The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1878-12-21 00:00:00

Ely 3tourbrible Observer.

SATURDAY, DECEMBER 21, 1878.
ROYAL BEREAVEMENTS.

Tam shadows of these gloomy siecember days
will leave behind them many a mournful memory
long after they have passed away. The time
will come, in the bright fresh hours of spring,
and amid the luxuriant foliage which will once
more pork the advent of the summer, when the
sun will again rise nign in tne neavens, sue
landscape will be all aglow in a flood of golden
light, and the now silent woods will ring with
the cheerful notes of merry songsters. But even
then the Royal occupants of Windsor Castle. and
many a reflective mind amongst her ajesty's
subjects, will cast a glance oaekward over that
terribly dark day in mid December when the
Sovereign, who had mourned the loss of her
husband turough half a generation, was told on
the seventeenth anniversary of his death that the
beloved daughter who had so devotedly watched
over her fatuer's last hours, had herself been
stricken down by an unrelenting malady, and
h 44 been called to ner rest. Death claimed a
viouto in the Prince Consort on the 14th Decem-
ber,lB6l, and in his loving daughter on the
a.Lne..ay in 1876—a strange end mournful coin-
Citieuee wilien will add poignancy to the bitter
grief w.iich is already associated with that date
1,, • uoreaved and sorrowing ruler
of :xis realui.

AA we mount upwards upon the steps of that
ladder of hfe which tells ot advancing years we
must ali expect. iuor.: or teas to experience those
wintry --
of tn4torer age of whieh authors
04Vd 6uug. It WO luOk
47.1.003 ilf;t!,ilit. ~f to Qtle.,ll we shall find
auCI itA3
~,a. lucre arc some whose de
nap:ner than chose which
ka.-akea 6na opening of their career; but with
her M.ljesty the °Loud which settled down upon
her at 'he age of ;forty-two, when she lost her
husbatiu, has never been removed. It has now
been deepened anti iuteusifted by the removal
of the first of tue ktoysi cnithreu, who has been
tAken -4w4y by deatio, and under circumstances
peculiarly sad and tuuchlug. The happiest time
of il...r.ll•jcsty's life cv.as *hen her Alumina was '
by her side, and all her children were gathered
uuder her own roof. It did not indeed last long.
The Princess Beatrice. the youngest child, was
only nine months old when the first break was
made iu the family circle. They were all
together but once, and that was in the Christmas
of 1857. The Queen, her husband, her mother,
and her nine children, gathered round the same
Uhl, at this very time one-and-twenty years ago.
Exactly a month afterwards, on the 25th Jan-
uary, 18i9, the Princess Royal was married to
the Crown Prince of Prussia, and from that day
all the members of the Royal house have never
spent a Christmas in united company. The
Prince Consort gave away his daughter on that
011461110 R. the only time he was ever pen:nivel
to perform that pleasing ditty. In March,l96l,
the .Duchess of Kent died; in the follo‘iing De-
cember the iilustrious head of the house himself
Was oarriad off. The Princess Alice, who had
attended her father with such self-sacrificing
duration, was married in July, 1862; the Prince
a W a 164 in March, 18G3 ; the Princess Helena
inJuly, 180 ti ; the Princess Louise in March,
1871; and the Duke of Ediuburgo in January,
1874. w-r, tjoe vvilu to tai igu•
eat 11. 011oliOta in the 1-nd scaLtered hituer two
7.4... r o Cat: 0i;c1":1Zi...,11 of
twin laws. hUSikAnd and her
motherkiept the unhrolLn silence of the tomb
CIL Frtigi-uur.e; t. 1.1! the v,ist universe moved on,
ant her children went forth into be world to
tdk„ tii, Caose poshions which fail to .heir lot by
reason efil,-X`W,lSltOfl. One had become
the fatimcEmprui7s or G.riattity ; ilauilier was
the w„;fu o! the 'l'.• •! aban principality ;
,OVen(jol.dof
Canada; alOurtik is iu command of one of her
Meies:v's fr...if-,fe•sbips. At toe very time of their
S. .ti .1 !Y :!!•ic" "I" "U'A
Of i ix r .e'f II 'thing we,
ever 8,13 1;ui.p::113.. 1 is Lou cOul—m0'11)
ti
cva th..rt dn4,'‘, . v. deatti
Onlv, • • •:! Aiill hOeIC/Ved
t7l' y • I,,'L;gltWi allt.l of
3li,CvrLly ;.11 u . Whether WO
tLitili 0; zugnt,-,r, a sister, ti wife, or u
rzother, r lle is ~ac brigh:
picture ni i,Verenct2, tffeLiuxi, hiAieity, wl. ilu
WOI3OEI. Ai she vatened over her li)ing
so Bile left tier hone in Gcrnany to nurse hci
brother, the Prince of Wales, when he lay sic.
nigh unto death seven years ago at Sandring-
ham. When her husband and children wet,
r c•li down by i I tu raitnis ,
iIJC we,e-enu,y vtgi.a Lo thL,

a thinj