FAMILY GAINS AND LOSSES

“Really I do not think it _possible_ for any one in the world to be _happier_ or as happy as I am. He is an Angel, and his kindness and affection for me is really touching. To look in those dear eyes, and that dear, sunny face, is enough to make me adore him.”--_Queen Victoria on her marriage._

“I could hardly bring myself to believe that this was really death, that which I had so often shuddered at and felt afraid of; there was nothing there dreadful or appalling, only a heavenly calm and peace.”--_Crown Princess on the death of the King of Prussia._

If Queen Victoria had much anxiety to endure in the ’sixties through mistaken foreign policy and a strongly stirred people, she yet enjoyed many of those domestic pleasures which deal with life in its most primitive aspect. There were grandchildren to welcome into the world, brides to help into partnership--though that word would but ill express Victoria’s idea of the marriage state--and deaths to call forth her tears and sympathy.

In August 1865 the Queen went again to Coburg, with her three youngest daughters and Prince Leopold, that they might be present at the unveiling of a bronze statue to the Prince Consort in the square of his native town.

Princess Helena was then nineteen, and either from the usual cause of mutual attraction or through maternal policy she became engaged to Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, brother to the husband of her Majesty’s niece, Princess Adelaide of Hohenlohe-Langenburg (the daughter of Princess Feodore, half-sister to the Queen).

There are those who have said that this Prince Christian was brother to “the Augustenburger” who had claimed the crown of Denmark, and also that the Queen arranged the marriage that she might not only placate both Denmark and the little German states, but give at least one little blow back at Bismarck, by showing compensation to the family he had cheated. However, all this was wrong. The Augustenburger renounced his rights to his title in 1864, taking instead that of Count de Noer, and dying the following year; I have not discovered that he had a brother. His successor, who took all his long row of names, was the husband of Princess Adelaide. Thus this marriage seems to have been arranged in an ordinary way, with no underlying policy of generosity or spite.

Prince Christian was accredited with a wife, but as she was not of royal birth, royalty would have considered this no bar to a second marriage with a young girl. How easy is royal morality, especially that which is made in Germany! Nearly all the German princelings of that date appear to have made morganatic unions at least once in their lives, which they gaily put aside as soon as a better match offered.

The Prince had neither lands nor money, but Queen Victoria was ready to supply all that he needed; so he resigned his position as an officer in the Prussian army, and was dowered by his mamma-in-law with £100,000 and a house at Frogmore. When the wedding took place it was announced that “none of Prince Christian’s male relatives were able to attend,” and Mr. _Punch_ wickedly suggested that--

“Considering what the bride’s brother had done for Mr. Poole [the great tailor] we should have thought that he might have made this possible, even at three months----” A remark which shows how extremely impecunious the family was believed to be.

Victoria, however, was determined that full honour should be given to Prince Christian in England, and when he approached our shores was peculiarly insistent upon the use of his title of Serene Highness. Thus the Court Circular announced--

“H.S.H. arrived in London attended by----; H.S.H. embarked from Dieppe in a Government steamer. H.S.H. was received at Dover by the naval and military authorities. A guard of honour attended H.S.H.’s departure.”

The _Pall Mall Gazette_ maliciously commented that “H.S.H. must be rather astonished at the pinnacle on which his betrothal to Princess Helena has put him. In their own country Serene Highnesses mostly travel about in second-class carriages and smoke cheap cigars. Here they put in motion generals, admirals, troops and paragraphs when he moves.”

At the wedding the Queen for the first time allowed some modification of the ghastly garb of _crêpe_ which she had lived in for four and a half years. Her dress was of _moiré_ antique, interwoven with silver; of course, there was a good deal of _crêpe_ about it, but there was also a row of diamonds round the bodice and a little coronet of diamonds round the cap.

It was not in such festive robes that Victoria, a month earlier, had watched her cousin, Mary of Cambridge, marry. There had been much speculation as to why Princess Mary remained single until she was thirty-three, for there was always some one ready and waiting. In 1864 she was said to be sought by “a gallant young soldier of noble birth,” upon whose suit she did not frown, all that was wanting being the Queen’s consent, which was for the moment withheld. It was evidently withheld for longer than a moment, and Princess Mary had still to wait. In 1866 she met Francis, Prince of Teck, the only son of Duke Alexander of Württemberg and a Hungarian countess--another morganatic marriage, but a faithful one! Francis, being so born, could not inherit, so his father made him Duke of Teck, gave him his blessing and congratulated him on marrying an English royalty. He was a third poor German to add to Prince Louis of Hesse and Prince Christian, but so much regard was felt for the bride that the published comments were on the whole sympathetic.

The wedding took place in the little church at Kew, in June, in the midst of a great company of princes and princesses, and the Queen entered upon the gay, brilliant scene clothed in mourning so deep that not one speck of white relieved her dress at any point.

Many were the grandchildren born to her Majesty during these ten years, chief of which were the children of the Princess of Wales. The first two years of her life in England could scarcely have been happy to the young Dane, whose mind was filled with her people and their troubles, though her anxiety was tempered by her husband’s complete sympathy. At breakfast one morning an equerry thoughtlessly read out news of a Danish defeat, causing Alexandra to burst into tears, and Albert Edward’s anger, it is said, would not have disgraced Henry VIII. It may be imagined that the Princess did not love Bismarck, and once when a visitor at Windsor asked Princess Beatrice what she would like for a present, the child, having consulted with Alexandra, replied--

“I want Bismarck’s head on a charger, please.”

The Princess’s eldest son came into this world two months before he was expected, and he was, therefore, unable to enjoy all the elaborate preparations which had been made for his comfort at Marlborough House. He had to be wrapped in an ordinary flannel petticoat, and was professionally examined by an ordinary Windsor practitioner bearing the ordinary name of Brown, just like any ordinary baby. Alexandra was staying at Frogmore and had gone to watch the skating on Virginia Water, leaving there at four in the afternoon; the baby was born at nine, and the London doctors and nurses arrived at eleven. Dr. Brown was probably the happiest person among them all, for he pocketed £500 for his share in the event.

The baby was, of course, very small, and some motherly person, thinking to comfort the Princess, remarked that John Russell (who was diminutive) was a seven months’ child, and was surprised to hear a scream of laughter from the bed.

Alexandra’s second son was born in June 1865, he, too, being in a hurry, though he only antedated his parents’ expectations by a month. Two years later a man named Alfred John Pearce published a prophecy about the young Prince George in an annual he then edited, and this was re-published in 1910 by the _Toronto Globe_. The salient part of the prophecy ran--

“From these positions [of the stars] we may conclude and predict that this prince will, if he live, become King of England, under the name of George V.... The Prince will in mind and taste greatly resemble his grandfather, the good and great Prince Albert. Indeed, England will be proud of her fifth King George, and his fame shall descend to posterity as one of the best and wisest of monarchs. The position of Jupiter signifies a very prosperous and peaceful reign.”

The last paragraph scarcely fulfils present-day conditions, but then King George may live so long that the present war may become but an incident in an otherwise peaceful and wise reign.

Several other children were born to the Princess, of which Louise and Victoria, both belonging to this decade, survived. Princess Alice’s first daughter saw the light at Windsor in April 1863; the Crown Princess of Germany was not idle; while Princess Helena and the Duchess of Teck both did their duty by the State.

Among those who died were four veterans: the old enemies Palmerston and Stockmar, also King Leopold and Queen Amélie of France. Of the four Pam had had the most successful life, for one cannot find that he had known fear, and he alone of the four possessed wit. Stockmar was hypochondriacal; all his life he had feared for his health, until at last he lost it. The Queen went to see him in 1862, and together they talked and wept over the dead prince, Stockmar breaking out one evening in deep lamentations, reproaching himself with being alive, and saying--

“Ah, my dear Prince, my good Prince, how happy I shall be to see you again! That will not be long to wait.”

It was not long, for he died the next year, before the man whom he had always regarded as an enemy and that other whom he now loved best in the world, King Leopold.

“In full activity, as a soldier at the breach,” Palmerston died in October 1865, and, in spite of her long antagonism, it was at the wish of the Queen that he was buried in Westminster Abbey. The funeral service was dramatic. The hearse, which was, as usual, a forest of nodding plumes, was followed by solemn royal carriages, and then by gaudy mayoral coaches, brought from all over England and containing one hundred and forty costumed corporations. This cortège, like some huge, primeval saurian crawling to its fossil bed, slowly went to the Abbey through sunshine; but during the ceremony there a storm broke, rain fell heavily, wind howled, and in that darkness--so dark that the clergyman was nearly invisible--the body was lowered. When the grave was covered the sun came out again.

Pam was eighty-one, and in some ways still young, active and occupied to the last week of his life. I have been told a curious story of the way in which he received his bootmaker, named Seton. An appointment would be made, and Seton would be shown into the room where Palmerston was standing at a high desk, writing. The footman would put a stool to the right and the statesman’s foot would be placed on it and measured, the stool being then placed in position for the left foot. Seton would then go away without having received a word from his customer. This had gone on for twenty years, during which the two had never spoken to each other.

This bootmaker, well known in his day, also served the Prince of Wales, and the first time he went to Marlborough House he was shown into a room and left to wait. About forty minutes later the Prince came in, and, seeing a stranger, asked--

“Who are you?”

“I have come to measure your Royal Highness for a pair of boots,” was the reply.

Albert Edward rang the bell sharply, and said to the servant, “How is it that Mr. Seton has been kept waiting here forty minutes and you did not tell me? Let it never occur again.”

But then the Prince was not quite so seriously occupied as his Prime Minister. Palmerston possessed a terse wit which sometimes flashed across the dismal speeches of the House. Thus, when some one was boringly enumerating things which we owe to the Jews, Pam replied--

“I quite agree with the honourable gentleman; many of us owe a great deal to the Jews.”

A lady once told him that her maid objected to going to the Isle of Wight again because its climate was not embracing enough. “Now what would you do with such a woman?” she asked.

“Take her to the Isle of Man next time,” was the prompt response.[5]

Leopold of Belgium died in December 1865, much to Victoria’s sorrow. At one time he was the most devoted friend of France, but in his later life he became intensely suspicious of Louis Napoleon, having been worked on by German intrigue to that end, for Bismarck, too, feared France, and started the policy of isolating her in Europe. It was a successful policy both with Belgium and England, for as long as Victoria lived there was no confidence between the two countries. As for Leopold, he lived in terror of Napoleon, and constantly raised the cry that the latter intended to annex Belgium. He also did much in influencing Victoria against her neighbour, continually alarming her ministers and fostering English distrust of the French.

Early the next year ex-Queen Marie Amélie, aged eighty-two, was buried at Weybridge, her body being followed to the grave by princes, ambassadors and ministers from almost every country in Europe, as well as from Brazil and Mexico.

In June 1867 Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, was shot by his own subjects. His wife was the Queen’s cousin, Charlotte, daughter of King Leopold, of whom she had been very fond. Charlotte came to Europe in 1866, hoping to turn Napoleon from his purpose of withdrawing all French troops from Mexico and so leaving her husband unprotected, and she went mad at her want of success. She is still alive, though it is doubtful whether her brother’s stories of her continued insanity were true, for he had secured her whole fortune and it was to his interest to keep her in seclusion. The house in which she lives was entered by Germans in the autumn of 1914.

What a farce is the supreme position in a country! Queen Amélie had fled for her life from her subjects and lived eighteen years in exile; Leopold lived in fear of the monarch next door to him; and Louis Napoleon lived in terror of assassination by the dagger. When President Lincoln was shot in 1865 Napoleon’s shattered nerves made him leave Paris abruptly for Algiers, under the excuse of drinking the waters there, but--it was said--in reality to get used to the idea that a pistol was a good assassination weapon--a fact which he had always contended--and also to realize that the chances against him were now doubled.