THE QUEEN’S CHILDREN

“While she was visiting the Queen after the engagement she always came to breakfast in a jacket. ‘My dear,’ said the Queen one day, ‘you seem very fond of jackets! How is it that you always wear a jacket?’ ‘Well,’ said little Alexandra, ‘I like them; and then, you see, a jacket is _so economical_! You can wear different skirts with it, and I have very few gowns, having to make them all myself! My sisters and I have no lady’s maid, and have been brought up to make all our own clothes. I made my own bonnet.’ Bless her!”--_Jane Welsh Carlyle._

“And there were old gauntlets and pieces of hair; And fragments of backcombs, and slippers were there; And the gay were all silent; their mirth was all hushed; While the dewdrops stood out on the brows of the crushed. And the dames of Belgravia were loud in their wail, And the matrons of Mayfair all took up the tale; And they vowed, as they hurried, unnerved, from the scene, That it’s no trifling matter to call on the Queen.” _Jon Duan._

Through the first year or two of her widowhood Victoria’s chief interest was given to the settling in life of some of her children. It was a great anxiety to her, though it was absolutely pleasant compared with the troubles which arose later over further efforts in the same direction.

The first to be settled was Princess Alice, then nineteen, who was engaged to Prince Louis, nephew of the then Grand Duke of Hesse Darmstadt; he possessed a very small income and no house to which to take his bride, but he belonged to the royally favoured nation, and the marriage would have taken place in the winter but for the Prince Consort’s death. Parliament granted the Princess £30,000 as dowry and a yearly income of £6000, and the wedding took place at Osborne very quietly on July 1, 1862. From that time the affairs of this loving, gentle daughter absorbed much of the Queen’s thoughts, and many and large were the sums of money which went to help the young people to make a home at Kranichstein and to pay the debts incurred in doing so. Later the Queen had a palace built for them in Darmstadt.

At the end of 1862 the Queen had high hopes of seeing Prince Alfred comfortably settled in a kingdom of his own, for the Greeks had tired of Otto, the king imposed upon them by Russia, France and England, and of his rigid Germanic system of government. A student had tried to murder Otto’s queen Amalie, also a German, and the nation had hailed the criminal as a national hero. Upon this the army revolted, the King was declared deposed, and the royal pair took refuge on a British man-of-war. Then the Greeks looked round for a successor, and chose young Alfred of England, he being then eighteen years old, probably because they hoped by this means to regain control of the Ionian Isles, which England had taken over.

The Queen hailed the scheme with delight, which caused much disturbance to her Ministers, who foresaw consequent quarrels with France and Russia, as the original treaty forbade any relative of either of the three signatory Powers taking the Greek throne; so she was painfully induced to relinquish the plan, and the crown was then offered to King Ferdinand, next to Duke Ernst of Saxe-Coburg. The latter in his turn was delighted, and Victoria was even better pleased that he should have it than that her own son should, for if Ernst went to Greece Alfred would have Coburg. However, Otto had accepted to the full the German idea of his being a king by divine right, and would not abdicate, so the Duke felt that his reign might be somewhat hazardous: that he might one day find Otto returned, Alfred in possession of his duchy, and he a beggar without a home. His suggestion then was that his nephew should become Regent in Saxe-Coburg until he himself was firmly established in his new kingdom. Leopold thought this reasonable, but Victoria absolutely refused any compromise; Ernst must go, and go for good. A royal quarrel resulted, and the Queen considered herself greatly harassed and ill-used by her brother-in-law, Ernst being dubbed as grasping and ungrateful. Palmerston thought that a provisional arrangement might be made, but he was getting old and was no longer a match for a vigorous and strong-willed woman. From that time to the end of his life he gave way to the Queen in every dispute.

While the matter was still pending the English Government approached Prince Leiningen and Prince Hohenlohe, both young relatives of the Queen, but both saw the risks as too great for the adventure. Knowing of these negotiations, Ernst decided definitely against, and Victoria with some bitterness found closed a second opening for Alfred. William George, a brother of Princess Alexandra, was brave enough to become King of the Hellenes--a title manufactured for the occasion; and a year later the Ionian Islands were ceded to Greece.

The marriage of the Prince of Wales had been much discussed before the death of the Prince Consort, the choice being eventually between two German girls, Princess Alexandrina of Prussia and Princess Alexandra, daughter of the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg, who had by the treaty of 1852 been made heir to the throne of Denmark. Queen Victoria keenly desired the first alliance, but Prince Albert inclined to the second, and King Leopold strongly upheld him; the popular belief being that he was moved by the entreaties of Albert Edward, who had seen a portrait of Alexandra, and declared that he would marry none but her. In reality both Leopold and Victoria had deeper reasons.

William, king over a Prussia which resisted his weak but despotic rule, was planning to cut through his troubles by flourishing the torch of war in the face of Denmark through the Duchies of Schleswig-Holstein. The Queen, allied with Prussia by her daughter’s marriage and moved always by her family emotions, wished to make it impossible to side against Prussia, and incidentally against the interest of that daughter, by forming another alliance with that country. Leopold, on the other hand, recognizing the danger of Prussia as a near neighbour, desired an English-Denmark bond which would warn Prussia from her intended depredations. His arguments, backed by Albert Edward’s inclination, weighed down the scale, and the first hint of a decision led to a meeting between the young people at the Prussian manœuvres in September 1861; then the Prince Consort died, and they did not see each other again for a year.

The English papers were constantly referring to the engagement as an accomplished fact, causing much annoyance at Windsor; but in August 1862 occurred one of those little comedies of ceremony of which Victoria was so fond.

First she went to stay at Brussels, leaving after a few days for her daughter Alice’s home. A day or so later the Prince of Wales appeared in his uncle’s capital, and the next day came Prince Christian, his wife and daughters. The Prince and Princess spent a week in each other’s society, and then the Danes departed in one direction, while Albert Edward left in another. The young man went to Kranichstein to report progress to his mother, and was quickly followed by the Danish party. Then the engagement was announced.

On Prussia the news fell, as Duke Ernst said, like a thunder-burst. The Prussian Princess had been slighted for a little person from little Schleswig-Holstein; King William had relied on the friendship of Queen Victoria, and she had failed him; indeed, the ideal of a “united Germany” could no longer be cherished by her!

In England it was very different; the people lost sight of the bride’s German birth and saw in her only a Dane, whose land was nearly surrounded by the wild sea, and who was, or must be, akin to the English in life and tastes. They accepted her with all their hearts, and were ready to champion her through thick and thin.

Sandringham House was bought from Spencer Cowper, at the extortionate price of £200,000, it having then to be rebuilt; and Marlborough House was redecorated and furnished, the usual discovery being made of paintings under a layer of stucco, in this case pictures of the victories of Marlborough, by Kneller, up the stairway.

Young and gay as she was, when Alexandra came to visit the Queen the sadness of the Court oppressed her, and she viewed with concern the heavy _crêpe_ garments worn by her hostess. Taking up a bonnet one day which was overweighted with _crêpe_ and encumbered with a long _crêpe_ veil, she begged to be allowed to make it less heavy. The Queen hesitated, then consented, and the girl removed a quantity of material without much altering the appearance. When she returned it the Queen took it with a sigh and kissed her. That she wore the bonnet afterwards was a triumph for the Princess.

The marriage treaty was signed January 15, 1863, at Copenhagen, and all the royal family set to work to provide a trousseau fit for the future Queen of England. King Leopold’s present was appropriately a wedding gown of Brussels lace. In Copenhagen there were parties at which the delicate and wonderful clothes were shown; in England State levees and drawing-rooms were held by the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal, or rather the Crown Princess of Prussia, who was credited with having helped to form the match, perhaps because propinquity to the Prussian Alexandrina made her prefer the other girl for her brother, of whom she was very fond.

Now the Queen had determined to do everything just exactly as things had been done under the Prince Consort, and, though a tremendous crowd was expected at these State gatherings, the order went forth that they should be held in the little rooms of St. James’s Palace, and this in spite of the fact that when the last large sum had been spent by the public in renovating Buckingham Palace it had been understood that such ceremonies were to take place there. _Punch_ dubbed St. James’s Palace as “the house of detention for ladies,” for many hours had to be spent before and after the ecstatic moment of kissing, or pretending to kiss, the hand of a princess. It took hours for the carriages to crawl to the entry, hours to get up the stairs and wait one’s turn in an anteroom of small dimensions, and sometimes hours to get away again--

“Thus on they struggled, inch by inch, and stair By stair; now losing, now a little gaining; As though it were a life-and-death affair; As though, indeed, this courtly presentation Worked out their future and their whole salvation.”

Victoria had made one concession to the comfort of her callers: she had allowed some chairs to be put in the room where the ladies waited, that those who were strong enough and quick enough to fight for them might rest. Others stood until their turns came, and then each lady, summoning with difficulty a pleasant expression to her jaded face, made her graceful curtsey.

The coming away was more terrible than the going, for then the jamming was remorseless and inevitable, the waiting for the carriages being in a long, narrow corridor, something like a tunnel, in which there was no hope of movement. Angry and impatient, some dame would hear the official announcing her carriage, and be entirely unable to get near the door even by the most strenuous fighting. So the vehicle would move on, and she would have to wait while it made the whole round again. Pretty girls would emerge at last with their skirts in rags, a portly duchess would beg the closely wedged bystanders “just to stoop and look for my diamond bracelet,” worth perhaps the purchase money of a large estate; and every one would be crying--

“Oh, what a shame it is! Surely the Queen cannot know what goes on?”

No cup of tea or refreshment of any kind was offered to the victims of this atrociously bad management, and a woman fainting from exhaustion was a recurring episode, regarded by all officials with perfect calmness.

Well might indignant correspondents write to the papers and suggest that if people were worthy of being received at Court they were worthy to enter the Queen’s own spacious house, and remind those responsible of the broken faith over Buckingham Palace.

The Prince’s levee in March was as bad as the Princess’s drawing-room, more than two thousand men attending it.

“Garments were cleft of them, Horsehair was reft of them, What pen can write of them? How at the sight of them Gents-at-arms wondered. As to the Presence there, Draggled and damaged men Rushed, crushed and thrust along, All that was left of them; First the two thousand, Then the seven hundred.”

There was one presentation made at this levee of which the newspapers said: “No event for some years past has excited so much indignation.” The Duke of Wellington had brought with him a gentleman, rich, well bred, and one of the principal guarantors to the Commissioners of the Exhibition of 1862. As the crowd fought its way up the stairs the stranger stumbled against Justice Baron Pollock, who had an extraordinary memory for faces. The Baron told what he remembered to some official, but the presentation had taken place and the levee was over. The gentleman in question had many years before made a mistake upon a cheque, and had been sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment. He was what was known as “one of Jebb’s pet lambs”; that is to say, he had come under the humane prison reformatory ideas of Sir Joshua Jebb, and so had been able honourably to reinstate himself in the commercial world. But his ambition flew too high: wishing to make friends with royalty, he found himself publicly advertised as unfit for that honour.

The storm of indignation which shook the papers over the unbearable conditions of royal receptions made no impression upon the Queen, and the girlish Alexandra held a Court for Victoria in the following May, at which 2,200 people attended, and confusion was worse confounded. To add to the faintings, losses and torn rags, empty carriages got mixed up with full ones, so the presentations lasted until six o’clock, and even the royal hosts were exhausted. As Henry Greville remarked: “What was never done before, they retired for a short time to refresh and repose themselves.” The poor guests had no chance of that relief, however.

It was hoped that Queen Victoria would make the wedding the occasion for emerging from her seclusion, and that she would honour the bridal pair by attending as a queen. This hope was summarily destroyed, and so much stress was laid upon the intention of holding a quiet wedding that _Punch_ declared that the ceremony would take place in an obscure Berkshire village, noted only for its old castle and non-sanitary arrangements, and suggested that the secrecy of the proceedings should be carried out to the utmost, the only public intimation being in the first column of _The Times_--

“On the 13th inst., at Windsor, by Dr. Longley, assisted by Dr. Thomson, Albert Edward England, K.G., to Alexandra Denmark. No cards.”

The settlements had been granted without much parliamentary bickering, being £40,000 to the Prince and £10,000 to the Princess, which, with £60,000 from the Duchy of Cornwall, was thought to be sufficient.

The entry of the young Princess into England and her progress through London must have been one of the most stirring events of her life; pleasure was there certainly, but pleasure pointed by alarm is unforgettable. At Gravesend half London seemed to be floating in gaily decorated craft to welcome her, and from there to the Bricklayers’ Arms everything, even the haystacks and hedges, blushed with royal bunting; but the drive thence to Paddington, that was absolutely thrilling!

Queen Victoria had made all arrangements; she was always particular in her instructions about any great function. The carriages sent to meet the Princess, who was to drive through London before the eyes of all England, were thus described by Lord Malmesbury in his _Memoirs_--

“I was never more surprised and disappointed.... The carriages looked old and shabby and the horses very poor, with no trappings, not even rosettes, and no outriders. In short, the shabbiness of the whole cortège was beyond anything one could imagine, every one asking, ‘Who is the Master of the Horse?’”

Another order given was that the carriages should trot, and that, though the way lay through the city, the City Fathers should take no part in the welcoming, because their heavy State carriages would have to go at a walk. It is really difficult not to wonder whether the latter order was not issued that the gorgeous city coaches should not contrast too luxuriously with the humbler royal equipages. But such a loud outcry was made over the “trotting” order that it was rescinded, and the Lord Mayor and Aldermen were allowed to escort the Princess from London Bridge to Temple Bar, the Duke of Buccleugh, Lord High Steward of Westminster, and the Dean and Chapter heading the procession from Temple Bar to Hyde Park Corner.

The Lord Mayor, however, used his opportunity with too much pride, by refusing all help, either from the military or the Force, and relied entirely upon his own five hundred police managing the crowd. But London Bridge and the streets were absolutely blocked; the people pressed against the horses, caught hold of the sides of the carriages, and in a struggling, shouting turmoil, with waving hands and arms and open throats, shifting and clinging like figures in a nightmare, they strove and contended to hold place and get nearest to the carriage which held the Princess.

This extended to beyond the Mansion House--the carriages crawling along inch by inch--where the scene was terrible. Between the solid walls of people no exit could be found; fainting women and boys were with difficulty saved from being trampled on; a dead or dying baby was held up over the crowd, and a woman was seen to throw a child into one of the carriages to save its life.

When turning the corner of the Mansion House, the Princess’s carriage swayed beneath the pressure and she put out her hand. It was at once grasped by some one in the crowd. An old Irishwoman clutched the side of the carriage, and Alexandra said--

“Oh, I hope you won’t be hurt!” Upon which the woman responded, “God bless you, my darling!”

The Princess, feeling the benison to be of good omen, replied, “Thank you, thank you!”

The equerries around the carriage showed great good humour, and effectually persuaded the multitude to give way foot by foot before the horses, Lord Alfred Paget betraying a skill in chaffing which made every one who heard him his friend.

From Chancery Lane the route was better kept. At Cambridge House in Piccadilly the royal carriage came to a halt, for upon the balcony stood the veteran Lord Palmerston and his wife, with whom salutations were exchanged.

At Slough, whence the royal party drove to Windsor, the horses became rebellious; the leaders of the first carriage jibbed, those of the second turned round upon the wheelers, and the harness got entangled, which created a scene of great confusion. However, the wise man has said that all’s well that ends well, and the little Princess _did_ get to Windsor that night, and had three days in which to rest for her very sumptuous wedding, which “was so grand as to be quite overpowering,” judged the courtier Lord Malmesbury.

The brilliant show may be imagined; every one agreed that the bride was extraordinarily beautiful, but Lord Ronald Gower gave the palm to another: “The finest part of the ceremonial as regards the persons present was the magnificent appearance and presence of Princess Mary [of Cambridge] as she seemed to sail up the nave of this gorgeous chapel. She looked the very embodiment of earthly magnificence.” Princess Mary, still unwed at thirty, though many had wanted her! But there seemed always some reason, State or otherwise, why the suitors, great and little, should one after the other be discarded.

Above the brilliant scene, in a windowed box, sat the Queen, almost hidden in _crêpe_; one apart; feeling gladness for these young people, yet streaming with tears for thinking of her own wedding day. Well, it was the Victorian way, and there’s no more to be said.

On nearing the altar the Princess curtseyed deeply to the Queen, and her maids, unprepared for this, thought they ought to kneel; then, finding their mistake, suddenly straightened themselves, while the Prince stood irresolute, and Jenny Lind’s sweet voice flooded the building to an accompaniment composed by Prince Albert. Meanwhile the Queen’s first grandson, the amiable little Prince William of Prussia, now the most dishonoured man in the world, was biting the bare Highland legs of his two uncles, Arthur and Leopold, between whom he stood, and who were responsible for his quiet and decorous behaviour.

After six-and-twenty royal or imperial hands had signed the register, and after the hundredweight of cake had been cut and all was over, the gallant company started back to London. The Windsor stationmaster had forgotten to keep the platforms clear, and had also not troubled to suit the train accommodation to the company. So great ladies and courtly gentlemen stepped from the castle carriages into the midst of a crowd of sightseers, plentifully besprinkled by roughs and thieves. Among the results recorded I find Lady Westminster, wearing half a million pounds’ worth of diamonds, saving her property by scrambling into a third-class carriage, the venerable Lady Palmerston hunting vainly for a seat, and at last finding one unoccupied in the third class, and Count Lavradio complaining that his diamond star had been torn from his chest.

For a week afterwards the papers were inundated with letters from indignant Englishmen, who complained that Queen Victoria had failed to honour either the Princess or the nation in allowing shabby carriages to form part of a great London procession. Said one such in _The Times_: “Our Queen’s equipages have not of late years been remarkable either for their beauty or for the taste and finish with which they are turned out, and certainly the servants, carriages and cattle selected to convey the Danish Princess through joyful London attired in its holiday clothing must have been the very dregs of that singularly ill-appointed establishment known as the Royal Mews of Pimlico.”

The popular belief was that the impoliteness shown was the result of a dispute between the Queen and her advisers twenty-three years earlier. “Etiquette forbids,” said the Ministers, “that a young prince should use the Queen’s State carriage before he becomes her husband, or is in any way connected with the State.” Victoria was said to have remembered this, and would allow no greater distinction to be shown to her new prospective daughter-in-law than had been shown to her own beloved; indeed, not so much, as in her youthful days the Queen’s stables were excellently appointed.