An official investigation was made into the cause of the disaster, in the course of which Mr. Rawlinson, the eminent engineer, said, “Several causes may have led to the catastrophe—a fractured pipe, a blown or drawn joint, a creep along the pipes, a pressing down of the pipes in the puddle-trench by the heavy material on both sides of it, or the washing away of the outer slope by a landslip, caused by undiscovered fissures and springs in communication with the interior of the reservoir, which fissures and springs, if they existed, would become active for mischief as the water rose in the reservoir.” The general opinion was that a mistake had been made in laying pipes in the centre of the embankment upon an artificially compressible material—that the bursting of some of these pipes caused a great volume of water suddenly to blow a chasm in the embankment. The celebrated Telford was always opposed to laying pipes through the embankment of a dam, and there could be little doubt that the coroner’s jury came to the right conclusion when they declared in their verdict, that the works had not been constructed with the engineering skill and attention which their magnitude and importance demanded.
On the 30th of April the Queen appeared in public for the first time since the death of the Prince Consort. She visited the gardens of the Horticultural Society, where a flower-show was going on, but the weather was bleak and cold and sleety, and the company assembled to see her were fain to take shelter in the conservatory. She was dressed in deep mourning, yet the visitors all agreed that her appearance was less downcast than they had been led to expect, and she was observed to chat cheerfully with the ladies and gentlemen who were around her. This year, it may also be observed, the Queen’s birthday was kept in London, with all the old ceremonies of high state, for the first time since Prince Albert’s death. The Guards trooped their colours in presence of the Prince and Princess of Wales, and the church bells of the “three Royal Parishes” in London—Westminster, Kensington, and St. Martin’s-in-the-Fields—rang out their most joyous chimes. There was a floral fête at the Horticultural Gardens, and the houses of Ministers of State, of the Clubs, the Government Offices, together with the shops of the Royal tradesmen at the West End, were illuminated as in old times. From May to August the Queen had enjoyed the company of the Princess Louis of Hesse, but when autumn set in and Parliament had been prorogued, the Court migrated to Scotland, and on the 28th of August the Queen broke her journey at Perth to inaugurate a statue to the Prince Consort. The Lord Provost and magistrates of the “Fair City,” and all the local magnates of the county gave her a cordial welcome, and in her suite were the Princess Helena, the Princess Louise, the Duke and Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, Princess Beatrice, and Prince Leopold, the Marchioness of Ely, Sir Charles Wood, and Sir Charles Phipps. After the Queen uncovered the statue, which was greatly admired, she conferred the honour of Knighthood on Lord Provost Ross.
The Prince and Princess of Wales left the Highlands in the beginning of September for Denmark, and the Queen’s holiday was restful and quiet. The only incident that troubled it seriously was due to the pressure which was put upon her to save the life of Franz Müller, the murderer of Mr. Briggs, chief clerk of Messrs. Robarts and Co., the great bankers in the City. Müller had murdered Mr. Briggs in a railway carriage on the night of the 9th July, between Fenchurch Street Station and Hackney Wick, and after robbing his victim threw his body out on the line. He exchanged Mr. Briggs’ watch-chain for another at the shop of a jeweller called Death in Cheapside, who identified his photograph. He left a hat in the carriage which was traced to him. He then fled to America. The crime was perpetrated with ruthless brutality, and for a time railway travelling was rendered an agony to nervous passengers. The detective police had displayed great skill in following up every clue that led them on the track of the criminal, and their exciting pursuit of him across the Atlantic, his arrest in New York, his return, his trial, at which counsel fought for his life with great courage and audacity, his conviction, his stoical denial of guilt, till at the last moment as the hangman drew the fatal bolt he uttered his confession, with the halter tightening round his throat—all contributed to rivet public attention on this most melodramatic of atrocities. A clever attempt at proving an alibi had been made by his counsel, and there were some who believed in Müller’s innocence. The German colony in England took up his case most warmly, and it was whispered that the Queen herself was among those who feared that a judicial murder would be committed if Müller were hanged. For many days nothing else but his chances of being reprieved were discussed, and the King of Prussia, not to mention several other German Princes, sent autograph letters to the Queen pressing her to pardon the assassin. But her Majesty had watched the case carefully. She refused to interfere with the course of justice, and her prudence was justified by Müller’s strange confession, made just at the moment when he leapt into eternity.[223]
The Queen’s correspondence with the Princess Louis of Hesse seems at this time to have become again overcast by the gloom of her great sorrow. Amidst the solemn silence of her mountain home, the Queen felt the loss of the Prince Consort more acutely than while immersed in the busy life of the political year at Windsor. Her younger children were growing apace, and she now felt the need of her husband’s wise and kindly counsel in educating them for their high station. To the Princess Louis she confided her thoughts, and in one of her Royal Highness’s letters to the Queen, bearing date 20th of September, the following passage on the subject occurs:—“... What you say about the poor sisters, and, indeed, of all the younger ones, is true. The little brothers and Beatrice are those who have lost most, poor little things! I can’t bear to think of it, for dear papa, more peculiarly than any other father, was wanted for his children; and he was the dear friend and even playfellow besides. Such a loss as ours is indeed unique. Time only increases its magnitude, and the knowledge of the want is felt more keenly.”[224] In November the birth of a little grand-daughter at Hesse (the Princess Elizabeth) gave rise to an affectionate interchange of letters between the Queen and the Princess Louis, and in one of these she refers to the efforts made by those round her Majesty to free her from the tyranny of her sad thoughts. “We are both much pleased,” writes the Princess Louis to the Queen on the 20th of November, “at the arrangement about Brown and your pony, and I think it is so sensible. I am sure it will do you good, and relieve a little the monotony of your out-of-door existence, besides doing your nerves good. I had long wished you would do something of the kind, for indeed only driving is not wholesome.” On the 18th of December Dr. Norman McLeod, writing in his Diary at Darmstadt, says:—“I was invited
THE QUEEN AT OSBORNE.
(After W. Holl’s Engraving of the Original Portrait by Graefle. By Permission of Mr. Mitchell, Old Bond Street, W.)
by Prince Alfred to spend the fourth anniversary of his father’s death with him at Darmstadt. The Queen commanded me to see her before I went, so on Monday I went to Windsor. I told her that the more I was confided in, the more I felt my responsibility to speak the truth.”[225] Dr. McLeod was charged with loving messages to the Princess Louis, who, on December 15, writes to the Queen in reply as follows:—“I had not a moment to myself to write to you yesterday, and to thank you for the kind lines you sent me through dear Dr. McLeod. He gave us a most beautiful service, a sermon giving an outline of dear papa’s noble, great, and good character, and there were most beautiful allusions to you in his prayer, in which we all prayed together most earnestly for you, precious mamma! We talked long together afterwards about dear papa, and about you, and, though absent, were very near you in thought and prayer. Dear Vicky[226] talked so lovingly and tenderly of you, of how home-sick she sometimes felt. She was not with us on that dreadful day three years ago, and that is so painful to her. Dear Affie[227] was, as we all were, so much overcome by all Dr. McLeod said. Vicky, Affie, Louis, and myself sat in the little dining-room; he read to us there. Fritz had left early in the morning. The day was passed quietly and peaceably together, and I was most grateful to have dear Vicky and Affie with me on that day.[228] My dear Louis wishes me to express to you how tenderly he thought of you, and with what sympathy on this sad anniversary. Never can we cease talking of home, of you, and of all your trials.” If these trials were heavy, they were, even in the darkest hours of the Queen’s life, lightened by the love with which her children cherished her.