On the Sunday which dawned on the first day of her Majesty's widowhood, when the news of her bereavement—announced in a similar fashion in many a city cathedral and country church, was conveyed to the people in a great northern city by Dr. Norman MacLeod's praying for the Queen as a widow, a pang of awe and pity smote every hearer; the minister and the congregation wept together.
The disastrous tidings had to travel far and wide: to the Princess Royal, the daughter in whom her father had taken such pride, who had so grieved to part from him when she left England a happy young bride, who had been so glad to greet him in his own old home only a few months before; to the sailor son on the other side of the globe; to the delicate little boy so lately sent in search of health, whose natural cry on the sorrowful tale being told to him was, "Take me to mamma."
Deprived in one year of both mother and husband, alone where family relations were concerned, save for her children; with her eldest son, the Prince of Wales, a lad of not more than twenty years, the devoted servants of the Queen rallied round her and strove to support and comfort her.
In the absence of the Princess Royal and the Princess of Hohenlohe, the Duchess of Sutherland, one of the Queen's oldest friends, herself a widow, was sent for to be with her royal mistress. Lady Augusta Bruce watched day and night by the daughter as she had watched by the mother. The Queen's people did not know how sore was the struggle, how near they were to losing her. Princess Alice wrote years afterwards of that first dreadful night, of the next three terrible days, with a species of horror, and wondered again and again how she and her mother survived that time. The Queen's weakness was so great that her pulse could hardly be felt. "She spoke constantly about God's knowing best, but showed herself broken-hearted," Lady Bloomfield tells us. It was a sensible relief to the country when it was made public that the Queen had slept for some hours.
The doctors urgently advised that her Majesty should leave Windsor and go to Osborne, but she shrank unconquerably from thus quitting all that was mortal of the Prince till he had been laid to rest. The old King of the Belgians, her second father, afflicted in her affliction as he had gloried in her happiness, added his earnest entreaty to, the medical men's opinion, in vain, till the plea was brought forward that for her children's sake—that they might be removed from the fever- tainted atmosphere, the painful step ought to be taken. Even then it was mainly by the influence of the Princess Alice that the Queen, who had proved just and reasonable in all her acts, who had been confirmed by him who was gone in habits of self-control and self-denial, who was the best of mothers, gave up the last sad boon which the poorest might claim, and consented to go immediately with her daughters to Osborne.
But first her Majesty visited Frogmore, where the Duchess of Kent's mausoleum had been built, that she might choose the spot for another and larger mausoleum where the husband and wife would yet lie side by side. It was on the 18th of December that the Queen, accompanied by Princess Alice, drove from the Castle on her melancholy errand. They were received at Frogmore by the Prince of Wales, Prince Louis of Hesse, who had arrived in England, Sir Charles Phipps, and Sir James Clark. Her Majesty walked round the gardens leaning on her daughter's arm, and selected the place where the coffin of the Prince would be finally deposited. Shortly afterwards the sad party left for Osborne, where a veil must be drawn over the sorrow which, like the love that gave it birth, has had few parallels.
The funeral was at Windsor on the 23rd of December. Shortly before twelve o'clock the cortège assembled which was to conduct the remains of the late Prince Consort the short distance from the state entrance of Windsor Castle, through the Norman Tower Gate to St. George's Chapel. Nine mourning-coaches, each drawn by four horses, conveyed the valets, foresters, riders, librarian, and doctors; the equerries, ushers, grooms, gentlemen, and lords in waiting of his late Royal Highness; and the great officers of the Household. One of the Queen's carriages drawn by six horses contained the Prince's coronet borne by Earl Spencer, and his baton, sword, and hat by Lord George Lennox. The hearse, drawn by six horses, was escorted by a detachment of Life Guards.
The carriages of the Queen, the Prince of Wales, the Duke of Cambridge, and the Duchess of Cambridge followed. The company which had received commands to be present at the ceremony, including the foreign ambassadors, the Cabinet Ministers, the officers of the household, and many of the nobility and higher clergy, entered St. George's Chapel by the Wolsey door and were conducted to seats in the choir. The Knights of the Garter occupied their stalls. The royal family, with their guests, came privately from the Castle and assembled in the chapter-room. The members of the procession moved up the nave in the same order in which they had been driven to the South porch. Among them were the representatives of all the foreign states connected by blood or marriage with the late Prince, the choir, canons, and Dean of Windsor. After the baton, sword, and crown, carried on black velvet cushions, came the comptroller in the Chamberlain's department, Vice-Chamberlain, and Lord Chamberlain, then the crimson velvet coffin, the pall borne by the members of the late Prince's suite. Garter-King-at-Arms followed, walking before the chief mourner, the Prince of Wales, who was supported by Prince Arthur, a little lad of eleven, and the Duke of Saxe-Coburg, and attended by General Bruce. Behind came the son-in-law, the Crown Prince of Prussia, the cousins—the sons of the King of the Belgians—with the Duc de Nemours, Prince Louis of Hesse, Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar, the Queen's nephew, Count Gleichen, and the Maharajah Dhuleep Singh. The gentlemen in waiting on the foreign princes wound up the procession.
When the coffin arrived within the choir, the crown, baton, sword, and hat were placed on it. That morning a messenger had come from Osborne with three wreaths and a bouquet. The wreaths were simple garlands of moss and violets woven by the three elder princesses; the bouquet of violets, with a white camellia in the centre, was from the Queen. These were laid between the heraldic insignia. The Prince of Wales with his brother and uncle stood at the head, the Lord Chamberlain at the foot, the other mourners and the pallbearers around. Minute-guns were fired at intervals by Horse Artillery in the Long Walk. A guard of honour of the Grenadier Guards, of which the Prince Consort had been colonel, presented arms on the coming of the body and when it was lowered into the grave. During the service the thirty-ninth Psalm, Luther's Hymn, and two chorales were sung.
The Prince of Wales bore up with a brave effort, now and then seeking to soothe his young brother, who, with swollen eyes and tear-stained face, when the long wail of the dirge smote upon his ear, sobbed as if his heart were breaking. At the words—