Then, when the yacht arrived at Mounts Bay, Cornwall, Her Majesty records on 5th September that “when Bertie showed himself the people shouted ‘Three cheers for the Duke of Cornwall.’”
Again, at Falmouth, on 7th September, the Queen says:—
“The Corporation of Penryn were on board, and very anxious to see ‘The Duke of Cornwall,’ so I stepped out of the pavilion on deck with Bertie, and Lord Palmerston told them that that was ‘The Duke of Cornwall’; and the old Mayor of Penryn said that ‘he hoped he would grow up a blessing to his parents and to his country.’”
At Sunny Corner, just below Truro, the whole population “cheered, and were enchanted when Bertie was held up for them to see. It was a very pretty, gratifying sight.”
Princess Mary of Cambridge, afterwards the much-loved and lamented Duchess of Teck, gives a delightful picture of the Royal children in a letter written in 1847 to Miss Draper, her governess. Princess Mary was then about fourteen, and King Edward was rather more than five years old:—
“We paid a visit to the Queen at Windsor on New Year’s Eve, and left there on the 2nd. The Queen gave me a bracelet with her hair, and was very kind to me. The little Royal children are sweet darlings; the Princess Royal is my pet, because she is remarkably clever. The Prince of Wales is a very pretty boy, but he does not talk as much as his sister. Little Alfred, the fourth child, is a beautiful fatty, with lovely hair. Alice is rather older than him; she is very modest and quiet, but very good-natured. Helena, the baby, is a very fine child, and very healthy, which, however, they all are.”
King Edward VII. at the Age of Three
From the Painting by W. Hensel, in the possession of the German Emperor