Many people had thought that the Russians hoped to get control of India. If they had succeeded in doing so, the Queen would have been saved the sorrow that came to her from a revolt of her Indian troops which was known as the Sepoy Mutiny. The commanders of the troops were English, but most of the rank and file were either Mohammedans or Hindus. The Mohammedans looked upon the cow as sacred, and the Hindus regarded the hog as unclean, therefore, when cartridges were given them greased with a mixture of tallow and lard, the soldiers of both peoples were very angry. Another trouble was that the English government had declared that no one should lose his property on account of any change in his religious belief, and this decree aroused the wrath of the native priests. The revolt was one of the most fearful events known in history, for even women and children were murdered as brutally as if the Sepoys had been wild beasts.
January, 1858, was the time that had been set for the marriage of the Princess Royal, and although India was not entirely subdued, the Sepoys were so nearly under control that England could join heartily in the wedding rejoicings. Buckingham Palace was crowded with guests, so many princes and princesses that when they went to the theater, they made, as the Queen said, "a wonderful row of royalties." "Macbeth" and three other plays were performed in honor of the occasion. For a week, eighty or ninety persons sat at the Queen\'s dinner table every day. There were operas, dinner parties, dances, concerts, and a great ball at which one thousand guests were present.
When the wedding gifts began to arrive, the large drawing room of the palace became a veritable fairyland, as table after table was piled with presents. "Fritz," as the family called Prince Frederick William, had brought to his bride a necklace of pearls, which the Queen said were the largest she had ever seen. This was only the beginning. The Princess and her mother went for a little walk in the palace garden, and when they came in, there were more tables and an entirely new display of gifts; they went to their own rooms, and when they returned, still more gifts had arrived. There were pictures, candelabra, diamond and emerald bracelets, brooches, necklaces, everything in the shape of jewelry that can be imagined, and, what especially pleased the housewifely tastes of the Queen, there were quantities of needlework from many ladies of the kingdom, for the Princess was a special favorite, and rich and poor were eager to send her some token of their love. The young girl was in ecstasies; then she remembered that going with "Fritz" meant leaving her father and mother, and she burst into tears.
At the end of the festal week came the wedding day. The Queen said, "I felt as if I were being married over again myself, only much more nervous," and when just before the ceremony, she was daguerreotyped with "Fritz and Vicky," she trembled so that her likeness was badly blurred.
Early in the morning the bells began to ring, but long before their first peal, thousands were out in the streets, too excited to sleep or even to remain in their homes. The procession was formed just as it had been eighteen years before at the marriage of the Queen, and the long line of carriages drove from Buckingham Palace to the Chapel Royal of St. James. Trumpets were blown, banners were waved, and the whole city re?choed with the shouts of the merrymakers. The Queen bowed to her people as graciously as ever, but she could not forget for a moment that her oldest daughter was about to leave her, and she wrote afterwards, "The cheering made my heart sick within me."
The procession was even more beautiful than that on the wedding day of the Queen, because in this one there were so many children. First came the members of the royal family, the Duchess of Kent nearest to the Queen and her children, looking very handsome in her gown of violet velvet trimmed with ermine. Then came the Prime Minister bearing the sword of state. He was followed by "Bertie," who was now a tall young man of sixteen, and "Affie," the sailor boy of fourteen, both in Highland costume. Everyone was looking for the Queen, and she came directly after her two older sons. She was resplendent in a moiré skirt of lilac and silver with a long train of lilac velvet, and was all ablaze with diamonds. The two little boys, the namesake of the Duke of Wellington, and Leopold, who was not yet five years old, walked one on either side of their mother. They as well as the older boys were brilliant in Stuart plaid, which made a glowing contrast with the lilac velvet. Behind the Queen walked hand in hand the three royal girls, Alice, who was fifteen, and the two younger ones, Helena and Louise. They were in pink satin with cornflowers and marguerites in their hair. The nine royal children were present, with the exception of baby Beatrice, who was not yet one year old. The Queen and the royal family took their places in the "Royal Closet," a room opening into the chapel.
Westminster Abbey
Westminster Abbey.
All the guests had assembled long before the entrance of the procession, and now they were all watching eagerly for the Prince of Prussia and the Princess Royal of England. The Prince, in his dark blue uniform, looked thoroughly a soldier. He made a profound bow to the Queen, knelt in prayer for a few minutes, then stood waiting to receive his bride. After the gorgeous colors worn by those who had preceded her, the white moiré dress and the wreath of orange blossoms and myrtle made the Princess look very childlike. She walked between her father and King Leopold, her train borne by the eight young girls who were her bridesmaids. They were in white tulle with pink roses. Among the roses were sprigs of white heather, for even in the excitement of this wedding season, the Queen did not forget her Scottish home.
The Prince was much more calm than the Archbishop of Canterbury, for the clergyman was so nervous that he left out some passages from the marriage service. At the moment that the ring was put on the finger of the bride, the cannon were fired as at the marriage of the Queen; but now the people of Germany must not be forgotten, and as the first gun sounded, a telegram was sent to Berlin. The last words of the service were read, "The Lord mercifully with his favor look upon you," and the "Hallelujah Chorus" burst forth, followed by Mendelssohn\'s "Wedding March," as the bride and bridegroom went forth from the chapel hand in hand.
All London was keeping holiday, and throngs had gathered about Buckingham Palace, ready to greet the returning party with most tumultuous applause. The honeymoon was to be spent at Windsor, and the Eton boys, who always claimed a share in royal rejoicings, dragged the royal carriage from the railroad station to the castle.
A few days later came the final good-bys, and these were much harder than if the bride had not been of the royal family, for kings and queens can make few visits. It was a very tearful time, "a dreadful day," wrote the Queen. "I think it will kill me to take leave of dear papa," the bride had said to her mother, but the moment of parting had to come. The snow was falling fast, but all the way to the wharf at Gravesend were beautiful decorations and crowds of people, and on the pier were companies of young girls wearing wreaths and carrying flowers to strew before the feet of the bride. "Come back to us if he doesn\'t treat you well," called a voice from the crowd, and the steamer moved slowly away from the wharf. Prince Albert watched it for a few minutes, then returned to the Queen, who was lonely in her great palace, so lonely that even the sight of baby Beatrice made her sad, reminding her that only a few hours before the little one had been in the arms of the beloved eldest daughter.
"The little lady does her best to please him," Prince Albert had written on the day of the Princess\'s engagement; but now she had thousands of people to please, and the father and mother at home waited anxiously for letters and telegrams and reports of friends to know what welcome the Germans had given to their daughter, for so much of her future comfort among them depended upon the first impression that she made. "Dear child," wrote Prince Albert to her, "I should have so liked to be in the crowd and hear what the multitude said of you." He had already received a proud and jubilant telegram from "Fritz,"—"The whole royal family is enchanted with my wife." The Princess Hohenlohe, the Queen\'s beloved half-sister, wrote from Berlin, "The enthusiasm and interest shown are beyond everything. Never was a princess in this country received as she is."
Later in the year, the royal father and mother contrived to make a fortnight\'s visit to Germany, and found the "Princess Frederick William" "quite the old Vicky still." Prince Albert\'s birthday was celebrated during their stay. The children at home were also celebrating it with the Duchess of Kent. They recited poems and played their pieces of music and exhibited the pictures that they had drawn. Several days earlier, they had all sent birthday letters to Germany, and these letters were given a prominent place on the "presents table." The Queen\'s gift to her husband was a portrait of baby Beatrice, done in oil. The Princess did not forget the Scotch home that she loved, and among her gifts to her father was an iron chair for the Balmoral garden.
The farewells had to be said much too soon. Then came the return to England and the other children. They were growing up fast. The Prince of Wales was at Oxford, not idling his time away, but working so hard that the irrepressible Punch called him "A Prince at High Pressure." Alfred, who was now fourteen, had just passed his examination and received his midshipman\'s appointment. The examiners would have been satisfied with fifty correct answers, but the Prince had presented eighty; and when his father and mother landed at Osborne, there he stood on the wharf in his naval cadet\'s uniform, half-blushing, and looking as happy as a boy who was not a prince would have looked after coming out of a three-days\' examination with flying colors. Several months earlier, Prince Albert had watched him reef a topsail in a strong breeze, and said it almost took his breath away to see him "do all sorts of things at that dizzy height."
The circle of children soon began to widen, for early in 1859 Princess "Vicky" became the mother of a boy, and the Queen, not yet forty years of age, was a grandmother. The child was named Frederick William Victor Albert. Ever since her marriage, the Princess had kept up a constant correspondence with home. She wrote her mother every day, sometimes twice a day, telling all the little events of her life. To her father she sent every Monday long letters on general topics, and he always sent a reply two days later. No one knew better than he the difficulties that lay before her in making her home in a foreign country, and often his letters gave her bits of advice that had come from his own experience. Sometimes they were little pictures of home life. Once he told her of a "splendid snowman" that the children had made, with a yellow carrot for a nose and an old hat of "Affie\'s" on his head. After the birth of Frederick William Victor Albert, the letters from Germany never forgot to tell the latest news about the little German baby; and the English letters quoted the sayings of baby Beatrice, whom Prince Albert called "the most amusing baby we ever had." One day he wrote of this little one, "When she tumbles, she calls out in bewilderment, \'She don\'t like it, she don\'t like it.\' She came into breakfast a short time ago with her eyes full of tears, moaning, \'Baby has been so naughty, poor baby so naughty,\' as one might complain of being ill or of having slept badly."
While Buckingham Palace had still its merry group of children, the two older sons, "Bertie" and "Affie," were on their way across the ocean. Prince Alfred was making a voyage to the Cape of Good Hope, and the Prince of Wales was going to Canada. D............