THE QUEEN MOTHER.

Auckland Star, Volume LIV, Issue 57, 8 March 1923, Page 5

THE QUEEN MOTHER.

HER DIAMOND JUBILEE. LONDON, March 7. All the newspapers give prominence to the diamond jubilee to-day of Queen "Alexandra's arrival in England. —(A. and N.Z. Cable.) It will be sixty years ago on March 10 "since H.R.H. Princess Alexandra of Denmark was married to Edward, Prince of Wales, afterwards King Edward VII. of England, and the bride-to-be made her State arrival in England on March 8, 1863. Reviewing a recent "Life" of Queen Alexandra, a writer in the "Manchester Guardian" refers to the biographer's story of a Canadian soldier who wandered round London, hoping to catch a glimpse of Queen Alexandra and treasuring a miniature of her which in childhood had been regarded as the Madonna. "The younger generation knows little if anything of her, and might profitably know more. A woman who retained unusual beauty till late in life, a woman of courage and real goodness who has borne with fortitude more sorrow than falls to most, her story would shine the brighter divested of Mr. Trowbridge's wadding. From her early days, when she lived a retired life with noor parents in Denmark, reading Hans Andersen's tales, and packing with the family in the summer into one oldfashioned coach to drive to the sea, until these present times of her retirement her life has been exemplary to democracy and royalty alike. Only once did she endeavour to intervene in matter? of State, and that was when she wanted England to help the Danes over the affair of Slesvig-Holstein. Her endeavour came to nothing. and she left policy alone after that. Tn all the things that rightly appertain to her station she was exemplary. Sho encouraged the arts, and was no mean practiser of one of them; she was charitable, and gave to her charity a personal impress: she was religious, and retained her religion through many trials. Her brother was assassinated when Kins of Greece; her sister was the mother of that unhappy Czar who went out like a candle when the Russian storm blew suddenly; her eldest son died on the threshold of manhood; her consort died in the fullness of his powers. Through it all she has grown to a richer and more tender womanliness that even yet finds occasional opportunity for public expression."