The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-08-06
DOWAGER EMPRESS DEAD.
EMPEROR WILLIAM IND OTHER CHILDREN PRESENT.
Only Prince Henry Absent-The End Unexpectedly Sudden-Her Life as English Princess and German Crown Princess and Empress.
Princess and Empress.

Cronberg Aug. 5.-The DoWager Empress Frederick, mother of Emperor William died at 6:15 p. m. to-day. The death was unexpectedly sudden, as at
 i p. m. her physicians had reported no
 change in her condition. She was full ly conscious during the last hours and
 all her children, with the exception of
 Prince Henry, who is at Cadiz, were
 assembled in the sick room.
 Emperor William arrived at Hom-
 burg at 3:15 o'clock this morning and
 drove to the Homburg castle. Thence. accompanied by the Empress and
 Grown Prince Frederick William, he
 proceeded to Friedrichshof, which was reached at 5:20 o'clock.
 Relatives of the doawger empress
 have been continually arriving here | throughout the day, and detachment
 of the One Hundred and Fifteenth in- fantry came from Homburg to do sen tinel and patrol duty round the castle. By special desire of the dowager em- press Dr. Waller, the English chaplain of Homburg, was summoned.
 Cowes, Isle of Wight, Aug. 5.-Ac-
 cording to present arrangements King Edward will start tomorrow morning
 for Flushing, Holland on his way to the bedside of the Dowager Empress Frederick, on the royal yacht Osborne. The new royal yacht Victoria and AL
 bert will accompany the Osborne. The usual gayeties of Cowes regatta week, which began to-day, are almost entire ly absent. By royal order no dancing will take place during the week. All the entertaining will consist in inn
 promptu invitations to small concerts and dinners, issued an hour or two be- forehand.
 Victoria Mary Louisa, princess royal of England, and ex-empress of Ger many, one of the ablest of modern roy al women, would probably have played an important part in the European his- tory of the latter part of the nineteenth century if she had not been condemned to comparative obscurity by the pre-
 mature and lamented death of her hus- band, the Emperor Frederick. She was the eldest child of Queen Victoria, and was born on the 21st of November, 1S4O. Of her youthful days only occa-
 
 diaries of her mother, but, by common report, she was a very bright and high spirited child, with an uncommon capacity for languages, music and drawing. Several anecdotes, of more or less doubtful authenticity, are told in illustration of her independent and somewhat wilful character
 In was in 1851, as a girl of eleven. that she first made the acquaintance of her future husband, the crown prince of Germany who was then on visit to England, with the object of seeing the
 international exhibition In Hyde Park. In 1855 the prince was a guest at Bal moral, and it was in September of that year that he proposed to the princess and was accepted. His suit was dlc
 tated, of course, by motives of state policy, but there seems to be no doubt
 that the engagement was partly the re-, suit of mutual affection. It lasted for
 three years as the queen and Prince Albert refused to allow their daughter to be married before January, 1858. The period that followed was probably one of the happiest in the princess life. She was devoted to her husband, who was then In the fullest prime of his remark able physical perfection. and he was in complete sympathy with her fond ness for art and music and the joys of domestic retirement. The young couple led simple and unharassed life in the new palace at Potsdam, and re- joiced especially in their farm at Born stadt
 In the course of time she became a prominent figure in social and political life at Berlin, using her great influence for the promotion of art and of various philanthropic interests. Her practical common sense her intimate acquaint- ance with affairs, and her very consid- erable literary, and artistic accomplish ments won her the cordial respect of many of the most distinguished men in political and learned circles. She be- came known as an ardent champion of liberalism with which her husband was opponent of the oppressive measures of the Iron Chancellor, Bismarck, who re- garded her with undisguised mistrust. The two, indeed, were almost open foes, and there was frequent speculation as to what would happen when the old king died and power came into the hands of Frederick.
 When the Austro- Prussian war broke out in 1866 she won much popularity by taking wounded Prussian soldiers into her palace and giving them her personal attention, and she was equally solicitous in her care for the wounded