fired from the castle. At Deal the Duke of Wellington came on board

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CHAPTER XVIII. ALLIES FROM AFAR.—DEATH AND ABSENCE.—BIRTHDAY GREETINGS.

Lady Bloomfield describes a set of visitors at Windsor this year such as have not infrequently come a long way to pay their homage to the Queen, and to see for themselves the wonders of civilisation. The party consisted of five Indian chiefs, two squaws, a little girl, and a half-breed, accompanied by Mr. Catlin as interpreter. The Queen received the strangers in the Waterloo Gallery. The elder chief made a speech with all the dignity and self-confidence of his race. It was to the effect that he

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CHAPTER XIX. ROYAL VISITORS.—THE BIRTH OP PRINCE ALFRED.—A NORTHERN RETREAT.

The year 1844 may be instanced as rich in royal visitors to England. On the 1st of June the King of Saxony arrived and shortly after him a greater lion, the Emperor of Russia. The King of Saxony came as an honest friend and sightseer, entering heartily into the obligations of the latter. There was more doubt as to the motives of the Czar of all the Russias, and considerable wariness was needed in dealing with the northern eagle, whose real object might be, if not to use his beak and claws on the

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CHAPTER XX. LOUIS PHILIPPE'S VISIT.—THE OPENING OF THE ROYAL EXCHANGE.

The Queen and the Prince returned to Windsor to receive a visit from Louis Philippe. The King, who had spent part of his exiled youth in England, had not been back since 1815, when he took refuge there again during "the Hundred Days," after Napoleon's return from Elba and Louis XVIII.'s withdrawal to Ghent, till the battle of Waterloo restored the heads of the Bourbon and Orleans families to the Tuileries and the Palais Royal. The King arrived on the 6th of October, accompanied by his son, the D

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IN TWO VOLUMES

Vol II * * * * *...

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ROYAL PROGRESSES TO BURGHLEY, STOWE, AND STRATHFIELDSAYE.

On the 29th of November the Queen went on one of her visits to her nobility. We are told, and we can easily believe, these visits were very popular and eagerly contested for. In her Majesty's choice of localities it would seem as if she loved sometimes to retrace her early footsteps by going again with her husband to the places where she had been, as the young Princess, with the Duchess of Kent. The Queen went at this time to Burghley, the seat of the Marquis of Exeter. The tenantry of the diffe

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THE QUEEN'S POWDER BALL.

On the evening of the 6th of June, 1845, her Majesty, who was at Buckingham Palace for the season, gave another great costume ball, still remembered as her Powder Ball—a name bestowed on it because of the universally-worn powder on hair and periwigs. It was not such a novelty as the Plantagenet Ball had been, neither was it so splendidly fantastic nor apparently so costly a performance; not that the materials used in the dresses were less valuable, but several of them —notably the old lace which

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THE QUEEN'S FIRST VISIT TO GERMANY.

On the evening of the day that she prorogued Parliament, the Queen and the Prince with the Earl of Aberdeen as the minister in attendance, started from Buckingham Palace that she might pay her first visit to Germany. Surely none of all the new places she had visited within the last few years could have been of such surpassing interest to the traveller. It was her mother's country as well as her husband's, the home of her brother and sister, the place of which she must have heard, with which she

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RAILWAY SPECULATION—FAILURE OF THE POTATO CROP—SIR ROBERT PEEL'S RESOLUTIONS—BIRTH OF PRINCESS HELENA—VISIT OF IBRAHIM PASHA.

One thousand eight hundred and forty-five had begun with what appeared a fresh impetus to national prosperity—a new start full of life and vigour, by which the whole resources of the country should be at once stirred up and rendered ten times more available than they had ever been before. This was known afterwards as "the Railway Mania," which, like other manias, if they are not mere fever-fits of speculation, but are founded on real and tangible gains, had its eager hopeful rise, its inflated d

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AUTUMN YACHTING EXCURSIONS—THE SPANISH MARRIAGES—WINTER VISITS.

In the beginning of August the Queen and the Prince, accompanied by the King and Queen of the Belgians, went again to Osborne. This autumn the Queen, the Prince and their two elder children, made pleasant yachting excursions, of about a week's duration each, to old admired scenes and new places. In one of these Baron Stockmar was with them, since he had come to England for a year's visit. He expressed himself as much gratified by the Prince's interest and judgment in politics, and his opinion of

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INSTALLATION OF PRINCE ALBERT AS CHANCELLOR OF CAMBRIDGE.

One thousand eight hundred and forty-seven began with the climax of the terrible famine in Ireland, and the Highlands, produced by the potato disease, which, commencing in 1845, had reappeared even more disastrously in 1846. In the Queen's speech in opening Parliament, she alluded to the famine in the land with a perceptibly sad fall of her voice. In spite of bad trade and bad times everywhere, two millions were advanced by the Government for the relief of the perishing people, fed on doles of I

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THE QUEEN'S VISIT TO THE WESTERN ISLANDS OP SCOTLAND AND STAY AT ARDVERIKIE.

On the 11th of August her Majesty and Prince Albert, with the Prince of Wales, the Princess Royal, and the Prince of Leiningen, attended by a numerous suite, left Osborne in the royal yacht for Scotland. They followed a new route and succeeded, in spite of the fogs in the Channel, in reaching the Scilly Isles. The voyage, to begin with, was not a pleasant one. There had been a rough swell on the sea as well as fogs off shore. The children, and especially the Queen, on this occasion suffered from

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THE FRENCH FUGITIVES—THE PEOPLE'S CHARTER.

Long before the autumn of 1847, the mischievous consequences of the railway mania, complicated by the failure of the potato crop, showed itself in great bankruptcies in the large towns all over the country. The new year came with trouble on its wings. The impending storm burst all over Europe, first in France. Louis Philippe's dynasty was overthrown. In pairs or singly, sometimes wandering aside in a little distraction, so as to be lost sight of for days, the numerous brothers and sisters, with

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THE QUEEN'S FIRST STAY AT BALMORAL.

From France, in June, came the grievous news of the three days' fighting in the streets of Paris, because no Government provision could secure work and bread for the artisans. The insurrection was only put down by martial law under the Dictator, General Cavaignac. In Sardinia the King, Charles Albert, fighting gallantly against the Austrian rule, was defeated once and again, and driven back. In England, though the most swaggering of the Chartists still blustered a little, attention could be give

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PUBLIC AND DOMESTIC INTERESTS—FRESH ATTACK UPON THE QUEEN.

The Queen and the Prince were now pledged—alike by principle and habit—to hard work. They were both early risers, but before her Majesty joined Prince Albert in their sitting-room, where their writing-tables stood side by side, we are told he had already, even in winter, by the light of the green German lamp which he had introduced into England, prepared many papers to be considered by her Majesty, and done everything in his power to lighten her labours as a sovereign. Lord Campbell describes an

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THE QUEEN'S FIRST VISIT TO IRELAND.

Parliament was prorogued by commission, and the Queen and the Prince, with their four children, sailed on the 1st of August for Ireland. Lady Lyttelton watching the departing squadron from the windows of Osborne, wrote with something like dramatic emphasis, "It is done, England's fate is afloat; we are left lamenting. They hope to reach Cork to-morrow evening, the wind having gone down and the sky cleared, the usual weather compliment to the Queen's departure." The voyage was quick but not very

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SCOTLAND AGAIN—GLASGOW AND DEE-SIDE.

In the course of the afternoon the yacht sailed for Loch Ryan. The object of this second visit to the West of Scotland was not so much for the purpose of seeing again the beautiful scenery which had so delighted the Queen and the Prince, as with the view of making up for the great disappointment experienced by the townspeople of Glasgow on her Majesty's having failed to visit what was, after London, one of the largest cities in her empire. The weather was persistently bad this time, squally and

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OPENING OF THE NEW COAL EXCHANGE—THE DEATH OF QUEEN ADELAIDE.

On the 30th of October the new Coal Exchange, opposite Billingsgate, was to have been opened by the Queen in person. A slight illness—an attack of chicken-pox—compelled her Majesty to give up her intention, and forego the motherly pleasure of seeing her two elder children, the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal, make their first appearance in public. Prince Albert, with his son and daughter, accompanied by the Duke of Norfolk as Master of the Horse, drove from Buckingham Palace at twelve o'c

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PREPARATION FOR THE EXHIBITION—BIRTH OF THE DUKE OF CONNAUGHT—THE BLOW DEALT BY FATE—FOREIGN TROUBLES—ENGLISH ART.

The first great public meeting in the interest of the Exhibition was held in London in the February of this year, and on the 21st of March a banquet was given at the Mansion House to promote the same cause. Prince Albert was present, with the ministers and foreign ambassadors; and the mayors and provosts of all the principal towns in the United Kingdom were also among the guests. The Prince delivered an admirable speech to explain his view of the Exhibition. It was at this time that the Duke of

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THE DEATHS OF SIR ROBERT PEEL, THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE, AND LOUIS PHILIPPE.

The Court had been at Osborne for the Whitsun holidays, and the Prince had written to Germany, "In our island home we are wholly given up to the enjoyment of the warm summer weather. The children catch butterflies, Victoria sits under the trees, and I drink the Kissingen water, Ragotzky. To-day mamma-aunt (the Duchess of Kent) and Charles (Prince of Leiningen) are come to stay a fortnight with us; then we go to town to compress the (so-called) pleasures of the season into four weeks. God be merc

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THE QUEEN'S FIRST STAY AT HOLYROOD—LIFE IN THE HIGHLANDS—THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN OF THE BELGIANS.

This year the Queen went north by Castle Howard, the fine seat of the Earl of Carlisle, the Duchess of Sutherland's brother, where her Majesty made her first halt. After stopping to open the railway bridges, triumphs of engineering, over the Tyne and the Tweed, the travellers reached Edinburgh, where, to the gratification of an immense gathering of her Scotch subjects, her Majesty spent her first night in Holyrood, the palace of her Stewart ancestors. The place was full of interest and charm for

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THE PAPAL BULL—THE GREAT EXHIBITION.

In the winter of 1850 the whole of England was disturbed by the Papal Bull which professed to divide England afresh into Roman Catholic bishoprics, with a cardinal-archbishop at their head. Protestant England hotly resented the liberty the Pope had taken, the more so that the Tractarian movement in the Church seemed to point to treachery within the camp. Lord John Russell took this view of it, and the announcement of his opinion intensified the excitement which expressed itself, in meetings all

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THE QUEEN'S ACCOUNT OF THE OPENING OF THE EXHIBITION.

Of all the many descriptions of the Exhibition of 1851, which survive after more than thirty years, the best are those written by the Queen, which we gratefully borrow, as we have already borrowed so many of the extracts from her journal in the Prince's "Life." Sir Theodore Martin has alluded to the special attraction lent to the Exhibition on its opening day by the excitement of the glad ceremonial, the throng of spectators, the Court element with "its splendid toilets" and uniforms, while Thac

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THE QUEEN'S "RESTORATION BALL" AND THE "GUILDHALL BALL."

The season of the first Exhibition was full of movement and gaiety, in which the Queen and Prince Albert joined. They had also the pleasure of welcoming their brother and sister, the Duke and Duchess of Saxe Coburg, who arrived to witness the Prince's triumph. As usual he came forward on every occasion when his services, to which his position and personal gifts lent double value, were needed—whether he presided at an Academy dinner, or at a meeting of the Society for the Propagation of the Gospe

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ROYAL VISITS TO LIVERPOOL AND MANCHESTER—CLOSE OF THE EXHIBITION.

On the 27th of August the Court left for Balmoral, travelling for the most part by the Great Northern Railway, but not, as now, making a rapid night and day journey. On the contrary, the journey lasted three days, with pauses for each night's rest between. Starting from Osborne at nine, the Royal party reached Buckingham Palace at half-past twelve. Halting for an hour and a half, they set off again at two. They stopped at Peterborough, where old Dr. Fisher, the Bishop, was able to greet in his Q

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DISASTERS—YACHTING TRIPS—THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF WELLINGTON.

The month of February, 1852, was unhappily distinguished by three great English calamities, accompanied by extensive loss of life. The first was the destruction of the West India mail steamer Amazon by fire, as she was entering the Bay of Biscay, in which a hundred and forty persons perished, among them Eliot Warburton, the accomplished traveller and author. The second was the wreck of her Majesty's troop-ship Birkenhead near the Cape of Good Hope, with the loss of upwards of four hundred lives,

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THE IRON DUKE'S FUNERAL.

On the 11th of November the Parliament met and voted the Duke a public funeral in the City cathedral of St. Paul's, by the side of Nelson, the great soldier and the great sailor bearing each other company in their resting-place, in the middle of the people whom they had saved from foreign dominion. The hearse with the body had left Walmer at seven o'clock on the morning of the 10th, minute guns being fired in succession from the castles of Walmer, Deal, and Sandown, startling the sea-mews hoveri

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THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON III. AND THE EMPRESS EUGÉNIE—FIRE AT WINDSOR— THE BIRTH OF PRINCE LEOPOLD.

At the close of 1852 Mr. Disraeli announced his Budget in one famous speech, to which Mr. Gladstone replied in another, the first of those memorable speeches—at once a fine oration and a convincing argument— so often heard since then. The Derby Ministry, already tottering to its fall on the ground of its opposition to Free-trade principles, was defeated, and the same night Lord Derby resigned office, and Lord Aberdeen, who was able to unite the Whigs and the followers of the late Sir Robert Peel

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THE EASTERN QUESTION—APPROACHING WAR—GROSS INJUSTICE TO PRINCE ALBERT—DEATH OF MARIA DA GLORIA.

The return of the Court to England was hastened by what had disturbed the peace of the stay in the North. The beginning of a great war was imminent. The Eastern Question, long a source of trouble, was becoming utterly unmanageable. Russia and Turkey were about to take up arms. Indeed, Russia had already crossed the Danube and occupied the Principalities. Turkey, in a fever-heat, declared war against Russia, crossed the Danube, and fought with desperate valour and some success at Oltenitza and Ka

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THE BATTLE OF INKERMANN—FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE—THE DEATH OF THE EMPEROR NICHOLAS.

In the beginning of November England heard with mingled triumph and pain of the repulsed attack on the English at Balaclava on the 25th of October, and of the charge of the Light Brigade. The number of the English soldiers in the field fell lower and lower. The Queen wrote to King Leopold, "We have but one thought, and so has the nation, and that is—Sebastopol. Such a time of suspense, anxiety, and excitement, I never expected to see, much less to feel." On the 13th of November telegrams arrived

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CHAPTER XXVI. INSPECTION OF THE HOSPITAL AT CHATHAM—VISIT OF THE EMPEROR AND EMPRESS OF THE FRENCH—DISTRIBUTION OF WAR MEDALS.

On the 3rd of March, the Queen and the Prince, with the Prince of Wales, Prince Alfred and the Duke of Cambridge, visited the hospital at Chatham, to which many of the wounded and sick soldiers had been brought home. The whole of the invalids who were in a condition to leave their beds "were drawn up on the lawn," each having a card containing his name and services, his wounds, and where received. Her Majesty passed along the line, saying a few kind words to those sufferers who particularly attr

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DEATH OP LORD RAGLAN—VISIT OF THE QUEEN AND PRINCE ALBERT TO THE EMPEROR AND EMPRESS OF THE FRENCH—FALL OF SEBASTOPOL.

A Sardinian contingent had now, by a stroke of policy on the part of Count Cavour, the Sardinian Minister, joined the English and French in arms in the Crimea; but an unsuccessful attack, made with heavy loss by the combined forces of the English and French on Sebastopol, filled the country with disappointment and sorrow. The attack was made on the 18th of June, a day which, as the anniversary of Waterloo, had been hitherto associated with victory and triumph. Lord Raglan had never approved of t

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BETROTHAL OF THE PRINCESS ROYAL—QUEEN'S SPEECH TO THE SOLDIERS RETURNED FROM THE CRIMEA—BALMORAL.

An event of great importance to the Queen and her family was now impending. A proposal of marriage for the Princess Royal—still only fifteen years of age—had been made by the Prince of Prussia, the heir of the childless king, in the name of the Prince's only son, Prince Frederick William, a young man of four-and-twenty, nearly ten years the Princess's senior. From the friendship which had long existed between the Queen and the Prince and the Princess of Prussia, their son was well-known and much

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CHAPTER XXIX.

DEATH OF THE PRINCE Of LEININGEN—BIRTH OF PRINCESS BEATRICE—BESTOWAL OF THE VICTORIA CROSS—INDIAN MUTINY. The court returned to Windsor in October, and in November a severe blow struck the Queen in the death of her brother, the Prince of Leiningen. A second fit of apoplexy ended his life while his sister, the Princess of Hohenlohe, watched by his death-bed. Prince Leiningen was fifty-two years of age. He had served in the Bavarian army, and was a man of recognised influence among his countrymen

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THE MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCESS ROYAL.

In the end of 1857 there were many preparations for the marriage of the Princess Royal in the month of January in the coming year. In the interval a calamity occurred at Claremont which revived the recollection of the great disaster in the early years of the century, and was deeply felt by the Queen and the Prince Consort. The pretty and gentle Victoire, Duchesse de Nemours, the Queen and the Prince Consort's cousin, and his early playfellow, had given birth to a princess, and appeared to be rec

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DEATH OF THE DUTCHESS D'ORLEANS—THE PRINCE CONSORT'S VISIT TO GERMANY—THE QUEEN AND PRINCE CONSORT'S VISIT TO PRINCE AND PRINCESS FREDERICK WILLIAM AT BABELSBERG.

In February, Lord Palmerston's ministry resigned after a defeat on the Conspiracy Bill, and Lord Derby, at the Queen's request, formed a short-lived Cabinet. The Prince of Wales was confirmed on Maundy Thursday in the chapel at Windsor. In April, the young Queen of Portugal, Princess Stéphanie of Hohenzollern, visited England with her father on her way to her husband—to whom she had been married by proxy—and her future home. Her charm and sweetness greatly attracted the Queen and the Prince. In

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BIRTH OF PRINCE WILLIAM OF PRUSSIA—DEATH OF PRINCE HOHENLOHE— VOLUNTEER REVIEWS—SECOND VISIT TO COBURG—BETROTHAL OF PRINCESS ALICE.

One of the beauties of the Queen's early Court, Lady Clementina Villiers, daughter of the Earl of Jersey, died unmarried at her father's seat of Middleton Park in 1858. She was as good and clever as she was beautiful. Like her lovely sister, Princess Nicholas Esterhazy, Lady Clementina died in the prime of life, being only thirty-four years of age. On the 27th of January, 1859, the Queen and the Prince received the good news of the birth of their first grandchild, a fine boy, after great sufferi

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DEATH OF THE DUCHESS OF KENT.

The Duchess of Kent was now seventy-five years of age. For the last few years she had been in failing health, tenderly cared for by her children. When she had been last in town she had not gone to her own house, Clarence House, but had stayed with her daughter in the cheerful family circle at Buckingham Palace. A loss in her household fell heavily on the aged Duchess. Sir George Cooper, her secretary, to whose services she had been used for many years, a man three years her junior, died in Febru

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LAST VISIT TO IRELAND—HIGHLAND EXCURSIONS—MEETING OF THE PRINCE OF WALES AND THE PRINCESS ALEXANDRA OF DENMARK—DEATH OF THE KINO OF PORTUGAL AND HIS BROTHERS

In the retirement of Osborne the Queen mourned her mother with the tender fidelity which her people have learnt to know and reverence. In April the Court returned to Buckingham Palace, when the Queen announced the marriage of the Princess Alice to the Privy Council It was communicated to Parliament, and was very favourably received. The Princess had a dowry of thirty thousand, and an annuity of six thousand pounds from the country. The Queen's birthday was celebrated at Osborne without the usual

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THE DEATH OF THE PRINCE CONSORT.

The news of the terrible mortality in the Portuguese royal family, especially the death of the King, to whom the Prince was warmly attached, had seriously affected his health, never strong, and for the last few years gradually declining, with gastric attacks becoming more frequent and fits of sleeplessness more confirmed. At the same time the Prince's spirit was so unbroken, his power of work and even of enjoyment so unshaken, while the patience and unselfishness which treated his own bodily dis

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THE WITHDRAWAL TO OSBORNE—THE PRINCE CONSORT'S FUNERAL.

The tolling of the great bell of St. Paul's, borne on the wintry midnight air, thrilled many a heart with grief and dismay, as London was roused to the melancholy fact of the terrible bereavement which had befallen the Queen and the country. To the Prince indeed death had come without terror, even without recoil. Some time before he had told the Queen that he had not her clinging to life, that if he knew it was well with those he cared for, he would be quite ready to die to-morrow. He was perfec

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THE FIRST MONTHS OF WIDOWHOOD—MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCE OF WALES, ETC., ETC.

The Princess of Hohenlohe arrived in England on the 20th of December, and immediately joined the Queen at Osborne before the funeral of the Prince. The old King of the Belgians came to Osborne on the 29th of December—one can imagine his meeting with the widowed Queen. On the 10th of January, 1862, occurred the terrible Hartley Colliery accident, by which upwards of two hundred miners perished. The Queen's grief for the Prince was not a month old when she telegraphed from Osborne her "tenderest s

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CHAPTER XXXVIII.

DEATHS OF LORD PALMERSTON AND THE KING OF THE BELGIANS—THE QUEEN AGAIN OPENS PARLIAMENT IN PERSON, &amp;C., &amp;C. The Prime Minister so long connected with the Queen, Lord Palmerston, energetic to the last, died at Brockett Hall on the 18th of October. A still greater loss befell her Majesty in the month of December—a marked month in her history. King Leopold died on the 9th at Laeken, within a few days of attaining his seventy-sixth year, the last of a family of nine sons and daughter

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

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

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

The Queen's first great-grandchild, the child of the Princess of Saxe- Meiningen, was born on the 12th of May. On her Majesty's arrival at Balmoral on the 22nd of May she went to see the granite cross erected to the "dear memory" of Alice, Duchess of Hesse, by her "sorrowing mother" The Queen remained at Balmoral till after the 19th of June, when the melancholy tidings arrived that the Prince Imperial had been killed in the Zulu war. Her Majesty left on the 20th, and crossed over the Tay Bridge,

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