THE DUCHESS OF TECK.
(From a Photograph by W. and D. Downey.)
In the spring the Queen was well enough to renew her acquaintance with Aldershot. For the first time during five years she visited the camp. She reviewed the troops in garrison, and inspected the ranks; after which the regiments marched past in grand divisions to the music of their bands. When she had inspected the Infantry, the Queen drove through the South Camp, by way of the Prince Consort’s Library, to the Artillery and Cavalry Barracks, and then past the Memorial Church to the Pavilion, where luncheon was served for her. Again on the 5th of April the Queen paid a brief and hurried visit to the Camp, in order to present a new pair of colours to the 89th Regiment. The visit was strictly private, only a few chief officers being aware that it had been arranged. Nearly 11,000 men were on the ground, but there were, comparatively speaking, few spectators. In presenting the colours, the Queen said, “I have much pleasure in renewing the colours given you many years ago, relying confidently on the loyal devotion to my service by which you and all my troops have ever been so distinguished.” Referring to this event, the Princess Louis, in one of her letters to her mother, says: “How trying the visit to Aldershot must have been, but it is so wise and kind of you to go. I cannot think of it without tears in my eyes. Formerly that was one of the greatest pleasures of my girlhood, and you and darling papa looked so handsome together. I so enjoyed following you on those occasions. Such moments I should like to call back for an instant.”
In April the Albert Medal was founded by her Majesty. According to the London Gazette, it was to be awarded, “in cases where it shall be considered fit, to such persons as shall endanger their own lives in saving or endeavouring to save the lives of others from shipwreck or other perils of the sea.”
On the 12th of June the Queen attended the marriage of the Princess Mary of Cambridge to the Duke of Teck. This illustrious lady has always been the most popular of English Princesses—popular alike with the aristocracy and the mob. Her marriage stirred up a good deal of interest. It was celebrated very quietly and simply in her own parish church at Kew, in the midst of the people among whom she had lived from her childhood, and to whom she had endeared herself by her spirited geniality, her good and tender heart, and her generous though somewhat impulsive charities.
On the 27th of June the Queen sent the first message over the telegraph cable that had been successfully laid between Ireland and the United States. It ran as follows: “From the Queen, Osborne, to the President of the United States, Washington.—The Queen congratulates the President on the successful completion of an undertaking which she hopes may serve as an additional bond of union between the United States and England.” President Andrew Johnson replied:—“The President of the United States acknowledges with profound gratification the receipt of her Majesty’s despatch, and cordially reciprocates the hope that the cable that now unites the Eastern and Western hemispheres may serve to strengthen and perpetuate peace and amity between the Government of England and the Republic of the United States.” The President’s reply to the Queen occupied one hour and nine minutes in its transit from Newfoundland to Osborne. The cable laid in 1865 had been lost, but it had been successfully raised, and the daily journal of the operations of the ships comprising the telegraph squadron engaged in recovering it, is a record in which heroic perseverance, extraordinary mechanical ingenuity, and able seamanship alike compel admiration.
On the 20th of September the Prince of Wales presided at the unveiling of a fine marble statue of the Queen at Aberdeen. The subscriptions for this work of art were collected just after the inauguration of the memorial to the Prince Consort by the Queen in October, 1863. A thousand pounds were easily obtained, a large number of the subscribers being working men. The artist, Mr. Alexander Brodie, a local sculptor, represented the Queen standing, bearing the sceptre in her right hand, while with, the other she clasped the folds of a tartan plaid. The statue stands 8 feet 6 inches in height, is cut from a block of Sicilian marble, and is placed on a richly-polished pedestal over 10 feet high. The Prince on the occasion was dressed in Highland costume, and received hearty cheers from the crowds who greeted him. In accordance with a unanimous resolution of the Town Council, he received the freedom of the city. While speaking at the inauguration ceremony, he stated that the Queen had desired him to say how much she appreciated the motive which had led the people of Aberdeen to give this lasting evidence of their attachment, loyalty, and sympathy.
On the 16th of October the Queen herself opened the Aberdeen New Waterworks at Invercannie, twenty-two miles distant from the “Granite City,” and a convenient drive of thirty miles from Balmoral. After receiving an address, her Majesty, speaking in public in her official capacity for the first time since the death of the Prince Consort, said:—“I thank you for your dutiful address, and am very sensible of the fresh mark of the loyal attachment of my neighbours the people of Aberdeen. I have felt that, at a time when the attention of the country has been so anxiously directed to the state of the public health, it was right that I should make an exertion to testify my sense of the importance of a work so well calculated as this to promote the health and comfort of your ancient city.” The Queen then, advancing to an ingenious piece of machinery erected at the edge of the reservoir, gave several turns to the handle, and in an instant the water came plunging in, pure and plentiful. The Queen then declared the Aberdeen Waterworks open.
On the 30th of November her Majesty received an enthusiastic welcome from her subjects in Wolverhampton, on the occasion of her inaugurating a statue erected to the Prince Consort. The Queen was accompanied by the Earl of Derby, Princess Helena, Prince Christian, the Princess Louise, and the customary suite. Between two and three thousand people were admitted into the railway station-yard and approaches. At the entrance there had been built an arch of coal, firmly joined by mortar, with abutments of pig-iron. Trophies of picks, spades, and other implements of the collier’s trade were so placed as to give relief to the material of the arch, which, though not very sightly, was very characteristic of the local industry. Beyond this was a trophy of coal, thirty feet high, formed of immense blocks some of them weighing nearly three tons, from Lord Dudley’s pits. Nothing could exceed the enthusiasm and devotion displayed by the population. Town and county assembled in the streets. The colliers, the puddlers, and the forgemen from the iron districts, the workers in metal, japan, papier-maché, and in all the staple trades of Wolverhampton, lined the barriers, and raised a mighty shout when the royal carriages appeared. The treacherous weather of an English November made it, of course, indispensable that the ceremony of unveiling the statue should be performed and witnessed under cover, and an amphitheatre had accordingly been constructed which held two thousand people. The Bishop of Lichfield having offered up a prayer, the Recorder read an address to the Queen, which she accepted. Lord Derby having handed her a sword, she next bestowed the accolade on the kneeling Mayor, who thereupon rose up as Sir John Morris. Before leaving the pavilion, the Queen desired the Mayor to tell her subjects in Wolverhampton that she was greatly pleased with her reception, and with the loyal feeling which had been manifested. A few days afterwards, at a meeting of the Wolverhampton Council, the Mayor produced a letter which, though marked “private,” he had obtained permission to read at that meeting. The letter was from Sir C. Grey. It was dated Windsor Castle, December 1, and, after stating that an official answer to the address of the Corporation would be sent, went on to say:—“Her Majesty is anxious that you should hear, as it were, more directly from herself how much she was gratified by the heartiness and cordiality of the reception she met with from every individual of the vast assemblage that yesterday filled your streets, and how deeply—how very deeply—she was touched by the proof which the day’s proceedings afforded of the respect and affection entertained at Wolverhampton for the memory of her beloved husband. I have also been requested by Princess Christian to say how much she has been gratified by the kindness shown yesterday to herself and Prince Christian, and that she will have much pleasure in wearing the beautiful bracelet presented to her at the station as a remembrance of a most interesting and gratifying day.” Sir John Morris then read another letter he had received from Sir Thomas Biddulph, in which the Queen desired that her condolence might be conveyed to a volunteer who had met with an accident on the occasion of her visit, and also expressed her Majesty’s intention to settle upon him an annuity of £20, payable quarterly. This announcement was naturally received with great enthusiasm by the Council.