Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen — Volume 2Tytler, Sarah
History
Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen — Volume 2
Tytler, Sarah
Victoria, Queen of Great Britain, 1819-1901
Before the Queen left London, she was present at the baptism and stood
sponsor for the young Hindoo Princess Gouromma, the pale, dark,
slender girl whose picture looks down on the visitor at Buckingham
Palace. She had been brought to England by her father, the Rajah of
Coorg, a high-caste Hindoo, who desired that she should be brought up
a Christian. He was one of the princes of Northern India, whose
inheritance had become a British possession. He lived at Benares under
the control of the East India Company, and had an allowance from
Government as well as a large private fortune. The little princess was
the same age as the Princess Royal, eleven years. She was the daughter
of the Rajah's favourite wife, who had died immediately after the
infant's birth. The ceremony took place in the private chapel of
Buckingham Palace. The Archbishop of Canterbury officiated. Besides
the Queen, the sponsors were Lady Hardinge, Mr. Drummond, and Sir
James Weir Hogg, the chairman of the East India Company. The little
girl received the name "Victoria." The Rajah returned soon afterwards
to India.
The Court had longer time to enjoy the sea air and quiet of Osborne,
where, however, sorrow intruded in the shape of the news of the death
of Count Mensdorff, the uncle by marriage both of the Queen and Prince
Albert, to whom they were warmly attached. Though he had been no
prince, only a French emigrant officer in the Austrian service, when
he married the sister of the Duchess of Kent, he was held in high
esteem by his wife's family for the distinction with which he had
served as a soldier, and for his many good qualities.
Princess Hohenlohe, with a son and daughter, came to Osborne as a
stage to Scotland and Abergeldie, where she was to visit her mother,
the Duchess of Kent, and where she could also best enjoy the Queen's
society. The poor Princess, who made a stay of several months in this
country, had need of a mother's and a sister's sympathy. A heavy
sorrow had lately befallen her. The eldest daughter of the Hohenlohe
family, Princess Elise, a girl of great promise, had died at Venice of
consumption in her twenty-first year.
Yachting excursions were again made to Devonshire and Cornwall, to
Torquay and the often-visited beauties of Mount Edgcumbe and the banks
of the Tamar. There was a proposal of a visit to the King of the
Belgians, with the Channel Islands to be touched at on the way. One
part of the programme had to be given up, on account of the
tempestuous weather. The yacht, after waiting to allow Prince Albert
to pay a flying visit--the last--to the Duke of Wellington at
Walmer, ran up the Scheldt in one of the pauses in the storm, and the
travellers reached Antwerp at seven o'clock on the morning of the 11th
of August, "in a hurricane of wind and rain."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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