But to this joy soon succeeded the sorrow at the death of Prince Charles Anthony of Hohenzollern. After much suffering a sort of apoplectic fit had seized him. His condition became worse, his weakness increased, and he lost consciousness. Surrounded by his children and the faithful partner of his life, he passed away on the 2nd of June 1885, without a struggle. During the sad days when the Prince was slowly dying, the Queen of Roumania had been “a true angel of consolation,” as she expressed it, to her mother-in-law, the now widowed Princess Josephine. Queen Elizabeth had watched and prayed with her at the deathbed of the Prince during the first night, and had undertaken for her the numerous labours of love which in such days have such claims on heart and time. It was a historic moment when, on the morning of the 6th of June, the mourning procession, headed by the then Crown Prince of the German Empire, started from the castle to the tomb of their ancestors, in which the mortal remains of the last reigning Prince of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen were laid to rest. He belonged to the most distinguished and meritorious men of his time, whose influence the grateful German Fatherland will not forget. But not alone the family lost a beloved centre in the noble German Prince. The Emperor William bewailed in him the trusted friend of many years, who had stood faithfully at his side in times of difficulty and danger. Prince Charles Anthony had made the first step towards the union of Germany. Having realised with great political insight during the occurrences of 1848 that the position of the little states was untenable, he willingly renounced the sovereignty of his Hohenzollern lands. He handed his principality over to the head of the Prussian branch of his house, and forthwith, as the first German subject, worked with great unselfishness and conscientiousness to help on the power and greatness of Germany. Prussia’s territory now extended to the south of Germany. As a memento of this deed, Frederick William IV. founded the Order of Hohenzollern, with the inscription, “Vom Fels zum Meer” (From the Rock to the Sea). The Roumanians also bewailed the loss of this noble Prince. They knew that he had followed the development of the country with the interest of a statesman, for its fate remains closely bound up in the family of Hohenzollern. Roumania is an hereditary constitutional monarchy. In the year 1866 the naturalisation of the Sigmaringen branch of the Hohenzollerns was carried out, and the question of the succession legally settled. Prince Leopold, the then hereditary Prince, stood nearest to the throne, and his second son Ferdinand was the heir-apparent of King Charles.