(From a Photograph by W. and D. Downey.)
The marriage itself was solemnised on the 23rd of January, 1874, at the Czar’s Winter Palace in St. Petersburg in accordance with the Greek and the Anglican rite. All that wealth and absolute power could do to invest the ceremony with Imperial pomp and splendour was done. Among those invited were members of the Holy Synod, and of the High Clergy of Russia; the members of the Council of the Empire, Senators, Ambassadors, and other members of the Corps Diplomatique, with the ladies of their families, general officers, officers of the Guard, of the Army and Navy. The great Russian ladies wore the national costume, while the nobles and gentlemen were in full uniform. The Queen of England was represented by Viscount Sydney and Lady Augusta Stanley. On their arrival at the church the Duke and Grand Duchess took their places in front of the altar, where were standing the Metropolitan of St. Petersburg and the chief priests, attired in magnificent vestments. The Czar and Czarina were on the right of the altar, the Prince of Wales and the Russian Grand Dukes standing opposite. The most interesting portions of the ceremony were the handing of the rings to the bride and bridegroom, the crowning of the Royal couple, and the procession of the newly wedded pair, with the Metropolitan and clergy, Prince Arthur, and the Grand Dukes round the analogion or lectern, the bride and bridegroom carrying lighted candles in their left hands. On the conclusion of this part of the ceremony, the bride and bridegroom proceeded to the Salle d’Alexandre, where the Anglican ceremony was performed by Dean Stanley, the bride being given away by the Emperor, while Prince Arthur officiated as his brother’s groomsman. The Duke of Edinburgh and the Grand Duchess Marie used prayer books which had been sent to them by the Queen, and the Grand Duchess carried a bouquet of myrtle from the bush at Osborne, which had been so often laid under tribute for the marriages of the Queen’s children. The wedding-day was celebrated in the principal towns of Great Britain with much popular rejoicing.
The Queen deeply regretted her inability to be present at a ceremony so interesting to her, and, in some respects, momentous for her House. Nor was she the only member of the Royal circle who entertained the same feeling. Her daughter, the Princess Louis of Hesse, writing to her from Darmstadt on the 23rd of January, 1874, says, “On our dear Affie’s [Prince Alfred’s] birthday, a few tender words. It must seem so strange to you not to be near him. My thoughts are constantly with them all, and we have only the Times account, for no one writes here. They are all too busy, and, of course, all news comes to you. What has Augusta [Lady Augusta Stanley] written, and Vicky and Bertie? Any extracts or other newspaper accounts but what we see would be most welcome.... God bless and protect them, and may all turn out well.” Artless passages like these are worth quoting, if for no better reason than this, that they illustrate the strength of the sentiment of domesticity which has not only bound the Royal children to the Queen, but to each other, all through life. Even after the Queen had complied with her daughter’s request, and sent her some letters about the ceremony, the Princess recurs to the same theme, saying, “Dear Marie [the Duchess of Edinburgh] seems to make the same impression on all. How glad I am she is so quite what I thought and hoped. Such a wife must make Affie happy, and do him good, and be a great pleasure to yourself, which I always liked to think.” And again, a few days later, she writes to the Queen as follows:—“I have a little time before breakfast to thank you so much for the enclosures, also the Dean’s [Stanley’s] letter through Beatrice. We are most grateful for being allowed to hear these most interesting reports. It brings everything so much nearer. How pleasant it is to receive only satisfactory reports.”[61]
The Grand Duchess, when she came to her new home, brought her own weather with her. She was introduced by the Queen to London and the Londoners on the 12th of March, in the midst of a bleak and blinding snowstorm. That dense crowds of people should line the street, and stand for hours in the half-frozen slush, for an opportunity of bidding the Grand Duchess welcome to her new home, afforded an impressive testimony to the deep-seated loyalty of the capital. The Queen, the Grand Duchess, the Duke of Edinburgh, and other members of the Royal Family, left Windsor Castle at 11 o’clock in closed carriages for the railway station, under a brilliant escort of Scots Greys. The Royal train steamed to Paddington terminus, which was all ablaze with Russian and English colours. The people thronged the windows, balconies, the house-tops, and the pavements, and each side of the roadway, all along from Paddington to Buckingham Palace, and the Queen and the Royal couple showed their appreciation of the splendid reception which was given to them by braving the snowstorm in an open landau. The Queen, who was dressed in half-mourning, smilingly bowed in acknowledgment of the hearty cheering, and the Grand Duchess, who sat by her side, attired in a purple velvet mantle edged with fur, a pale blue silk dress and white bonnet, was evidently surprised at the warm greeting she received. The route was lined by the military and police. The streets were full of loyal but bedraggled decorations, and grimly festive with limp flags and illegible mottoes. Nothing could be more gracious than the smiling demeanour of the Queen and her new daughter-in-law, and nothing more pitiable than the obvious discomfort of the poor ladies-in-waiting, who sat palpably shivering in their carriages. At night the chief thoroughfares were brilliantly illuminated. “I hope,” writes the Princess Louis of Hesse to the Queen, “you were not the worse for all your exertions.... Such a warm reception must have touched Marie, and shown how the English cling to their Sovereign and her House.” Yet, after the first flush of excitement had passed away, the Russian Princess began to suffer from the common complaint of all Northern women—nostalgia, or home-sickness. “Marie must feel it very deeply,” writes the Princess Louis to the Queen (7th April), “for to leave so delicate and loving a mother must seem almost wrong. How strange this side of human nature always seems—leaving all you love most, know best, owe all debts of gratitude to, for the comparatively unknown! The lot of parents is indeed hard, and of such self-sacrifice.” This incident seems to have led to a curious correspondence between the Queen and her daughter, in which her Majesty apparently gave her some solemn warnings about the evil done by parents who bring up their daughters for the sole purpose of marrying them. “This,” observes the Princess Louis in her reply to her
MARRIAGE OF THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH.
(From the Picture by N. Chevalier.)
mother, “is said to be a too prominent feature in the modern English education of the higher classes.... I want to bring up the girls without seeking this as the sole object for the future—to feel that they can fill up their lives so well otherwise.... A marriage for the sake of marriage is surely the greatest mistake a woman can make.... I know what an absorbing feeling that of devotion to one’s parent is. When I was at home it filled my whole soul. It does still in a great degree, and heimweh [home-sickness] does not cease after so long an absence.”