INSTALLATION OF PRINCE ALBERT AS CHANCELLOR OF CAMBRIDGE.
One thousand eight hundred and forty-seven began with the climax of the terrible famine in Ireland, and the Highlands, produced by the potato disease, which, commencing in 1845, had reappeared even more disastrously in 1846. In the Queen's speech in opening Parliament, she alluded to the famine in the land with a perceptibly sad fall of her voice.
In spite of bad trade and bad times everywhere, two millions were advanced by the Government for the relief of the perishing people, fed on doles of Indian meal; yet the mortality in the suffering districts continued tremendous.
In February, 1847, Lord Campbell describes an amusing scene in the Queen's closet. "I had an audience, that her Majesty might prick a sheriff for the county of Lancaster, which she did in proper style, with the bodkin I put into her hand. I then took her pleasure about some Duchy livings and withdrew, forgetting to make her sign the parchment roll. I obtained a second audience, and explained the mistake. While she was signing, Prince Albert said to me, 'Pray, my lord, when did this ceremony of pricking begin?' CAMPBELL. 'In ancient times, sir, when sovereigns did not know now to write their names.' QUEEN, as she returned me the roll with her signature, 'But we now show we have been to school.'" In the course of the next month his lordship gives a lively account of dining along with his wife and daughter at Buckingham Palace. "On our arrival, a little before eight, we were shown into the picture gallery, where the company assembled. Bowles, who acted as master of the ceremonies, arranged what gentlemen should take what lady. He said, 'Dinner is ordered to be on the table at ten minutes past eight, but I bet you the Queen will not be here till twenty or twenty-five minutes after. She always thinks she can dress in ten minutes, but she takes about double the time.' True enough, it was nearly twenty-five minutes past eight before she appeared; she shook hands with the ladies, bowed to the gentlemen, and proceeded to the salle à manger. I had to take in Lady Emily de Burgh, and was third on her Majesty's right, Prince Edward of Saxe- Weimar and my partner being between us. The greatest delicacy we had was some very nice oat-cake. There was a Highland piper standing behind her Majesty's chair, but he did not play as at State dinners. We had likewise some Edinburgh ale. The Queen and the ladies withdrawing, Prince Albert came over to her side of the table, and we remained behind about a quarter of an hour, but we rose within the hour from the time of our sitting down to dinner…. On returning to the gallery we had tea and coffee. The Queen came up and talked to me. She does the honours of the palace with infinite grace and sweetness, and considering what she is both in public and domestic life, I do not think she is sufficiently loved and respected. Prince Albert took me to task for my impatience to get into the new House of Lords, but I think I pacified him, complimenting his taste. A dance followed. The Queen chiefly delighted in a romping sort of country-dance, called the Tempête. She withdrew a little before twelve."
The beginning of the season in London was marked by two events in the theatrical and operatic world. Fanny Kemble (Mrs. Pierce Butler) reappeared on the stage, and was warmly welcomed back. Jenny Lind sang for the first time in London at the Italian Opera House in the part of "Alice" in Roberto il Diavolo, and enchanted the audience with her unrivalled voice and fine acting.
In the month of May, in the middle of the Irish distress, the great agitator of old, Daniel O'Connell, died in his seventy-second year, on his way to Rome. The news of his death was received in Ireland as only one drop more in the full cup of national misery. In the same month of May another and a very different orator, Dr. Chalmers, the great impassioned Scotch divine, philosopher, and philanthropist, one of the leaders in the disruption from the Church of Scotland, died in Edinburgh, in his sixty-eighth year.
Prince Albert had been elected Chancellor of Cambridge University—a well-deserved compliment, which afforded much gratification both to the Queen and the Prince. They went down to Cambridge in July for the ceremony of the installation, which was celebrated with all scholarly state and splendour.
"The Hall of Trinity was the scene of the ceremony for which the visit was paid. Her Majesty occupied a chair of state on a dais. The Chancellor, the Prince in his official robes, supported by the Duke of Wellington, Chancellor of Oxford, the Bishop of Oxford, the Vice- Chancellor of Cambridge, and the Heads of the Houses entered, and the Chancellor read an address to her Majesty congratulatory on her arrival. Her Majesty made a gracious reply and the Prince retired with the usual profound obeisances, a proceeding which caused her Majesty some amusement," so says the Annual Register. This part of the day's proceedings seems to have made a lively impression on those who witnessed it.
Bishop Wilberforce gives his testimony. "The Cambridge scene was very interesting. There was such a burst of loyalty, and it told so on the Queen and Prince. E—- would not then have thought that he looked cold. It was quite clear that they both felt it as something new that he had earned, and not she given, a true English honour; and so he looked so pleased and she so triumphant. There was also some such pretty interludes when he presented the address, and she beamed upon him and once half smiled, and then covered the smile with a gentle dignity, and then she said in her clear musical voice, 'The choice which the University has made of its Chancellor has my most entire approbation.'" The Queen records in her Diary, "I cannot say how it agitated and embarrassed me to have to receive this address and hear it read by my beloved Albert, who walked in at the head of the University, and who looked dear and beautiful in his robes, which were carried by Colonel Phipps and Colonel Seymour. Albert went through it all admirably, almost absurd, however, as it was for us. He gave me the address and I read the answer, and a few kissed hands, and then Albert retired with the University."
After luncheon a Convocation was held in the Senate House, at which the Queen was present as a visitor. The Prince, as Chancellor, received her at the door, and led her to the seat prepared for her. "He sat covered in his Chancellor's chair. There was a perfect roar of applause," which we are told was only tamed down within the bounds of sanity by the dulness of the Latin oration, delivered by the public orator. Besides the princes already mentioned, and several noblemen and gentlemen, Sir George Grey, Sir Harry Smith (of Indian fame), Sir Roderick Murchison, and Professor Muller, received university honours.
Her Majesty and the new Chancellor dined with the Vice-Chancellor at Catherine Hall—probably selected for the honour because it was a small college, and could only accommodate a select party. After dinner her Majesty attended a concert in the Senate House—an entertainment got up in order to afford the Cambridge public another opportunity of seeing their Queen. Later the Prince went to the Observatory, and her Majesty walked in the cool of the evening in the little garden of Trinity Lodge, with her two ladies.
The following day the royal party again went to the Senate House, the Prince receiving the Queen, and conducting her as before to her seat. With the accompaniment of a tremendous crowd, great heat, and thunders of applause, the prize poems were read, and the medals distributed by the Prince. Then came the time for the "Installation Ode," written at the Prince's request by Wordsworth, the poet laureate, set to music, and sung in Trinity Hall in the presence of the Queen and Prince Albert with great effect. Poetry, of all created things, can least be made to order; yet the ode had many fine passages and telling lines, besides the recommendation claimed for it by Baroness Bunsen: "The Installation Ode I thought quite affecting, because the selection of striking points was founded on fact, and all exaggeration and humbug were avoided."
The poem touched first on what was so prominent a feature in the history of Europe in the poet's youth—the evil of unrighteous and the good of righteous war, identifying the last with the successes of England when Napoleon was overthrown.
Such is Albion's fame and glory,
Let rescued Europe tell the story
Then the measure changes to a plaintive strain.
But lo! what sudden cloud has darkened all
The land as with a funeral pall?
The rose of England suffers blight,
The flower has drooped, the isle's delight
Flower and bud together fall,
A nation's hopes he crushed in Claremont's desolate hall
Hope and cheer return to the song.
Time a chequered mantle wears,
Earth awakes from wintry sleep,
Again the tree a blossom bears
Cease, Britannia, cease to weep,
Hark to the peals on this bright May morn,
They tell that your future Queen is born
A little later is the fine passage—
Time in his mantle's sunniest fold
Uplifted on his arms the child,
And while the fearless infant smiled
Her happy destiny foretold
Infancy, by wisdom mild,
Trained to health and artless beauty,
Youth by pleasure unbeguiled
From the lore of lofty duty,
Womanhood, in pure renown
Seated on her lineal throne,
Leaves of myrtle in her crown
Fresh with lustre all their own,
Love, the treasure worth possessing
More than all the world beside,
This shall be her choicest blessing,
Oft to royal hearts denied.
After a brief period of rest, which meant a little quiet "reading, writing, working, and drawing"—a far better sedative for excited nerves than entire idleness—the Queen and the Prince attended a flower-show in the grounds of Downing College, walking round the gardens and entering into all the six tents, "a very formidable undertaking, for the heat was beyond endurance and the crowd fearful." In the evening there was a great dinner in Trinity Hall. "Splendid did that great hall look," is Baroness Bunsen's admiring exclamation; "three hundred and thirty people at various tables … the Queen and her immediate suite at a table at the raised end of the hall, all the rest at tables lengthways. At the Queen's table the names were put on the places, and anxious was the moment before one could find one's place." Then the Queen gave a reception in Henry VIII.'s drawing-room, when the masters, professors and doctors, with their wives, were presented. When the reception was over, at ten o'clock, in the soft dim dusk, a little party again stole out, to see with greater leisure and privacy those noble trees and hoary buildings. Her Majesty tells us the pedestrians were in curious costumes: "Albert in his dress-coat with a mackintosh over it, I in my evening dress and diadem, and with a veil over my head, and the two princes in their uniforms, and the ladies in their dresses and shawls and veils. We walked through the small garden, and could not at first find our way, after which we discovered the right road, and walked along the beautiful avenues of lime-trees in the grounds of St. John's College, along the water and over the bridges. All was so pretty and picturesque, in particular the one covered bridge of St. John's College, which is like the Bridge of Sighs at Venice. We stopped to listen to the distant hum of the town; and nothing seemed wanting but some singing, which everywhere but here in this country we should have heard. A lattice opened, and we could fancy a lady appearing and listening to a serenade."
Shade of quaint old Fuller! thou who hast described with such gusto Queen Elizabeth's five days' stay at Cambridge, what wouldst thou not have given, hadst thou lived in the reign of Victoria, to have been in her train this night? Shades more formidable of good Queen Bess herself, Bluff King Hal, Margaret Countess of Richmond, and that other unhappy Margaret of Anjou, what would you have said of this simple ramble? In truth it was a scene from the world of romance, even without the music and the lady at the lattice. An ideal Queen and an ideal Prince, a thin disguise over the tokens of their magnificence, stealing out with their companions, like so many ghosts, to enjoy common sights and experiences and the little thrill of adventure in the undetected deed.
On the last morning there was a public breakfast in the grounds of Trinity College, attended by thousands of the county gentry of Cambridge and Lincolnshire. "At one the Queen set out through the cloisters and hall and library of Trinity College, to pass through the gardens and avenues, which had been connected for the occasion by a temporary bridge over the river, with those of St. John's." Madame Bunsen and her companions followed her Majesty, and had the best opportunity of seeing everything, and in particular "the joyous crowd that grouped among the noble trees." The Queen ate her déjeuner in one of the tents, and on her return to Trinity Lodge, she and Prince Albert left Cambridge at three o'clock for London. Baroness Bunsen winds up her graphic descriptions with the statement, "I could still tell much of Cambridge— of the charm of its 'trim gardens,' of how the Queen looked and was pleased, and how well she was dressed, and how perfect in grace and movement."