CHAPTER XIV
THE JUBILEE SEASON
With the exception of Prince Alfred, the Queen's children had married according to the German proverb, "The oldest must leave the house first." The next in age was Prince Arthur, or the Duke of Connaught. He married in 1879 Princess Louise of Prussia with the usual magnificent display at St. George's Chapel. The real home welcome, however, was awaiting them at Balmoral, where they arrived a few months later. When the train came to a standstill, there stood the Queen and Princess Beatrice, with the Royal Scots for a guard of honor. The Queen gave the bride a bouquet of heather, and they set off for the castle. At the end of the Balmoral bridge was an arch of moss and heather with a motto in flowers, "Welcome to Balmoral." There stood the castle guests, and there were all the tenants, the women in their Sunday clothes, the men in kilts, and the pipers playing their best and loudest, while the children tossed flowers into the carriages and shouted their welcome.
Of course a cairn had been begun in honor of the marriage, and two or three days later the happy party went to visit it, the Queen on her pony and the others walking. There was a speech of congratulation made, and the health of the young people was drunk. "The health of the Princess Beatrice ought to be drunk," Brown declared, and that was done with so many cheers that even the dogs objected to the tumult and began to bark. After the cheering, each one of the party walked up to the cairn and laid a stone upon it. One of the stones in the foundation was already marked with the names of the Duke and Duchess and the date of their marriage.
Three years later St. George's Chapel was again ablaze with the splendor of another royal wedding, that of Prince Leopold, the eighth child of the Queen, to Princess Hélène of Waldeck-Pyrmont. In the evening a state banquet was given, and some of the guests were much amazed when, just before the Queen was to rise from the table, her two Scotch pipers in their full Highland costume appeared at the door and marched twice around the room, playing merry Scottish airs.
The home of the newly married couple was to be at Claremont, the place where the little Princess Victoria had so enjoyed herself. It had been granted to King Leopold when he married Princess Charlotte, but on his death it again became the property of the Crown. The Queen now bought it for the King's namesake. She had given to her son the title of Duke of Albany, and some of the superstitious among her subjects shook their heads at that, for so many who had borne the title had met with misfortune or even with early death.
The wedding celebrations were hardly over before the Queen's thoughts were centered upon Egypt. The Khedive of Egypt was a great borrower, and to fill his ever empty purse he had offered England some seven years previously his shares in the Suez Canal for $20,000,000. England had been very ready to buy them and also to guarantee that people who had loaned money to this spendthrift should not lose their interest. In 1882 some of the Khedive's subjects rebelled against him and got control of the government. To maintain taxation and so pay the promised interest, England must support the Khedive and put down the rebels.
The Queen hated war as badly as her predecessor Elizabeth, but as soon as she saw that it was necessary, she had no patience with delay or poor preparation. She sent directions continually to the War Office, now about arms, now about blankets or food or the comforts that would be needed in the hospitals. She never had the slightest sympathy with indecision or lack of promptness, and the moment that she thought of something that ought to be done for her soldiers, she sent a message to the Minister of War. During one day she sent him seventeen.
Windsor Castle.