Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen Volume II Part 16

King Leopold, his younger son, and his lovely young daughter, Princess Charlotte, were among the Queen's visitors this summer, and a little later came the Prince and Princess of Prussia to improve their acquaintance with their future daughter-in-law.

In July the Queen and the Prince were again at Aldershott to review the troops returned from the Crimea. But the weather, persistently wet, spoilt what would otherwise have been a joyous as well as a glorious scene. During a short break in the rain, the Crimean regiments formed three sides of a square round the carriage in which the Queen sat. The officers and four men of each of the troops that had been under fire "stepped out," and the Queen, standing up in the carriage, addressed them. "Officers, non-commissioned officers, and soldiers, I wish personally to convey through you to the regiments a.s.sembled here this day my hearty welcome on their return to England in health and full efficiency. Say to them that I have watched anxiously over the difficulties and hards.h.i.+ps which they have so n.o.bly borne, that I have mourned with deep sorrow for the brave men who have fallen in their country's cause, and that I have felt proud of that valour which, with their gallant allies, they have displayed on every field. I thank G.o.d that your dangers are over, while the glory of your deeds remains; but I know that should your services be again required, you will be animated with the same devotion which in the Crimea has rendered you invincible."

When the clear, sweet voice was silent, a cry of "G.o.d save the Queen!"

sprang to every lip. Helmets, bearskins, and shakos were thrown into the air; the dragoons waved their sabres, and a shout of loyal acclamation, caught up from line to line, rang through the ranks.

The next day, in summer suns.h.i.+ne, the Queen and her City of London welcomed home the Guards. In antic.i.p.ation of a brilliant review in the park, she saw them march past from the central balcony of Buckingham Palace, as she had seen them depart on the chill February morning more than two years before: another season and another scene--not unchastened in its triumph, for many a once-familiar face was absent, and many a yearning thought wandered to Russian hill and plain and Turkish graveyard, where English sleepers rested till the great awakening.

An old soldier figured before the Queen and the Prince in circ.u.mstances which filled them with sorrow and pity. Lord Hardinge, the Commander-in-Chief, was having an audience with the Queen, when he was suddenly struck by paralysis. He resigned his post, to which the Duke of Cambridge was appointed. Lord Hardinge died a few months afterwards.

After several yachting excursions, marred by stormy weather, the Court went north, and reached Balmoral on the 30th of August. The tower and the offices, with the terraces and pleasure-grounds, were finished, and every trace of the old house had disappeared. The Balmoral of to- day, though it still lacked what has become some of its essential features, stood before the Queen. We are fain to make it stand before our readers as it is now.

The road to Balmoral may be said to begin with the Strath at Aberdeen.

The farther west the railway runs, the higher grow the mountains and the narrower waxes the valley. Yet the Highlands proper are held to commence only at Ballater, the little northern town with its gray square, and its pleasant inn by the bridge over the rus.h.i.+ng Dee. The whole is set between the wooded hills of Pannanich and Craigendarroch, the last-named from the oak wood which crowns its summit. The Prince of Wales's house, Birkhall, stands back from the road on a green eminence with the mountain rising behind, and in front the river Muich running down to join the Dee.

At Ballater the railway ends, and two picturesque roads follow the course of the river, one on each side, the first pa.s.sing Crathie, the other going through the fir and birch woods of Abergeldie on the same side as Balmoral. Both command grand glimpses of the mountains, which belong to the three great ranges of the district--Cairngorm, Glengairn, and Loch-na-Gar.

Approaching on the Crathie side, the stranger is struck with the frequent tokens of a life that was once the presiding genius of this place, which pa.s.sing away in its prime, has left the shadow of a great grief, softened by the merciful touch of time. The haunting presence, mild in its manliness and gentle in its strength, of a princely benefactor common to all, has displaced the grim phantoms of old chieftains and reigns in their stead. It hovers over the dearly loved Highland home with its fitting touch of stateliness in the middle of its simplicity, over the forest where a true sportsman stalked the deer, over the streams and lochs in which he fished, and the paths he trod by hill and glen. We are made to remember that Balmoral was the Prince Consort's property, that he bought it for his possession, as...o...b..rne was the Queen's, and that it was by a bequest in his will that it came, with all its memories, to his widow. Three different monuments to the Prince, on as many elevations above the castle, at once attract the eye. The highest and most enduring, seen from many quarters and at considerable distances, is a gable-like cairn on the summit of a hill. It is here that such of the Prince's sons as are in the neighbourhood, and all the tenantry and dependents who can comply with the invitation, a.s.semble on the Prince Consort's birthday and drink to his memory.

Lower down stands a representation of the n.o.ble figure of the Prince, attended by his greyhound, Eos. On another spur of the same hill is an obelisk, erected by the tenantry and servants to the master who had their interests so deeply at heart.

The castle, like its smaller predecessor of which this pile of building has taken the place, stands in a haugh or meadow at the foot of a hill, within a circle of mountain-tops. The porter's ledge and gate might belong to the hunting-seat of any gentleman of taste and means; only the fact that, even when her Majesty is not in residence, a constable of police is in attendance, marks the difference between sovereign and subject.

Within the gate the surroundings are still wild and rural, in keeping with nature free and unshackled, and have a faint flavour of German parks where the mowing-machine is not always at work, but a sweet math of wild flowers three or four feet high is supposed to cheat the dweller in courtly palaces into a belief that he too is at liberty to breathe the fresh air without thought or care, and roam where he will, free from the fetters of form and etiquette.

Great innocent moon-daises, sprightly harebells, st.u.r.dy heather, bloom profusely and seem much at home within these royal precincts, under the brow of the hills and within sight and sound of the flas.h.i.+ng Dee.

Gradually the natural birch wood shows more traces of cultivation, and is interspersed with such trees and shrubs as suit the climate, and the rough pasture gives place to the smooth lawn, with a knot of bright flower-beds on one side.

The house is built of reddish granite in what is called the baronial style, with a sprinkling of peaked gables and pepper-box turrets, and a square tower with a clock which is said to keep the time all over the parish. Above the princ.i.p.al entrance are the coats of arms, carved, coloured, and picked out with gold. There are two bas-reliefs serving to indicate the character of the building--a hunting-lodge under the patronage of St. Hubert, supported by St. Andrew of Scotland and St. George of England, the stag between whose antlers the sacred cross sprang, forming part of the representation. The other bas-relief shows groups of men engaged in Highland games.

Within doors many a relic of the chase appears in antlered heads surmounting inscriptions in bra.s.s of the date of the slaying of the stag and the name of the slayer. The engravings on the walls are mostly of mountain landscapes and sporting scenes, in which Landseer's hand is prominent, and of family adventures in making this ascent or crossing that ford.

The furniture is as Scotch as may be--chairs and tables, with few exceptions, of polished birch hangings and carpets with the tartan check on the velvet pile, the royal "sets" in all their bewildering variety: "royal Stewart," strong in scarlet; "Victoria," with the check relieved on a white ground; "Albert," on a deep blue, and "hunting Stewart," which suddenly pa.s.ses into a soft vivid green, crossed by lines of red and yellow.

Drawing-room, dining-room, billiard-room, and library are s.p.a.cious enough for royalty, while small enough for comfort when royalty is in happy retreat in little more than a large family circle rusticating from choice. The corridors look brown and simple, like the rest of the house, and lack the white statuary of Osborne, and the superb vases, cabinets, and pictures of Buckingham Palace and Windsor. By the chimney-piece in the entrance hall rest the tattered colours once borne through flood and field by two famous regiments, one of them "the Cameronians."

In the drawing-room is a set of chairs with covers in needlework sewed by a cl.u.s.ter of industrious ladies-in-waiting. In the library hangs a richly wrought wreath of flowers in porcelain, an offering from Messrs. Minton to the Queen. On the second story are the private rooms of her Majesty and the different members of the royal family. Perhaps the ballroom, a long hall, one story in height, running out from the building like an afterthought, is one of the most picturesque features of the place. The decorations consist of devices placed at intervals on the walls. These devices are made up of Highland weapons, Highland plaids, Highland bonnets bearing the chief's feather or the badge of the clan. Doubtless tufts of purple heather and russet bracken, with bunches of the coral berries of the rowan, will supplement other adornments as the occasion calls for them; and when the lights gleam, the pipers strike up, and the nimble dancers foot it with grace and glee through reel [Footnote: "Yesterday we had the Gillies' Ball, at which Arthur distinguished himself and was greatly applauded in the Highland reels. Next to Jamie Gow, he was the 'favourite in the room.'"--Extract from one of the Prince Consort's letters.] and sword- dance, the effect must be excellent of its kind. For long years the b.a.l.l.s at Balmoral have been mostly kindly festivals to the humble friends who look forward to the royal visits as to the galas of the year, the greater part of which is spent in a remote solitude not without the privations which accompany a northern winter.

The parish church of Crathie, a little, plain, white building, well situated on a green, wooded knoll, looks across the Dee to Balmoral.

The church is notable for its wide, red-covered gallery seats, to which the few plain pews in the area below bear a small proportion.

The Queen's arms are in front of the gallery, which contains her seat and that of the Prince of Wales. Opposite are two stained-gla.s.s windows, representing King David with his harp, and St. Paul with the sword of the Spirit and the word of G.o.d, gifts of the Queen in memory of her sister, the Princess of Hohenlohe, and of Dr. Norman Macleod.

Famous speakers and still more famous hearers have wors.h.i.+pped together in this simple little country church. Macleod, Tulloch, Caird, Macgregor--the foremost orators in the Church of Scotland--have taken their turn with the scholarly parish minister, while in the pews, bearing royalty company, have sat statesmen and men of letters of whom the world has heard: Lord Derby, Mr. Gladstone, Dean Stanley, Sir Arthur Helps, &c., &c.

The old churchyard in which John Brown, the Queen's trusty Scotch servant, faithful as a squire of old, sleeps, lies down in the low land near the Dee. John Brown's house, solid and unpretending like the man himself, which he only occupied once, when his coffin lay for a night in the dining-room, is in the neighbourhood.

The Queen has white cottages not far from the castle gate, built on the model of the Osborne cottages, pretty and convenient homes of keepers, keepers' widows, &c., &c., with the few artisans whose services are necessary for the small population. There are other cottages of the old, homely sort, containing no more than "the b.u.t.t and the benn" of stereotyped Scotch architecture, with the fire made of "peats" or of sticks on the hearth-floor. In some of these, the walls of the better rooms are covered with good plates and photographs of every member of the royal family, with whose lineaments we are familiar, from the widowed Queen to the last royal couple among her grandchildren. These likenesses are much-valued gifts from the originals.

As a nucleus to the cottages, there is _the_ shop or Highland store with a wide door and a couple of counters representing two branches of trade in the ordinarily distinct departments of groceries and haberdashery. Probably this is the one shop in her Majesty's domains in which, as we have evidence in her journal, [Footnote: "Life in the Highlands"--Queen's journal. "Albert went out with Alfred for the day, and I walked out with the two girls and Lady Churchill, stopped at the shop and made some purchases for poor people and others. Drove a little way, got out and walked up the hill to _Balnacroft_, Mrs. P. Farquharson's, and she walked round with us to some of the cottages to show me where the poor people lived, and to tell them who I was.... I went into a small cabin of old Kitty Kear's, who is eighty-six years old, quite erect, and who welcomed us with a great air of dignity. She sat down and spun. I gave her, also, a warm petticoat; she said, 'May the Lord ever attend ye and yours, here and hereafter, and may the Lord be a guide to ye and keep ye from all harm.' ... We went into three other cottages--to Mrs. Symons's (daughter-in-law to the old widow living next door) who had an 'unwell boy,' then across a little burn to another old woman's, and afterwards peeped into Blair's, the fiddler. We drove back and got out again to visit old Mrs. Grant (Grant's mother), who is so tidy and clean, and to whom I gave a dress and a handkerchief; and she said, 'You're too kind to me, you're over kind to me, ye give me more every year, and I get older every year.' After talking some time to her, she said, 'I am happy to see ye looking so nice.' She had tears in her eyes, and speaking of Vicky's going said, 'I'm very sorry, and I think she is sorry hersel'.'..."] she avails herself of the feminine privilege of shopping. For the Queen can live the life of a private lady--can show herself the most considerate and sympathetic of n.o.ble gentlewomen in this primitive locality. She can walk or drive her ponies, or visit on foot her commissioner or her minister, or look in at her school, or call on her sick, aged, and poor, and take to them the comforts she has provided for them, the tokens of her remembrance they prize so much. She can enjoy their simple friendliness and native shrewdness.

She can read to them words of lofty promise and tender consolation.

She can do all as if she were not crowned Queen and ruler of a great kingdom. In hardly any other part of her empire would such pleasant familiar intercourse and gentle personal charities be possible for her. The a.s.sociation has been deepened and strengthened by a duration of more than thirty years. The Queen came while still a young wife to Balmoral, and she has learnt to love and be loved by her neighbours in the long interval which leaves her a royal widow of threescore. Her children were fair-haired little boys and girls, making holiday here, playing at riding and shooting, getting into sc.r.a.pes like other children, [Footnote: There is a story told of one of the little princes having chased an old woman's hen and been soundly scolded by her for the offence. Her neighbours remonstrated with her, and her heart failed her when, a few days afterwards, she saw the Prince Consort coming up the path to her house leading the small offender.

But the visit was one of courteous deprecation, in order that the little hunter of forbidden game might personally apologise for his delinquency.] prattling to the old women in "mutches" and "short gowns," whose houses were so charmingly queer and convenient, with the fires on the hearths to warm cold little toes, and the shadowy nooks ready for hide-and-seek. These children are now older than their mother was when she first came up Dee-side, heads of houses in their turn, but they have not forgotten the friends of their youth.

The rustic community is pervaded in an odd and fascinating manner with the fine flavour of a Court. It has, as it were, a touch of Arcady.

Among tales of the great storms and fragments of old legends, curious reflections of high life and gossip of lords and ladies crop up. Not only are n.o.ble names and distinguished personages, everyday sounds and friendly acquaintances in this privileged region, but when the great world follows its liege lady here, it is to live in _villiagiatura_, to copy her example in adapting itself to the ways of the place and in cultivating the natives. Courtiers are only courtly in being frankly at ease with the whole human race. Ladies-in-waiting and maids of honour lose their pride of rank and worldly ambition--if they ever had any, stroll about, drop into this or that cottage at will, and have their cronies there as in loftier localities. We hear of this or that marriage, which has yet to be announced in the _Morning Post_; how a n.o.ble duke, who was conveniently in attendance on the Prince, once walked with a fair and gentle lady, whose father was in waiting on the Queen, through the birch woods and by the brawling Dee, and a marriage, only too shortlived, came of it. And we end by listening to the piteous details of the swift fading away of the much-loved young d.u.c.h.ess. Other names, with which the Court Calendar has made us familiar, are constantly coming to the surface in the conversation, generally in a.s.sociation with some act of cheery good fellows.h.i.+p. The son of an earl found a dog for his mother at one of these cottage hearths, and never returned to the neighbourhood without punctually reporting himself to tell its old mistress how well her former pet was thriving--that it had its dinner with the family in the dining-room, and drove every day with the countess in her carriage.

The fine old white house of Abergeldie, with its single-turreted tower, has become the Scotch home of a genial prince and a beautiful princess, who, we may remember, remained steadfastly settled there during the darkening, shortening days of a gloomy autumn, in devoted watch over her lady-in-waiting lying sick, nigh unto death with fever.

Abergeldie has another cherished memory, that of the good old d.u.c.h.ess of Kent, for whom Prince Albert first rented the castle, who often stayed in it, accompanied by her son, the Prince of Leiningen, her daughter, the Princess of Hohenlohe, or some member of their families.

The peculiar cradle which used to be swung across the Dee here, conveying pa.s.sengers as well as parcels, has been removed in consequence of the last disaster which befell its progress. An earlier tragedy of a hapless bride and bridegroom who perished in making the pa.s.sage is still remembered. Remoter traditions, like that of the burning of a witch on Craig-na-Ban, linger in the neighbourhood.

Beyond Balmoral, in the Braemar direction, stretches the fine deer- forest--a great fir-wood on broken ground--of Ballochbuie, a remnant of the old forest of Mar, where a pretended hunting expedition meant a projected rebellion. It is said an earl of that name bestowed it on a Farquaharson in exchange for so small a matter as a plaid. It is now part of the estate of Balmoral. The hills of Craig Nortie and Meal Alvie lie not far off, while on the opposite side rise Craig-na-Ban and Craig Owsel.

Of all the Queen's haunts, that which she has made most her own, where she has stayed for a day or two at a time, seeming to prefer to do so when the hills have received their first powdering of snow, [Footnote: "A little shower of snow had fallen, but was succeeded by brilliant suns.h.i.+ne. The hills covered with snow, the golden birch-trees on the lower brown hills, and the bright afternoon sky, were indescribably beautiful"--Extract from the Queen's journal.] almost every year during her residence in Aberdeens.h.i.+re, is that which includes Alt-na- Giuthasach and the Gla.s.salt s.h.i.+el. This retreat is now reached by a good carriage-road over a long tract of moorland among brown hills, opening now and then in different directions to show vistas closed in by the giant heads and shoulders--here of dark Loch-na-Gar, there of Ben Macdhui, both of them presenting great white splashes on their seamed and scarred sides--wide patches of winter snow on this July day, far more than usual at the season, which will not melt now while the year lasts. "Burns," the Girnoch and the Muich, trot by turns along with us, singing their stories, half blythe, half plaintive.

Once or twice a lowly farmhouse has a few gra.s.s or oat-fields spread out round it, with the solitude of the hills beyond. A cross-road to such a house was so bad that a dog-cart brought up to it, had been unyoked and left by the side of the main road, while its occupants trudged to their destination on foot, leading with them the horse, which needed rest and refreshment still more than its masters. The blue waters of Loch Muich come in sight with bare precipitous hills round; a little wood clothes the mouth of the pa.s.s and the loch, and helps to shelter Alt-na-Ginthasach. The hut is now the Prince of Wales's small shooting-lodge. The modest blue stone building, with its brown wooden porch and its offices behind, is built on a knoll, and commands a beautiful view of the loch and the steep rocky crags to those who care for nature at the wildest. The only vestige of soft green is the knoll on which the hut stands. All the rest is bleak and brown, or purple when the heather is in bloom. The hills, torn by the winter torrents, are glistening after a summer shower with a hundred silver threads in the furrows of the watercourses.

There are fences and gates to the royal domicile, but there is hardly an attempt to alter its character within, unless by a round plot of rhododendrons offering a few late blossoms. But all nature, however stern and savage, smiles on a July day. The purple heather-bell is in bloom, the tiny blue milkwort and the yellow rock-rose help to make a summer carpet which is rendered still gayer by many a pale peach- coloured orchis and by an occasional spray of wild roses, deeper in the rose than the same flower is in the low countries, or by a tall white foxglove. Loch Muich may be desolation itself when the heather and bracken are sere, when the lowering sky breathes nothing save gloom, and chill mist-wreaths creep round its precipices; but when the air is buoyant in its tingling sharpness, when the dappled white clouds are reflected in water--blue, not leaden, and there is enough suns.h.i.+ne to cast intermittent shadows on the hillsides and the loch, though a transient darkness and a patter of raindrops vary the scene, it has its day and way of blossoming.

The Queen's house or s.h.i.+el of the Gla.s.salt stands near the head of the two miles long loch, just beyond the point where the Gla.s.salt burn comes leaping and das.h.i.+ng down the hillside. Here, too, is a small sheltering fir and birch plantation, though not large enough to hide the full view of the sentinel hills. A "roundel" of _Alpenrosen_, or dwarf rhododendrons, is the only break in the growth of moss and heather. The loch is so near the house that a stone thrown by a child's hand from the windows of the princ.i.p.al rooms would fall into the watery depths.

The interior is almost as simple and limited in accommodation as Alt- na-Giuthasach was when the Queen described it in her journal. The dining-room and drawing-room might, in old fas.h.i.+oned language, be called "royal closets"--cosy and sweet with chintz hangings and covers to chairs and couches, a small cottage piano, a book-tray in which Hill Burton's "History of Scotland" and Sir Walter Scott's "Tales of a Grandfather," find their place among Scotch poetry old and new. The engravings on the walls tell of that fidelity to the dead which implies truth to the living. There are likenesses of the Prince--who died before this house was built, as in the great palaces; the d.u.c.h.ess of Hesse--best known in the north as Princess Alice; the Princess of Hohenlohe, with her handsome matronly face, full of sense and kindness, and her young daughter, Princess Elise, who pa.s.sed away in the springtime of her life. In these rustic sitting-rooms and the adjacent bedrooms and dressing-rooms we come again on many a portrait of the humble friends of the family--the dogs which we seem to know so well; the early group of little Dash and big Nero, and Hector with the parrot Lorey; Cairnach, Islay, Deckel, &c. [Footnote: An anecdote of the royal kennels states that when no notice has been given, the servants shall know of her Majesty's presence in the vicinity, and will say among themselves, "The Queen is at Frogmore" by the actions of the dogs, the stir and excitement, the eager listening, sniffing of the air, wagging of tails, and common desire to break bounds and scamper away to greet their royal mistress.]

Behind the house a winding footpath leads up the hill to the rocky cleft from which issues in a succession of white and foamy twists and downward springs, the Falls of the Gla.s.salt. Turning round from the spectacle, the stranger looks down on the loch in its semicircle of mountains. Gaining the crest of the hill and descending the edge on the opposite side, the foot of the grim giant Loch-na-Gar is reached.

Among the visitors at Balmoral in 1858 was Florence Nightingale. The Queen had before this presented her with a jewel in remembrance of her services in the Crimea. The design was as follows: a field of white enamel was charged with a St. George's cross in ruby red enamel, from which shot rays of gold. This field was encircled by a black band bearing the scroll "Blessed are the merciful." The s.h.i.+eld was set in a framework of palm-branches in green enamel tipped with gold, and united at the bottom by a riband of blue enamel inscribed "Crimea" in gold letters. The cypher V.R. surmounted by a crown in diamonds, was charged upon the centre of the cross. On the back was a gold tablet which bore an inscription from the hand of her Majesty.

While the Queen was in Scotland the marriage in Germany of one of the daughters of the Princess of Hohenlohe took place. Princess Adelaide, like her sister Princess Elise, possessed of many attractions, became the wife of Prince Frederick of Schleswig Holstein Sonderberg- Augustenberg, the brother of Prince Christian, destined to become the husband of Princess Helena.

CHAPTER XXIX.

DEATH OF THE PRINCE Of LEININGEN--BIRTH OF PRINCESS BEATRICE--BESTOWAL OF THE VICTORIA CROSS--INDIAN MUTINY.

The court returned to Windsor in October, and in November a severe blow struck the Queen in the death of her brother, the Prince of Leiningen. A second fit of apoplexy ended his life while his sister, the Princess of Hohenlohe, watched by his death-bed. Prince Leiningen was fifty-two years of age. He had served in the Bavarian army, and was a man of recognised influence among his countrymen in the German troubles of 1848, which cost him his princ.i.p.ality. He had married in 1829, when he was twenty-seven years of age and when the Queen was only a little girl of ten, Marie (nee) Countess of Kletelsberg. He left two sons, the eldest of whom, Prince Ernest, entered the English navy.

Her Majesty's references to the death in her letters to King Leopold are very pathetic. "Oh! dearest uncle, this blow is a heavy one, my grief very bitter. I loved my dearest, only brother, most tenderly."

And again, "We three were particularly fond of each other, and never felt or fancied that we were not real _geschwister_ (children of the same parents). We knew but one parent, _our_ mother, so became very closely united, and so I grew up; the distance which difference of age placed between us entirely vanished...." The aged d.u.c.h.ess of Kent was "terribly distressed, but calm and resigned."

Baron Stockmar was with the royal family at this time. It was his last visit to England. His company, always earnestly coveted, especially by the Prince, was apt to be bestowed in an erratic fas.h.i.+on characteristic of the man. Some one of the royal children would unexpectedly announce, "Papa, do you know the Baron is in his room,"

which was the first news of his arrival.

During the stay of the Court at Osborne in December, the graceful gift of the _Resolute_ was made by the Americans to the Queen, and accepted by her Majesty in person, with marked gratification. The _Resolute_ was one of the English s.h.i.+ps which had gone to the north seas in search of Sir John Franklin. It had been abandoned in the ice, found by an American vessel, taken across the Atlantic, refitted, and by a happy thought offered as a suitable token to the Queen.

On the 14th of April, 1857, the Queen's fifth daughter and ninth and last child was born at Buckingham Palace. A fortnight afterwards the d.u.c.h.ess of Gloucester, the last of George the III. and Queen Charlotte's children, died in her eighty-third year. The Queen wrote of her to King Leopold, who must have been well acquainted with her in his youth, "Her age, and her being a link with bygone times and generations, as well as her great kindness, amiability, and unselfishness, rendered her more and more dear and precious to us all, and we all looked upon her as a sort of grandmother." Sixty-two years before, when the venerable Princess was a charming maiden of eighteen, she had gloried in the tidings of her princely cousin's laurels, won on the battlefields of Flanders. More than twenty years afterwards, when Princess Charlotte descended the staircase of Carlton House after her marriage with Prince Leopold, "she was met at the foot with open arms by the Princess Mary, whose face was bathed in tears." The first wedding had removed the obstacle to the second, which was celebrated a few weeks later. The d.u.c.h.ess lived for eighteen years happily with her husband, then spent more than twenty years in widowhood. She ended her long life at Gloucester House, Park Lane. At her earnest request, she was buried without pomp or show with her people in the family vault at Windsor.

Before the late d.u.c.h.ess of Gloucester's funeral, Prince Albert, according to a previous pledge, opened, on the 5th of May, the great Art Exhibition at Manchester, to which the Queen contributed largely.