THE TRAGEDY OF QUEEN VICTORIA.

Dunstan Times, Issue 3380, 27 June 1927, Page 8

THE TRAGEDY OF QUEEN VICTORIA.

INTIMATE LETTERS OF A ROYAL CONFIDANTE.

A touching description of the scene at the deathbed of the Prince Consort —possibly the first ever published—appears in “Letters of Lady Agusta Stanley—A Young Lady at Court, 18491.863,” edited by the Dean of Windsor and Mr Hector Bolitho, and published recently by Gerald Howe, Ltd. Lady Agusta Stanley was a daughter of the seventh Earl of Elgin. She was lady-in-waiting to the Duchess of Kent, Queen Victoria’s mother and afterwards resident woman of the bedchamber to Queen Victoria for some years. She married the famous Dean Stanley. She was tne intimate friend of Queen Victoria’s daughters. Princess Helena (Princess Christian) begins a letter to her, “My ever dearest ‘Sherskine.’ ” Princess Beatrice used to cal! her “Guska.” For some weeks after the Prince Consort died Queen Victoria saw no one but her children and Lady Agusta —not even her maids of honor—with the exception of Ministers and others whom she had to see on business. In February 1801—the Prince Consort died in December IB6o—Lady Agusta writes: “When you read the Queen’s speech, think that I ran up and down 20 times with the draft, the Beloved could not bear the cold staid style and qdded all the warm words herself, so touching it was.” The Prince Consort had been ill for days at Windsor with “gastric fever,” but until the day before his death it was thought he would recover. Lady Agusta. iii a letter to her sister, writes that “about 4.30 p.m. Dr Jenner came to my room saying that such sinking had come on that lie had feared the Prince would die in his arms then.” The Queen was taking a turn in the fresh air at the moment.

It was Lady Agusta who had to tell the Queen. “It was a terrible moment,” she writes, “a life of anguish and agony was concentrated in it. Oh, darling, what agony! It was terrible to witness, hut especially terrible to know what to say ... 1 was alone with her, and most touching it was. The words ‘The country; oh, the country. I could perhaps bear my own misery, but the poor country’ were constantly recurring. “As'the evening advanced the symptoms improved. " About twelve the Queen Jay down in the dressing-room where she had slept since he was removed into larger rooms adjoining her apartment. Princess Alice on another little bed beside her. . . .

“They thought the crisis had come, and next morning were confirmed in this hope. . . The breathing was still had, but if he could get over that day they thought he might recover. . . It was the breathing, the congested state of the lungs that caused death. . . . “About six the Queen sent for Sir Charles (Phipps), and a terrible burst of misery ensued. After this she returned again to the sick room, calm and-almost cheerful, and the beloved invilad was able to notice her and return her expressions and gestures of affection. . . . The children had been in the room one alter the other; lie smiled to them, but did not speak Towards 9.30 the Queen had another hurst of misery, and asked for the Dean, who spoke beautifully, and she no less : so humble, so meek, so loving, so strong in the feeling ol duty. "Princess Alice, Prince and Princess Leiningen, the Prince of • Whiles and Princess Helena were in the room (adjoining the sick room) with Miss Hildyard and me .... Poor Princess Helena could not hear it. The doctors did not like her to he near her father, poor lamb; i did not know what to do with her.

“Princess Alice was in the sick-room. She whispered to me with great calm. ‘That is the death rattle, and went fm her mother.

‘Then in the darkened room they knelt: the Queen and her elder children. .the Leiningens,' Phipps. Grey, Riddulph. Robert, the Dean, the Duchess, Miss Hildyard, and 1; watching in agony the passing of that lofty and noble smd. ’ Gentler than an infant slumber it was at last, gentler even almost than the dismissal of our precious Duchess (of Kent).

“The poor Queen exclaimed; ‘Oh, yes, this is death. I know it. 1 have seen this before.’ . . .

“The Queen fell upon him, called him by every endearing name; then sank into our arms, and lot us load or carry her away to the adjoining room, where she lay on the sofa; then she summoned her children around her, to clasp them to her heart and assure them that she would endeavor, if she lived, to live for them and her duty, and to, appeal to them from henceforth to seek to walk in the footsteps of him whom God had taken to Himself. “She thanked the doctors so kindly’, consoling them for tlieiv unsuccess. She su'd to each of the gentlemen, ‘You will not leave or desert me now.’ . . . “She allowed us to undress her. and oil. what a sight it was to gaze upon her hopeless, helpless face, and see those most appealing eyes lifted up. She said she would do what was right, and went to lie down, hoping to sleep from exhaustion. . . . She found sleep impossible . . ■. so 1 remained, and at five was fetched; until seven she wept and talked. Princess Alice weeping silently. though sometimes saying a word. “Princess Alice was wonderful. She seemed indeed to have suddenly put away childish things and to he a different creature.

“Poor Princess Louise (afterwards Marchioness of Lome) did not learn of, the end till morning. Poor lamb, she also seemed to conic out at once. ‘Oh. why did not God take me, I am so stupid and senseless ■“ “The Queen was wonderful : sawseveral people: was able to speak, to weep freely, and was preserved from saying one doubting, repining word. All she could*not bear, she said, was to hear it said that it was in wroth that God so acted.” A letter from Alary Stanley, Dean Stanley’s sister, describes the Prince of Wales’ wedding. “Only one member of the Royal Family was a little restive,” she writes.

“and that was little I'. Win. of Prussia, who was committed to his little uncle’s care. 1 saw Ids mother pat her hand in a relinking manner, and I saw P, Leopold take him by the shoulders. Afterwards f heard that* in answer to the- Queen’s inquiry if he had been good, the answer was. ‘Oh no. lie was Idling us all the time!’ ”

kittle “P. Win.” of Prussia was the present cx-Kaiser.

The Municipal Art Commission in Kansas City (U.S.A.), has worked out a color scheme for its trams and buses. In a combination of orange, maroon, and light tan, orange will be the most prominent, as it will be applied to tlie body of the cars. Windows and doors are to be trimmed in apricot or tan, while a maroon stripe around the cars, described as “red brown,” will be used to ‘‘tie together” the other colors. The color combinations possess a high degree of visibility. and are cheerful and artistic.

The eyes of a frog, when exposed to the light of a candle, will generate an electric current easily measured on a galvanometer.