On the 14th of March her Majesty left Windsor for Portsmouth, accompanied by the Princess Beatrice. From thence she sailed to Cherbourg, and proceeded to Mentone, where she arrived on the 17th. The Chalêt des Rosiers, where the Queen lived, was a newly-built villa, standing on a small artificial plateau, fifty yards from the railway, and a hundred from the shore, about half-a-mile from the old town, and three-quarters of a mile from the ravine and bridge of St. Louis which divide Italy from France. Precipices, rugged steeps, abysmal ravines, and rocky beds of old torrents rise from behind the villa in wild confusion. Five miles away, mountains whose bases are traversed by terraces covered with orange groves, soar grandly into the sky. Her Majesty was soon joined by Prince Leopold, the King and Queen of Saxony, and Lord Lyons, and she made daily excursions in the neighbourhood. On the 21st of March there was a great fête, with splendid illuminations held in her honour, and she witnessed the scene from the balcony of her villa. Before leaving, on the 14th of April, the Queen thanked the authorities and the residents for contributing so cordially to the pleasure of her visit. As a memento of it, she presented the chief of the municipal band, who had composed a cantata in her honour, with a diamond breast-pin.
The marriage of the Duke of Albany was now approaching, and it was with deep regret that the Queen found it necessary to leave him at Mentone, as he had not recovered from the effects of an accident he had met with. The grant of £25,000 a year for his Royal Highness had been moved by Mr. Gladstone in the House of Commons on the 23rd of March, and carried by a vote of 387 to 42. Mr. Labouchere, however, opposed the vote, because he said the savings from the Civil List ought to be returned to the State by the Queen before any Royal grants were voted by Parliament. Mr. Broadhurst also thought that £25,000[181] a year was too much to vote for such a purpose in a country where the majority lived on weekly wages. Mr. Storey opposed voting public money save for public services, and described the House of Commons as “a large syndicate interested in expenditure.” But there was no new point raised in the debate, save Mr. Labouchere’s argument, based on the fact that George III., who had £1,000,000 a year of Civil List, maintained his own children. Mr. Gladstone, of course, challenged the precedent, by pointing out that Parliament had not entered into an implied contract with George III. to provide for his children. But for the first time he admitted that savings were hoarded up out of the Civil List. Only, he said, they were not large enough to provide for the maintenance of the Queen’s children, and he assured the House that after he had come to know the amount of them, his conclusion was that they were not more than were called for by the contingencies which might occur in such a family. As has been stated before, the Royal savings represent an insurance fund against family emergencies, which it would not be agreeable for the Queen to ask Parliament to meet for her.
On the 27th of April the marriage of the Duke of Albany with the Princess Hélène of Waldeck-Pyrmont was solemnised in St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, with a sustained pomp and splendour rarely seen even in Royal pageants. Most extensive and elaborate arrangements had been made for the reception and processions of the Royal and illustrious guests, the Queen, the bridegroom, and the bride. On the morning of the 27th the earliest aspect of animation was lent to the peaceful tranquillity of the chapel by the arrival of a strong detachment of the Yeomen of the Guard, arrayed in their quaint Tudor costume, consisting of plaited ruff, low-crowned black velvet hat encircled by red and white roses, scarlet doublet embroidered with the Royal cognisance and initials in gold, purple sleeves, bullion quarterings, ruddy hose, and rosetted shoes. The Yeomen of the Guard were ranged at intervals throughout the length of the nave, and were speedily joined by a contingent of the Honourable Corps of Gentlemen-at-Arms, resplendent in scarlet uniforms profusely laced with gold. After the opening of the doors the edifice soon filled with ladies of rank, nobles, statesmen, warriors, and diplomatists. The day was recognised by the decorated as “a collar day”—i.e., the Knights did not wear the robes of their Order, but only the ribbons of the Garter, the Bath, the Thistle, and St. Patrick, with the collars and badges of gold. Constellations of stars, crosses, and ribbons marked the uniforms of the English generals, foreign ambassadors, and Ministers present in the choir, and flashed light on the grey and timeworn walls associated with the memories of Anne Boleyn, Catherine of Arragon, and Jane Seymour. At noon the drapery veiling the door was thrown aside, and the first procession—that of the Queen’s family and their Royal guests from the Continent—entered. After this glittering group had passed into the choir, the Queen’s procession appeared at the west door, when the brilliant array in the nave stood up, and the organ burst into the strains of Handel’s Occasional Overture. Her Majesty, who was in excellent health and spirits, bowed her acknowledgments to the salutations of the assembled guests. She was clad in widow’s sables with long gauze streamers, and wore the broad riband of the Garter and a magnificent parure of diamonds. The Koh-i-noor sparkled on her bosom, while her head-dress was surmounted with a glittering tiara girt by a small crown Imperial in brilliants. On entering the choir the Queen was conducted to her seat close to the south of the altar. The bridegroom’s procession next made its appearance. The Duke of Albany wore the scarlet and gold uniform of a colonel of Infantry. The Prince walked with some slight difficulty with the assistance of a stick. The bridegroom was supported by the Prince of Wales in the uniform of a Field Marshal, and by his brother-in-law, the Grand Duke of Hesse, also clad in scarlet. Last came the procession of the bride, heralded by the sound of cheering outside and the blare of trumpets. She was supported by her father, the Prince of Waldeck and Pyrmont, and by her brother-in-law, the King of the Netherlands, her train being borne by eight unmarried daughters of dukes, marquises, and earls, decked in white drapery trimmed with flowers. The celebration of the marriage ceremony was performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by an array of Church dignitaries ranged behind the altar rails. The service was brief, with no enlarged choral accompaniments, but the spectacle was unusually impressive. There was not a vacant spot in the chapel; it was gorgeous with diverse colours and flashing with jewels and with the insignia of many grand Orders of chivalry. The scene, too, was at intervals suddenly wrapped in gloom and as suddenly bathed in light as the fitful sunshine streamed through the painted windows. As the ceremony was being completed a cloud must have passed from the sun, for its beams darted through the stained windows, and revealed the bride and bridegroom in a tinted halo of radiance. After the ceremony the Queen affectionately embraced her son and daughter-in-law, whose united processions were formed and left the chapel whilst Mendelssohn’s Wedding March pealed forth from the organ and the cannon thundered in the Long Walk. Her Majesty interchanged salutations with her relatives, after which her own procession departed, and the regal pageant was suddenly dissolved. After the signing of the register, which took place in the Green drawing-room, the bride and bridegroom were conducted to the State drawing-room, where the Royal guests had assembled, and where the usual congratulations were exchanged. In the evening a grand State banquet was given in St. George’s Hall, at which the health of the bride and bridegroom and other toasts were honoured, Mr. John Brown, her Majesty’s Scottish gillie, standing behind the Queen and giving, as her toastmaster, the toast of the newly-wedded pair. Immediately after the toast of the Queen—the last of the list—had been honoured, two of the Royal pipers entered and marched twice round the tables playing Scottish airs, to the astonishment of some of the guests, who had never heard such music before. Then the Queen rose and left the hall, and the other guests quitted the scene. The Duke and Duchess of Albany drove from the Castle, amidst a shower of slippers and rice, to Claremont.
Unusual interest was taken in this wedding, partly on account of the splendour of the ceremony, and partly because it was understood that the Duke of Albany had won a bride admirably suited to be the companion of his refined and studious life. As he seemed destined to form a link between the Court and Culture, so it was hoped that the Duchess might become
THE MARRIAGE OF THE DUKE OF ALBANY.
(From the Picture by Sir J. D. Linton, P.R.I., by Permission of the Glasgow Art Union.)
the social head of a growing school ambitious of showing the world that the lives of women of rank, need not necessarily be absorbed by frivolity and philanthropy.