Early Years and Education of the Prince

The married life of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort was one of the happiest recorded in history or known in the private annals of individual lives. It was a love-match from the first and it lasted to the end as one of those beautiful illustrations of harmony in the home which go far in a materialistic and selfish age to point to higher ideals and to conserve the best principles of a Christian people. His affection was shown in myriad ways of devoted care and help; her feeling was well stated in a letter to Baron Stockmar—"There cannot exist a purer, dearer, nobler being in the world than the Prince." From such a union was born Albert Edward, the future King and Emperor, on November 9th, 1841. The Queen's first child had been the Princess Royal, and there was naturally some hope that the next would be a male heir to the Throne. There was much public rejoicing over the event which was announced from Buckingham Palace at mid-day of the date mentioned; the Privy Council met and ordered a thanksgiving service; the national anthem was sung with enthusiasm in the theatres and public places; telegrams of congratulation poured in from Princes abroad and peers and peasants at home; and Punch perpetrated verses which well illustrated the public feeling:

On December 8th following, the little Prince was created by letters-patent Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester—the titles of Prince of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Duke of Saxony, Duke of Cornwall, Duke of Rothesay, Earl of Carrick, Baron Renfrew, Lord of the Isles and Prince, or Great Steward of Scotland, being his already by virtue of his mother being the reigning Sovereign at the time of his birth. During six hundred years there had been from time to time a Prince of Wales. The first was the son of Edward I., but the title was never made hereditary, and there have been periods, totalling altogether 288 years, in which it lay dormant. The Black Prince was perhaps the best known of the line. The new Prince of Wales—destined to hold the designation for nearly sixty years and to make it one of the best known in the world—was solemnly baptized on January 25th, 1842, in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, by the simple names of Albert Edward. The first was after his father, the second in memory of the Queen's father, the Duke of Kent. The scene was one of splendour, and the uniforms and glittering orders and gleaming gems and beautiful dresses harmonized well with the stately setting of the Chapel Royal.

THE GORGEOUS CHRISTENING CEREMONY

Besides the Royal party, which included Frederick William IV., King of Prussia, there were a throng of Ambassadors, Knights of the Garter, Members of the Privy Council, Peers and Peeresses, statesmen and heads of the Church. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Bishops of London, Winchester, Oxford and Norwich were in special attendance, and the sponsors for the young Prince were the King of Prussia, the Duchess of Kent (proxy for the Duchess of Saxe-Cobourg), the Duke of Cambridge (proxy for the Duchess of Saxe-Gotha), Princess Augusta of Cambridge (proxy for Princess Sophia) and Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Cobourg. The cost of this gorgeous christening ceremony and attendant functions was said to have been fully two million dollars. A part of this was, however, due to the entertainments accorded King Frederick William IV., who, as the chief Protestant monarch of the Continent, was given a particularly cordial and elaborate welcome. In connection with the christening of the future King it is interesting to note that an ecclesiastical newspaper, of Toronto, called The Church, referred to the event on March 19th, 1842, and declared that should the Prince live to be King he would be known as Edward VII. On February 3rd Queen Victoria opened Parliament in person with the following as the preliminary words in the Speech from the Throne: "I cannot meet you in Parliament assembled without making a public acknowledgment of my gratitude to Almighty God on account of the birth of the Prince, my son; an event which has completed the measure of my domestic happiness and has been hailed with every manifestation of affectionate attachment to my person and Government by my faithful and loyal people."

CHILDHOOD OF THE PRINCE

The early events of the Prince's life were followed with much interest by the public and with a personal and individual feeling which grew in volume with the ever-increasing popularity of the young Queen. The Court in those years was a gay one and events such as the Queen's famous Plantagenet Ball of 1842; the state visit to King Louis Philippe of France in 1843; the coming of Nicholas I., Czar of all the Russias, to the Court of St. James in 1844, followed a little later by William, Prince of Prussia—afterwards William I. of Germany, and by a return visit of the King and Queen of the French; kept the social demands of the period up to a very high pitch. Yet the quiet, careful surroundings of an almost ideal home were given to the young Prince and to those who afterwards came to the family circle, by a mother who, in the midst of many national cares and private anxieties could write to her much-respected friend and uncle—Leopold of Belgium—that "my happiness at home, the love of my husband, his kindness, his advice, his support and his company make up for all and make me forget all."

The Princess Victoria, afterwards for a brief year Empress of Germany, had been born on November 21, 1840; the Prince of Wales was the next child; the Princess Alice, who afterwards married the Grand Duke of Hesse, was born on April 25, 1843; Prince Alfred—Duke of Edinburgh and of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha in later years—followed on August 6, 1844; the Princess Helena came next on May 25, 1846, and afterwards became the wife of Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein; the Princess Louise, who married the Marquess of Lorne and future Duke of Argyll, was born on March 18, 1848; Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, followed on May 1, 1850; Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany, on April 7, 1853; Princess Beatrice, afterwards wife and widow of Prince Henry of Battenberg, was born on April 14, 1857, and completed the Royal family for the time.

The greatest care and attention was given to the youthful Prince. Writing to King Leopold soon after his birth—on December 7, 1841—the Queen had said: "I wonder very much who my little boy will be like. You will understand how fervent are my prayers, and I am sure every one's must be, to see him resemble his father in every respect, both in body and mind." From the earliest period the child grew into his life of ceremony and state, but it was a process carefully graded to suit the development of natural faculties. Nothing appears to have been allowed to unduly burden his gradual growth in experience and knowledge and certainly a more pleasant domestic environment and life could hardly be imagined. At a later period his studies were so varied in character as to excite some slight apprehension in a part of the public mind.

The first public appearance of the Prince was on February 4, 1842, when the Queen was inspecting some troops near Windsor and the babe was held up by his nurse from a window of the Castle so that the crowd could see him. He has been described in many prints and stories as being a very lively infant and child. Lady Lyttelton[1], a sister to Mrs. Gladstone, was in charge of the Royal nursery as a sort of trusted Governess during the first six years of his life and everything was conducted with regularity and care. The Queen personally supervised the arrangements, whether for instruction, pleasure or exercise, though she often had to express in diary or letter her regret at not being able to be as much with her children as she desired. Simplicity was, perhaps, the guiding principle of this early training, though it was combined with a certain amount of familiarity in matters of ceremony and formality. In September, 1843, when the Queen and Prince Consort were in France the Royal children were at Brighton in charge of Lady Lyttelton and the people used to take great delight in waiting for the daily outing of the little Prince and his sister and the presentation of a loyal salute by the raising of hats and the waving of handkerchiefs. The child had been taught to raise his chubby fist to his forehead in reply and a journalist of the time veraciously declares that he did it with "evident enjoyment and infantile dignity." A little later, on December 20th, a party of nine Ojibbeway Indians were presented to the Queen at Windsor Castle and the Chief gravely referred to the toddling Royal infant in his speech as "the very big little White Father whose eyes are like the sky that sees all things and who is fat with goodness like a winter bear."

Another attractive event in these annals of childhood was a visit of Tom Thumb to Buckingham Palace on March 23, 1844. Not long afterwards, on June 5th, the little Prince saw his first Review, on the occasion of the Emperor of Russia's visit, and clapped his hands and shouted at the splendid spectacle. On March 24, 1846, he was given that first and greatest pleasure of all children, a visit to the circus (Astley's). He applauded liberally and when the clown was brought to the Royal box at his request, the little Prince gravely shook hands with him and thanked him "for making me laugh so much." Similar stories might be multiplied in many pages. Every trifling incident of the Royal childhood seems, indeed, to have been treasured by some one. Late in 1846 a visit was made on the Victoria and Albert yacht to the coast of Cornwall and, after the landing, the Royal party went to Penrhyn where the little Prince, as Duke of Cornwall, was formally welcomed by Mayor and Corporation as their feudal lord. In August of the succeeding year he was taken by the Queen and Prince Consort on a tour around the west coast of Scotland and during a visit to Cluny Macpherson's Scottish home, he received one of the first of a multitude of interesting presents—a ring containing a miniature of Prince Charles Stuart. In August 1844, he accompanied his parents on a visit to Ireland, where he met with splendid acclamation from the people and was created Earl of Dublin by the Queen. It has been said that the reception was so enthusiastic as to have left a profound impression on the child's mind.

On October 30, 1849, when nearly eight years old, the Prince of Wales performed his first public function. Accompanied by the little Princess Royal and his father he proceeded in state from Westminister in a Royal barge rowed by watermen. All London turned out to see the youthful royalties—"Puss and the boy" as the Queen called them in her Diary—and Lady Lyttelton in a letter to Mrs. Gladstone has left a charming picture of the pleasure expressed by the little Prince at his reception and at the various quaint customs revived for the occasion. It was at this time that Miss Louisa Alcott, author of Little Women, wrote home that the Prince was "a yellow-haired laddie, very like his mother. Fanny and I nodded and waived as he passed and he openly winked his boyish eye at us, for Fanny with her yellow curls waving looked rather rowdy and the poor little Prince wanted some fun." Two years later, on May 1st, the youthful Heir to the Throne assisted the Queen at the brilliant ceremonies attending the opening of the first and great Exhibition of that year.

EARLY EDUCATION OF THE PRINCE

Meanwhile, the important matter of education had been occupying the attention of the Queen and her husband. After careful inquiry during nearly a year the Rev. Henry Mildred Birch was selected and on April 10, 1844, the Prince Consort wrote, in a private and family letter, that "Bertie will be given over in a few weeks into the hands of a tutor whom we have found in Mr. Birch, a young, good-looking, amiable man who was a tutor at Eton and who not only himself took the highest honours at Cambridge but whose pupils have also won special distinction. It is an important step and God's blessing be upon it, for upon the good education of princes and especially of those who are destined to govern, the welfare of the world in these days very greatly depends." This gentleman acted until 1852 when, upon the advice of Sir James Stephen, the appointment was given to Mr. Frederick W. Gibbs, who retained it for the succeeding six years. In special lines of study such as Art and Music there were various instructors for the young Prince as well as for the rest of the family—the Rev. Charles Tarver being his classical tutor, Sir Edwin Landseer an instructor in the art of painting and Mr. E. H. Corbould his teacher in water-colours.

The descriptions of the Prince of Wales in these childhood days vary greatly; probably in natural accordance with the variable temperament of his age. Lady Lyttelton who, perhaps, knew him best, described him to Mr. Greville in 1852—though that interesting litterateur is not always reliable—as being "extremely shy and timid, with very good principles and, particularly, an exact observer of truth." The description is, however, so much in harmony with his bringing up that it may well be accepted as accurate. These years, however, passed rapidly away in a commingling of instruction, ceremonial and innocent recreation. The Baroness Bunsen in her Memoirs gives a pleasant picture which illustrates the character of the amusements current in the Royal family at their different homes at Windsor, Osborne, or Balmoral. This particular incident was a Masque devised by the children, when Prince "Bertie" was twelve years old, in honour of the anniversary of their parents' marriage. The Prince who represented Winter and was clad in a coat covered with imitation icicles, recited some verses from Thomson's Seasons. Princess Alice was Spring; the Princess Royal, Summer; Prince Alfred, Autumn; while Princess Helena, representing St. Helena, the traditional mother of Constantine and native of Britain, called down Heaven's benediction upon the Royal couple.

About this time the Prince of Wales made his first appearance in the House of Lords, sitting beside the Queen as she received Addresses from Parliament concerning the impending war with Russia. He seems to have taken a keen interest in that conflict and, in March 1855, went with his parents to visit the wounded at Chatham Military Hospital. In August he accompanied the Queen and Prince Consort upon the first visit paid by an English Sovereign to Paris since the days of Henry II. and shared in the splendid reception given by the Emperor Napoleon and the French people. Even here, however, his tutor was with him and idleness or pleasure was not allowed to occupy the field entirely. With the Princess Royal, he was present at a splendid ball given in Versailles—the first since the days of Louis XVI—and they sat down at supper with the Emperor and Empress. The young Prince enjoyed the visit so much and liked his Imperial hosts so well—a liking which he never forgot in later years of sorrow and suffering—that he begged the Empress to get leave for his sister and himself to stay a little longer. The Queen and his father, he explained, had six more children at home and they could, he thought, do without them for a while.

Of course, this was not possible. The Prince Consort, however, was greatly pleased with the way in which the children had behaved and wrote to Baron Stockmar, shortly after, expressing his belief that the Prince had been a general favourite. To the Duchess of Kent he wrote that "the task was no easy one for them but they discharged it without embarrassment and with natural simplicity." From this it is evident that the shyness spoken of by Lady Lyttelton had largely passed away from the manner of the Prince. During this year the latter—now fourteen years old—took an incognito walking tour through the west of England accompanied by Mr. Gibbs and Colonel Cavendish. The next two or three years were spent in a happy life of mixed pursuits in England and Scotland, or in travel abroad, alternating, according to the place and season, between fishing and shooting, ponies and picnics, deer-stalking and juvenile dances, studies, tours and occasional functions. Many pictures of the Royal family in these days of childhood and youth have been preserved from the brushes of Winterhalter, Richmond, Landseer, Saul and others.

LATER EDUCATION OF THE PRINCE

Not the least important of the educative influences of this period were the tours undertaken by the young Prince. In the autumn of 1856, accompanied by those who could best instruct him in the matters witnessed, he visited the great seats of industry in Provincial England including mills, ironworks, coal mines and engineering centres. In April 1857 he enjoyed a tour through the beautiful Lake region and especially appreciated the hill-climbing in Cumberland. During June he accompanied the Queen on a state visit to Manchester and witnessed the first distribution of the Victoria Cross medals in Hyde Park, London. In July the Prince left England for Konigswinter with a short European tour in view for "purposes of study," as the Prince Consort put it in a private letter. With him were General Grey, Colonel (afterwards Sir Henry) Ponsonby, his tutors and Dr. Armstrong. During the tour several young men joined him as companions—the late Mr. W. H. Gladstone; Mr. Charles Wood, now Lord Halifax; Mr. Frederick Stanley, now Earl of Derby and Governor-General of Canada; and the present Earl Cadogan, Viceroy of Ireland. The Prince on this occasion went up the Rhine and through Germany and Switzerland. Upon his return, in October, he attended lectures on science by Dr. Faraday while continuing his regular studies. Early in the succeeding year he attended the marriage of his sister, the Princess Royal, to the Prussian Prince who afterwards became the Emperor Frederick, and parted from the sister "Vicky," to whom he was much attached, with evident sorrow.

On April 1, 1858, when nearly seventeen years of age, the Prince was confirmed in the Chapel Royal at Windsor. Writing of this ceremony, the Prince Consort observed to Baron Stockmar that Lord Derby, Lord Palmerston and Lord John Russell were amongst those who were present and that the event "went off with great solemnity and, I hope, with an abiding impression on his mind." At the examination before the Archbishop of Canterbury and his Royal parents the Prince was described as acquitting himself "extremely well." On the succeeding day he took the Sacrament. Shortly afterwards followed a two weeks walking tour in the south of Ireland in which the Prince was accompanied by Mr. Gibbs, Captain de Ros—afterwards Lieutenant-General Lord de Ros—and Dr. Minter. Succeeding this came a short period of steady study and the formal establishment of the young Prince at White Lodge in Richmond Park, under the tuition of Mr. Gibbs and Mr. Tarver and with three companions carefully selected by his father—Lord Valletort, the present (1902) Earl of Mount Edgecumbe, Major Teesdale V.C. and Major Lindsay V.C. Of the first named the Prince Consort wrote privately that he had been much on the Continent and was "a thoroughly good, moral and accomplished man," who had passed his youth in attendance on his invalid father. He also referred to the manner in which Major Teesdale had distinguished himself at Kars and Major Lindsay at Alma and Inkerman and of the latter said: "He is studious in his habits, lives little with the other young officers, is fond of study and familiar with French and Italian."[2] These considerations are interesting as indicating with what care the companions of the young Prince were selected by his wise father from time to time. Here the Prince had, amongst his elements of instruction, lectures on History from the Rev. Charles Kingsley, the well-known author of Westward Ho and, for ten years following, Professor of History at Cambridge. They were given by special desire of the Queen and must have proved deeply interesting. Canon Kingsley was, during the rest of his life, an object of special liking to the Prince and always an honoured guest at Sandringham and Marlborough.

On November 9, 1859, the Prince of Wales completed his eighteenth year and attained his legal majority. The Queen wrote him a letter which Charles Greville, in his Diary, describes as "one of the most admirable ever penned." On the same day he was appointed a Colonel in the Army and given the Order of the Garter—that most distinguished of all orders of knighthood. At the same time Colonel the Hon. Robert Bruce, brother of the Lord Elgin who had proved so successful a Governor-General of Canada and India, was appointed Governor to the Prince and was described by the Prince Consort as possessing amiability with great mildness of expression and as being "full of ability." He had been Military Secretary to Lord Elgin in Canada and was at this time in command of a battalion in the Grenadier Guards.[3] A month later the Prince started on a Continental tour accompanied by the Rev. Mr. Tarver as his chaplain and director of studies. He stayed some time in Rome, where he visited the Pope, on May 7 reached Gibraltar, and from thence visited the south of Spain and Lisbon. He reached home in the middle of June and took up a serious course of study at Edinburgh, with the late Lord Playfair as his instructor in chemistry, and with other equally distinguished teachers in specific lines or subjects. The public was at this time taking much interest in these studies of the Heir Apparent and fear was expressed that he might, perhaps, be over-educated. Punch expressed this feeling in the following lines:

After three months of Edinburgh training the Prince Consort went down and held a sort of conference with the teachers. He wrote as to the result[4] that they all spoke highly of their pupil, who seemed to have shown zeal and goodwill. "Dr. Lyon Playfair is giving him lectures on chemistry in relation to manufactures and, at the close of each special course, he visits the appropriate manufactory with him so as to explain its practical application. Dr. Schmitz gives him lectures on Roman history. Italian, German and French are advanced at the same time; and three times a week the Prince exercises with the 16th Hussars who are stationed in the city." It was of this period that Sir Wemyss Reid, in his biography of Lord Playfair, tells an amusing story. The Prince and Dr. Playfair were standing near a cauldron containing lead which was boiling at white heat. "Has Your Royal Highness any faith in science," said the Professor and the reply was, "Certainly." The latter then carefully washed the Prince's hand with ammonia and said:

"Will you now place your hand in this boiling metal and ladle out a portion of it?"

"Do you tell me to do this?" asked the Prince.

The answer was in the affirmative and the Prince instantly put his hand into the boiling mass and ladled out some of it without sustaining any injury. Following this period of study at Edinburgh University came the celebration of the Prince's nineteenth birthday and a hunting party in the Highlands. Thence the Prince went to Oxford for a time and was admitted a member of Christ Church College where he joined freely in the social life and sports of the institution. On January 16, 1861, after his return from Canada, he became an under-graduate of Trinity College, Cambridge, and was allowed, by special favour, to live in a neighbouring village with his Governor—Colonel Bruce. Here lectures were again given to the Prince by Canon Kingsley and the young man was kept pretty close to his studies during the winter of that year. In the summer he went on military duty in Ireland and the Queen thus recorded in her Diary a visit paid to him at Curragh on August 26th: "At a little before three we went to Bertie's hut which is, in fact, Sir George Brown's. It is very comfortable—a nice little bedroom, sitting-room, drawing-room, and a good sized dining-room where we lunched, with our whole party. Col. Percy commands the Guards and Bertie is placed specially under him. I spoke to him and thanked him for treating Bertie as he did, just like any other officer, for I know that he keeps him up to his work in a way, as General Bruce told me, that no one else had done; and yet Bertie likes him very much."

DEATH OF THE PRINCE CONSORT

This was the last birthday of the Prince Consort and it was spent travelling to Killarney with the Queen, the Prince of Wales and the younger members of the Royal family. A few days there and then the young Prince returned to camp. In the autumn he visited the Rhine manoeuvres of the German army and met his future bride, the Princess Alexandra. He then returned to Cambridge and from thence journeyed in haste to Windsor on December 13th to be present at his father's death-bed on the following evening. No sadder event has occurred in the history of English royalty than this premature and much-mourned death of the good and really great Prince Consort. To the young Heir Apparent it meant the loss of a loving father, a careful guardian, a watchful and wise adviser. To the wife and widow it meant the ruin of a great happiness and a sorrow which no passing years could ever remove. Sir Theodore Martin's beautiful description of the scene at the death-bed, at which knelt the Queen, the Princess Alice, the Princess Helena and the Prince of Wales, may well be given here: "In the solemn hush of that mournful chamber there was such grief as has rarely hallowed any death-bed. A great light, which had blessed the world, and which the mourners had but yesterday hoped might long bless it, was waning fast away. A husband, a father, a friend, a master, endeared by every quality by which man in such relations can win the love of his fellow-man, was passing into the Silent Land, and his loving glance, his wise counsels, his firm, manly thought should be known among them no more. The Castle clock chimed the third quarter after ten. Calm and peaceful grew the beloved form; the features settled into the beauty of a perfectly serene repose; two or three long, but gentle breaths were drawn; and that great soul had fled to seek a nobler scope for its aspirations in the world within the veil, for which it had often yearned, where there is rest for the weary, and where 'the spirits of the just are made perfect.'"

Not long before his death the Prince Consort had readily agreed to his son's wish for a visit to the Holy Land and had planned the preliminaries of the tour before he was stricken by the disease which carried him off. After that sad event it was felt by the Queen that such a journey would now be doubly wise and proper and she made arrangements for General Bruce to accompany the Prince, together with Major Teesdale, Captain Keppel and a small suite. By special wish of the Prince Consort and at the urgent request of the Queen, the Rev. Dr. Arthur Penrhyn Stanley consented to accompany the Prince. He joined the Royal party at Alexandria on February 28, 1862, and they at once proceeded to Cairo and from thence visited the Pyramids. A little later Palestine was reached and, following in the historic steps of Richard Coeur de Lion and Edward I., another Heir to the British Throne finally reached Jerusalem. The closely-guarded Cave of Macphelah was opened to the Prince of Wales as well as the famous Mosque of Hebron which for nearly seven hundred years had been closed to even Royal visitors. Lake Tiberias, Bethany, Bethlehem, the Groves of Jericho, were visited and some time was spent in tents upon the journey to Damascus. From thence the party traveled to Beyrout, visited Tyre and Sidon, and proceeded to Tripoli. The journey was made by the Prince so as to include Patmos, Ephesus, Smyrna, Constantinople, Athens and Malta. From every place where it was possible the Prince collected flowers which he carefully sent to his sister, the Princess Royal. Of His Royal Highness during this interesting tour Dean Stanley put on record his opinion at the time: "It is impossible not to like him and to be constantly with him brings out his astonishing memory of names and persons.... I am more and more struck by the amiable and endearing qualities of the Prince."