From a Photograph by Hughes and Mullins
Queen Alexandra’s birthday, 1st December, was spent in Denmark. After a short stay there the travellers went to Berlin, where a large family party was assembled to meet them, and on 18th January, which is, curiously enough, one of the only two days of the year in which it can be held, a Chapter of the Order of the Black Eagle was convened, and King Edward was formally invested with the insignia of this, the highest Order in Germany, by the King of Prussia, to whom he was introduced by his brother-in-law, the Crown Prince, and by Prince Albert of Prussia.
Then followed an interesting sojourn in Vienna, where the Royal party were splendidly entertained by the Emperor and Empress of Austria, a suite of apartments in the Burg having been specially prepared for them.
These Continental visits, however, were all preliminary to a prolonged tour in Egypt and the Mediterranean, which must be described in a separate chapter.
CHAPTER IX
THEIR MAJESTIES’ TOUR IN EGYPT AND THE MEDITERRANEAN
Of this tour Queen Alexandra’s Bedchamber Woman, the Hon. Mrs. Grey, wrote a charming record, which her brother-in-law, General Grey, persuaded her to give to the world. It should be mentioned that Mrs. Grey was a Swedish lady, the daughter of Count Stedingk. Her first husband, the Hon. William George Grey, eighth son of the famous Earl Grey who was Prime Minister in the reign of William IV., had been dead some years before this tour began. She afterwards married en secondes noces the Duke of Otranto, but it will be more convenient to speak of her here as Mrs. Grey.
Mrs. Grey begins by giving an outline of her plans for the summer of 1868, and then goes on:—
“These plans were, however, all upset by a letter from the Princess, in which she told me that she wished me to accompany her on the tour she projected with the Prince of Wales to the East, and to join her at Copenhagen in the beginning of January; and that in the meantime I might remain quietly—which she knew would be a pleasure to me—with my father and mother in Sweden. This was too tempting an offer not to be eagerly embraced.”