In 1880 the Queen opened Parliament in person. Her Majesty, accompanied by Princess Beatrice, left Windsor on the 25th of March for Baden-Baden and Darmstadt. The Queen was present at the confirmation of the Princesses Victoria and Elizabeth, and visited the Rosenhöhe, where their mother was buried.
About the same time the ex-Empress Eugénie embarked at Southampton for the Cape of Good Hope, that she might see the place where her son fell on the anniversary of his death.
On the 24th of April the Princess Frederica of Hanover, elder daughter of the late King, was married to Baron von Pawel-Rammingen, who had been equerry to her father, in St. George's Chapel, Windsor. The Queen and several members of the royal family witnessed the ceremony.
In September the Duke of Connaught and his bride were welcomed to Balmoral, and a visit paid to the cairn erected in their honour when their healths were drunk with "three times three" in the presence of the Queen, Princess Beatrice, and the ladies and gentlemen of the household. Later in the autumn the childless widow, the Empress Eugénie, stayed for a little time at Abergeldie.
At the close of 1880 Lord Beaconsfield published his last novel of
"Endymion." George Eliot died on the 22nd December, and in 1881 Thomas
Carlyle died, on the 5th of February, in the eighty-sixth year of his
age.
Her Majesty's eldest grandson, Prince William of Prussia, was married at Berlin on the 27th of February to Princess Augusta Victoria of Schleswig-Holstein. The bride was the granddaughter of the Queen's sister, Princess Hohenlohe, and the niece of Prince Christian.
On March 13th the Emperor of Russia was assassinated.
Lord Beaconsfield died on the 19th of April at his house in Curzon
Street. Ten days later the Queen and Princess Beatrice visited
Hughenden while the vault was still open, and placed flowers on the
coffin.
In June Prince Leopold took his seat in the House of Peers on his creation as Duke of Albany.
On the 19th of September President Garfield died, after a long struggle, with the effects of his assassination, when the Queen wrote to Mrs. Garfield her indignation and pity as she had expressed them to the widow of President Lincoln.