SCENE AT THE FIRST RELIEF OF LUCKNOW.
October that he left Calcutta. On the 9th of November he got to Cawnpore; and then by a brilliant forced march on the 12th he reached the Alumbaugh—a summer palace of the kings of Oudh—from which he was able to signal his arrival to Outram. A gallant civilian—Mr. Kavanagh—contrived, in disguise, to make his way from Lucknow through the enemy’s lines to the relieving force, and told the story of Outram’s defence, an achievement, as Lord Canning said, without a parallel in history, save Numantia and Saragossa. On the 14th Sir Colin Campbell moved on the city. On the 16th he attacked the chief stronghold of the rebels—the Secunder-baugh. The 93rd Highlanders and a regiment of Sikhs forced their way in through a narrow breach, and then, finding that the Sepoy garrison could not escape, they massacred them. The Highlanders here fought with uncontrollable ferocity, neither asking nor giving quarter. “Cawnpore, you——!” was the cry of rage with which each man drove his bayonet home into the heart of his foe; and, excited by their example, the Sikhs strove only too successfully to emulate the barbarity of their Scottish comrades. For three terrible hours did the men of the 93rd satiate their passion for vengeance; and when they emerged from the place with tartans soaked in blood, they left it packed high and close with corpses—hardly a single rebel escaping to tell the tale. On the 17th of November Campbell had fought his way to the Residency, and Lucknow was rescued a second time.
The victory was hailed in England with pride and delight. The Queen sent a letter to Sir Colin Campbell, congratulating him. “The Queen,” she writes, “has had many proofs already of Sir Colin Campbell’s devotion to his Sovereign and his country, and he has now greatly added to that debt of gratitude which both owe him. But Sir Colin must bear one reproof from his Queen, and that is, that he exposes himself too much. His life is most precious, and she entreats that he will neither put himself where his noble spirit would urge him to be—foremost in danger—nor fatigue himself so as to injure his health.”[352] Her Majesty’s caution was hardly needed. Sir Colin Campbell was a general who never exposed himself or his troops to unnecessary danger. But when necessary, he would spend his own and their blood as recklessly as if it were water. It has been noticed that his brilliant victories in India were all won with little loss of life.[353] The explanation is that his plans were just the opposite of those pursued in the Crimea—that is to say, he never wasted his men in futile assaults, or hurled them against fortifications bristling with cannon, till his own artillery—an arm in which he was always strong—had demoralised the enemy.
Having removed the women, children, sick, and wounded, Campbell retraced his steps to attack the rebel army concentrated at Cawnpore—his heart saddened, and the lustre of his triumph dimmed by the death of the heroic Havelock. At Cawnpore, General Windham, who commanded the rear guard, had foolishly allowed himself to be outflanked by Tantia Topee, a commander of great skill and courage. Windham’s blunder not only gave the enemy possession of Cawnpore, but put the whole English force, whose communications were thus threatened, in the greatest peril. Campbell, by forced marches, came to the rescue on the 29th of November. Having sent on his convoy to Calcutta, he attacked the rebels, under Nana Sahib and Tantia Topee, on the 5th of December; and, on the 7th, there was not a vestige of the 25,000 insurgents composing the Gwalior army to be seen for miles round Cawnpore.[354] As the year 1857 closed, it was felt that the worst of the crisis in India was over.
CHAPTER XXXVII.
THE ROYAL MARRIAGE.
Birth of Princess Beatrice—Death of the Duchess of Gloucester—A Royal Romance—Franco-Russian Intrigues—The Art Treasures Exhibition at Manchester—Announcement of the Marriage of the Princess Royal—Prince Albert’s Views on Royal Grants—The Controversy on the Grant to the Princess Royal—Visit of the Grand Duke Constantine—The Christening of Princess Beatrice—Prince Albert’s Title as Prince Consort Legalised—The First Distribution of the Victoria Cross—Opposition to the Order—The Queen’s Visit to Manchester—Departure of the Prince of Wales to Germany—The Queen and the Indian Mutiny—Her Controversy with Lord Palmerston—Sudden Death of the Duchess of Nemours—The Marriage of the Princess Royal—The Scene in the Chapel—On the Balcony of Buckingham Palace—The Illuminations in London—The Bride and Bridegroom at Windsor—The Last Adieus—The Departure of the Bride and Bridegroom to Germany.
It was when the country was passing through the crisis of Palmerston’s “penal dissolution” that a Princess was added to the Royal circle—soon to be diminished by the migration of her eldest sister to a home of her own in a foreign land. The little Princess was born on the 14th of April, and in a letter to King Leopold the Queen says: “She is to be called Beatrice, a fine old name borne by three of the Plantagenet Princesses, and her other names will be Mary (after poor Aunt Mary), Victoria (after Mama and Vicky, who, with Fritz Wilhelm, are to be the sponsors) and Feodore.”[355] On the 19th Prince Albert tells his stepmother that the Queen was already able to leave her room, and her recovery, therefore, could not have been retarded by the political excitement and agitation of the times.
As the month ended, however, sorrow fell on the Royal household. On the 30th of April the Duchess of Gloucester died—the “Aunt Gloucester” to whom the Queen and her husband in their letters make so many affectionate references. This Princess was the last child of George III., and of all his family the best beloved. The story of her life was in itself a romance, the pathos of which accounts for the Queen’s frequent allusions to her nobility and unselfishness of character. During her girlhood at Windsor the Princess Mary, as she was called, won the hearts of the people by her quiet, unobtrusive philanthropic work among the poor. She and her cousin, the Duke of Gloucester, fell in love with each other, but when he attained the age of twenty-one their romance was cruelly and abruptly ended. The Princess Charlotte was born, and it was decreed that the Duke of Gloucester must remain single, so that he might marry her if no eligible foreign prince claimed her hand. The Princess Mary and the Duke of Gloucester waited in suspense for twenty weary years—for she refused to encourage any other suitor. In 1814 a rift appeared in this cloud that overhung their lives. The Prince of Orange, it was said, was about to wed the Princess Charlotte, and the ladies of the Court noticed how the pining Princess Mary suddenly began to look bright and happy. But the projected alliance with the Prince of Orange was abandoned, and the Princess Mary began to droop again. A few months, however, put an end to the long probation of the Royal lovers. Leopold of Coburg married the Princess Charlotte, and Court gossips chronicle the fact that when she came down the steps of Carlton House after the ceremony, the Princess Mary rushed forward and fell weeping into her arms. She was married to the Duke of Gloucester in 1816, and it may be noticed that they refused to ask Parliament for any increase of income. During their lives they had devoted themselves to benevolent work, and had not only learned the value of money, but how to make their means serve their wants. Their married life was so arranged that they not only lived on their private incomes, but won a great and well-merited reputation for their wide and generous charity. The sweet and gentle nature of the Duchess, to which the strange story of her life imparted an additional charm, had ever a strong fascination for the Queen.