As spring gave place to summer, the shadow of death fell on the Royal Family. We have seen how genuine and profound was the Queen’s sorrow over the death of Peel. But closely following that sad event came the serious illness of the Duke of Cambridge, a kind-hearted Prince, noted for his _bonhomie_ and for the profusion of his charities. The Queen was assiduous in her attentions to her uncle, whom she dearly loved, and one of her visits to his sick bed accidentally exposed her to a cowardly outrage. When she was leaving Cambridge House, sad-eyed and sorrowful, a man suddenly stepped forward and struck at her face with a cane. Her bonnet protected her somewhat, but her forehead was cruelly bruised by the assault. “The perpetrator is a dandy,” writes Prince Albert to Stockmar, “whom you must have often seen in the park, where he makes himself conspicuous.” He was one Robert Pate, formerly a lieutenant in the army. After being tried for his offence on the 11th of July, he was sentenced to seven years’ transportation. No motive could be assigned for the outrage, and the jury refused to accept Pate’s plea of insanity. [Illustration: PATE’S ASSAULT ON THE QUEEN.] The Duke of Cambridge, it may here be said, died on the 8th of July. Meantime, as if to add to the Queen’s private griefs, an extraordinary attack was made in the press upon Prince Albert and the Exhibition Commissioners. The building was to be in Hyde Park, and this invasion of one of the pleasure-grounds of “the people” was resented. The truth is that a rich and selfish clique of families dwelling in the neighbourhood objected to a great public show, likely to attract multitudes of sightseers, coming between the wind and their nobility, and they represented “the people” for the occasion. The extent to which they were sensitive as to the rights of the populace may be indicated by one suggestion which they made. It was that the Exhibition be transported as a nuisance to the Isle of Dogs, where “the people” dwell in teeming masses. At last an attack was organised on the Exhibition Commissioners in Parliament, and the Queen, knowing well that if it were successful, the project must be abandoned, was sorely grieved at the folly and prejudice which inspired the opposition. The _Times_ was very bitter. Even Mr. Punch, notorious for his sentimental devotion to the Queen, proved himself a sad recreant on this occasion, and Leech made fun of the Prince, because the public were a little niggardly with their subscriptions,[23] which fell far short of £100,000, which was the lowest estimate tendered for the building. But though the attempt of “a little knot of selfish persons,” as the Queen calls them in a letter in which she implores Stockmar to come and comfort her and her husband in their troubles, to drive the Exhibition out of Hyde Park failed, and their attacks in Parliament collapsed, the Prince was still “plagued about the Exhibition,” and the old symptoms of insomnia reappeared,