“All went perfectly well at the Royal Academy dinner. My husband was quite enchanted with the Prince of Wales, and with his natural manners and simplicity. The Prince hesitated in the middle of his speech, so that everybody thought it was all up with him; but he persisted in thinking till he recovered the thread, and then went on well. The very manner in which he did this was natural and graceful. He was so moved when mentioning his father that it was feared he would break down. After the speech the Prince turned to my husband and told him he was quite provoked with himself. ‘I knew it quite by heart in the morning’; but he evidently had no vanity, for he laughed at his own ‘stupidity,’ and immediately recovered his spirits. ‘Hesse’ was next the Prince, who chaffed him from time to time, and told him he would have to sing a song.”
William Makepeace Thackeray was among the other speakers at the Academy dinner, which was very shortly before the famous novelist’s lamented death. At the anniversary of the Royal Literary Fund some months later King Edward made some graceful and appropriate allusions to the great writer whom the Empire had lost. He spoke with evident feeling of the fact that Thackeray had been the life of the Fund, always ready to open his purse for the relief of literary men struggling with pecuniary difficulties.
This spring was a very busy time for both King Edward and Queen Alexandra. On 8th June they were sumptuously entertained by the Lord Mayor at the Guildhall, when the Prince took up the freedom of the City, to which he was entitled by patrimony. The entertainments included a great ball, which the Princess opened, dancing a quadrille with the Lord Mayor, while the Prince had the Lady Mayoress for his partner.
A week later the Royal couple attended “Commem.” at Oxford. They received a splendid welcome both from the University authorities and the undergraduates. The honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law was conferred on King Edward in the Sheldonian Theatre, where the wildest uproar prevailed, till amid a sudden lull of perfect silence Queen Alexandra entered with Dr. Liddell, the then Dean of Christ Church. Scarcely had she traversed half the distance to her seat when a cheer loud and deep arose, and seemed to shake the theatre to its foundation, to the evident gratification of her Royal husband.
After the ceremony was over their Royal Highnesses escaped from all their friends and entertainers and took the opportunity of going over what had been the Prince’s rooms as an undergraduate. That same evening a ball was given in the Prince’s honour in the Corn Exchange by the Apollo Lodge of Freemasons.
Shortly after their visit to Oxford the Prince and Princess celebrated their house-warming at Marlborough House by an evening party and a ball. During the summer months they spent some time at Sandringham in the original house, which at that time stood in an isolated park, and which was afterwards pulled down and superseded by the present very much larger and more comfortable mansion. There can be no doubt that Queen Alexandra’s strong affection for her country home is based on the tender recollections of her early married life. It is a significant fact that when the new Sandringham House was built, she begged that her boudoir in the new mansion might be arranged so as to be an exact reproduction of her boudoir in the old house.
Among the very first visitors entertained at Sandringham by the Royal bride and bridegroom was Dr. Stanley, who spent Easter Sunday with them there.
