Two years later, there was a still more difficult condition of affairs in the Queen's family, for now that Prussia and Austria held the Schleswig-Holstein duchies, it was a question to which of the two powers they should belong; and to complicate matters even more, Princess Helena had married Prince Christian. Prussia and the north German states held together, and Austria joined the forces of the south German states. Prince "Fritz" belonged to the north and Prince Louis to the south, and therefore the husbands of the two English Princesses were obliged to fight on opposite sides. The war lasted for only seven weeks, but it was an anxious time for Queen Victoria, who shared so fully in the troubles of her daughters. Princess Alice's two little girls were sent to England to be safe in her care, but in the midst of the war, a third little daughter was born. The boom of the distant guns was heard as she lay in her cradle in Darmstadt. Wounded men were being brought into the town, and the residents were fleeing in all directions. By and by the end came, and then the little dark-eyed baby was named Irene, or peace. Never before had a child so many godfathers, for when Prince Louis said farewell to his cavalry, he delighted them by asking the two regiments, officers and men, to be sponsors to his little girl.
CHAPTER XIII
MOTHER AND EMPRESS
While the German wars were going on the Queen was thinking for her country as a sovereign and feeling for her children as a mother. In the midst of all the claims upon her, she had one aim that she never forgot, and that was to make her country understand and appreciate the talents and character of Prince Albert. She concluded to have a book prepared that should tell the story of his life, for she felt that no one who really knew him could fail to honor him. When the first volume was published, even her children were surprised that she should tell matters of her own private life so fully; but she loved and trusted her people, and she was as frank with them as she would have been with an intimate friend.
The year after this book was brought out, the Queen herself became the author of a book, "Our Life in the Highlands." It is made up of extracts from the journal which she always kept. "Simple records," she calls them, but they often give charming pictures of the merry times at Balmoral. Sir Arthur Helps aided her in preparing the book for the press. "He often scolds me," she said, "because I am careless in writing; but how could he expect me to take pains when I wrote late at night, suffering from headache and exhaustion, and in dreadful haste?" She arranged to have Sir Theodore Martin complete the life of the Prince, and she spent much time in arranging her husband's papers and letters for him to use. She generally chose the selections to be inserted, and she read every chapter as it was written.
About her own authorship the Queen was very modest, and when she sent a copy of her book to Dickens, she wrote in it, "From the humblest of writers to one of the greatest." At Sir Walter Scott's home, she was asked to write her name in his journal; and, although she granted the request, she wrote in her own journal, "I felt it a presumption in me." When Carlyle met her, he said, "It is impossible to imagine a politer little woman; nothing the least imperious, all gentle, all sincere; makes you feel too (if you have any sense in you) that she is Queen."
Her being Queen gave her a peculiar power over the marriages of her children, for they were not legal unless she gave her formal consent. Early in 1871 she was called upon again to exercise her right, for far up in the hills about Balmoral there was a momentous little interview between the Princess Louise and the Marquis of Lorne. "Princess Louise is so bright and jolly to talk with," one of the Scotch boys had said of her when she was a very young girl, and this Scotch Marquis was of exactly the same opinion.
The Queen had guessed before how matters stood with her daughter and the gentleman whom she had once called "such a merry, independent child." The young man had proved his independence by asking for the hand of the Princess, inasmuch as it was three hundred years since a member of the royal family had married a subject, but the Queen paid no attention to tradition. She felt sure that the Marquis would make her daughter happy, and that was enough. Most of her subjects agreed with her; and one of the newspapers said jubilantly, "The old dragon Tradition was routed by a young sorcerer called Love."
The wedding was celebrated at Windsor. It was a brilliant scene, of course, and if all the gentlemen were arrayed as vividly as the Duke of Argyll, the father of the bridegroom, the ladies did not monopolize gorgeousness of attire. The Duke was a Scottish chieftain, and he appeared in Highland dress. His kilt and the plaid thrown over his shoulders were of the gay Campbell tartan. His claymore, a broad two-handed sword, was at his side, and in front there hung from his belt a sporran, or deep pouch made of skin with the hair or fur on the outside. His dirk sparkled with jewels. Altogether he might have stepped out of some resplendent assemblage of the middle ages. After the wedding breakfast, the bride laid aside her white satin and Honiton lace and arrayed herself in a traveling dress of Campbell plaid. The carriage door was closed, and the young couple drove away for Claremont in a little shower of white slippers, accompanied, according to Highland tradition, by a new broom, which was sure to bring happiness to the new household.