Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria/Chapter 15

by Millicent Garrett Fawcett

Chapter XV.

The Valley of the Shadow of Death.

The year 1861 closed the book of the happy wedded life of the Queen. The hand of death lay heavy upon her, and took from her first her mother, and then her husband. The death of her mother was her first very great sorrow. Her half-brother, Prince Charles of Leiningen, had died in 1856; but his life and hers, during his latter years, had lain very much apart, and though she mourned him deeply and truly, he had not made part of her life, and his death could not be to her what the death of her mother was, who had watched over her from childhood, and with whom she passed part of almost every day; still less could it bring the loneliness and desolation in which the Queen was left by the death of her husband, "her dearest life in life," as she had called him.

The Duchess of Kent died in March, 1861. There is no consolation in being told that such a loss is common. It is not common to the heart that has to bear it. The Queen felt, as all must feel when death takes from them a beloved parent, that part of her life was gone which nothing could restore. She wrote in the diary so often quoted:—

"How awful! How mysterious! But what a blessed end! Her gentle spirit at rest, her sufferings over! But I—I, wretched child—who had lost the mother I so tenderly loved, from whom for these forty-one years I had never been parted except for a few weeks, what was my case? My childhood—everything seemed to crowd upon me at once. I seemed to have lived through a life, to have become very old! What I had dreaded and fought off the idea of for years, had come, and must be borne. The blessed future meeting, and her peace and rest, must henceforward be my comfort."

In a letter to her uncle, the King of the Belgians, now the last survivor of his generation, the Queen wrote that she felt "so truly orphaned." The Queen was sustained in her sorrow by the tender sympathy of her husband and of her daughter, the Princess Alice, whose strong and beautiful character, already well known in her home circle, was to be revealed to the nation a few months later. The Princess was now entering on womanhood, and had recently been betrothed to Prince Louis of Hesse, nephew of the reigning Grand Duke. After her lamented death in 1878, a volume, with extracts from her letters to the Queen, was published as a memorial. In these she repeatedly recurs to the act that when the Duchess of Kent died, the Prince Consort took his daughter by the hand and led her to the Queen, and told her she "must comfort mamma." A few months later, when the place in the Palace of the husband and father was vacant, the Princess recalled these words, and accepted them as a sacred trust and bequest. She nobly justified the confidence her father had reposed in her. In this earlier bereavement it was her office to comfort and sustain the Queen, who wrote: "Dear, good Alice was full of intense feeling, tenderness, and distress for me; she, and all of them, loved 'grandmamma' so dearly."

The Queen and Prince appreciated fully all that the former had owed to her mother,—the watchful vigilance and wisdom with which, from the date of her husband's death, in 1820, the Duchess had devoted herself to the one object of preparing her baby daughter for the great future which awaited her. Stockmar had been her friend from the hour of her bereavement; it was from him that she learned that the illness of her husband could have no other than a fatal termination; he had stood by her through the long years of her loneliness, surrounded as she was by difficulties, jealousies, and misrepresentations; he had always appreciated her warm heart and innate truthfulness. He wrote of her that "she was by sheer natural instinct truthful, affectionate, and friendly, unselfish, sympathetic, and even magnanimous." All these testimonies to her worth were recalled now with gratitude and love by the sorrowing Queen. She was deprived of one solace which she might have had, the presence of her half-sister, Princess Feodore of Hohenlohe, the only other surviving child of the Duchess. She had recently been left a widow (April, 1860), and could not leave Germany.

Lady Augusta Bruce (afterwards Lady Augusta Stanley) had been one of the Duchess's ladies-in-waiting, and had been almost a daughter to her in love, and more than her own daughter could be in tender, watchful service. The Queen now transferred Lady Augusta to her own household, nominally as Resident Bed-Chamber Woman, really as assistant secretary; and from this time a very strong bond of affection was established between them, which was unbroken until Lady Augusta's death. The Queen also received help and consolation from the presence of her eldest daughter, the Princess Royal, who hurried to her parents on hearing of their loss. But notwithstanding all consolations, the Queen's heart was very sore, and her faithful, tender nature is one which clings with tenacious gratitude to the memory of precious friends hid in death's dateless night. Eleven years after her mother's death, Her Majesty's journal for the 17th August, 1872, has the following entry: "Beloved mamma's birthday. That dear mother, so loving and tender and full of kindness! How often I long for that love!" The Queen did not attend her mother's funeral. "I and my girls," she wrote, "prayed at home." A special trial belonging to the position of Royalty must be its isolation. No subject can be on terms of equality with a Sovereign; crowned heads are therefore thrown almost wholly on their own immediate families for that life-giving sympathy and criticism which can hardly exist in perfection except between equals. To the Queen the loss of her mother, followed by the loss of her husband, brought the silencing of the only voices in the world who could say to her, in love, "You have been wrong, you have made a mistake." Consider what it must be never to hear any language except that of homage and respect, never to listen to plain truths put plainly, never to be laughed at, seldom to be laughed with; and then imagine what it must be to lose the few who belong to that close inner circle for whom these formalities are non-existent.^[1] One can only compare it to the position of a man on a desert island, who, having possessed a Bible or a Shakespeare, wakes one morning to find them destroyed or carried away by the tide. It has been sometimes said by English women that the Queen's loss when she lost her husband was not greater than that of thousands and millions of women among her subjects; it has even been said that Her Majesty's loss was not so great: some women, at one blow, by the death of their husbands, are face to face with the wolf of poverty and hunger for themselves and their children. No one can think lightly of such anguish; but if the inner history of such lives could be told, would it not often be found that the curse was turned into a blessing, that the necessity to seek active work, the friends found in seeking it and in doing it, gave relief to the heartache, and that the rod of chastisement had been converted into the staff of strength?

"Get leave to work
In this world,—'t is the best you get at all;
For God in cursing gives us better gifts
Than men in benedictions. God says, 'Sweat
For foreheads;' men say, 'Crowns:' and so we are crowned
Ay, gashed by some tormenting circle of steel
Which snaps with a secret spring. Get work, get work;
Be sure 't is better than what you work to get."

The year preceding the death of the Prince Consort had been, perhaps, fuller than ever of public and private interests. In the autumn of 1860, the Queen and her husband met their daughter, Princess Frederick William of Prussia, with her two children, at Coburg. This was the first sight the Queen had of her grandson, "Dear little William, … such a darling, and so intelligent; … a very pretty, clever child." During this visit to Coburg the Prince was in a serious carriage accident, from which, however, he escaped almost uninjured. The Queen's thankfulness is more touching by the light of after events. She gave 1,200 florins to found an annual gift for apprenticing young men and women in Coburg, to be distributed every year on the anniversary of her husband's escape. Tours had been arranged, and were taking place in 1860, for the Prince of Wales in Canada and the United States, and for Prince Alfred in Cape Colony; the parents constantly received the most gratifying news of the impression made by their sons, and the great loyalty their visits had called forth. Most courteous and cordial letters on the subject of the Prince of Wales's visit were exchanged between the Queen and the President of the United States. The Queen addressed the President as "My good Friend," being the nearest approach which the circumstances admitted to the exclusively royal "mon cher frère." Special and sympathetic reference was made in both letters to the young Prince's visit to the tomb of Washington. Arrangements were made by the Prince Consort for the Prince of Wales's residence on his return from America for a year at the University of Cambridge. Before this, for the ostensible purpose of allowing the Prince of Wales to attend the German military manoeuvres, it was arranged that he should have the opportunity of making the acquaintance of the Princess Alexandra of Denmark. The Prince Consort notes with obvious satisfaction in his diary "that the young people seem to have taken a warm liking for one another."

Plans were also made during this autumn for a visit by the Prince of Wales to the Holy Land.

The cares of a large family were particularly pressing on the Queen and Prince during this year. Prince Leopold, who was delicate from his birth, had a sharp attack of measles, which caused great anxiety. It was necessary to send him (aged only seven) to Cannes for the winter; and the choice of suitable people to take charge of the delicate little lad was necessarily an anxious one. Among the other engagements of this autumn was included a visit to Ireland, with a hurried excursion to the Curragh to see the Prince of Wales, who was going through a course of military training there.

With regard to public affairs, foreign politics were more than ordinarily absorbing. It was the year of the triumphal entry of Garibaldi into Naples, and of Victor Emmanuel into the Papal States. The Queen and Prince followed these events with more anxiety and less sympathy than the Ministry or the nation. The Prince dubbed Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell, "the two old Italian masters." The Court seems to have failed to appreciate the constructive greatness of Garibaldi, and could see in him little more than a kind of picturesque bandit. The fruit of his labors towards the unification of Italy was now, however, nearly ripe, and before the death of the Prince Consort the English Government had acknowledged the title of Victor Emmanuel as King of Italy. On the Eastern Question the Queen and Prince were troubled and perplexed by the tendency of Turkey to relapse into all her old vices of oppression and bad government, and by the evident hesitation of the French Emperor upon the question whether it would not be to his interest to throw over the English and form a Russian alliance.

At home the Queen and Prince were strenuously backing up the Government in their policy of increasing the naval defences of England and in protecting our southern coasts by extensive works of fortification. This policy was opposed by Mr. Bright and Mr. Cobden, from the ranks of the independent Members of Parliament, and by Mr. Gladstone from within the Cabinet. Palmerston wrote to the Queen that Mr. Gladstone had threatened to resign if the new fortifications could not be paid for out of income; and the Prime Minister added, in a characteristic passage, "Viscount Palmerston hopes to be able to overcome his objection; but if that should prove impossible, however great the loss to the Government by the retirement of Mr. Gladstone, it would be better to lose Mr. Gladstone than to run the risk of losing Portsmouth or Plymouth." Throughout this year, amid the constant pressure of work of both a public and a private character, and the deluge of despatches that followed the Royal pair wheresoever they went, there are constant references to the failing health of the Prince Consort; his digestion was a perpetual trouble; the Queen kept back details of business from him if they were of an anxious nature, because she knew they irritated his delicate stomach. The death of the Duchess of Kent threw a good deal of extra work upon the Prince; he was left her sole executor, and masses of papers had to be dealt with without the aid of her secretary and controller of the household, who had predeceased his mistress by a few weeks. There was a visible failure of health and energy on the part of the Prince. "I have been far from well of late;" "my catarrh refuses to give way;" "yesterday I was too miserable to hold the pen," are a few expressions taken at random from his private letters in the year preceding his death. He did not, however, relax his habit of diligent work. Summer and winter he rose at seven, and immediately attacked his correspondence, and the reading and writing of despatches for the Queen. They worked together, he writing, she correcting and amending. He would bring letters to the Queen and say, "Read carefully, and tell me if there be any faults in these" (he was never quite secure, it seems, about his English); or, "Here is a draft I have made for you. Read it; I should think it would do." The last time he rose to work in the early morning in this was was on December 1, 1861, when he prepared a draft for the Queen on the Trent affair. Sir Theodore Martin gives it in facsimile in his fifth volume of the Life of the Prince. It stands in the Prince's writing, with the Queen's corrections. As he gave it to the Queen he said, "I am so weak I have scarcely been able to hold the pen." It was a worthy piece of work to stand as a last memento of a noble life. It was the time of the outset of the American Civil War. Great irritation had been produced between the Governments of England and the United States by the forcible seizure by the latter on an English ship, the Trent, of two envoys from the Southern States who were proceeding to Europe. It was an entirely unjustifiable piece of high-handedness, condemned by every rule of International law. The feeling in England was one of intense indignation, and Lord Palmerston, then Prime Minister, was not the man to soothe or subdue it. A despatch for communication to the American Government was sent by the Prime Minister to the Queen. If it had been delivered, as originally drafted, the peaceful settlement of the difference between the two countries would have been rendered extremely difficult, if not impossible. The Prince Consort virtually remodelled it in such a way as to maintain all the just demands of this country, but to leave the Government of the United States an honorable path of retreat from the false step which had been taken. This one piece of work alone should keep the Prince's memory green in both countries for many a long year. The news of the pacific settlement of the difference between England and America reached London on 9th January, 1862, less than a month after the Prince Consort's death. The Queen, in communicating with Lord Palmerston on the subject, could not forbear reminding him that the peaceful issue of the quarrel was "greatly owing to her beloved Prince." Palmerston, in his reply, cordially acknowledged that it was so, and added: "But these alterations were only one of innumerable instances of the tact and judgment, and the power of nice discrimination which excited Lord Palmerston's constant and unbounded admiration."

At the very outset of the Prince Consort's last illness, his spirits were greatly depressed by the death from typhoid fever of the King of Portugal, Don Pedro, at the early age of twenty-five, and also of his brother, Prince Ferdinand. They were the Prince's cousins, and he was particularly attached to them, especially to the King, to whom he stood in almost a paternal relation. The King had married in 1857, with every apparent prospect of happiness, but his young wife had died of diphtheria in 1859, and now he and his brother were cut off by typhoid. The calamity produced an effect on the Prince Consort which he was unable to shake off. This and other anxieties of a private nature preyed upon his mind and deprived him of sleep. He noted in his diary of November 24th that for fourteen days his nights had been almost sleepless. It was the beginning of the end. Another sign of low vitality was that he had no strong love of life. He said to the Queen, not long before his fatal illness, "I do not cling to life. You do; but I set no store by it. If I knew that those I love were well cared for, I should be quite ready to die to-morrow;" and he added, "I am sure if I had a severe illness I should give up at once. I should not struggle for life. I have no tenacity of life." The event proved that he was right. On Monday, November 25th, he paid a hurried visit to the Prince of Wales at Cambridge. He was then feeling far from well, and entered in his diary on his return, "Bin recht elend" (am very wretched). His last public appearance was on November 28th, at a review of the Eton College Volunteers. That it was a great effort to him to fulfil this engagement is proved by the short note in his diary, the last he ever made, "Unhappily I must be present."

The gradually growing anguish of the Queen during the next fortnight can be traced day by day in the pages of Sir Theodore Martin. At first she was "so thankful the illness was not fever;" then it became clear that it was fever,—typhoid fever,—with its accompanying exhaustion and wandering of mind. She was terribly alarmed, but still clung desperately to every favorable symptom. She tried to gather what the doctors really thought, less by what they said than by how they looked. When they looked grave and sad, "I went to my room and felt as if my heart must break." When the doctors spoke frankly to her of the course which the fever must run before any improvement could be looked for, "My heart was ready to burst; but I cheered up, remembering how many people have fever. … Good Alice was very courageous, and tried to comfort me." In the earlier days of the Prince's illness he took pleasure in being read to, and in hearing music, and the little baby daughter, Beatrice, was brought in to say her new French verses, and he held her little hand in his. The Queen recalls with touching minuteness his tenderness and caressing affection, constantly manifested towards herself. "Liebes Fräuchen," "gutes Weibchen" (dear little wife, good little wife), he would call her, stroking her face with his wasted hand. On December 11th the Queen's diary records that she supported him while he took his beef-tea. "And he laid his dear head (his beautiful face, more beautiful than ever, is grown so thin) on my shoulder, and remained a little while, saying, 'It is very comfortable so, dear child!' which made me very happy."

His mind often wandered back to the days of his boyhood at the Rocenau; but at times it would be as clear as ever, and he would speak to the Queen on public matters, or remind her of some important detail in connection with her despatches. On December 13th an alarming change for the worse was noticed, but again he rallied, and again the almost despairing Queen was tempted to listen to the delusive voice of hope. The Prince of Wales was summoned by telegraph from Cambridge, by the Princess Alice acting on her own responsibility, and he travelled through the night, reaching Windsor at three in the morning of December 14th. Prince Alfred was at Halifax, in Nova Scotia; Prince Leopold was at Cannes;^[2] and the Prince's darling eldest daughter, the Princess Royal, was in Prussia, and could not be summoned in time. Little Princess Beatrice was too young to know what she was losing. But the other children were gathered round their father's deathbed. About half-past five in the afternoon the Prince spoke to the Queen for the last time. He called her again, "Good little wife," and kissed her with a sigh, as if he felt he was leaving her. Then he sank into a sort of doze, from which he never fully awoke; and the life so inexpressibly dear to the Queen, and so valuable to his children and to the nation, gradually ebbed. The end came at a quarter to eleven on Saturday night, December 14th, 1861. The booming of the great bell of St. Paul's at midnight warned London of the calamity that had befallen the Queen and nation. But the sad news did not reach the general public till later. Few who were present at morning service on the following day will forget the thrill of awe and sorrow which ran through the Church when the name of Prince Consort was omitted from the liturgy, and a long pause was made after the word "widows and orphans." To many this was the first intimation of the Prince's death.

One of the Queen's chief titles to the love of her people is that she sorrows with their sorrows:—

"Queen as true to womanhood as queenhood.
Glorying with the glories of her people,
Sorrowing with the sorrows of the lowest."

The whole nation now mourned with the Queen, and with many the bitter cup was not unmingled with remorse. The lamentations for the dead are often sorest when the accusing conscience joins its forces to those of natural grief. Injustice, misrepresentation, ungenerosity during life, add an almost intolerable torture to the pain of the mourner. Fortunately, from this worst anguish the Queen was wholly free. She could look back over the whole of her twenty-two years' union with her beloved Prince, and could find nothing but an unbroken chain of confidence and love; it may safely be said that she had missed no opportunity of actively contributing to her husband's happiness by every device which ingenious watchful affection could contrive. She therefore belonged to those mourners of whom it may be truly said that they are blessed, and shall be comforted. On the last anniversary of her wedding-day before her husband's death, the Queen had written to the King of the Belgians to give renewed expression to the feelings awakened by the day. She spoke again of "our blessed marriage," and "the incalculable blessing" it had brought; and added, "Very few can say with me that their husband at the end of twenty-one years is not only full of the friendship, kindness, and affection which a truly happy marriage brings with it, but of the same tender love as in the very first days of our marriage." Death itself could not rob her of this enormous happiness. It was true he was gone, and she was left alone to bear the weight of the crown and sceptre unsupported except by his memory; but for nearly twenty-two years he had been to her in her own words, "Husband, father, lover, master, friend, adviser, and guide." Many will be disposed to murmur, "Happy woman, happy wife," even in face of the crushing grief which now overwhelmed her.

1. The Queen gave expression to this sense of isolation, as a necessary part of the position of a Sovereign, in a private letter to the Emperor of the French, dated August, 1857. She wrote, after thanking the Emperor for his expressions of favorable opinion about the Prince Consort: "In a position so isolated as ours, we can find no greater consolation, no support more sure, than the sympathy and counsel of him or her who is called on to share our lot in life; and the dear Empress, with her generous impulses, is your guardian angel, as the Prince is my true friend."
2. By a sad coincidence, the governor chosen for Prince Leopold, Sir Edward Bowater, died on the same day as the Prince Consort. The poor little boy, on hearing of his father's death, is said to have exclaimed in the midst of his tears, "I must go to my mother. I want my mother."