THE QUEEN UNVEILING THE STATUE OF THE PRINCE CONSORT AT COBURG.
people generally, that she expresses the hope that the same security may be insured for all as is so carefully provided for herself. The Queen hopes it is unnecessary for her to recall to the recollection of the railway directors the heavy responsibility which they have assumed since they have succeeded in securing the monopoly of the means of travelling of almost the entire population of the country.”
On the other hand, evidence was not wanting that her Majesty’s retirement had led to laxity of administration in her household. On the 4th of March, for example, Lord Malmesbury writes in his Diary:—“All London is talking of the way in which the Corps Diplomatique has been invited to the Queen’s reception. It was, as far as I could understand, in these terms:—‘That the Queen would graciously receive them, male and female, at a Court to be held at Buckingham Palace.’ All those concerned are trying to shift the responsibility upon one another. The diplomatists have sent their cards of invitation to their respective Courts, and therefore it has produced a great sensation all over the world, as the term mâle et femelle is never used in French, except in speaking of animals.”[237] But her Majesty’s kind and gracious bearing at this reception, which was held on the 13th of March, did much to neutralise the impression produced by the rudeness of the Lord Chamberlain’s Department. On the 14th of March the Queen visited the Consumptive Hospital at Brompton, bestowing on the patients in the various wards kindly words of sympathy. Circumstances prevented her from undertaking a journey to Ireland, where the people would have been pleased to have welcomed her at the inauguration of an International Exhibition. She, however, testified her interest in that enterprise by requesting the Prince of Wales to open the exhibition in Dublin on the 9th of May. Another son was born to the Prince and Princess on the 3rd of June, and on the 7th of July the infant was baptized in the chapel at Windsor in presence of the Queen, who named him George Frederick Ernest Albert. On the 6th of August the Queen’s second son, Prince Alfred, attained his majority, and was recognised, with her sanction, as heir to the Duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.
On the 8th of August the Queen, with Prince Leopold, the Princesses Helena, Louise, Beatrice, and suite, left England for Germany. She arrived at Coburg on the 11th, and immediately proceeded to Rosenau. On the 26th she unveiled the statue which had been set up in memory of the Prince Consort in the quaint market-place of Coburg. The town was en fête, every house being gay with garlands and banners, and decorated with trophies of arms and festoons of flowers and evergreens. The troops paraded the square, while crowds of light-hearted students and schoolboys, and a great concourse of loyal burghers and honest country-folk who had assembled to see the ceremony, gave life and colour to a picturesque scene. The Court carriages bore a brilliant company of Royal personages. Soon after four o’clock in the afternoon the bells in all the steeples in the town pealed forth joyous notes; the cannon of the fortress thundered out a royal salute, and the bands in the square played the English National Anthem. Then the Queen’s carriage drove up amidst deafening cheers. She was accompanied by Prince Arthur and the Princess Beatrice, and was received by the Grand Duke, who led her to the front of the pavilion that had been prepared for the ceremony. She was clad in the deepest mourning, and under her bonnet was seen the cap à la Marie Stuart, which about this time she had begun to wear on all public occasions. The Burgomaster of Coburg presented her with a long and loyal address. The bells rang, the bands played, the cannon saluted again, and at a given signal the veil was withdrawn from the polished bronze statue, which stood out glittering and sparkling in the sultry sunshine of an autumnal afternoon. Walking up to the monument, the Queen handed to the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha the bunch of flowers which had lain before her on the balcony of the pavilion. These he placed, together with another bouquet from the Princess Beatrice, on the pedestal of the statue, and the ceremony was over. On the 8th of September the Queen left Rosenau with the Princesses Helena and Louise and Prince Leopold, and stopped en route at Darmstadt, where she was met by the Prince and Princess Louis of Hesse. Proceeding to Ostend, the Queen paid a brief visit to King Leopold, after which she embarked at Antwerp in her yacht for Woolwich.
During the Queen’s autumnal holiday at Balmoral the Prince and Princess Louis of Hesse again visited her. Later in the year it was announced that the Princess Helena was to be married to the Prince Christian of Sleswig-Holstein, second son of the Duke of Augustenburg. “Many thanks,” writes the Princess Louis to the Queen on the 8th of December, “for your letter received yesterday with the account of Lenchen’s verlobung [betrothal]. I am so glad she is happy, and I hope every blessing will rest on them both that one can possibly desire.” It was arranged that the Queen should lend Frogmore to her daughter, so that she and her husband might be able to live in England. But the shadow of death was again brooding over the Royal Household. In the same letter in which the Princess Louis refers to her sister’s betrothal she writes, “I had a letter from Marie Brabant two days ago, where she says dear uncle’s [King Leopold] state is hopeless; but yesterday she telegraphed that he was rather better. What a loss it would be if he were to be taken from us, for his very name and existence, though he takes no active part in politics, are of weight and value.”[238] In England the news of King Leopold’s illness was received with some concern. The Queen had promised to open the next Session of Parliament in person, and it was feared that the death of his Majesty might interfere with a project in which her subjects of all classes were deeply interested. On the 11th of December King Leopold died, and on that day the Princess Louis of Hesse, ever ready to sympathise with her mother’s sorrows, wrote to the Queen, “Alas! alas! beloved Uncle Leopold is no more! How much for you, for us, for all, goes with him to the grave! One tie more of those dear old times is rent! I do feel for you so much, for dear uncle was indeed a father to you. Now you are head of all the family—it seems incredible, and that dear papa should not be by your side. The regret for dear Uncle Leopold is universal—he stood so high in the eyes of all parties; his life was a history in itself—and now that book is closed.” In another letter the Princess says, “The more I realise that we shall never see beloved Uncle Leopold again the sadder I grow. He had, apart from all his excellent qualities, such a charm as I believe we shall seldom find again.”
King Leopold’s life was indeed “a history in itself.” He was almost ostentatiously indifferent to his position—ever impressing on his subjects that he reigned in their interest rather than in his own. It has been said that he could always bring them to reason by threatening to abdicate. The sagacity and tact with which he prevented the Catholics and the Liberals in Belgium from coming to blows, gave him great influence in Europe. But that influence was enhanced by his capacity for diplomatic intrigue, and the opportunities for exercising it which his curious family connections gave him. Though he began life as one of the obscurest of the petty Princes of Germany, he had married in succession the heiress of England and the daughter of the King of the French. By a double marriage, his children were allied to the Imperial House of Hapsburg. He was the uncle and mentor of the Queen and the Prince Consort—indeed, he and Baron Stockmar had brought about their marriage. His position was supposed to be unassailable from the day when, on being threatened with a revolution, he calmly began to pack a carpet-bag in presence of the popular leaders, who thereupon, in a paroxysm of fear, implored him not to leave the country. Yet, according to Lord Malmesbury, “the last years of his life were spent in perpetual terror of Louis Napoleon, and he was constantly alarming our Ministers and everybody on the subject.”[239]