The Appeal. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn. ;) 1889-19??, 1900-03-03

Windsor-''Unser Fritz Was of
All Queen Victorin's Sons-in-Law
ED, the One She Loved Best.
Among the most valued treasures of a
personal character belonging to Queen
Victoria is an autograph book, on the
pages of which are signed the names Of
all those distinguished personages who
nave been her guests at Balmoral, o.
borne, Buckingham palace, and more par-
ticularly at Windsor, during the sixty
three years that she has occupied the
throne of Great Britain. To those who
are aware Of the existence of this volume
of autographs, the visit paid last week
by Emperor William to his venerable
grandmother appeals, perhaps, the more
strongly because they know that he, as
we'll as his consort, will not have been
permitted to leave the historic castle on
the banks of the Thames without having
once more inscribed their names and the
date of their sojourn in that book, which,
more, perhaps than any other thing COM
prised in so small a compass, shows the
march of time and the progress of his
tory; for a perusal Of the volume serves
~
extent to which Englands sovereign has
outlived her contemporaries. It calls
forth memories Of dynasties that have
been overthrown and of kingdoms that
have disappeared, and seems to evoke the
specters Of a great throng of rulers and
of celebrated statesmen all now in their
graves, not few of whom have met with
terrible deaths at the hands OF assassins.
The visits paid by foreign rulers and by
foreign statesmen to her majesty possess
far more Importance than one might be
disposed to accord to them at first sight.
For the stay at Windsor of nearly every
continental monarch has been followed
by political consequences. The course Of
history, indeed, may be said to have been
largely influenced by these visits which
the queen receives from her brother and
sister sovereigns, and it is this that rem
derS her book of autographs in which,
by the way, are comprised a number OF,
American signatures, so exceptionally in.
teresting.
The autographs may be regarded as
bearing a certain analogy to milestones,
since they mark SO many different epochs.
What more remarkable, for instance, than
the changes which have fallen to the
share of the reignfng house Of Prussia
IL during the nearly sixty years Intervening
between the visit Of King Frederick Will
liam ~ to attend the baptism of the
William at Windsor during the week that
has just come to a close? At the time
when the king was 4 guest Of Queen
Victoria Prussia was in every sense of
the word, second rate power. Frederick
William, In fact, was almost abject in his
subserviency to the German emperor at
Vienna and to his brother-in-laW, Ca
Nicholas I. AS far as the imperial house
OF HapSburS was concerned, he seemed
to be unable to forget that his ancestors
hoI ,nti Will IL
dred years held the position Of cupbeare,
to the emperors at Vienna, and been com
PEELED to stand at state banquets behint
the imperial chair, doing duty, if not a.
a mental, at any rate as a mere vassal
AS for his attitude toward Russia, he
permitted himself to be bullied and brow
beaten to such an extent by the CA,
that he did not venture to take any step
even in his own dcmnions, without the
sanction of his imperious brother-in-law
So great was the contempt in which Prus-
STA was held that at lsc time of the con-
gress of great powers held in Paris at
the conclusion Of the Cflmean war; King
Frederick Williams plenipotentiaries
were not admitted to the meeting, on the
ground that Prussia " as not power of
ceiving any such privilege. Punch
placed on pictorial record this humiliation
to which the court of Berlin was thus
subjected by portraying King Frederick
William in sadly intoxicated condition
battering with an empty champagne bot
tie against the closed doors of the cham
Der In which the rulers Of. the great
powers of Europe were discussing their
affairs.
King Frederick William was at the out
set of his reign when he visited Queen
Victoria at Windsor In 1912. Six years
later he was a prisoner In the hands ST
the people Of his capital and forced to
pay homage to the dead bodies of the
men. women and children who had been
shot down by his troops. And during that
time his brother. William, who eventual
ly succeeded him on the throne, was
obliged to flee for his life to England,
where he in his turn enjoyed the hospi-
tally Of Queen Victoria, and wrote his
name in her autograph book. The closing
years of the reign of King Frederick
William w. were darkened by insanity
OF the most violent description. Will
lam became first king of Prussia, and
then, after 1870, German. emperor, ap-
propriating at Versailles a dignity which
had been for centuries the most highly
priced possession of the house of Haps-
burg. Before old Emperor William passed
down to the tomb he had wrested the
duchies of schleswig and Holstein from
Denmark, and had annexed ia his domin-
ions not merely two of Frances most
prosperous provinces, but likewise the
duchies of Brunswick and Of Nassau, the
electorate of Hesse, and the kingdom OF
Hanover, driving poor blind King George
a first cousin of Queen Victoria, and like.
wiso one of the signers of her visitors
book, into the exile in which he died.
Emperor Williams successor was that
''Unser Fritz, who was of all Queen Vic.
toria's sons-fn-law the one she loved best
and many were the visits which he paiG
to her at Balmoral and at Windsor, one
sojourn at the latter place being, however
suddenly intprrnntpH violent
tween his wife, the now widowed Empress
Frederick, and her august mother on the
subject of the latter's crotchety, cranky
and terribly surly Highland gillie, John
Brown. ... .ry.-:. .....- 81. ~
Fredericks hundred days reign consti,
tutes one of the saddest tragedies OF
Queen Victoria's own tenure Of the throne
and, numerous as have been the sorrows
which have laid their mark on Queer
Victoria, it is doubtful whether she evel
suffered greater anguish Of mind thar
when she travelled all the way to Berlin
D in order to take a last farewell of hel
voiceless and so terribly afflicted Fritz,
who was doomed to suffocation only a few
days after her departure.
Emperor William H., who now visits his
grandmother at Windsor for the second
time since his accession to the throne. /:
therefore the fourth ruler of Prussia
whom she welcomes beneath her roo
tree, and she greets him no longer as the
sovereign or a second or even third rate
state, but as the head of the creates
military power on the face of the globe
whose friendship England is only too GLAD
1 to secure at the present juncture, ant
who holds to a great extent at the pres
ent moment the balance of power in thu
old world, his understanding with Grea:
Britain resulting in a combination ST
MIGHTY as to put an end to all the pro