The whole nation now mourned with the Queen, and with many the bitter cup was not unmingled with remorse. The lamentations for the dead are often sorest when the accusing conscience joins its forces to those of natural grief. Injustice, misrepresentation, ungenerosity during life, add an almost intolerable torture to the pain of the mourner. Fortunately, from this worst anguish the Queen was wholly free. She could look back over the whole of her twenty-two years’ union with her beloved Prince, and could find nothing but an unbroken chain of confidence and love; it may safely be said that she had missed no opportunity of actively contributing to her husband’s happiness by every device which ingenious watchful affection could contrive. She therefore belonged to those mourners of whom it may be truly said that they are blessed, and shall be comforted. On the last anniversary of her wedding-day before her husband’s death, the Queen had written to the King of the Belgians to give renewed expression to the feelings awakened by the day. She spoke again of “our blessed marriage,” and “the incalculable blessing” it had brought; and added, “Very few can say with me that their husband at the end of twenty-one years is not only full of the friendship, kindness, and affection which a truly happy marriage brings with it, but of the same tender love as in the very first days of our marriage.” Death itself could not rob her of this enormous happiness. It was true he was gone, and she was left alone to bear the weight of the crown and sceptre unsupported except by his memory; but for nearly twenty-two years he had been to her in her own words, “Husband, father, lover, master, friend, adviser, and guide.” Many will be disposed to murmur, “Happy woman, happy wife,” even in face of the crushing grief which now overwhelmed her. [30] The Queen gave expression to this sense of isolation, as a necessary part of the position of a Sovereign, in a private letter to the Emperor of the French, dated August, 1857. She wrote, after thanking the Emperor for his expressions of favorable opinion about the Prince Consort: “In a position so isolated as ours, we can find no greater consolation, no support more sure, than the sympathy and counsel of him or her who is called on to share our lot in life; and the dear Empress, with her generous impulses, is your guardian angel, as the Prince is my true friend.” [31] By a sad coincidence, the governor chosen for Prince Leopold, Sir Edward Bowater, died on the same day as the Prince Consort. The poor little boy, on hearing of his father’s death, is said to have exclaimed in the midst of his tears, “I must go to my mother. I want my mother.” CHAPTER XVI. DOMESTIC LIFE AFTER 1861.