Life of Her Majesty Queen VictoriaFawcett, Millicent Garrett, Dame
Philosophy
Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria
Fawcett, Millicent Garrett, Dame
Victoria, Queen of Great Britain, 1819-1901
“It was a sight never to be forgotten,--a sound to be recollected
forever. Ladies threw aside the old formula of waving a white
pocket-handkerchief, and cheered for their lives, while the men,
pressing in so closely as to throng the very edges of the pavilion,
waved whatever came first to hand,--hat, stick, wand, or coat,--and
rent the air with shouts of joy which never ceased in energy till
their Sovereign was out of sight.... The Royal children were objects
of universal attention and admiration. ‘Oh, Queen, dear!’ screamed a
stout old lady, ‘make one of them Prince Patrick, and all Ireland will
die for you.’”
Almost every one has a sovereign remedy for Irish disaffection; but few
are so easy of application as this. The Queen adopted the old lady’s
suggestion; the child born next after the Irish visit, on the Duke
of Wellington’s birthday, May 1st, 1850, was named Arthur after that
great Irishman, and Patrick after Ireland’s patron saint; the Irish
associations of his name were kept up by his taking the title of Duke
of Connaught when he reached man’s estate.
Between the birth of her second and third sons, the Queen had had
two more daughters, the Princesses Helena and Louise (now Princess
Christian of Schleswig-Holstein and Marchioness of Lorne), born
respectively on May 25th, 1846, and March 18th, 1848. The name selected
for the elder of these two new daughters had a double significance.
She was named Helena, not only after her godmother, the Duchess of
Orleans, but also to remind English people of what they sometimes
forget, that the Empress Helena, mother of Constantine, through whom
the Roman Empire was brought over to Christianity, was a British
princess, daughter of Coel, King of Camalodaum (now Colchester). Prior
to the birth of Princess Louise, the Queen had gone through a time of
very serious anxiety in regard to political affairs. The revolutionary
movement of 1848 was at its height, and though England passed through
it safely, yet no one could know at the time that it would do so,
and especially that the Chartist movement would not develop in the
direction of revolutionary violence. In the early months of this year
the Queen had made ready all the rooms at Windsor to receive the
fugitive Royal Family of France, who arrived one after another in so
forlorn a condition that Her Majesty had to clothe as well as shelter
them. The Prince’s step-grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Gotha,
who had been almost a mother to him in his childhood, died just at
this time. On every side there appeared trouble and misfortune in both
public and private affairs. The Prince wrote on February 29th:--
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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