THE DEATH OF THE PRINCE CONSORT.
The news of the terrible mortality in the Portuguese royal family, especially the death of the King, to whom the Prince was warmly attached, had seriously affected his health, never strong, and for the last few years gradually declining, with gastric attacks becoming more frequent and fits of sleeplessness more confirmed. At the same time the Prince's spirit was so unbroken, his power of work and even of enjoyment so unshaken, while the patience and unselfishness which treated his own bodily discomfort as a matter of little moment had grown so much the habit of his mind, that naturally those nearest to him failed in their very love to see the extent of the physical mischief which was at work. Nevertheless there is abundant evidence that the Queen was never without anxiety on her husband's account, and Baron Stockmar expressed his apprehensions more than once.
Various causes of care troubled the Prince, among them the indisposition contracted by the Princess Royal at the coronation of her father-in-law, the King of Prussia, and the alarming illness at Cannes of Sir Edward Bowater, who had been sent to the south of France in charge of Prince Leopold. After a fortnight of sleeplessness, rheumatic pains, loss, of appetite, and increasing weakness, the Prince drove in close wet weather to inspect the building of the new Military Academy at Sandhurst, and it is believed that he there contracted the germs of fever. But he shot with the guests at the Castle, walked with the Queen to Frogmore and inspected the mausoleum there, and visited the Prince of Wales at Cambridge afterwards.
Then the affair of the Trent suddenly demanded the Prince's close attention and earnest efforts to prevent a threatened war between England and America. In the course of the civil war raging between the Northern and Southern states the English steamer Trent sailed with the English mails from Savannah to England, having on board among the other passengers several American gentlemen, notably Messrs. Mason and Slidell, who had run the blockade from Charlestown to Cuba, and were proceeding to Europe as envoys sent by the Confederates to the Courts of England and France. A federal vessel fired on the English steamer, compelling her to stop, when the American Captain Wilkes, at the head of a large body of marines, demanded the surrender of Mason and Slidell, with their companions. In the middle of the remonstrances of the English Government agent at the insult to his flag and to the neutral port from which the ship had sailed, the objects of the officer's search came forward and surrendered themselves, thus delivering the English commander from his difficulty.
But the feeling in England was very strong against the outrage which had been committed, and it was only the most moderate of any political party who were willing to believe—either that the American Government might not be cognisant of the act done in its name, or that it might be willing to atone by honourable means for a violation of international law—enough to provoke the withdrawal of the English ambassador from Washington, and a declaration of war between the two countries.
Cabinet councils were summoned and a dispatch prepared. A draft of the dispatch was forwarded to Windsor to be read by the Queen, when it struck both her and, the Prince that it was less temperate and conciliatory than it might have been, while still consistent with perfect dignity. The Prince Consort's last public work for his Queen and country was to amend this draft. He rose as usual at seven o'clock, and faint and ill as he was, scarcely able to hold a pen, drew out an improved version of the dispatch, which was highly approved of by the Ministers and favourably received by the American Government. As the world knows, the President, in the name of his countrymen, declared that Captain Wilkes had acted without official instructions, and ordered the release of the gentlemen who had been taken prisoners.
In the meantime the shadows were darkening round the royal home which had been so supremely blest. The Prince was worse. Still he walked out on one of the terraces, and wrapped in a coat lined with fur he witnessed a review of the Eton College volunteers, from which his absence would have been remarked. The ill-omened chilly feeling continued, but there were guests at the Castle and he appeared at dinner. On Sunday, the 1st of December, the Prince walked out again on the terrace and attended service in the chapel, insisting "on going through all the kneeling," though very unwell.
Next morning something was said by the doctors of low fever. No wonder the Queen was distressed after the recent calamity at Lisbon, but concealing her feelings as such watchers must, she strove to soothe and amuse her sick husband. The members of the household who had been at Lisbon arrived with the particulars of the young King of Portugal's death. After listening to them the Prince said "that it was well his illness was not fever, as that, he felt sure, would be fatal to him."
One of the guests at the Castle was Lord Palmerston. In spite of his natural buoyancy of temperament he became so much alarmed by what he heard that he suggested another physician should be called in. Her Majesty had not been prepared for this step, and when she appealed to the two medical men in attendance, Sir James Clark and Dr. Jenner, they comforted her by their opinion that there was nothing to alarm her, and that the low fever which had been feared might pass off.
The next few days were spent in alternations of hope and fear. Which of us is so happy as not to have known that desperate faith when to doubt would be to despair? The Prince liked to be read to, but "no book suited him." The readers were the Queen and Princess Alice, who sought to cheat themselves by substituting Trollope for George Eliot, and Lever for Trollop, and by speaking confidently of trying Sir Walter Scott "to-morrow." To-morrow brought no improvement. Sir James Clark, though still sanguine, began to drop words which were not without their significance. He hoped there would be no fever, which all dreaded, with too sure a presentiment of what would follow. The Prince must eat, and he was to be told so; his illness was likely to be tedious, and completely starving himself would not do.
As if the whole atmosphere was heavy with sorrow, and all the tidings which came from the world without in these days only reflected the ache of the hearts within, the news came from Calcutta of the death of the wife of the Governor-General, beautiful, gifted Lady Canning, so long the Queen's lady-in-waiting and close companion.
The doctors began to sit up with the patient, another stage of the terrible illness. When her Majesty came to the Prince at eight in the morning she found him sitting up in his dressing-room, and was struck with "a strange wild look" which he had, while he talked in a baffled way, unlike him, of what his illness could be, and how long it might last. But that day there was a rally; he ate and slept a little, rested, and liked to be read to by Princess Alice. He was quite himself again when the Queen came in with his little pet child, Princess Beatrice, in whom he had taken such delight. He kissed her, held her hand, laughed at her new French verses, and "dozed off," as if he only wanted sleep to restore him.
The doctor in attendance was anxious that the Prince should undress and go to bed, but this he would not do. Throughout the attack, with his old habit of not giving way and of mastering his bodily feelings by sheer force of will, he had resisted yielding to his weakness and submitting to the ordinary routine of a sick-room. After it was too late the doctor's compliance with the Prince's wishes in this respect was viewed by the public as rash and unwise. On this particular occasion he walked to his dressing-room and lay down there, saying he would have a good night—an expectation doomed to disappointment. His restlessness not only kept him from sleeping, it caused him to change his room more than once during the night.
The morning found him up and seated in his sitting-room as before. But he was worse, and talked with a certain incoherence when he told the Queen that he had been listening to the little birds, and they had reminded him of those he had heard at the Rosenau in his childhood. She felt a quick recoil, and when the doctors showed that their favourable opinion of the day before had undergone a change, she went to her room and it seemed to her as if her heart would break.
Fever had now declared itself unmistakably. The fact was gently broken to the Queen, and she was warned that the illness must run its course, while the knowledge of its nature was to be kept from the Prince. She called to mind every thought that could give her courage; and Princess Alice, her father's true daughter, capable of rising to heights of duty and tenderness the moment she was put to the test, grew brave in her loving demotion, and already afforded the support which the husband and father was no longer fit to give.
Happily for her Majesty, the daily duties of her position as a sovereign, which she could not lay aside though they were no longer shared by the friend of more than twenty years, still occupied a considerable portion of her time. But she wrote in her diary that in fulfilling her task she seemed to live "in a dreadful dream." Do we not also know, many of us, this cruel double life in which the obligations which belong to our circumstances and to old habits contend for mastery with new misery? When she was not thus engaged the Queen sat by her husband, weeping when she could do so unseen.
On the 8th of December the Prince appeared to be going on well, though the desire for change continued strong in him, and he was removed at his earnest request to larger and brighter rooms, adjoining those he had hitherto occupied. According to Lady Bloomfield one of the rooms— certainly called "the Kings' rooms"—into which the Prince was carried, was that in which both William IV. and George IV. had died; and the fact was remembered and referred to by the new tenant, when he was placed where he too was destined to die. The Queen had only once slept there, when her own rooms were being painted, and as it happened, that single occasion was on the night before the day when the Duchess of Kent had her last fatal seizure.
The Prince was pleased with the greater space and light and with the winter sunshine. For the first time since his illness he asked for music, "a fine chorale." A piano was brought into the room, and his daughter played two hymns—one of them "Ein fester burg ist unser Gott" to which he listened with tears in his eyes.
It was Sunday, and Charles Kingsley preached at the Castle. The Queen was present, but she noted sadly that she did not hear a word.
The serious illness of the Prince Consort had become known and excited much alarm, especially among the Cabinet Ministers. They united in urging that fresh medical aid should be procured. Dr. Watson and Sir Henry Holland were called in. These gentlemen concurred with the other doctors in their opinion of the case as grave, but not presenting any very bad symptoms. The increased tendency of the Prince to wander in his mind was only what was to be expected. The listlessness and irritability characteristic of the disease gave way to pleasure at seeing the Queen and having her with him, to tender caresses, such as stroking her cheek, and simple loving words, fondly cherished, "Liebes frauchen, gutes weibchen." [Footnote: "Dear little wife, good little wife.">[ The changes rung on the relationship which had been so perfect and so satisfying.
On the 10th and the 11th the Prince was considered better. He was wheeled into the next room, when he called attention to a picture of the Madonna of which he was fond; he said that the sight of it helped him through half the day.
On the evening of the 11th a slight change in the Prince's breathing was perceptible and occasioned uneasiness. On the 12th it was too evident the fever and shortness of breathing had increased, and on the 13th Dr. Jenner had to tell the Queen the symptom was serious, and that there was a probability of congestion of the lungs. When the sick man was wheeled into the next room as before, he failed to notice his favourite picture, and in place of asking to be placed with his back to the light as he had hitherto done, sat with his hands clasped, gazing abstractedly out of the window. That night the Prince of Wales was summoned from Cambridge, it was said by his sister, Princess Alice, who took upon her the responsibility of bringing him to Windsor.
All through the night at hourly intervals reports were brought to the Queen that the Prince was doing well. At six in the morning Mr. Brown, the Windsor medical attendant of the family for upwards of twenty years, who was believed to be well acquainted with the Prince's constitution, came to the Queen with the glad tidings "that he had no hesitation in saying he thought the Prince was much better, and that there was ground to hope the crisis was over." There are few experiences more piteous than that last flash of life in the socket which throws a parting gleam of hope on the approaching darkness of death.
When the Queen entered the sick-room at seven o'clock on a fine winter morning, she was struck with the unearthly beauty—another not unfamiliar sign—of the face on which the rising sun shone. The eyes unusually bright, gazing as it were on an unseen object, took no notice of her entrance.
The doctors allowed they were "very, very anxious," but still they would not give up hope. The Queen asked if she might go out for a breath of air, and received an answer with a reservation—"Yes, just close by, for a quarter of an hour." She walked on one of the terraces with Princess Alice, but they heard a military band playing in the distance, and at that sound, recalling such different scenes, the poor Queen burst into tears, and returned to the Castle.
Sir James Clark said he had seen much worse cases from which there had been recovery. But both the Queen and the doctors remarked the dusky hue stealing over the hands and face, and there were acts which looked like strange involuntary preparations for departure—folding of the arms, arranging of the hair, &c.
The Queen was in great distress, and remained constantly either in the sick-room or in the apartment next to it, where the doctors tried still to speak words of hope to her, but could no longer conceal that the life which was as her life was ebbing away. In the course of the afternoon, when the Queen went up to the Prince, after he had been wheeled into the middle of the room, he said the last loving words, "Gutes frauchen," [Footnote: "Good little wife.">[ kissed her, and with a little moaning sigh laid his head on her shoulder. He dozed and wandered, speaking French sometimes. All his children who were in the country came into the room, and one after the other took his hand, Prince Arthur kissing it as he did so, but the Prince made no sign of knowing them. He roused himself and asked for his private secretary, but again slept. Three of the gentlemen of the household, who had been much about the Prince's person, came up to him and kissed his hand without attracting his attention. All of them were overcome; only she who sat in her place by his side was quiet and still.
So long as enough air passed through the labouring lungs, the doctors would not relinquish the last grain of hope. Even when the Queen found the Prince bathed in the death-sweat, so near do life and death still run, that the attendant medical men ventured to say it might be an effort of nature to throw off the fever.
The Queen bent over the Prince and whispered "Es ist kleins Frauchen." He recognised the voice and answered by bowing his head and kissing her. He was quite calm, only drowsy, and not caring to be disturbed, as he had been wont to be when weary and ill.
The Queen had gone into the next room to weep there when Sir James Clark sent Princess Alice to bring her back. The end had come. With his wife kneeling by his side and holding his hand, his children kneeling around, the Queen's nephew, Prince Ernest Leiningen, the gentlemen of the Prince's suite, General Bruce, General Grey, and Sir Charles Phipps, the Dean of Windsor, and the Prince's favourite German valet, Lohlein, reverently watching the scene, the true husband and tender father, the wise prince and liberal-hearted statesman, the noble Christian man, gently breathed his last. It was a quarter to eleven o'clock on the 14th of December, 1861. He was aged forty-two years.