“Just returned from church, where I preached for twenty-six minutes (Romans viii. 28). The church is a very small country one close to the grounds. The house, as I saw it by daylight, is a handsome country house of red stone with white facings, standing well and looking quietly comfortable and suitable. I find the company pleasant and civil, but we are a curious mixture. Two Jews, Sir A. Rothschild and his daughter; an ex-Jew, Disraeli; a Roman Catholic, Colonel Higgins; an Italian duchess who is an Englishwoman, and her daughter brought up as a Roman Catholic and now turning Protestant; a set of young lords, and a bishop. The Jewess came to church; so did the half-Protestant young lady. Dizzy did the same, and was profuse in his praises of my sermon. We are all to lunch together in a few minutes, the children dining with us. They seem, the two I saw in church, nice, clever-looking little bodies, and very like their mother.”
Queen Alexandra and her Sister the Empress Alexander of Russia, in 1873
From a Photograph by Maull and Fox
King Edward and Queen Alexandra represented Queen Victoria at the marriage of the Duke of Edinburgh and the Grand Duchess Marie of Russia in January 1874. The English marriage service was performed by Dean Stanley, who wrote to Queen Victoria an interesting letter describing the Imperial wedding, in which he mentioned how much he had been struck, both in the chapel and at the subsequent banquet, by the singular difference in character and expression of the four future kings, the Prince of Wales, the Crown Prince of Prussia, the Cesarewitch, and the Crown Prince of Denmark, who were all present.
On the Sunday following the wedding King Edward and Queen Alexandra attended the service at the English Church in St. Petersburg, and the Dean preached on the marriage feast at Cana in Galilee, much the same sermon which he had preached in the Chapel-Royal at Whitehall on the Sunday following the marriage of their Majesties. All through this visit to Russia their Majesties were received with unusual distinction, and a grand parade of troops was held in honour of King Edward.
King Edward dined in the Middle Temple Hall on Grand Night of Trinity term in 1874. On this occasion His Majesty humorously expressed the opinion that it was a good thing for the profession at large, and for the public in general, that he had never practised at the Bar, for he could never have been an ornament to it. In saying this his modesty probably led him astray, for he is a thoughtful and lucid speaker, and his habits of method and order would certainly have stood him in good stead if he had been compelled to apply his mind to any profession. His Majesty was elected a Bencher of the Middle Temple in 1861, and served the office of Treasurer in the Jubilee year of 1887.
Queen Victoria, with the Princes Albert Victor and George, and their sister, Princess Victoria