Chapter V: War and Famine (2)

A more romantic and perplexing case was that of a British ship, the _Emilie St. Pierre_. She had sailed from Calcutta for St. John’s, New Brunswick, and had gone to Charleston to see if the port was blockaded. The Federal cruiser, _James Adger_, seized her, and put a prize crew on board. The skipper of the _Emilie St. Pierre_--a Scotsman called Wilson--aided by the cook and steward, one morning overpowered the prize crew and their officers by a clever stratagem, and after escaping many dangers brought the ship safely into Liverpool on the 31st of April. Wilson for the moment was the idol of the seafaring population, and Mr. Adams, somewhat nettled at the defeat of the prize crew, demanded the surrender of the vessel. Lord Russell refused, alleging that the Government had no legal power to seize her, or “interfere with her owners in relation to their property in her.”

These controversies rather embittered the relations between Americans and Englishmen in this country. It was therefore most gratifying to the Queen to learn that a kind-hearted citizen of the United States, whose princely charity has endeared his memory to the English-speaking race, had bestowed on the poor of London a gift of surpassing munificence. Mr. George Peabody had a high reputation as a merchant in the City, where his generosity and courageous use of his credit had saved many firms from ruin in the financial crisis of 1857. In the spring of 1862 he made over to Trustees the sum of £150,000, to be applied for the benefit of the poor of London, his only stipulation being, that the management and application of the fund should be free from all sectarian bias. He did not limit the discretion of the Trustees, though he suggested that they would best spend the money in providing improved dwellings for the people. His ideas were not quite carried out, for the blocks of buildings erected by the Peabody Trustees were soon occupied, not by the poor of London, but by the lower middle class, who were not meant by Mr. Peabody to participate in the benefits of his gift.

The 1st of May had been fixed for the opening of the Great Exhibition of 1862, and the ceremony was a somewhat mournful one. The sable liveries of the lackeys who appeared in the grand procession served to remind the people of the late Prince Consort, who had been the life and soul of the project. His place was taken by the Duke of Cambridge and the Crown Prince of Prussia, who was associated with him by the special request of the Queen, as one of her representatives. South Kensington was crowded with sightseers, and it was admitted that the ceremonial was one of the most imposing pageants that had ever been witnessed. To the daïs, where the formal business of inauguration was transacted, none but persons in uniform were admitted, and the scene was therefore bright with rich masses of colour, glittering with the flashing jewels of knightly Orders and military decorations. When the Duke of Cambridge and the other Special Commissioners had taken their seats, the National Anthem was sung, and Earl Granville, as the representative of the Exhibition Commissioners, placed an address to the Queen in the hands of his Royal Highness. To this the Duke replied, alluding in touching terms to the death of the Prince Consort, and to the affliction which had prostrated the Queen with sorrow. The brilliant procession then slowly filed down from the daïs to the eastern dome, where Meyerbeer’s _Overture en forme de Marche_, written for the occasion, was performed, and Tennyson’s fine ode, set to music by Professor Sterndale Bennett, was given. Its allusions to Prince Albert went home to every heart:--

“O silent father of our Kings to be,
Mourn’d in this golden hour of jubilee,
For this, for all, we weep our thanks to thee!
The world-compelling plan was thine,
And lo! the long laborious miles
Of Palace: lo! the giant aisles,
Rich in model and design”--

were lines that gave expression to the feeling of the country with rare felicity and power. It was admitted on all hands that the building of the new Exhibition was far grander and far larger than that of 1851. But on the other hand the witchery of the Palace, with its walls of crystal and its strong flood of diffused light, had vanished. The roof and walls of the new building were solid, and these and the windows “factory-patterned,” as a singer in _Punch_ called them, destroyed the sensation of unconfined space which one felt on entering the Crystal Palace of 1851, and which gave to that structure its magical charm.

On the 14th of June the Prince of Wales, who had completed the Eastern tour that had been planned for him by his father, returned to England. He had left Osborne on the 6th of February with General Bruce and a carefully selected suite, of whom Dr. A. P. Stanley (afterwards Dean of Westminster), who joined him at Alexandria, was a member. On the 1st of March he landed at Alexandria, where, despite his _incognito_ as Baron Renfrew, he was saluted with Royal honours. At Cairo he enjoyed the hospitality of the Viceroy of Egypt, and on the 4th of March left the city for the Pyramids, which were reached just as the mysterious outline of the Sphinx was vanishing in the fading light of sunset. At dawn the Prince ascended the Great Pyramid without assistance, much to the amazement of the Bedouins, who asked, sceptically, “Is that the Governor? If so, why does he go alone?” The party then went up the Nile as far as the First Cataract, viewing the Temple at Esneh by torchlight. After Assouan and its antiquities were explored, the Prince returned down the river, halting three days at Thebes, where he met the Duke and Duchess of Saxe-Coburg. On the 21st of March a tournament between some Arnauts and Arab chiefs was held; then Memphis was visited, and Cairo again reached on the 23rd. After some other excursions the Prince proceeded to Jerusalem, which he entered on the 31st of March. He was received by the

Pacha and a picturesque escort of wild horsemen, who kept circling round the party, brandishing their spears and firing their guns in mimic combat. His Royal Highness pitched his tent on the northern side of the city, near the Damascus Gate, and visited all the sacred places--even those from which Christians are excluded being opened to him.[137] He left Jerusalem on the 10th of April, and next day arrived at Nablûs, on the eve of the Samaritan Passover. He ascended Mount Gerizim, and saw this last vestige of the old Jewish ritual performed, the sun sinking behind the western hills as the Paschal sheep were sacrificed. On the 15th he encamped at the foot of Mount Carmel, and on Easter eve saw the sun set on the Sea of Galilee. At Damascus he received but a churlish welcome from the sullen, fanatical population, and on the 6th of May he visited Beyrout. On the 10th he landed at Tripoli, and on the 12th explored the cedar groves of Lebanon. On the 15th the Royal yacht touched at Rhodes, on the 17th at Patmos, and--after visiting Smyrna, Constantinople, Athens, Cephalonia, and Malta--the tour ended at Marseilles. A brief visit was paid to the French Emperor at Fontainebleau, and on the 14th of June the travellers reached Windsor. Three days afterwards the Queen heard, to her deep regret, that General Bruce--long a trusted friend of her family--had died from Syrian fever, contracted during his journey. He had sacrificed his life to the chivalrous discharge of his duties as the Prince’s Governor, and the Queen felt only too keenly that his loss was an irreparable calamity at a time when his wise guidance and exquisite tact rendered his services to her eldest son of supreme importance.[138]

During the greater part of the year the Queen led a life of absolute seclusion. The first public sign of her renewed interest in current events was given when the tidings of the Hartley Colliery accident sent a thrill of horror through every English heart. On the 16th of January the beam of the steam-engine in the Hartley coal-pit snapped. The shaft was blocked and shattered by the wreck of the machinery, and some two hundred and four miners were consigned to a lingering death in the workings, into which the water poured at the rate of 1,500 gallons a minute. For nine days rescue parties toiled without stint or ceasing to reach the prisoners. They even heard their efforts to cut their way out, but were unable to reach them. When a gang was at last able to penetrate to the workings they found men and boys lying dead in groups, surrounded by mournful relics and painful records of their last hours of agony. The male population of three hamlets was swept away; every cottage contained a coffin, some, alas! more than one, over which widows and orphans wailed out their hearts in unavailing sorrow. Among the first to express sympathy with the bereaved ones was the Queen. _Haud ignara mali miseris succurrere disco_ was probably the thought that flashed across her mind when she sent her anxious telegraphic messages to the scene of the disaster, whilst as yet there were hopes that some lives might be saved. After the funeral, the scene at a great religious meeting held at the pit was most touching, when the incumbent of Earsdon read to the assembly of mourners a letter which her Majesty had dictated to Sir Charles Phipps, and which had been addressed to the head viewer (or overseer) of the mine. It ran as follows:--

“OSBORNE, _January 23rd, 1862_.

“SIR,--The Queen, in the midst of her own overwhelming grief, has
taken the deepest interest in the mournful accident at Hartley, and
up to the last had hoped that at least a considerable number of the
poor people might have been recovered alive. The appalling news
since received has afflicted the Queen very much.

“Her Majesty commands me to say that her tenderest sympathy is with
the poor widows and mothers, and that her own misery only makes her
feel the more for them.

“Her Majesty hopes that everything will be done, as far as
possible, to alleviate their distress, and her Majesty will have a
sad satisfaction in assisting in such a measure. Pray let us know
what is doing.

“I have the honour to be, your obedient servant,

“C. B. PHIPPS.”

It was estimated that £17,000 would be needed for the relief of the widows and orphans. In London alone £20,000 was sent to the Lord Mayor, and by the end of February it was necessary to close the fund, for upwards of £81,000 had been generously subscribed by the public.[139]

A glimpse of the early days of the Queen’s widowhood is afforded in the “Diaries” of one of her chaplains in Scotland--the late Dr. Norman Macleod, Minister of the Barony Parish Kirk, Glasgow. Her Majesty was advised to retire to Balmoral in the first week of May, and when she reached her Highland home she commanded the attendance of Dr. Macleod. He seems to have been somewhat nervous at being called upon to undertake the delicate duty of offering spiritual consolation to his widowed Sovereign. On the 12th of May, however, Dr. Macleod, writing to his wife, says, with a sense of relief, “All has passed well--that is to say, God enabled me to speak in private and in public to the Queen in such a way as seemed to me to be truth, the truth in God’s sight; that which I believe she needed, though I felt it would be very trying to her spirit to receive it. And what fills me with deepest thanksgiving is that she has received it, and written to me such a kind, tender letter of thanks for it.”[140] Writing in his Journal on the 14th of May, Dr. Macleod jotted down, whilst the facts were fresh in his mind, the chief incidents of his visit to the Queen at this painful period of her life. “After dinner,” he says, “I was summoned unexpectedly to the Queen’s room. She was alone. She met me, and, with an unutterably sad expression, which filled my eyes with tears, at once began to speak about the Prince. It is impossible for me to recall distinctly the sequence or substance of that long conversation. She spoke of his excellences--his love, his cheerfulness, how he was everything to her. She said she never shut her eyes to trials, but liked to look them in the face; how she would never shrink from duty, but that all was at present done mechanically: that her highest ideas of purity and love were obtained from him, and that God could not be displeased with her love. But there was nothing morbid in her grief. I spoke freely to her about all I felt regarding him--the love of the nation and their sympathy; and took every opportunity of bringing before her the reality of God’s love and sympathy, her noble calling as a Queen, the value of her life to the nation, the blessedness of prayer.”

“Sunday: the whole household, Queen and Royal Family, were assembled at 10.15. A temporary pulpit was erected. I began with a short prayer, then read Job xxiii., Psalm xlii., beginning and end of John xiv., and end of Revelation vii. After the Lord’s Prayer I expounded Hebrews xii. 1-12, and concluded with prayer. The whole Service was less than an hour. I then, at 12, preached at Crathie[141] on ‘All things are ours.’ In the evening at Crathie on ‘Awake, thou that sleepest.’ The household attended both Services.”

“On Monday I had another long interview with the Queen. She was much more like her old self--cheerful--and full of talk about persons and things. She, of course, spoke of the Prince. She said that he always believed he was to die soon, and that he often told her that he had never any fear of death. I also saw the Princesses Alice and Helen--each by herself. No words of mine can express the deep sympathy I have for all these mourners.... The more I hear about the Prince Consort, the more I agree with what the Queen said to me about him on Monday, ‘that he really did not seem to comprehend a selfish character or what selfishness was.’”[142]

After her father’s death, the Princess Alice was so deeply affected by her mother’s grief and her own bereavement, that for a time Prince Louis of Hesse thought she would not hold to her engagement with him. However, this fear soon passed away, and it was duly announced that the Princess would be married on the 1st of July. The ceremony took place in private at Osborne, and was performed by the Archbishop of York, in the absence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was suffering from a severe illness. The Queen attended in deep mourning, but her agitation was so great that, when the service was ended, she had to be led away to her room. The Crown Prince of Prussia, all the bride’s brothers and sisters, the parents, brothers, and sisters of the bridegroom, and many other near and dear relatives, were present. The Duke of Saxe-Coburg-and-Gotha gave the Princess, his niece, away at the altar, and the married couple, after the ceremony was over, drove off quietly to St. Clare, near Ryde, which Colonel and Lady Catherine Harcourt had placed at their disposal. There they remained three days. On the 9th of July they left for Hesse-Darmstadt, accompanied by the kindliest wishes of all classes in the country, who had watched with sympathy and interest the affectionate solicitude with which the Princess had solaced the Queen under the first shock of her bereavement.

“Dear to us all by those calm earnest eyes,
And early thought upon that fair young brow.
Dearer for that where grief was heaviest, thou
Wert sunshine, till he passed where suns shall rise
And set no more: thou, in affection wise
And strong, wert strength to her, who even but now
In the soft accents of thy bridal vow
Heard music of her own heart’s memories.

“Too full of love to own a thought of pride
Is now thy gentle bosom; so ’tis best;
Yet noble is thy choice, O English bride!
And England hails the bridegroom and the guest
A friend--a friend well-loved by him who died.
He blessed you both; your wedlock shall be blessed.”

In these simple and pathetic lines _Punch_, dropping the jester’s cap and bells, gave graceful expression to the popular feeling with which the nation bade the Princess good-bye. The parting between mother and daughter was a mournful one, though both kept their feelings well under control. Writing from the Royal yacht to bid adieu to the Queen, the Princess said, “My heart was very full when I took leave of you and all the dear ones at home; I had not the courage to say a word--but your loving heart understands what I felt.”[143] And again after she reached Darmstadt, she recurs to this sad theme. “Away from home,” is the concluding sentence of one of her letters to the Queen, “I cannot believe that beloved papa is not there; all is so associated with him.”

Indeed, it may be doubted whether the loss of her daughter’s society for a time had not a salutary influence on the Queen. It stimulated her to take a fresh interest in her family life, for a correspondence, intimate and affectionate, was carried on between mother and daughter, in which the Queen had to transmit budgets of home news, the mere collecting of which diverted her thoughts from the heart wound that tortured her. From this correspondence we gather that in those days the Queen’s life was full of many gloomy hours. It is clear that the shadow of death at times fell very darkly on her spirit, and that she poured out her heart to her daughter without reserve. The Princess Louis of Hesse--as Englishmen had to learn to call the Princess Alice--on her side sympathised with every varying mood of her mother’s troubled mind, although her letters indicate how each reference to her father, whom she had idolised from her childhood, made her own wounds bleed afresh. She is sedulous in cheering her mother with accounts of her new home. She enters into all the Queen’s plans for perpetuating the Prince Consort’s memory. From her we gather that, outside of public business and family duties, these plans now filled the Queen’s life. Commissions were given to sculptors like Mr. Theed to carve busts of the Prince. Marochetti’s equestrian statue was projected, and the Princess Louis, soon after reaching Darmstadt, presses the Queen to tell her how it is progressing. The Queen also makes a collection of the Prince’s speeches, and this again stimulates the interest of her daughter, who expresses her pleasure at hearing that Mr. (afterwards Sir Arthur) Helps has been selected by her mother to write an introduction to them for publication. “What can it be,” she writes in one of her letters to the Queen, “but beautiful and elevating if he has rightly entered into the spirit of that pure and noble being?” But even these occupations failed entirely to divert the mind of the Queen from brooding over her bereavement, and now and again her letters, so full of despondency and hopelessness, alarmed her daughter. To one of these the Princess replies from Auerbach, in the month of August, as follows:--“Try and gather in the few bright things you have remaining, and cherish them, for though faint, yet they are types of that infinite joy still to come. I am sure, dear mamma, the more you try to appreciate and to find the good in that which God in His love has _left_ you, the more worthy you will daily become of that which is in store. That earthly happiness you had is indeed gone for ever, but you must not think that every ray of it has left you. You have the privilege, which dear papa knew so well how to value, in your exalted position, of doing good and living for others, of carrying on his plans, his wishes, into fulfilment, and as you go on doing your duty, this will, this must, I feel sure, bring you peace and comfort.”[144]

In the meantime preparations for an interesting and important event in the Royal Family had to be made. It has been already mentioned that the Prince of Wales had been much attracted by the fascinating society of the Princess Alexandra of Sleswig-Holstein-Glücksburg, whom he met shortly before his father’s death whilst visiting Germany. The feeling had ripened into a warm attachment, and it soon came to be rumoured that the lady had listened favourably to his suit as a lover. In autumn it was decided that the Queen should proceed to the Continent and arrange the preliminaries of this alliance with the parents of the Princess. It was also her Majesty’s wish to visit Gotha--consecrated to her now by many tender memories--as soon as she was able to endure the fatigue of travel. Lord Russell was selected to accompany her Majesty as Minister in attendance.

Writing in his Diary on the 1st of September, Count Vitzthum says, “The Queen, who returned two days ago to Windsor, held a Privy Council there, in order to make the necessary arrangements for the period of her absence. Lord Palmerston did not attend this sitting, but has come down to town to receive her Majesty’s last commands. The Queen embarks to-day at Woolwich, and goes first to Brussels to meet for the first time the Princess Alexandra, and her parents. A few days later the Prince of Wales will also come to Brussels, when the betrothal will be officially declared. The indiscretion of the newspapers, which speak of the betrothal as a settled affair before it has actually been announced, has given great annoyance at Windsor Castle.”[145] The impression which the youth and beauty of the Danish Princess made on the Queen was most favourable, and the preliminaries of the marriage were soon arranged. Her Majesty then proceeded to Germany, where she retired to the little shooting-box of Reinhardsbrunn, a residence so small that even Lord Russell had to stay at Gotha for lack of accommodation. In a letter to Count Vitzthum, he gives us a casual glimpse of the Queen’s retreat. “I went to Reinhardsbrunn yesterday (17th September),” says Lord Russell, “and took an opportunity of speaking to the Queen about the proposed visit of Prince George of Saxony. Her Majesty appreciated the kindness of the King of Saxony, whom she regarded, she said, in the light of a relation. The Queen has no room in the house she inhabits to lodge any one, but if the Prince George could come any day after to-morrow (Friday), about three o’clock to pay her a visit, she would be happy to see him. The Prince of Wales is in high spirits, and willingly accepts congratulations on his marriage.”[146]

In the middle of October the Princess Louis of Hesse-Darmstadt and her husband came to England, awaiting at Windsor the arrival of the Queen, who was then at Osborne. The thoughtful affection of the Princess herself prompted this visit. It was feared that the anniversary of the Prince Consort’s death might bring on one of those attacks of nervous prostration from which the Queen suffered, during the first year of her bereavement, and at such a moment the presence of the Princess Alice afforded comfort, consolation, and confidence to the Royal family.

On the 18th of December the Queen emerged from her seclusion to superintend the removal of the Prince Consort’s remains from St. George’s Chapel to the Mausoleum at Frogmore Park. This sepulchral edifice had been built by her special directions as a monument of the affection and reverence which she and her children bore to the dead Prince. It is cruciform in plan, the arms of the cross radiating from a central cell, lit by three semi-circular windows in the clerestory, to the cardinal points of the compass. Polished shafts of cold grey granite decorate the outside of the building, and on an octagonal roof of copper a gilded cross gleams on a square-set tower. The transepts are also square, and lit by a clerestory corresponding with that in the central cell. Monoliths of Aberdeen and Guernsey granite flank the steps of the entrance porch, and the whole exterior is faced with polished granites and parti-coloured masonry. When the Prince’s remains were laid there, the interior--remarkable for its almost Oriental richness of subdued colour and for the splendour of its golden decorations--was unfinished, nor was Marochetti’s recumbent statue of the Prince, which was to be placed over his sarcophagus, completed.

Early on the morning of the 18th of December the remains of the Prince were taken from St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, to Frogmore, the ceremony being conducted in extreme privacy. The coffin was first placed in a hearse, which was followed by the Prince of Wales and Prince Louis of Hesse in a mourning coach. The Lord Chamberlain, the Dean of Windsor, Sir Charles Phipps, Colonel Grey, and other officials and domestics of the Royal Household formed the rest of the procession. The ceremony was very brief, simple, and solemn, and when the coffin was placed within the sarcophagus, the Princes laid upon it floral wreaths, which the Princesses had woven with their own hands for their father’s grave.