Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II by Sarah Tytler

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"No more in soldier fashion would he greet,
With lifted hand, the gazer in the street."

Wellington was making his way from the Horse Guards for the last time,
attended by such a mighty multitude as seldom waits on the steps of
Kings, hardly ever with such mute reverence as they gave him that day.
The "good grey head" of "the last Great Englishman" was about to be
laid in the dust, and his best epitaph was Tennyson's line--

"One that sought but duty's iron crown."

Behind the car came the chief mourner, accompanied by his younger
brother, with cousins and relatives to the last degree of kindred, and
friends filling a long train of mourning coaches. Then followed what
moved the people more than all the splendour, because it came like a
touch of homely nature appealing to all, in a familiar part of the
life that was gone, the late Duke's horse, led by John Mears, his aged
groom. The horse might have been "Copenhagen," which had borne the
Duke in the thick of his greatest battle, and died long since at
Strathfieldsaye, so eagerly did the crowds gaze on it. More carriages
and troops closed the march.

And she was not absent who had held the dead man in such high esteem,
whom he had so loved and honoured. From two different points--as if
she were reluctant to see the last of her old friend--from the balcony
of Buckingham Palace, where the Royal Standard floated half-mast high,
as the funeral passed up Constitution Hill, and again from the windows
of St. James's Palace, as the melancholy train went down St. James's
Street, the Queen, surrounded by her children and her young cousins
from Belgium, looked down on the solemn pageant.

Nearly twenty thousand privileged persons--many of them of high rank,
filled St. Paul's, black-draped and gas-lit on the dark November day.
After the funeral company were seated, the body, which had been
received at the west entrance by the Bishop of London and the other
clergy of the Cathedral, was carried up the nave to the chanting of "I
am the Resurrection and the Life." The spurs were borne by one herald,
the helmet and crest by another, the sword and target by a third, the
surcoat by a fourth, the foreign batons by their foreign bearers, the
English baton by Lord Anglesey.

Among the psalms and anthems, a dirge accompanied by trumpets was
sung, "And the King said to all the people that were with him, rend
your clothes and gird you with sackcloth and mourn. And the King
himself followed the bier. And they buried him; and the King lifted up
his voice and wept at the grave, and all the people wept. And the King
said unto his servants, Know ye not that there is a prince and a great
man fallen this day in Israel."

An affecting incident occurred, when, at the conclusion of this dirge,
the body was lowered into the crypt to the "intensely mournful" sound
of "The Dead March in Saul." As the coffin with the coronet and baton
slowly descended, and thus the great warrior departed from the sight
of men, a sense of heavy depression came on the whole assembly. Prince
Albert was deeply moved, and the aged Marquess of Anglesey, the
octogenarian companion in arms of the deceased, by an irresistible
impulse stepped forward, placed his hand on the sinking coffin that
contained the remains of his chief in many battles, and burst into
tears.

"In the vast Cathedral leave him;
God accept him, Christ receive him."

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON III. AND THE EMPRESS EUGENIE--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, took his place.

On the 2nd of December, the anniversary of the _coup d'etat_, the
Empire was declared in France, and Louis Napoleon entered Paris as
Emperor on the following day.

On the 22nd of January, 1853, the Emperor of the French made public
his approaching marriage to the beautiful Eugenie de Montigo, Comtesse
de Theba.

A serious fire broke out at Windsor Castle on the night of the 19th of
March, the very day that the Court had come down for Easter. It was
the result of an accident from the over-heating of a flue, which might
have been doubly disastrous.

The scene of the fire was the upper stories of the Prince of Wales's
Tower, above the Gothic dining-room, which is in the same suite with
the Crimson, Green, and White drawing-rooms, in the last of which the
Queen and Prince Albert were sitting, at ten o'clock in the evening,
when the smell of smoke and burning aroused an alarm.

Besides the suite of drawing-rooms, with their costly furniture, the
plate-rooms were beneath the Gothic dining-room; and on the other
side--beyond a room known as the Octagon-room--was the Jewelled
Armoury. The fire had taken such hold that the utmost exertions were
needed to keep it under, and prevent it from spreading, and it
remained for hours doubtful whether the rest of the Castle would
escape. Prince Albert, the gentlemen of the household, and the
servants, with seven hundred Guards brought from the barracks and
stationed in the avenues to prevent further disorder, strove to
supplement the work of the fire-engines. The Gothic dining-room was
stripped of its furniture, including the gold vase or bath for wine,
valued at ten thousand pounds. The Crimson drawing-room and the
Octagon-room were dismantled. The plate-rooms were considered
fireproof, but the Jewelled Armoury was emptied of its treasures,
among them the famous peacock of Tippoo Sahib.

More than five hours passed before the danger was over. The Queen, in
writing to reassure the King of the Belgians, said, "Though I was not
alarmed, it was a serious affair, and an acquaintance with what a fire
is, and with its necessary accompaniments, does not pass from one's
mind without leaving a deep impression. For some time it was very
obstinate, and no one could tell whether it would spread or not. Thank
God, no lives were lost."

Less than three weeks after the fire, the Queen's fourth son, and
eighth child, was born at Buckingham Palace on the 7th of April.
Within a fortnight her Majesty was sufficiently recovered to write to
the King of the Belgians, and here the wound which had been felt so
keenly bled afresh. "My first letter is this time, as last time,
addressed to you. Last time it was because dearest Louise--to whom the
first announcement had heretofore always been addressed, was with me,
alas! Now," she goes on to remind him affectionately, "Stockmar will
have told you that Leopold is to be the name of our fourth young
gentleman. It is a mark of love and affection which I hope you will
not disapprove. It is a name which is the dearest to me after Albert,
one which recalls the almost only happy days of my sad childhood. To
hear "Prince Leopold" [Footnote: When Prince Leopold's title was
merged into that of Duke of Albany, our readers may remember that some
reluctance was expressed at the change, and that there was an attempt
to preserve the earlier name, by arranging that his Royal Highness
should be styled "Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany."] again will make me
think of all those days. His other names will be George, Duncan,
Albert, and the sponsors will be the King of Hanover, Ernest Hohenlohe
(the Queen's brother-in-law), the Princess of Prussia, and Mary of
Cambridge. George is after the King of Hanover, and Duncan is a
compliment to dear Scotland."

In the Royal Academy this year one of the pre-Raphaelites, who had
been at first treated with vehement opposition and ridicule, came so
unmistakably to the front as to stagger his former critics, and render
his future success certain. Even the previous year Millais's
"Huguenot" had made a deep impression, and his "Order of Release" this
year carried everything before it. In the same Academy exhibition were
Sir Edwin Landseer's highly poetic "Night" and "Morning."

On the Court's return from Osborne to London, the Queen and Prince
Albert were present with their guests, the King and Queen of Hanover,
and the Duke and Duchess of Coburg, on the 21st of June, in the camp
at Chobham, when a sham-fight and a series of military manoeuvres over
broken ground were carried out with great spirit and exactness, to the
admiration of a hundred thousand spectators. Her Majesty, as in the
early years of her reign, wore a half-military riding-habit, and was
mounted on a splendid black horse, on which she rode down the lines
before witnessing the mock battle from an adjoining height.

Four days afterwards Prince Albert returned to the camp to serve for a
couple of days with his brigade, the Guards. The Prince experienced
something of the hardships of bivouacing in stormy weather, and
suffered in consequence. He came back labouring under a bad cold, to
be present at the baptism of his infant son on the 28th. All the
sponsors were there in person. The Lord Chamberlain conducted the
baby-prince to the font; the Archbishop of Canterbury performed the
sacred rite. The usual State banquet and evening party followed. But
illness, not very deadly, yet sufficiently prostrating, was hovering
over the royal pair and their guests. The Prince of Wales was already
sick of measles. Prince Albert, pre-disposed by the cold he had
caught, got the infection from his son, had a sharp attack of the same
disease, and we are told "at the climax of the illness showed great
nervous excitement," symptomatic of a susceptible, highly-strung,
rather fragile temperament.

Though the country was unaware of the extent of the Prince's illness,
we can remember the public speculation it excited, and the
contradictory assertions that the Queen would claim her wife's
prerogative of watching by her husband's sick-bed, and that she would
be forbidden to do so, for State reasons, her health or sickness, not
to say the danger to her life, being of the utmost importance to the
body politic. It is easy to see that if such a question had arisen, it
would have been peculiarly trying to one who had been brought up to
regard her duty to the country as a primary obligation, while at the
same time every act of her life showed how precious and binding were
her conjugal relations. But the matter settled itself. After the
Princess Royal and Princess Alice had also been attacked by the
epidemic, the Queen was seized with it, happily in the mildest form,
which was of short duration. But the mischief did not confine itself
to the English royal family. The juvenile malady of measles became for
a time the scourge of princes, a little to the diversion of the world,
since no great harm was anticipated, or came to pass, while the
ailment invaded a succession of Courts. The guests at Prince Leopold's
baptism carried the seeds of the disease to Hanover, in the person of
the little Hanoverian cousin, King George's son, who had been a
visitor in the English royal nurseries; to Brussels, in the case of
the Duke and Duchess of Coburg, who unconsciously handed on the
unwelcome gift to King Leopold's sons, the Due de Brabant and the
Comte de Flandres, the former on the eve of his marriage, before the
illness was taken across Germany to Coburg.

By the 6th of August, the birthday of Prince Alfred, the Queen and the
Prince were sufficiently recovered to pay a second visit with their
children to Chobham, when a fresh series of manoeuvres were performed
prior to the breaking up of the camp.

A great cluster of royal visitors had arrived in England, making the
season brilliant. It was, perhaps, significant that these visitors
included three Russian archduchesses, in spite of the fact that a war
with Russia was in the air, being only held back by the strenuous
efforts of statesmen, against the wishes of the people. Other visitors
were the Crown Prince and Princess of Wurtemberg, near akin to Russia,
and the Prince of Prussia--the later came from Ostend, on an
invitation to witness a sight well calculated to recommend itself to
his martial proclivities--a review, on the grandest scale, of the
fleet at Spithead, on the 11th of August. The weather was fine, and
the spectacle, perfect of its kind, was seen by all the royal company,
by what was in effect "the House of Commons with the Speaker at its
head," and by multitudes in more than a hundred steamers, besides, the
crowds viewing the scene from the shores of the Isle of Wight and
Hampshire. On the 21st of August, a French sailor whose name has
become a household word in England, died far away amidst the horrors
of the north seas, in a gallant effort to rescue Sir John Franklin and
his crew. Among the brave men who sailed on this perilous quest, none
earned greater honour and love than young Bellot.

On the 22nd of August, a marriage of some interest to the Queen was
celebrated at Brussels. King Leopold's eldest son, the Due de Brabant,
was married in St. Gudule's to the Archduchess Marie Henriette of
Austria. The bridegroom was only eighteen years of age, the bride as
young; but it was considered desirable that the heir-apparent should
marry, and Queen Louise's place had remained vacant while her
daughter, Princess Charlotte, was still unfit to preside over the
Court in her mother's room.

On the 29th of August, Sir Charles Napier, the dauntless, eccentric
conqueror of Scinde, follows his old commander to the grave. Though
more than ten year's younger, Sir Charles's last public appearance was
at the Duke's funeral. He was the grandson of Lord Napier, and the
son of the beautiful Lady Sarah Lennox.

A great art and industrial exhibition at Dublin--the first of the
numerous progeny of the Great Exhibition of two years before--was held
this year. Naturally, the Queen and the Prince were much interested in
its fortunes, and had promised to be present at the opening, but were
prevented by the outbreak of measles in June. It was possible,
however, to visit the Irish Exhibition before its close, and this her
Majesty and Prince Albert did on their way to Balmoral. Proceeding by
train to Holyhead, where they were detained a day and a night by a
violent storm, the travellers sailed on the 29th of August for
Kingstown, which was reached next morning. On landing they were
received by the Lord-Lieutenant, Lord St. Germains and Lady St.
Germains, the Archbishop of Dublin, the Duke of Leinster, &c., &c.,
together with an immense number of people, lining the dock walls and
hailing her Majesty's arrival with vociferous cheers, as on her last
visit to Ireland. Enthusiasm, equal to what had been shown before, was
displayed on the railway route and the drive through the thronged
streets to the Viceregal Lodge. Not long after her arrival, the Queen,
as energetic as ever, was seen walking in the Phoenix Park, and in the
evening she took a drive in the outskirts of the city. At night Dublin
was illuminated. The next day the Queen and the Prince, with their two
elder sons, paid a State visit to the exhibition, full to overflowing
with eager gazers. The royal party were conducted to a dais, where the
Queen, seated on the throne prepared for her, received the address of
the commissioners thanking her for the support she had lent to the
undertaking by her presence, and by her contributions to the articles
exhibited.

The Queen replied, expressing her satisfaction that the worthy
enterprise had been carried out in a spirit of energy and self-
reliance, "with no pecuniary aid but that derived from the patriotic
munificence of one of her subjects." That subject, Mr. Dargan, who had
erected the exhibition building at his own expense, was present, and
kissed hands amidst the cheers of the assembly. The Queen and the
Prince afterwards made the circuit of the whole place, specially
commending the Irish manufactures of lace, poplin, and pottery.

In, the afternoon her Majesty and Prince Albert, to the high
gratification of the citizens of Dublin, drove out through pouring
rain to Mount Annville, the house of Mr. Dargan, saw its beautiful
grounds, and conversed with the host and hostess. His manner struck
the Queen as "touchingly modest and simple," and she wrote in her
journal, "I would have made him a baronet, but he was anxious it
should not be done."

Every morning during their week's stay the royal pair returned
unweariedly to the exhibition, and by their interest in its
productions, stimulated the interest of others. The old engagements--a
review, visits to the castle, and the national schools--occupied what
time was left.

On Saturday, the 3rd of September, a beautiful day succeeding
miserable weather, the Queen drove slowly through the Dublin streets,
"unlined with soldiers," feeling quite sorry that it was the last day
after what she called "such a pleasant, gay, and interesting tune in
Ireland." Loyal multitudes waited at the station and at Kingstown,
cheering the travellers. Lord and. Lady St. Germains went on board the
yacht, and dined with hen Majesty and Prince Albert.

On the following morning, the _Victoria and Albert_ crossed to
Holyhead.

A glad event at Balmoral that year was the laying of the foundation-
stone of the new house. The rite was done with all the usual
ceremonies, Mr. Anderson, then the minister of Crathie, praying for a
blessing on the work.

CHAPTER XXIV.

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 Kalafat; but matters were brought to a crisis by the nearly utter
destruction of the Turkish fleet at Sinope, one of the Turkish ports
on the shores of the Black Sea. The French and English Governments
uttered a practical protest by informing the Czar, that if his fleet
in the south made any further movement against the Turks, the English
and French fleets already in the Dardanelles would immediately enter
the Black Sea and take active steps in defence of their ally.

In the meantime there had been some commotion in the English Cabinet.
Lord Palmerston suddenly resigned, and as quickly resumed office. The
ostensible cause of difference between him and his colleagues was the
new Reform Bill; but the real motive is believed to have been the
Government's tactics with regard to the threatened war. These changed
all at once, the change coinciding with the return of Lord Palmerston
to office, and suiting the fighting mood of the people. He was once
more the favourite of the hour, and in the popular pride and
confidence in him, a great injustice was done to another. Startled and
angered by Lord Palmerston's withdrawal from the Government, the old
clamour about Court prejudice and intrigue, and German objections to
Liberal statesmen, broke out afresh, and raged more hotly than ever.
Prince Albert was openly mentioned as the hostile influence "behind
the throne," and in the Cabinet of which he was a member, against the
man who was prepared to assert the dignity of England in spite of all
opposition; the man who had uniformly sided with the weak, and spoken
the truth of tyrants, let them be in ever so high places; the man at
the same time who had approved of the _coup d'etat_. The most
unfounded charges of unfaithfulness to English interests, and personal
interference for the purpose of gaining his own ends, and working into
the hands of foreign Governments, were brought against the Queen's
husband. His birth as a German, and his connection with the King of
the Belgians and the Orleans family, were loudly dwelt upon. It was
treated as an offence on his part that he should attend the Cabinet
counsels of which he was a member, and be in the confidence of the
Queen, who was his loving wife. He was attacked alike by Liberals and
Protectionists; assailed, with hardly an assumption of disguise, both
in public and private, and in many of the principal newspapers. The
man who little more than two years before, at the time of the Great
Exhibition, had been hailed as a general benefactor, and praised as
the worthiest of patriots, was now almost the best-abused man in
England, pursued with false accusations and reproaches equally false.

"One word more about the credulity of the public," wrote Prince Albert
to Baron Stockmar; "you will scarcely credit that my being committed
to the Tower was believed all over the country; nay, even 'that the
Queen had been arrested!' People surrounded the Tower in thousands to
see us brought to it."

All this ingratitude and stupidity must have been galling to its
object, in spite of his forbearance, and, if possible, still more
exquisitely painful to the Queen, who had felt a natural and just
pride, not merely in her husband's fine qualities, but in her people's
appreciation of them. The Prince wrote in the same letter, "Victoria
has taken the whole affair greatly to heart, and was exceedingly
indignant at the attacks." And the Queen wrote with proud tender pain
to Lord Aberdeen, "In attacking the Prince, who is one and the same
with the Queen herself, the throne is assailed; and she must say she
little expected that any portion of her subjects would thus requite
the unceasing labours of the Prince."

This unscrupulous accusation was grave enough to demand a refutation
in Parliament, which Lord Aberdeen and Lord John Russell were ready to
give as soon as the House should meet.

During this trying winter, the Queen heard of the melancholy death of
her sister queen and girlish acquaintance, who had become a kinswoman
by marriage--Maria da Gloria. The two queens were the same in age--
thirty-four--and each had become the mother of eight children, but
there the similarity ceased. At the birth of her last child--dead
born--the Queen of Portugal ended a life neither long nor happy,
though she had been fortunate in her second husband. Queen Maria da
Gloria lacked Queen Victoria's reasonableness and fairness. The Queen
of Portugal started on a wrong course, and continued with it,
notwithstanding the better judgment of her husband. She supported the
Cabrals--the members of a noble Portuguese family, who held high
offices under her government--in ruling unconstitutionally and
corruptly. She consented to her people's being deprived of the liberty
of the press, and burdened with taxes, till, though her private life
was irreproachable, she forfeited their regard. In 1846 civil war
broke out, and the Cabrals were compelled to resign; the Count of
Soldanha and his party took the place of the former ministers. But the
insurrection spread until it was feared the Queen and her husband
would be driven out of the country. Suddenly the tide turned; the
better portion of the army declared for the Queen, her cause was
upheld by the English Government, and peace and the royal authority
were restored. But in spite of a pledge that the Cabrals should be
excluded from the Government, the elder brother again became Premier,
with the old abuse of power. A second revolution was accomplished by
Soldanha, to whose control Maria da Gloria had to yield, much against
the grain. She was succeeded by her eldest son, Don Pedro, still a
minor, with the King-Consort his father for regent, an arrangement
which proved satisfactory to the distracted kingdom.

A different event was the premature death of perhaps the most
beautiful, and the most fortunate, in the eyes of the world, of the
Queen's fair bridesmaids. Lady Sarah Villiers, who had become a
princess by her marriage with the son of one of the richest, most
aristocratic subjects in Europe, Prince Nicholas Esterhazy--of diamond
notoriety, died at Torquay in her thirty-second year.

When Parliament met in January, 1854, the Prince was triumphantly
vindicated by the leaders on both sides, but it was not till his death
that his character was done full justice to. In the meantime the cloud
had broken, and the royal couple rejoiced unaffectedly. The Queen
wrote to Baron Stockmar that there was "an immense concourse" of
people assembled, and they were very friendly when she went to the
House of Lords. The anniversary of the marriage was hailed with fresh
gratitude and gladness, and with words written to Germany that fall
pathetically on our ears to-day. "This blessed day is full of joyful,
tender emotions," are her Majesty's words. "Fourteen happy and blessed
years have passed, and I confidently trust many more will, and find us
in old age as we are now, happy and devotedly united. Trials we must
have; but what are they if we are together?"

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