CHAPTER VI. Sorrows,

Otago Witness, 21 June 1887, Page 10

CHAPTER VI. Sorrows,

EIGHTEEN Hundred and sixty-one. Fatal year ! Heretofore the life of the Queen had * been like .the voyaging of a stately .ship sailing over summer seas. The shadow of sorrow had not drawn a line on the kindly, joyous face; there had been no crook in her lot, but Providence had ordained that our beloved Queen's beautiful nature was. now to be chastened, with the rod of affliction — that the time had come for her to bear her cross.

The first great sorrow was the death of her mother, the Duchess of Kent, which took place early in the year. Dutifully did the Queen and Prince Albert attend at the dying Duchess" bed-side, and deep was their sorrow. To the Queen, always a woman of strong natural affection, the contemplation of her mother's condition was most poignant anguish. The day of tribulation had come, and she was not prepared for the dread parting in the " Valley of the Shadow." An attendant to console her said deferentially that "Her Grace would become a peaceful ending." The consolation failed to reach the wounded heart. " Oh, what agony, what dispeace is this !"' The Queen m rites : " 1 was left gaziitg on that beloved form, and feeling as if my heart would break. The constant crying was a relief. But oh, the sickness of heart, the thought of the daily, the hourly blank ! Never a day that 1 did not get letters from or about her several

times a day — the mother I tenderly loved — from whom for these forty years I have never been parted, except for a few weeks !"' Her grief at her mother's death was great ; but it was the avant courier of a greater sorrow. Death had marked for its victim her husband — " my all in all — my precious Albert,'' as her Majesty fondly called him. About the middle of the year Prince Albert had begun to show tokens of being overworked, though he was as active in the service of the country as ever. There was a visit to Dublin, as much enjoyed as two previous ones, and this was followed by an expedition to Killarney with the four eldest children, when the wonderful beauty of the lake was seen from an eightoared barge. Then came a stay at Balmoral, but the Queen was still depressed ; there were anxieties as to the little Leopold, who had had the measles very severely in the spring, and had to be sent abroad for the winter. In closing her account of her last tour in the Highlands with Prince Albert in the autumn of 1 86 1 the Queen, doubtless thinking of her husband's weak health, writes : '"Alas! 1 fear it will be our las/ great one ! '"' Underneath are the words written six years later (" It was our last one ! 1867.'') The first return to Windsor Castle without the Duchess at Frogmore was very trying, and there were further sorrows in the illness of Sir Edward Bowater, the gentleman who had gone to Cannes with Prince Leopold, and who eventually died at Cannes on the 14th of December. In November, too, the Prince had a great shock in the death of his much-beloved kinsman, the young King of Portugal, from fever. Moreover, it was the crisis of the difficulties with the United States, and almost the last paper written by the Prince was with a view to accommodating the difference without compromising English honour. He had sleepless nights with rheumatic pains, and felt each chance exposure to the rain and cold of late November. The last time he appeared in public was on the 28th of November, when he came oiit on the terrace to see the Eton College Volunteers exercised, and then haveAuncheon in the conservatory. It was a great effort, and he was chilly and weary all the time. On the Sunday he went to church and knelt as usual, though looking very ill, and afterwards able to eat nothing. He did not join the family after that evening, though he still rose at his usual hour, day after day, and lay on his sofa in the sitting-room, with the Queen or Princess Alice reading Scott's "Peveril of the Peak" to amuse him, when he could bear to listen. By the 7th of December it was evident that the illness was gastric fever. lie was daily moved from the bed to the sofa, and wheeled into another room, and though occasionally wandering a little, he still took interest in events around, and listened to reading or to music ; and his tender sayings to the Queen are of that sweetness that makes all the world akin. It was impossible for those about him not to remember that he had said, " If 1 had an illness I am sure I should not struggle for life. I have no tenacity of life." By the 12th the physicians felt actual alarm, and though on the night before the 13th there was a slight 1 ally % it was thought expedient to telegraph to Cambridge for the Prince of Wales. That day, at noon, the Queen perceived a dusky hue about the face and hands, and the breathing was very rapid and laboured — with much wandering and dozing, scarcely perceiving when one after another his children came and took his hand. This was at about half-past five, and when the Queen bent over with the words, " Es ist kleins Frai'ichen" he kissed her. As evening advanced a rapid change set in, the hands became cold, and just before eleven o'clock the spirit had returned to God who gave it, and the loving wife was a broken-hearted widow.

It was her daughter Alice on , whom above all she leant in those terrible days, when, if anything could have given her comfort, it would have been the universal sympathy of the nation, grieving not only for and with her, but gradually coming more and more to an appreciation of what the loss was to themselves — in the wise head and clear judgment, scarcely appreciated while they were still available, because of the resolute reticence and sense of duty that kept the Prince in the background.

He was buried as quietly as his rank permitted at Windsor, and the Queen, on the 17th of March, 1562, laid the first stone of a mausoleum, where by the end of the year, the remains were transferred, and in which she and her family always keep the anniversary of his death.

King Leopold persuaded her to leave the scene of her bereavement for Osborne, where she remained in the deepest seclusion, all the more needful from the heavy pressure of the necessary business of a Sovereign. For twenty years the Prince had prepared and explained all this as no one else could do for her, bringing his great powers of intellect and judgment to bear upon these subjects ; and the loss of such assistance could not but make the work to be done with a saddened heart and crushed spirits exceedingly laborious. Such help as Princess Alice could give was earnestly afforded, but of course this was very slight in comparison with what she was accustomed to, though very precious to her feelings, and the effect on the Princess was that she " suddenly developed into a wise and farseeing woman, living only for others, and beloved and respected by the highest as well as the lowest."

This chapter- may be fittingly terminated by an extract from Her" Majesty's account of the building of a cairn to the memory of the Prince, in August, 1862 : 4< At eleven o'clock started off in the'liftle pony-chair (drawn by the Corriemulzie pony, and led by Brown), - Bertie, who had come over from Birkall, on foot, the two girls on ponies, and the two little boys, who joined us later, for Craig Lowrigan ; and I actually drove in the little carriage to the very top, turning off from the" path and following the track where the carts had gone. Grant and Dunlop pushed the carriage behind. Sweet Baby (Beatrice) we found at the top. The view was so fine, the day so bright, and the heather so beautifully pink — but no pleasure, no joy ! all dead ! And here at the top is the foundation of the cairn — forty feet wide — to be erected to my precious Albert, which will be seen all down the valley. I and my poor six orphans all placed stones on it, and our initials, as well as those of the three absent ones, are to be carved on stone all round it. I felt very shaky and nervous. It is to be thirty-five feet high, and the following inscription is to be placed on it : TO THE BELOVED MEMORY OF ALBERT, THE GREAT AND GOOD PRINCE CONSORT, RAISED BY HIS BROKEN-HEARTED AVIDOW, VICTORIA R., AUGUST 21, 1862. " He being made perfect in a short time fulfilled a long time ; For his soul pleased the Lord, Theiefore hastened He to take him Away from among the wicked." Wisdom of Solomon, iv. 13, 14. Walked down to where the rough road is. and this first short attempt at walking in the heather shook me and tried me much."