Great Britain and Her Queen | Page 8

and how to act. Her favoured suitor himself, writing
to a dear relative, relates how she performed the trying task, inviting
him to render her intensely happy by making "the sacrifice of sharing
her life with her, for she said she looked on it as a sacrifice. The joyous
openness with which she told me this enchanted me, and I was quite
carried away by it." This was on October 15th; nearly six weeks after,
on November 23rd, she made to her assembled Privy Council the
formal declaration of her intended marriage. There is something
particularly touching in even the driest description of this scene; the
betrothed bride wearing a simple morning dress, having on her arm a
bracelet containing Prince Albert's portrait, which helped to give her
courage; her voice, as she read the declaration clear, sweet, and
penetrating as ever, but her hands trembling so excessively that it was
surprising she could read the paper she held. It was a trying task, but
not so difficult as that which had devolved on her a short time before,
when, in virtue of her sovereign rank, she had first to speak the words
of fate that bound her to her suitor.
[Illustration: Prince Albert.]
Endowed with every charm of person, mind, and manner that can win
and keep affection, Prince Albert was able, in marrying the Queen, who
loved him and whom he loved, to secure for her a happiness rare in any
rank, rarest of all on the cold heights of royalty. This was not all; he

was the worthy partner of her greatness. Himself highly cultivated in
every sense, he watched with keenest interest over the advance of all
cultivation in the land of his adoption, and identified himself with every
movement to improve its condition. His was the soul of a
statesman--wide, lofty, far-seeing, patient; surveying all great things,
disdaining no small things, but with tireless industry pursuing after all
necessary knowledge. Add to these intellectual excellences the moral
graces of ideal purity of life, chivalrous faithfulness of heart,
magnanimous self-suppression, and fervent piety, and we have a slight
outline of a character which, in the order of Providence, acted very
strongly and with a still living force on the destinies of
nineteenth-century England. The Queen had good reasons for the
feeling of "confidence and comfort" that shone in the glance she turned
on her bridegroom as they walked away, man and wife at last, from the
altar of the Chapel Royal, on February 10th, 1840. The union she then
entered into immeasurably enhanced her popularity, and strengthened
her position as surely as it expanded her nature. Not many years
elapsed before Sir Robert Peel could tell her that, in spite of the inroads
of democracy, the monarchy had never been safer, nor had any
sovereign been so beloved, because "the Queen's domestic life was so
happy, and its example so good." Only the Searcher of hearts knoweth
how great has been the holy power of a pure, fair, and noble example
constantly shining in the high places of the land.
[Illustration: The Queen in her Wedding-Dress. After the Picture by
Drummond.]
It was hinted by the would-be wise, in the early days of Her Majesty's
married life, that it would be idle to look for the royally maternal
feeling of an Elizabeth towards her people in a wedded constitutional
sovereign. The judgment was a mistake. The formal limitations of our
Queen's prerogative, sedulously as she has respected them, have never
destroyed her sense of responsibility; wifehood and motherhood have
not contracted her sympathies, but have deepened and widened them.
The very sorrows of her domestic life have knit her in fellowship with
other mourners. No great calamity can befall her humblest subjects, and
she hear of it, but there comes the answering flash of tender pity. She is

more truly the mother of her people, having walked on a level with
them, and with "Love, who is of the valley," than if she had chosen to
dwell alone and aloof.
[Illustration: Sir Robert Peel.]
For some years after her marriage the Queen's private life shows like a
little isle of brightness in the midst of a stormy sea. Within and without
our borders there was small prospect of settled peace at the very time of
that marriage. We have said that Lord Melbourne was still Premier; but
he and his Ministry had resigned office in the previous May, and had
only come back to it in consequence of a curious misunderstanding
known as "the Bedchamber difficulty." Sir Robert Peel, who was
summoned to form a Ministry on Melbourne's defeat and resignation,
had asked from Her Majesty the dismissal of two ladies of her
household, the wives of prominent members of the departing Whig
Government; but his request conveyed