In January, 1874, the Duke of Edinburgh was married at the Winter Palace, St. Petersburg, to the Grand Duchess Marie of Russia. The Duke was in his thirtieth, the Grand Duchess in her twenty-first year. The royal couple arrived at Gravesend on March 7th, and entered London on March 12th in a heavy snowstorm. In spite of the weather the Queen and the Duchess, with the Duke of Edinburgh and Princess Beatrice seated opposite, drove slowly through the crowded streets in an open carriage drawn by six horses. The Prince and Princess of Wales, Princess Louise, &c., were at the windows of Buckingham Palace. The Queen went out with the Duke and Duchess on the balcony. The Duke and Duchess's town and country houses are Clarence House and Eastwell Park.
In March her Majesty, accompanied by all her family in England,
reviewed the troops returned from the Ashantee War in Windsor Great
Park, and gave the orders of St. Michael and St. George to Sir Garnet
Wolseley and the Victoria Cross to Lord Gifford.
The first volume of the "Life of the Prince Consort," by Sir Theodore
Martin, came out and made a deep impression on the general public.
Her Majesty had for many years honoured with her friendship M. and Madame Van de Weyer, who were the Queen's near neighbours at Windsor, the family living at the New Lodge. In addition they had come for several seasons to Abergeldie, when the Court was at Balmoral. M. Van de Weyer was not only the trusted representative of the King of the Belgians, he was a man highly gifted morally and intellectually. This year the friendship was broken by his death.
On the 15th of October the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh's son—was born.
The news of Livingstone's death reached England.
Early in 1875 Prince Leopold, then twenty-two years of age, suffered from typhoid fever. So great were the fears entertained for his life that the Queen was prevented from opening Parliament in person. Already Princess Alice in her letters had referred to her youngest brother as having been three times given back to his family from the brink of the grave.
During the spring the Queen was deprived by death of her Clerk to the
Council and literary adviser in her first book, Sir Arthur Helps.
Charles Kingsley, whose work was much admired by the Prince Consort,
died also.
On the 18th of August, when the Queen was sitting on the deck of the royal yacht as it crossed from Osborne to Gosport, the yacht Mistletoe ran across its bows and a collision took place, the Mistletoe turning over and sinking. The sister-in-law of the owner of the yacht was drowned. The master, an old man, who was struck by a spar, died after he had been picked up. The rest of the crew were rescued. Her Majesty, who was greatly distressed, aided personally in the vain efforts to restore one of the sufferers to consciousness.
In September the Queen, in paying a week's visit to the Duke and Duchess of Argyle at Inverary, had the pleasure of seeing Princess Louise in her future home. It was twenty-eight years since her Majesty had been in the house of MacCallummore, and then her son-in-law of to- day had been a little fellow of two years, in black velvet and fair curls.