European Genealogy and History
www.georgiapioneers.com
by
ANNE E. KEELING
Author of
"General Gordon: Hero and Saint," "The Oakhurst
Chronicles,"
"Andrew Golding," etc.
Second Edition.
Revised and Enlarged, 1897
[Illustration:
Queen
[Illustration:
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I.
THE GIRL QUEEN AND
HER KINGDOM
CHAPTER II.
STORM AND SUNSHINE
CHAPTER III.
CHAPTER IV.
THE CRIMEAN WAR
CHAPTER V.
CHAPTER VI.
THE BEGINNINGS OF
SORROWS
CHAPTER VII.
CHANGES GOOD AND
EVIL
CHAPTER VIII.
OUR COLONIES
CHAPTER IX.
INTELLECTUAL AND
SPIRITUAL PROGRESS
CHAPTER X.
PROGRESS OF THE
EMPIRE FROM 1887 TO 1897
CHAPTER XI.
PROGRESS OF
WESLEYAN METHODISM UNDER QUEEN
CONCLUSION
LIST OF
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Queen
The Coronation of
Queen
Duchess of
Elizabeth Fry
Rowland Hill
Father Mathew
George Stephenson
Wheatstone
St. James's Palace
The Queen in Her
Wedding-Dress
Sir Robert Peel
Daniel O'Connell
Richard Cobden
John Bright
Lord John Russell
Thomas Chalmers
John Henry Newmann
Balmoral
Napoleon III
The
Lord Ashley
Earl of
Duke of
Lord Canning
Sir Colin Campbell
Henry Havelock
Sir John Lawrence
Prince Frederick
William
Princess Royal
Charles Kingsley
Lord Palmerston
Abraham Lincoln and
his son
Princess Alice
The Mausoleum
Dr. Norman Macleod
Prince of Wales
Princess of
Osborne House
Sir Robert Napier
Mr. Gladstone
Lord Beaconsfield
Lord Salisbury
General Gordon
Duke of
Duchess of
Sydney Heads
Robert Southey
William Wordsworth
Alfred Tennyson
Robert Browning
Charles Dickens
W. M. Thackeray
Charlotte Bronte
Lord Macaulay
Thomas Carlyle
William Whewell,
D.D.
Sir David Brewster
Sir James Y.
Simpson
Michael Faraday
David Livingstone
Sir John Franklin
John Ruskin
Dean Stanley
"I was sick,
and ye visited me"
Duke of
The Imperial
Institute
Duke of Clarence
Duke of
Duchess of
Princess Henry of
Battenberg
Prince Henry of
Battenberg
The Czarina of
H. M. Stanley
Dr. Fridtjof Nansen
Miss Kingsley
J. M. Barrie
Richard Jefferies
Rev. J. G. Wood
Dean Church
Professor Huxley
Professor Tyndall
C. H. Spurgeon
Dr. Horatius Bonar
Sir J. E. Millais,
P.R.A.
Sir Frederick
Leighton, P.R.A.
Wesley preaching on
his father's tomb
Group of
Presidents:--No. 1
Centenary Meeting
at
Key to Centenary
Meeting
Wesleyan Centenary
Hall
Group of
Presidents:--No. 2
Sir Francis Lycett
The Methodist
Settlement, Bermondsey.
Theological
Institution,
Theological
Institution, Didsbury
Theological
Institution, Headingley
Theological
Institution, Handsworth
The North House,
Queen's College,
Children's Home,
Group of
Presidents:--No. 3
[Illustration: The
Coronation of Queen
[Illustration:
CHAPTER I.
THE GIRL-QUEEN AND
HER KINGDOM.
Rather more than
one mortal lifetime, as we average life in these
later days, has
elapsed since that June morning of 1837, when
Victoria of
England, then a fair young princess of eighteen, was
roused from her
tranquil sleep in the old palace at Kensington, and
bidden to rise and
meet the Primate, and his dignified associates the
Lord Chamberlain
and the royal physician, who "were come on business
of state to the
Queen"--words of startling import, for they meant
that, while the
royal maiden lay sleeping, the aged King, whose
heiress she was,
had passed into the deeper sleep of death. It is
already an
often-told story how promptly, on receiving that summons,
the young Queen
rose and came to meet her first homagers, standing
before them in
hastily assumed wrappings, her hair hanging loosely,
her feet in
slippers, but in all her hearing such royally firm
composure as deeply
impressed those heralds of her greatness, who
noticed at the same
moment that her eyes were full of tears. This
little scene is not
only charming and touching, it is very
significant,
suggesting a combination of such qualities as are not
always found
united: sovereign good sense and readiness, blending
with quick, artless
feeling that sought no disguise--such feeling as
again betrayed
itself when on her ensuing proclamation the new
Sovereign had to
meet her people face to face, and stood before them
at her palace
window, composed but sad, the tears running unchecked
down her fair pale
face.
That rare spectacle
of simple human emotion, at a time when a selfish
or thoughtless
spirit would have leaped in exultation, touched the
heart of
nation's feeling is
aptly expressed in the glowing verse of Mrs.
Browning, praying
Heaven's blessing on the "weeping Queen," and
prophesying for her
the love, happiness, and honour which have been
hers in no stinted measure.
"Thou shalt be well beloved," said the
poetess; there are
very few sovereigns of whom it could be so truly
said that they
_have_ been well beloved, for not many have so well
deserved it. The
faith of the singer has been amply justified, as
time has made
manifest the rarer qualities joyfully divined in those
early days in the
royal child, the single darling hope of the nation.
Once before in the
recent annals of our land had expectations and
desires equally
ardent centred themselves on one young head. Much of
the loyal devotion
which had been alienated from the immediate family
of George III. had
transferred itself to his grandchild, the Princess
Prince of Wales,
and Caroline of
with vivid interest
the young romance of Princess Charlotte's happy
marriage, and had
bitterly lamented her too early death--an event
which had
overshadowed all English hearts with forebodings of
disaster. Since
that dark day a little of the old attachment of
and "patriot
king," William IV; but the hopes crushed by the death
of the
much-regretted
better warrant for
miserable marriage,
but of a fitting union; her parents had been
sundered only by
death, not by wretched domestic dissensions. People
heard that the
mortal malady which deprived her of a father had been
brought about by
the Duke of Kent's simple delight in his baby
princess, which
kept him playing with the child when he should have
been changing his
wet outdoor garb; and they found something touching
and tender in the
tragic little circumstance. And everything that
could be noticed of
the manner in which the bereaved duchess was
training up her
precious charge spoke well for the mother's wisdom
and affection, and
for the future of the daughter.
It was indeed a
happy day for
fourth son of
George III, was wedded to Victoria of Saxe-Coburg, the
widowed Princess of
Leiningen--happy, not only because of the
admirable skill
with which that lady conducted her illustrious
child's education,
and because of the pure, upright principles, the
frank, noble
character, which she transmitted to that child, but
because the family
connection established through that marriage was
to be yet further
serviceable to the interests of our realm. Prince
Albert of
Saxe-Coburg was second son of the Duchess of Kent's eldest
brother, and thus
first cousin of the Princess Victoria--"the
Mayflower,"
as, in fond allusion to the month of her birth, her
mother's kinsfolk
loved to call her: and it has been made plain that
dreams of a
possible union between the two young cousins, very nearly
of an age, were
early cherished by the elders who loved and admired
both.
[Illustration:
Duchess of
Colnaghi & Co.,