In the Queen's solitude at Osborne Princess Alice continued to be the great medium of communication between her Majesty and her Ministers. (Times.)
The opening of the second great Exhibition in the month of May must have been full of painful associations. At the State ceremony on the first day the royal carriages with mourning liveries were empty, but for the Crown Prince of Prussia, Prince Oscar of Sweden, and the Duchess of Cambridge with her daughters. Tennyson's ode was sung. It contained the pathetic lines—
"O silent father of our kings to be,
Mourned in this golden hour of jubilee,
For this, for all we weep our thanks to thee."
It was decided that the Queen's birthday should be spent at Balmoral, a practice which became habitual. Dr. Norman Macleod was summoned north to give what consolation he could to his sorrowing Queen. He has left an account of one of their interviews. "May 14th. After dinner I was summoned unexpectedly to the Queen's room; she was alone. She met me, and, with an unutterable expression which filled my eyes with tears, at once began to speak about the Prince…. She spoke of his excellences, his love, his cheerfulness, how he was everything to her; how all now on earth seemed dead to her…."
On the 4th of June the Prince of Wales arrived in England from his eastern tour. A melancholy incident occurred on his return—General Bruce, who had been labouring under fever, died soon after reaching England on the 24th of June. Another sad death happened four days later—that of Lord Canning, Governor-General of India. He had also just come back to England. He survived his wife only six months.
Princess Alice's marriage, which had been delayed by her father's death, took place at Osborne at one o'clock on the afternoon of the 1st of July, in strict privacy. The ceremony was performed by the Archbishop of York in room of the sick Archbishop of Canterbury. The Queen in deep mourning appeared only for the service. Near her was the Crown Princess of Prussia—already the mother of three children—and her Majesty's four sons.
The father and mother, brothers and sister of the bridegroom, and other relatives, were present. The Duke of Saxe-Coburg in the Prince Consort's place led in the bride. Her unmarried sisters, Princesses Helena, Louise, and Beatrice, and the bridegroom's only sister, Princess Anna of Hesse, were the bridesmaids. Prince Louis was supported by his brother, Prince Henry.
The guests were all gone by four o'clock. No contrast could be greater than that of the brilliant and glad festivities at the Princess Royal's wedding and the hush of sorrow in which her sister was married. The young couple went for three days to St. Clare, near Ryde, and left England in another week. The English people never forgot what Princess Alice had proved in the hour of need, and her departure was followed by prayers and blessings.
In August the Queen was at Balmoral with all her children who were in this country. On the 21st she drove in a pony carriage, accompanied by the elder Princes and Princesses on foot and on ponies, to the top of Craig Lowrigan, and each laid a stone on the foundation of the Prince Consort's cairn. On the late Prince's birthday another sad tender pilgrimage was made to the top of Craig Gowan to the earlier cairn celebrating the taking of the Malakoff.
Her Majesty, whose health was still shaken and weakened, sailed on the 1st of September for Germany. She was accompanied by the Prince of Wales, Prince Arthur, and Prince Leopold, Princesses Helena, Louise, and Beatrice, and the Princess Hohenlohe. During the Queen's stay with her uncle, King Leopold, at Laeken, in passing through Belgium, she had her first interview with her future daughter-in-law, Princess Alexandra of Denmark. The Princess with her father and mother drove from Brussels to pay a private visit to her Majesty.