CHAPTER XXIX.
DEATH OF THE PRINCE Of LEININGEN—BIRTH OF PRINCESS BEATRICE—BESTOWAL
OF THE VICTORIA CROSS—INDIAN MUTINY.
The court returned to Windsor in October, and in November a severe blow struck the Queen in the death of her brother, the Prince of Leiningen. A second fit of apoplexy ended his life while his sister, the Princess of Hohenlohe, watched by his death-bed. Prince Leiningen was fifty-two years of age. He had served in the Bavarian army, and was a man of recognised influence among his countrymen in the German troubles of 1848, which cost him his principality. He had married in 1829, when he was twenty-seven years of age and when the Queen was only a little girl of ten, Marie (née) Countess of Kletelsberg. He left two sons, the eldest of whom, Prince Ernest, entered the English navy.
Her Majesty's references to the death in her letters to King Leopold are very pathetic. "Oh! dearest uncle, this blow is a heavy one, my grief very bitter. I loved my dearest, only brother, most tenderly." And again, "We three were particularly fond of each other, and never felt or fancied that we were not real geschwister (children of the same parents). We knew but one parent, our mother, so became very closely united, and so I grew up; the distance which difference of age placed between us entirely vanished…." The aged Duchess of Kent was "terribly distressed, but calm and resigned."
Baron Stockmar was with the royal family at this time. It was his last visit to England. His company, always earnestly coveted, especially by the Prince, was apt to be bestowed in an erratic fashion characteristic of the man. Some one of the royal children would unexpectedly announce, "Papa, do you know the Baron is in his room," which was the first news of his arrival.
During the stay of the Court at Osborne in December, the graceful gift of the Resolute was made by the Americans to the Queen, and accepted by her Majesty in person, with marked gratification. The Resolute was one of the English ships which had gone to the north seas in search of Sir John Franklin. It had been abandoned in the ice, found by an American vessel, taken across the Atlantic, refitted, and by a happy thought offered as a suitable token to the Queen.
On the 14th of April, 1857, the Queen's fifth daughter and ninth and last child was born at Buckingham Palace. A fortnight afterwards the Duchess of Gloucester, the last of George the III. and Queen Charlotte's children, died in her eighty-third year. The Queen wrote of her to King Leopold, who must have been well acquainted with her in his youth, "Her age, and her being a link with bygone times and generations, as well as her great kindness, amiability, and unselfishness, rendered her more and more dear and precious to us all, and we all looked upon her as a sort of grandmother." Sixty-two years before, when the venerable Princess was a charming maiden of eighteen, she had gloried in the tidings of her princely cousin's laurels, won on the battlefields of Flanders. More than twenty years afterwards, when Princess Charlotte descended the staircase of Carlton House after her marriage with Prince Leopold, "she was met at the foot with open arms by the Princess Mary, whose face was bathed in tears." The first wedding had removed the obstacle to the second, which was celebrated a few weeks later. The Duchess lived for eighteen years happily with her husband, then spent more than twenty years in widowhood. She ended her long life at Gloucester House, Park Lane. At her earnest request, she was buried without pomp or show with her people in the family vault at Windsor.
Before the late Duchess of Gloucester's funeral, Prince Albert, according to a previous pledge, opened, on the 5th of May, the great Art Exhibition at Manchester, to which the Queen contributed largely.
On the announcement to Parliament of the Princess Royal's approaching marriage, the House of Commons voted in a manner gratifying to the Queen and the Prince a dowry of forty thousand, with an annuity of eight thousand a year to the Princess.
At Osborne the Queen had a flying visit from one of her recent enemies, the Archduke Constantine, the Admiral-in-Chief of the Russian navy.
On the 14th of June, the young Archduke Maximilian of Austria arrived. He was an object of peculiar interest to the Queen and the Prince, as the future husband of their young cousin, Princess Charlotte of Belgium. He seemed in every way worthy of the old king's careful choice for his only daughter. Except in the matter of looks, he was all that could have been wished—good, clever, kind. But man proposes and God disposes; so it happened that the marriage attended by such bright and apparently well-founded hopes resulted in one of the most piteous tragedies that ever befell a noble and innocent royal pair. Another bridegroom, Prince Frederick William, was in England to meet the Archduke, and a third was hovering in the background in the person of Don Pedro of Portugal, whose marriage with Princess Stephanie of Hohenzollern Prince Albert had been requested to negotiate. Marriage- bells were in the air, and that must indeed have been a joyous christening at which two of the bridegrooms were present. Prince Frederick William of Prussia acted as godfather to his future little sister-in-law, while his betrothed bride was one of the godmothers. The infant was named as her Majesty explained to King Leopold: "She is to be called Beatrice, a fine old name, borne by three of the Plantaganet princesses, and her other names will be Mary (after poor Aunt Mary), Victoria (after mamma and Vicky, who with Fritz Wilhelm are to be the sponsors), and Feodore (the Queen's sister)." Her Majesty's last baby was a beautiful infant, soon to exhibit bright and winning ways, the pet plaything of her brothers and sisters, and especially of her father.
On the 25th of June the Queen conferred on Prince Albert, by letters patent, the title of "Prince Consort." The change was desirable, to insure the proper recognition of his rank, as her Majesty's husband, at foreign courts.
On the following day, the 26th, the interesting ceremony of the first bestowal of the Victoria Cross took place in Hyde Park before many thousands of spectators. The idea was to provide a decoration which might be earned by officers and soldiers alike, as it should be conferred for a single merit—the highest a soldier could possess, yet in its performance open to all—devoted, unselfish courage. Thus arose the most coveted and honourable of English orders, which confers more glory on its wearer than the jewelled star of the Order of the Garter gives distinction. In excellent keeping with the motive of the creation, the Maltese cross is of the plainest material, iron from the cannon taken at Sebastopol; in the centre is the crown, surmounted by the lion; below it the scroll "For Valour." On the clasp are branches of laurel; the cross hangs suspended from it by the letter V—a red riband being for the army, a blue for the navy. The decoration includes a pension of ten pounds a year. The arrangements for the ceremony were similar to those at the distribution of the medals, except that her Majesty was on horseback. She rode a grey roan, and wore a scarlet jacket with a black skirt. Stooping from her seat on horseback, she pinned the cross on each brave man's breast, while the Prince saluted him with "a gesture of marked respect." [Footnote: "Life of the Prince Consort.">[ Prince Frederick William was with the royal party.
A few days afterwards, the Queen, the Prince, their two elder daughters and two elder sons and Prince Frederick William of Prussia, a large party, paid a visit to Manchester, staying two nights at Worsley Hall. They inspected the great picture exhibition, received addresses, and traversed the streets to Peel Park, where a statue to her Majesty had been recently erected, the whole amidst much rejoicing.
In the end of June, King Leopold arrived with his daughter on a farewell visit before her marriage, so that there were two young brides comparing experiences and anticipating what the coming years would bring, under her Majesty's wing. The princesses were nearly of an age, neither quite seventeen. They had been playmates and friends since childhood, but the fates in store for them were very different.
In the second week of July the freedom of the City of London was presented to Prince Frederick William of Prussia; the Prince Consort was sworn in master of the Trinity House, and the Queen and the Prince visited the camp at Aldershott. On the 27th the marriage of the Princess Charlotte of Belgium and the Archduke Maximilian was celebrated at Brussels. The Prince went abroad for a few days, to make one in the group of friends and relations, among whom was the old French Queen Amélie, the grandmother of the bride. Queen Victoria wrote to King Leopold, that she was present with them in spirit, and that she could not have given a greater proof of her love than she had shown in urging her husband to go. "You cannot think how much this costs me," she added, "or how completely forlorn I am and feel when he is away, or how I count the hours till he returns. All the numerous children are as nothing to me when he is away. It seems as if the whole life of the house and the home were gone."
On the 6th of August, the Emperor of the French's yacht, with the Emperor and Empress on board, arrived on the English coast, and a private visit of a few days' length was paid to the Queen and the Prince at Osborne. On the 19th of August Her Majesty and the Prince, with six of their children, in the royal yacht, paid an equally private visit to Cherbourg, in the absence of the Emperor and Empress. During the short stay there was a long country drive to an old chateau, when darkness overtook the adventurous party, and all was agreeably fresh and foreign.
By the beginning of September terrible tidings arrived from India. The massacre of the English women and children at Cawnpore, after the surrender of the fort, and the perilous position of the garrison at Lucknow, darkened the usually joyous stay at Balmoral, to which the Princess Royal was paying her last visit. Another source of distress to the Queen and the Prince, when the mutiny began to be put down, was the indiscriminate vengeance which a section of the rulers in India seemed inclined to take on the natives for the brutalities of the rebels. At length Lucknow was relieved, and England breathed freely again, though the country had to mourn the death of Havelock. Sir Colin Campbell completed the defeat of the enemy, and the first steps were taken to put an end to the complications of government in India, by bringing the great colony directly under the rule of the Queen, and causing the intermediate authority of the East India Company to cease.