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OBITUARY

OF

EMINENT PERSONS DECEASED IN 1901.

JANUARY.

Queen Victoria.-Alexandrina Victoria, only child of Edward, Duke of Kent, fourth son of George III., by his marriage with Victoria, daughter of Francis, Duke of Coburg, the widow of Carl Ludwig, Prince of Leiningen, was born at Kensington Palace on May 24, 1819. Her father died early in the following year, almost at the same time as George III. At this time the Princess Charlotte, the Prince Regent's daughter, was living, and in 1820 a daughter was born to the Duke of Clarence (afterwards William IV.), so that the Princess Victoria's chance of succeeding to the throne appeared remote. Her mother continued to live quietly at Kensington, but in 1828 she was a spectator at a Drawing Room, where the young Queen of Portugal was present, and in the same year George IV. gave a juvenile ball in her honour. After this time, although the greater part of the year was spent at Kensington, the Duchess of Kent and the Princess Victoria usually passed the autumn at Ramsgate, Broadstairs, St. Leonardson-Sea, the Isle of Wight, or at Tunbridge Wells. The Princess Victoria's name appeared in the Regency Bill passed on the accession of William IV. as heir-presumptive to the throne. On the acceptance of the Crown of Belgium by her brother, Prince Leopold, the Duchess of Kent took up her abode at Claremont, where she had occasionally resided with him. There she pushed her daughter's education far beyond the ordinary limits of girls of those days, the Princess becoming proficient in both French and ItalianGerman, of course, she knew-and an accomplished musician, whilst she also devoted some of her time to the study

of mathematics, Latin and Greek. In 1837 the Princess Victoria, now heirapparent, attained her legal majority, and the event was celebrated by great rejoicings in London and elsewhere. A grand ball was given at St. James's Palace, when the Princess for the first time took official precedence of her mother. Less than a month later, June 20-21, she became Queen. The announcement was made to her at 5 A.M. by the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Howley) and the Lord Chamberlain (Marquess of Conyngham), who had her roused from bed to receive their news. She received them in her nightgown and shawl, her feet in slippers, and her hair falling upon her shoulders. On the following day the Queen was proclaimed in the City and at St. James's by the title of Victoria, and a few days later went to prorogue Parliament, which was then, in accordance with the existing constitutional law, dissolved. In her first speech she said, "I ascend the Throne with a deep sense of the responsibility which is imposed upon me; but I am supported by the consciousness of my own right intentions, and by my dependence upon the protection of Almighty God." In the following November she dined with the Lord Mayor at the Guildhall, and shortly afterwards opened in person the new Parliament. One of its first acts was to settle the Queen's Civil List, which was fixed at 385,000l., and her Privy Purse at 60,000l. At the same time Parliament settled 30,000l. a year upon the Duchess of Kent. the following summer, on June 28, she was solemnly crowned in Westminster Abbey, Archbishop Howley placing the crown upon her head and anointing her

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hands, and she returned to Buckingham Palace wearing her crown. In 1839 there occurred the incident known as the "Bedchamber Plot." The Melbourne Ministry having resigned on a question connected with the government of Jamaica, in the negotiations which ensued Sir Robert Peel stipu lated that if he took the Premiership the ladies of the household-mainly of Whig families-should be replaced by Tories. The Queen being personally attached to the ladies in question, resisted this requirement-a course in which she was encouraged by her uncle, the Whig Duke of Sussex-with the result that Lord Melbourne returned to office. The young Queen's action in this matter, though natural, was disapproved in many quarters, and she never repeated it. In December of the same year an announcement was made that the Queen had resolved to marry her first-cousin, Prince Albert, younger son of Duke Ernest of SaxeCoburg and Gotha. The announcement was well received by the nation, and the marriage, which was celebrated at the Chapel Royal, St. James's, on February 10, 1840, was the occasion of general popular rejoicing. The Queen's eldest child, the Princess Royal, was born in the following November, and the Prince of Wales a year later. Seven other children followed at intervals down to 1857, the youngest being the Princess Beatrice. Up to her marriage and for a short time afterwards, the Queen, when not in London or at Windsor, passed most of her time at Claremont, which she loved, or at Brighton, which she disliked; but in 1841 she purchased Osborne House, near Cowes, in the Isle of Wight, and from time to time added to it by the purchase of adjoining property. In 1842 the Queen and Prince Albert paid their first visit to Scotland, staying with the Duke of Atholl at Dunkeld, the Duke of Buccleuch at Dalkeith, and others of the Scottish nobility. They had previously paid visits to the Duke of Bedford at Woburn, to Earl Cowper at Panshanger, and Lord Melbourne at Brocket Hall. During a tour in Scotland, in 1847, they first saw Balmoral, and were so charmed with the spot and neighbourhood that they decided, if possible, to become its owners. After protracted negotiations the estate was finally purchased from the Fife trustees in 1852, and the old castle was inhabited by them in the autumn of that year. In the course of the three following years the new castle was erected under the direct

supervision of Prince Albert, and they entered upon its occupation on September 7, 1855.

Among the untoward incidents of the Queen's life must be mentioned the various attempts made upon her person -all of which were happily unattended with any serious injury, and all the acts of lunatics. The first was in 1841 when she was fired at by Edward Oxford while driving in Hyde Park. In the following year a man named Francis and a deformed lad named Bean were the assailants, and three subsequent attempts were made at long intervals. In all cases these attempts excited intense public aversion and anger, only mitigated by their unvarying futility. The personal popularity of the Queen was a powerful element among the influences which kept England free from any dangerous disturbances in 1848, when Continental thrones were almost everywhere tottering, if not actually overthrown. Louis Philippe, the fallen French King (whom the English Queen had visited at the Château d'Eu in 1843), took refuge in this country, was pecuniarily assisted by Queen Victoria, and subsequently had Claremont assigned as his residence.

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In August, 1849, the Queen, accompanied by Prince Albert, and the little Princess Royal and Prince of Wales, visited Ireland, sailing from the Isle of Wight to the Cove of Cork (thence renamed Queenstown), and was ceived with great enthusiasm both at Cork and in Dublin, though so short a time had passed after the abortive rising of Smith O'Brien. On August 12, 1850, the Queen found it necessary to write a very strong letter requiring, through the Prime Minister, Lord J. Russell, that the Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston, should distinctly state what he proposed in any given case of foreign policy, and that when she had sanctioned any measure it should not be arbitrarily altered or modified by the Minister," and generally that she should be kept informed of what passed between him and foreign Ministers. Ultimately, in consequence of his sending a friendly despatch without the sanction or knowledge of the Queen or the Premier, with reference to Louis Napoleon's coup d'Etat (Dec. 2, 1851), Lord Palmerston was dismissed from office. These incidents illustrated the conscientious manner in which, mainly doubtless under her husband's advice during his lifetime, but later on her solitary responsibility, the Queen exercised her

constitutional supervision over the conduct of foreign affairs.

In 1851 the Queen opened in state the "Great Exhibition "in Hyde Park, which had been mainly brought about by the influence of Prince Albert, in the hope of inaugurating a reign of peace, and of encouraging art and industry, and in the following year she opened an International Exhibition in Dublin. When the exhibition building, subsequently to be known as the Crystal Palace, was removed in 1854 to Sydenham, the Queen re-opened it there. In March of the same year, on the eve of the outbreak of the Crimean war, she reviewed the Baltic fleet. During the progress of the war she entertained (April, 1855) herally Napoleon III. and the Empress Eugénie at Windsor, and in the course of the same year paid a return visit to them. Her interest in the sick and wounded of the war was displayed in her superintendence of relief committees of ladies, in her frequent visits to the hospitals, and in the exercise of her influence for the building of Netley. In June, 1857, she distributed in Hyde Park to some sixty members of both services the new decoration of the Victoria Cross, for personal valour in action. In the following year the Queen and Prince Albert paid visits to Birmingham and Leeds, and also (at Potsdam) to the Princess Royal, who had been married a few months previously to Prince Frederick William of Prussia. In 1859 the Queen's husband received the title of Prince Consort. In 1860 the Queen reviewed 18,000 Volunteers in Hyde Park (the Volunteer movement having been started in the previous year), and with her husband again visited their daughter in Prussia. In March, 1861, the Queen's mother, to whom she was devotedly attached, died; and in the following December the happiness of her life was wrecked by the death of her husband from gastric fever. He had outlived the prejudices long entertained against him in various quarters, and the admirable wisdom and tact with which he had discharged the difficult and delicate duties of his station were universally recognised. Almost his last public act was to write suggestions with a view to the framing of Lord John Russell's despatch on the Trent affair on lines facilitating the acquiescence of the United States in the just and necessary demands of this country.

The Queen's bereavement was crushing, and it was feared that she would never recover from it, but her strong sense of duty and her devotion to her

subjects enabled her by degrees to resume her official functions, although she ever afterwards held aloof from Court festivities. On the occasion of the marriage of the Prince of Wales, in March, 1863, she looked down from the royal pew in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, on the ceremony, but it was long (not until 1868) before she could undertake the duties of a Drawingroom. Her heart, however, was always open to every sorrow which fell upon any section of her subjects, and the tender womanly sympathy which she invariably expressed with the sufferers from any calamity endeared her profoundly to the popular mind. As soon, also, as her strength allowed she followed public affairs, at home and abroad, with close and wise vigilance. Her personal influence was exercised with powerful effect in 1867 by letters to the Emperor Napoleon and the King of Prussia, towards the peaceful neutralisation of the Duchy of Luxemburg. In 1869 she interested herself actively, through Archbishop Tait, whose appointment she had strongly favoured, in preventing a conflict between the two Houses of Parliament over the bill for the Disestablishment of the Irish Church. She regretted that Mr. Gladstone had thought it necessary to raise the question, but in view of the decisive result of the general election of that year she felt that further resistance to the Disestablishment policy would be unwise.

It was in 1868 that the Queen commenced the custom, which later became an annual one, of going to the Continent in the early spring. The Lakes of Lucerne and Maggiore were her first selected spots, and in the following year she stayed for some time at the summit of the Furka Pass near the Rhône Glacier. In 1868 also there appeared the touching tribute to the Queen's married life, in which she took her people into her confidence by showing how simple and domestic were the ways of royalty. "Leaves from a Journal of Our Life in the Highlands," was edited by Sir Arthur Helps, and illustrated by sketches from her Majesty's own pencil, and it at once took hold of the public heart. In December, 1871, the Prince of Wales was brought to the verge of death by an attack similar to that which ten years earlier had been fatal to his father. The Prince, however, happily recovered, and in March, 1872, the Queen, accompanied by her son, went in state to St. Paul's to return thanks to God for his safety. From this time the Queen occasionally appeared

in public for some important ceremony, like the opening of the new Blackfriars Bridge and the Holborn Viaduct, or laying the first stones of the new St. Thomas's Hospital and the new wing of the East London Hospital. In 1876 and again in 1877 she opened Parliament in person, although she did not wear her robes, and deputed the Lord Chancellor to read her speeches. This was during the Premiership of Lord Beaconsfield, who exercised a considerable influence over her. He had greatly encouraged the idea of the Prince of Wales's visit to India in the winter of 1875-6, and on January 1, 1877, at a great durbar of the Princes and Rulers of India, the Queen was proclaimed Empress of India, "in order to testify the satisfaction felt by her Majesty at the reception given to her son in the Far East, and also to emphasise at the same time the object of his visit." The additional title was not at first favourably received in England, and Mr. Disraeli endeavoured to reconcile public opinion to the change by hinting that it was intended for use in India only. This restriction gradually disappeared, and the Queen came habitually to sign formal documents "Victoria R.I." The political wisdom, from the Indian point of view, of the assumption of the new title was latterly recognised, even by those who had been strongly averse to it.

In December, 1878, on the anniversary of her father's death, Princess Alice, who had married the Grand Duke of Hesse, died of typhoid fever at Darmstadt, and the blow was felt most acutely by the Queen, who subsequently addressed a letter to her people expressing her "heartfelt thanks for the universal and touching sympathy of all classes of her subjects."

In 1879 the Queen spent a month at Baveno on Lago Maggiore, and in the following year was present at the confirmation of the two daughters of the Princess Alice at Darmstadt. In 1882 she paid a state visit to the entrance of the City in order to open the new Law Courts, but early in 1884 the death, at Cannes, of her youngest son, the Duke of Albany, who had long been in delicate health, was another blow which confirmed the Queen's ways of retirement. In 1886, however, she came to London to open the Colonial and Indian Exhibition at South Kensing. ton; a few weeks later she went to Liverpool to open some public buildings, and in the autumn she spent a couple of nights at Holyrood, and visited the Edinburgh Exhibition in

state. From the period of her great bereavement the Queen divided her time between Windsor, Osborne and Balmoral, only coming to London for a day or two at a time for special functions at Buckingham Palace.

In June, 1887, the completion of the fiftieth year of her reign was celebrated by a public thanksgiving service in Westminster Abbey, and was made the occasion of general festivities throughout the nation. She was escorted through the streets from the Palace to the Abbey by the heirsapparent of all the Thrones of Europe, attended by brilliant suites, and on a subsequent day a general review of the Fleet was held at Spithead, the Queen steaming through the lines. Statues were erected, and hospitals and charitable institutions were founded in many places in honour of the event. In March, 1888, the Queen went to Florence, where she spent nearly two months, and there received alarming news of the health of her son-in-law, the Emperor Frederick of Germany. On her way to Charlottenburg she was met by the Emperor of Austria at Innsbrück, and at Berlin she had several interviews with, and by her political capacity greatly impressed, Prince Bismarck, between whom and the Emperor Frederick there had been much friction, and the Queen's influence was exercised in promoting a better understanding between the Chancellor and his dying master.

The years intervening between the first and the second jubilees of the Queen's reign were by no means exempt from family sorrow in her case. She felt very deeply both the death of the Prince of Wales's eldest son, the Duke of Clarence, in 1892, and that of Prince Henry of Battenberg, the husband of her youngest daughter, Princess Beatrice, from a fever contracted by him when on an expedition against Ashanti in the winter of 1895-6. Prince Henry with his wife had shared the Queen's home life, and he was very greatly missed. The health and strength of the Queen, however, were throughout this period marvellously maintained, partly, no doubt, by the aid of a visit each spring to the South of Europe-Biarritz and San Sebastian, Aix-les-Bains, Grasse, Costebelle, near Hyères, Florence once more, and Cimiez, near Nice, being visited in different years. Her subjects saw much more of her on public occasions than during the earlier years of her widowhood. There may be mentioned, for example, visits paid to Eton on the Fourth of

June, and to Glasgow and Paisley (1889), the launching of two battleships at Portsmouth (1891), the marriage of the Duke of York to Princess May of Teck, and the opening of the Imperial Institute at Kensington (1893), and the opening of the Manchester Ship Canal (1894). More than once the Queen received visits from her grandson, the Emperor William II. of Germany, and in 1896 she entertained, at Balmoral, the Tsar of Russia, who had married her granddaughter, Princess Alix of Hesse, and also received the members of the Ancient and Honourable Artillery Company of Boston, U.S.A., and their wives at Windsor.

On the completion of sixty years of her reign, the Queen celebrated her Diamond Jubilee in a way totally distinct from that by which the Golden Jubilee of 1887 had been observed. It was made the fête day of the British Empire, on which representatives of all her colonial dominions and dependencies were represented. The procession through the densely thronged and beautifully decorated streets passed from Buckingham Palace through Piccadilly, Pall Mall, the Strand and Fleet Street to St. Paul's Cathedral, where a brief thanksgiving service was held outside the cathedral, and then, passing over London Bridge, returned through the main streets south of the Thames, over Westminster Bridge to the Palace. Colonial troops from Canada, Australia and South Africa, and Chinamen from Hong-Kong, Hausas, Dyaks, Sikhs, and Imperial Service troops sent by the native Princes of India, all held places of honour along the route or in the procession, and the Queen's reception from the crowd was such that in her subsequent letter to her people she said that the enthusiasm manifested could never be effaced from her heart. "It is, indeed, deeply gratifying," she added, “after so many years of labour and anxiety to find that my exertions have been appreciated throughout my vast Empire. In weal and in woe, I have ever had the true sympathy of all my people, which has ever been warmly reciprocated.

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I shall ever pray God to bless them, and to enable me to discharge my duties to their welfare as long as life lasts."

During the succeeding three weeks there was a constant succession of ovations and receptions at Windsor, the presentation of addresses from both Houses of Parliament at Buckingham Palace, a grand review of troops at Aldershot, and a splendid naval pa

geant at Spithead-the Queen attending all but the last named.

The completion of her eightieth year, June 24, 1899, was also made the occasion of general but less formal rejoicing, and her reception whenever she appeared in public showed the warmth of the attachment she inspired. The breaking out of the war in South Africa was, however, destined to put a severe strain upon her health and strength. The autumn visit to Balmoral was given up, and the Queen remained at Windsor to be in close touch with her Ministers, to review and to encourage by a few words the soldiers who were being rapidly sent to the front, and to visit and comfort those who returned maimed or sick. At the same time she did not forget those in the field, and a box of chocolate specially designed was sent to every soldier on service in South Africa. Her thoughts were constantly with her army, and she expressed in many ways her unfailing interest in them. Brushing aside the petty restrictions of the War Office, and thoughtful of the feelings of her brave Irish soldiers, she issued an order early in 1900 that on St. Patrick's Day of each year they should wear the shamrock. On her visits to London during the year 1900, she drove through quarters of the metropolis which had been neglected on the occasion of both jubilees, and showed herself to her poorer subjects, meeting everywhere the warmest reception. The spring journey to the Continent was given up, and in its place a visit was arranged to Dublin, where she spent "a most agreeable time," as she said in her letter addressed to the Irish people through the Viceroy. During her stay she had been received with enthusiasm and affection, and she "carried away a most pleasant and affectionate memory of the time she spent in Ireland."

But there were other events of a sadder kind which marked the Queen's last year, the protracted struggle in South Africa, the attempt upon the life of the Prince of Wales at Brussels, the death of her son, the Duke of SaxeCoburg and Gotha, followed by that of Prince Christian Victor of SchleswigHolstein from fever in South Africa, and finally, on Christmas Day, that of her old friend, Lady Churchill, which occurred at Osborne. Of the gradual ebbing of her strength the public were kept in ignorance, and even when a week or two later the symptoms became more threatening, she refused to allow her illness to be made known,

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