he was well content, because it pleased her.
The Queen certainly did all she constitutionally could to confer honors on her husband, who after all outdid her, and best honored himself.
Before their marriage, she had invested him with the noble order of the Garter, and given him the Star, and the Badge, and the Garter itself set in diamonds. She now invested him with the insignia of a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath. It amused her, this investing—she would have liked to invent a few orders, for royal Albert's sake—he became the insignia so well! She also made him Colonel of the 11th Regiment of Light Dragoons—he rode so well!—and she had the name changed to "Prince Albert's Own Hussars."
Everywhere the Queen and Prince appeared together—at reviews and art exhibitions, at church and at the theatre (for the Queen was very fond of the drama in those days), at drawing-rooms and at races—and everywhere the people delighted in their beauty and their happiness.
Early in April, the Duchess of Kent, in pursuance of what she deemed her duty, and best for the young people, parted from her darling daughter, and took up her residence in a separate home in London—Ingestrie House. She afterwards occupied Clarence House, the present residence of the Duke of Edinburgh. When the Court was at Windsor, the Duchess resided at Frogmore, a very lovely place, belonging to the royal estate, and so near the Castle that she was able to dine and lunch with Victoria almost daily. Still the partial separation was a trial for a mother and daughter so closely and tenderly attached, and they both took it hard,—as did, about that time, Prince Albert his separation from his brother Ernest, whose long visit was over. The Queen's account of the exceeding sorrowfulness of that parting must now bring to the lips of the most sentimental reader, though "a man and a brother," an unsympathetic smile— unless he happens to remember that those were the earliest days of steam on sea and land, and that journeys from England to any part of the Continent were no light undertakings. So the brothers sung together a mournful college song, and embraced, kissing one another on both cheeks, doubtless, after the German fashion,—"poor Albert being pale as a sheet, and his eyes full of tears." Ah, what would he have said could his "prophetic soul" have beheld his son, Albert Edward, skipping from London to Paris in eight hours—dashing about the Continent, from Copenhagen to Cannes, from Brussels to Berlin—from Homburg to St. Petersburg—taking it all as lightly and gaily as a school-boy takes a "jolly lark" of a holiday trip to Brighton or Margate! That was not the day of peregrinating Princes. Now they are as plenty as commercial travelers.
Early in June the Queen and Prince and their Court left busy, smoky London for a few days of quiet and pure air at lovely Claremont. They spent part of that restful time in going to the Derby, in four carriages and four with outriders and postilions—a brave sight to see.
On the first of June, Prince Albert was invited to preside at a great public meeting in Exeter Hall, for the abolition of the Slave Trade—and he did preside, and made a good speech, which he had practiced over to the Queen in the morning. That was an ordeal, for he spoke in English for the first time, and before a very large and distinguished audience. It was a very young "Daniel come to judgment" on an ancient wrong—for the Prince was not yet of age.
That sweet Quakeress, Caroline Fox, thus speaks of the Prince on this interesting occasion, in her delightful "Memories":—"Prince Albert was received with tremendous applause, but bore his honors with calm and modest dignity. He is certainly a very beautiful man,—a thorough German, and a fine poetical specimen of the race."
Ah, what would that doughty champion of the Slave Trade, William IV., have said, could he have seen his niece's husband giving royal countenance to such a fanatical, radical gathering! It was enough to make him stir irefully in his coffin at Windsor.
But for that matter, could our ancestors generally, men and women who devoutly believed in the past, and died in the odor of antiquity, know of our modern goings-on, in political and humanitarian reforms—know of our "Science so called," and social ethics, there would be "a rattling among the dry bones," not only in royal vaults, but in country churchyards, where "The rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep."