Year: 1867




the day before made up her mind touching a
rather important matter, and had told her
jauuty Premier, Lord Melbourne, that she
meant to marry her handsome cousin. Mel
bourne was much relieved. Il am quite glad
OF it,. he said; you will be much more COM
Portable; for woman can not stand alone for
any time, no matter what her position may
be-"


But the young Queen had a delicate bit of
work to do. Her position" we are told,


made 1t imperative that any proposal Of mar
| rlage must first come from her" In plain
words, the laay had to pop the question. -
we can not quite see the necessity In this case;
but we assume that there was no way of get
| ting over it. AT any rate the Queen thought
this to be necessity, and she met it like a
man." or this scene, which seems to US so
odd, We have in this work two accounts, both
written by the only two persons who could
have known anything about how the thing was
done. Albert, writing to his dear old grand
mother, says:


The Queen sent for me alone in her room,
and declared to me, in genuine outburst of
love and affection, that had gained her whole
heart, and would make her intensely happy if
| would make her the sacrifice OF sharing her
life with her; for she said she looked on it as
sacrifice the only thing which troubled her
was, that she did not think she was worthy of
me. The joyous OpennesS OF manner in which
she told me OF this quite enchanted me, and l
was quite carried away with it.


"Barkis was willin" as indeed he had good
reason to be. The Queen writes to good I'm
Gle Leopold, who had SO wisely helped the
matter on:


" My mind is quite made up, and told AL
bert this morning of it. The warm affection
he showed me on learning this gave me great
pleasure. Tie seems perfection, aud | think
that L have the prospect of very great happi-
ness before me. | love him more and more
than can say, and shall do everything in my
power to render this sacrifice for such in my
opinion it isl as small as can. These last few
days have passed like dream to me, and am
so much bewildered by all that know hard
ly how to write but | do feel very happy"


One does not often get so close to a court
ship as this. If the Queen had before deter
mined upon a long delay of any marriage, she
now made ample amends. She declared her.
self on the 18th Of October, 1899 The mar
riage was fixed to take place early in the next
February-about three months after. 1t did
take place on the 10th of that month, within
less than four months. One can imagine what
cutting and fitting, what bastng and sewing,
was required to get the thing ready for bride
and groom, for ladies and lords in waiting, and
all that.


We doubt whether, taking il all in ALL there
was ever happier marriage than this of the
Queen of Great Britain and Prince Albert
There were indeed at first q few drawbacks,
public and private. The young husband was
in way rather snubbed by the proud aristoc-
racy of England. They fought in Parliament
over the allowance to be given him, and the
precedence to which he was entitled. lie took
this quite cooly In all public matters he was
content to be only one Ofthe subjects of his wife
| But this excellent young lady at first seems to
have been inclined to wear the breecheS at
home. Three months after his marriage the
| Prince writes to his cousin: I'm my home lite
am very happy and contented but the difficulty
| i'll filling my place with the proper dignity is
that am only the husband, not the master Of
the house" The compiler of the narrative,
writing under the direction OF the Queen, says
that the Prince early saw the necessity of
his asserting and claiming the authority that
belongs to the husband in his own household.
| Whatever of difficulty existed was of short con-
unuance. Things soon settled themselves
rightly and before long, :" to those who would
urge upon the Queen that, as Sovereign, she
must be the head of the house and the family,
as well as OF the state, and that her husband
was after all but one of her subjects, Her
Majesty would reply that she had solmenly
engaged at the altar to obey, as well as to
love and honor, and that this sacred oblga-
ton she could consent neither to limit nor re-
| fine away"


All these and many other things are told in
this book OF the Queen. 1t tells, moreover,
with what decorum, with what wisdom, the
Prince ever bore himself how, without peo-
pie knowing it, he became real power in the
| state how whatever wise and good Was done
really belongs to Albert.