SIXTY YEARS A QUEEN.

Auckland Star, Issue 123, 24 May 1919, Page 17

SIXTY YEARS A QUEEN.

CENTENARY OF THE BIRTH OF QUEEN VICTORIA.

RECOHD OF A MEMORABLE REIGN. Emerging from their four years of! desperate struggle with the Central Power* and confronted now with the i innumerable and perplexing questions | arising out of the peace settlement and national reorganisation, the people of j the British Empire have for the most part hardly realised that the centenary of the birth of Queen Victoria falls on Saturday, May 24, 1919. In more tranquil times such an important event would have attracted much wider and deeper interest. Victoria Alexandrina, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland and Empress of India, was born a hundred years ago to-day in the old-fashioned "red brick Kensington Palace. The Princess wafc the only child of the Duke of Kent and the Princess Victoria Maria Louisa of Saxe-Coburg. Victoria Maria Louisa was at the time of h<»r marriage with the Duke of Kent, the widow of the hereditary Prince of Leiningen and sister of Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, the Leopold who afterwards became King of the Belgians. The Duke of Kent was the fourth son of George 111. His elder brother William IV,, succeeded to the throne on the death of George IV. William had married Adelaide, the eldest daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen, Two daughters were born of this marriage, but they both died in infancy; and it was therefore taken for granted during the earliest, years of the life of Princess Victoria, that she must before long become Queen of England. The Duke of Kent died in IS2O. and the young Princess stood marked out for succession to the throne. THE STRICTEST SECLUSION. The young Princess victoria was brought up in the strictest seclusion under the direct and almost exclusive charge of her mother. The Duchess of Kent devoted herself with what might be called an ideal sense of responsibility to the education and training of her child, who was destined to be a Queen. Mr. Charles Greville tells us that the young Princess was kept in such seclusion that she never slept out of her mother's bedroom, and that "not one of her acquaintances, none of the attendants at Kensington, not even the Duchess of Northumberland, her governess, have any idea what she is or what she promises to be." Everyone who has read anything about the ways and manners of Court life during the reign of George IV. and William IV. will understand and appreciate the care which the Duchess of Kent took to keep her younc daughter apart from any contact with the social life of royal palaces of those days. The Prince-s received originally the names of Victoria Alexandrina, because her father wished at the time to pay a compliment to the Emperor of The Duke of Kent also desired that she should bear the name of Georgiana, but the Prince Regent objected to the name Georgiana coming after any other name, and therefore the intended compliment to the Regent was given up. When the young Princess grew up she signed herself simply' Victoria, and this course was welcome to all of her subjects, who cared but little for a name given out of cainplinient to a foreign Emperor, and still less for a name which tended to revive the associations connected with the reigns of the Georges. "LONG LIVE THE QUEEN." Early in the morning of June 20, 1537,| the reign of William IV. came to an end. The King died at Windsor Castle after a short illness, and the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chamberlain were authorised to go from Windsor to Kensington Palace to bear to Victoria the official news that she was now Queen of England. The story of their arrival at Kensington Palace, and the manner in which they were received there has been told over and over again, but it will bear repetition on an occasion such as this. The visitors, when they had succeeded in arousing the porter at the gate of the Palace, sent for one of the attendants of the Princess Victoria in order to inform her Royal Highness that they desired an audience on business of great importance. When the attendant came she told the Archbishop and the Lord Chamberlain that "the Princess was in euch a sweet sleep that she could not venture to disturb her." The Archbishop explained that they had come on business of State "to the Queen." and that even her sleep must give way to that. Then the story goes on to say that the young queen made up her mind, the moment she was told of the visitors, that no useless delay should be interposed by I her, "and to prove that she did not ke? ! them waiting, in a few minutes she caist.' into tbe room in a loose white nightgo\»a and shawl, her nightcap thrown off and her hair falling upon her shoulders, her feet in slippers, tears in her eyes, but perfectly collected and dignified." It need hardly be said that the distinguished visitors were impressed and touched by the noble simplicity of tfcs girl—she was then just over eighteen years old —who thu3 put aside all form i and ceremonisi.l, all merely conventional and feminine thought of becoming array, when the earnest purpose of the moment was too intense for social etiquette. QUEEN VICTORIA'S MARRIAGE. The. opening of Queen Victoria's reign happily coincided with the introduction of some of the greatest achievements in the application of science to the practical business of life which the world has yet seen- The construction of lines of railway in England, the crossing of the Atlantic by steam navigation, the first experiments with the electric telegraph, and the intro- , duction of the penny postage system all ; belong to this period. The new discov- | cries and developments of science effected : a revolution in the lives of civilised men, ! a revolution which may be said to mark i a complete division between the modern ! world and the world of former days. ( In the year 1840 took place thej marriage of the Queen to her cousin j (Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha). The Prince, like the Queen herself, had been brought up under the constant care lof his uncle, Leopold. King of the Belgians, and there can be no doubt that the Queen's mother and King Leopold had long contemplated the possibility of a j marriage between Victoria and Albert. The cousins seemed to have conceived a warm mutual regard, and it was not long before Victoria acknowledged to herself that her feelings towards Albert were something very different from mere cousinly affection. In 1839 she wrote to a confidential friend and adviser saying: "I do feel so guilty, I know not how to begin my letter, but I think the new 3 it will contain will be sufficient to ensure jour forgiveness. Albert haa completely i

won my heart, and all was settled between us this morning." The Queen opened Parliament in person on January 16, 1840, and announced her intention to marry her cousin, Prince j Albert, expressing her hope that the marriage would be "conducive to the interests of my people as well as to my own domestic happiness." The marriage was celebrated on Febru- j ary 10, IS4O. and it is not too much to j say that romance itself contains no ] story of a marriage more entirely | founded on mutual affection and affinity • of nature, and that no marriage ever I brought more happiness to a married j pair. The wedding was followed on Xovember2l, IS 10. by the birth of the Princess Royal, Victoria, destined to be the ; mother of the ex-Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany, and on Xovember 9, 1841, by the birth of Albert Edward, afterwards King Edward VII. of England. Three sons and four daughters were afterwards j added to the Royal Family. • The domestic life of the Queen appears I to have been for many years a life of j happiness as nearly unalloyed as can fall j to the lot of any mortal. She made a j

home for herself at Osborne, in the Isle of Wight, and another at Balmoral in tho Highlands, and with her husband and some of her children she now and then visited France, Germany, or Switzerland. But there were great political troubles abroad, which cast their shadows at home. The Crimean War was certainly not a war of Queen Victoria's making, and Prince Albert had a great distrust of the Emperor Xapoleon, in alliance with whom the campaign against Russia was undertaken. One enduring and inspiring memorial of the war will be found in the Order of the Victoria Cross, which the Qneen instituted for acts of special bravery in battle on the field, or at sea. Then came the outbreak of the Indian Mutiny, with its tales of terrible suffering, and its splendid manifestations of heroism and patience, and the heart of England was for many long months stirred as it had never been before during Victoria's reign. DEATH OF 1-RINCE COXSORT. About midnight on December 14, 1861, the tolling of the great bell of St. Paul's startled many cf the inhabitants of Lon-

I don, who then had little thought of what the dismal sound was meant to tell. It meant that the Prince Consort was dead. His death was the result of a feverish cold, which at first was not regarded as dangerous, but which soon turned into fever and quickly did its wasting work. The ehadow of that death never Was and never could have been wholly lifted from the life of the widowed Queen. She bore up bravely; indeed, she was evidently resolved to do her duty by her children and her subjects, and to adapt the words which Tenyson, her Poet Laureate, applied to his hero, her resolve sustained her. She never returned to the social amusements and enjoyments of her married life, but she never flinched from any of her public or even of her social duties. In 18S7 the Queen's Golden Jubilee, the fiftieth anniversary of her accession to the throne, was celebrated with magnificent display, and with great manifestations of popular homage; and her Diaj mond Jubilee, as it was called, had its celebration with equal, or. if possible, increased fervour and loyalty ten years , later

END OF A GREAT REIGN. But the great reign was drawing to a close. The Queen kept at he/York almost to the very last. She had outlived nearly all her Prime MinistersPeel, Russell, Palmerston, Derby, Disraeli and Gladstone. On several occasions she showed herself in public to her people in London, and was received with such a welcome and such enthusiastic homage as brought tears into her eyes, and must, indeed, have brought tears into the eyes of many who saw • that meeting between the Sovereign and her people, and realised its full significance. For many months she had been deeply grieved by the losses and sufferings which war and disease had inflicted on her soldiers in South Africa. i On the Wth of January, 1001, London newspapers contained some alarming reports about the state of the Queen's health, and on the 22nd of the month the reign of Queen Victoria was over. The crowning mercy of which Tennyson had spoken in his poem ad- , dresed to the Queen some years before, had come, and God's love had set her by her husband's side again. j