In the Days of Queen Victoria

by Eva March Tappan

Warm, tender words of sympathy came from England, from a Queen mother who well knew what sorrow meant. "Can you bear to play on the piano yet?" she asked some three months after the accident; for it was long after the death of Prince Albert before she herself could endure the sound of music. Princess Alice replied, "It seems as if I never could play again on that piano, where little hands were nearly always thrust when I wanted to play. Ernie asked, 'Why can't we all die together? I don't like to die alone, like Frittie.'"

While the heart of the Queen was aching with sympathy for her daughter, she had also to attend to arrangements for the marriage of her sailor son "Affie," now Duke of Edinburgh, with the daughter of the Emperor of Russia. She herself could not go to the wedding at St. Petersburg, but she asked Dean Stanley to go and perform the English ceremony; for as the bride was a member of the Greek Church, there was a double rite. To Dean Stanley's wife she sent a mysterious little parcel containing two sprigs of myrtle, and with it a letter which asked her to put them into warm water, and when the wedding day came, to place them in a bouquet of white flowers for the bride. The myrtle had grown from the slip in the bridal bouquet of the Princess Royal, and in the five marriages of royal children that had preceded this one, each bride had carried a bit of the bush.

When the bride reached Balmoral, a company of volunteers in kilts were waiting to receive her. Just beyond were the tenants on the Queen's estate, all in their best clothes. The pipers were present, of course, and the best clothes of the Queen's pipers were well worth seeing. The kilt was of Stuart plaid, and the tunic of black velvet. Over the shoulder was a silver chain from which hung a silver powder horn. The bag for the pipe was of blue velvet. Ornaments were worn wherever there was a place for them, but the only jewels were cairngorms, and they were always set in silver. The shoes had heavy silver buckles. The bride and all her royal friends drove to the castle, where their health was drunk by a merry company. The end of the Queen's account of this reception of royalty sounds delightfully simple and homelike. "We took Marie and Alfred to their rooms downstairs," she says, "and sat with them while they had their tea."

In so large a family as that of the Queen there was always a birth or a marriage, a coming or a going. Not long after the marriage of his brother Alfred, the Prince of Wales left England to spend some months in India. This journey was not a pleasure trip, it had a state purpose, and that was to pay honor to the native princes who had aided the English in their efforts to govern India. The Prince was well accustomed to being received with cheering and the firing of guns, but his Indian reception was something entirely new. At one place twenty-four elephants painted in different colors trumpeted a greeting. In another, which was ruled by a lady, the sovereign met him, but she could hardly be said to have made her appearance, for her face was thickly veiled. At still another he was carried up a hill in a superb chair made of silver and gold. There was a boar hunt, an antelope hunt, and an elephant fight; there was a marvelously beautiful illumination of surf; there were addresses presented by people of all shades of complexion and all varieties of costume, often so magnificent that some one called the wearers "animated nuggets."

This visit of the Prince of Wales was followed by the Queen's assumption of the title of Empress of India. There was a vast amount of talk about the new title, for many English thought that it was foolish and childish to make any change. On the other hand, "Empress" was the proper title for a woman who ruled over many kings, even kings of India. There were stories afloat that one reason why the Queen wished to become an Empress was because the Russian Princess, who was the daughter of an Emperor, had claimed precedence over the English Princesses, who were only the daughters of a Queen. However that may be, the title was formally assumed in 1876. It was proclaimed in India with all magnificence. Sixty-three princes were present to hear the proclamation. There were thousands of troops and long lines of elephants. A throne that was a vision of splendor was built high up above the plain; and on this sat the viceroy of the Queen, who received the honors intended for her.

Queen Victoria was much pleased with the new title, and soon began to sign her name "Victoria, R.I.," for "Regina et Imperatrix," to all documents, though it had been expected that she would affix it to her signature only when signing papers relating to India. Another title which she enjoyed was that of "Daughter of the Regiment." The Duke of Kent had been in command of the "Royal Scots" at the time of her birth and therefore they looked upon her as having been "born in the regiment." In the autumn of this same year she presented them with new colors, and there was a little ceremony which delighted her because it was evidently so sincere. There was first a salute, then marching and countermarching, while the band played old marches that were her favorites, among them one from the "Fille du Régiment," to hint that she belonged especially to them. Then there was perfect silence. Two officers knelt before her, and she presented them with the new colors, first making a little speech. The Royal Scots were greatly pleased, because in her speech she said, "I have been associated with your regiment from my earliest infancy, and I was always taught to consider myself a soldier's child." In spite of her many years' experience in making short speeches and of her perfect calmness in public in her earlier years, the Queen was never quite at ease in speaking to an audience after Prince Albert died, and she said of this occasion, "I was terribly nervous." She never ceased to miss the supporting presence of the Prince, and she wrote pitifully of her first public appearance after his death, "There was no one to direct me and to say, as formerly, what was to be done."

The Queen was soon to feel even more lonely, for late in the autumn of 1878 there came a time of intense anxiety, then of the deepest sorrow. Princess Alice's husband and children were attacked by diphtheria. "Little Sunshine," as her youngest daughter was called in the home, died after three days' illness. The mother hid her grief as best she could that the other children should not know of their loss. Three weeks later, she too was taken with the same disease, and died on the seventeenth anniversary of her father's death. Little children and poor peasant women of Hesse were among those who laid flowers on her bier and shared in the grief of the sorrowing monarch across the Channel.

The Queen had built a cairn at Balmoral in memory of the Prince Consort. Others had been built from time to time, one rising merrily with laughing and dancing to commemorate the purchase of the estate; others erected to mark the date of the marriage of the sons and daughters of the house. To these a granite cross was now added to the memory of the beloved daughter, "By her sorrowing mother, Queen Victoria," said the inscription.

So it was that the happy circle of sons and daughters was first broken; so it was that the years of the Queen passed on, full of the joys and sorrows that seemed to come to her almost hand in hand.

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