Serious Illness of the Prince

Following his return from foreign travel and the fulfilment of a brief round of public functions and duties came the now historic and really eventful illness of the Prince of Wales. It was a critical period in his career. Boyhood, youth and the first flush of manhood were gone; his marriage had taken place and his family been born into a position of present and future importance; his own training in public duties and experience in foreign travel and observation had been completed up to a very high point of efficiency. The one element which seemed to be a little lacking was that of a full appreciation of his own responsibility to the nation and the Empire. The brilliant light which blazed around the Throne could find no fault in the actual performance of any duty; but the critical eye and caustic pen had been prone for some years to allege an overfondness for pleasure and amusement and the pursuits of social life.

Whether true or false in its not very serious origin this impression had been studiously cultivated in certain quarters at home which had an interest in the theoretical flash-lights of republicanism; and extensively propagated abroad by cabled falsehoods and magnified incidents until actual harm had been done to the reputation and character of the young Prince amongst those who did not know him and could never actually expect to know him except through the journalistic food upon which they were fed.

On the other hand, the English people had hardly learned to appreciate the important place filled by the Prince of Wales in the community, in the daily life of the nation, in the hopes of his future subjects, and deep down in the hearts of the masses. Something was apparently needed to develop those two lines of feeling—one personal and the other national—and this came in the illness which struck down the Prince in the closing months of 1871. During the Autumn he had paid a visit to Lord Londesborough at Scarborough, and, although not feeling well, nothing was supposed to be seriously wrong. From there the Prince had gone to stay with Lord Carington at Gayhurst and thence returned to Sandringham where he became decidedly ill. The Times of November 22nd was compelled to state that His Royal Highness was suffering from "a chill resulting in a febrile attack" which had confined him to his room. On the following day a bulletin signed by Doctors Jenner, Clayton, Gull and Lowe stated that the Prince was suffering from typhoid.

ORIGIN OF THE ILLNESS

Amid the anxiety caused by this announcement every one wondered where the disease had been contracted, and ere long it was known that all the guests of Lord Londesborough at the time of the Royal visit had become more or less indisposed; that the hostess herself was seriously ill; that the Earl of Chesterfield, one of the recent guests, was down with typhoid and, finally that Blegg, the Prince's groom, had caught the same disease. Ultimately both peer and peasant died, and the seriousness of their illness as it developed in the public eye added to the gradually growing excitement over the condition of the Heir-Apparent.

The growth of popular feeling in the matter was evidently deep and serious. Bulletins stating that the symptoms of the fever were severe but regular continued for a time amid ever-increasing manifestations of interest and, as the weeks passed slowly by and the Queen had gone to the bedside of her son and something of the devotion of his wife to the sick Prince became known, this feeling grew in volume. Meanwhile the Princess Alice had also come to lend her brother the sympathetic touch and knowledge of nursing for which she was so well known. For a brief moment on December 1st, the patient roused from his delirium sufficiently to remark that it was the birthday of the Princess, and for a week thereafter the news of improvement in his condition was good. Then came a crisis when the fever had spent itself while the patient had also become worn out. It was impossible to say whether he could live another day. The Royal family were summoned to Sandringham on December 9th, and on the following day (Sunday) prayers were offered up in all the churches of the land and in many other countries, by request of the Archbishop of Canterbury. In the morning, the Vicar at Sandringham Church received a note from the Princess of Wales: "My husband being, thank God, somewhat better, I am coming to church, I must leave, I fear, before the service is concluded that I may watch by his bedside. Can you say a few words in prayer in the early part of the service, that I may join with you in prayer for my husband before I return to him?"

THE CRISIS AND THE RECOVERY

On December 11th the Times stated that "the Prince still lives, and we may, therefore, still hope." During the following days crowds in every town surrounded the bulletins and waited in the streets for the latest newspaper reports; and the Government found it necessary to forward medical statements to every telegraph office in the United Kingdom as they were issued. On the 14th of the month a favourable change seemed apparent, and on the 16th the Prince had a quiet and refreshing sleep. On the following day the Royal family went to church, where, by special request, the Royal patient and his dying groom—Blegg—were prayed for together. The latter died within a few hours, but not before the Princess had found time to visit him and comfort his relations. Slowly, but steadily, from that time on the Prince began to make headway towards recovery, though it was not until Christmas Day that the danger was thought to be past and his Royal mother could express her feeling to the nation in a letter which was made public on December 26th: "The Queen is very anxious to express her deep sense of the touching sympathy of the whole nation on the occasion of the alarming illness of her dear son, the Prince of Wales. The universal feeling shown by her people during these painful, terrible days, and the sympathy evinced by them with herself and her beloved daughter, the Princess of Wales, as well as the general joy at the improvement of the Prince of Wales's state, have made a deep and lasting impression on her heart which can never be effaced."

CELEBRATION OF HIS RECOVERY

The recovery of the Prince took the usual course of the disease and was protracted in character; but on January 14th the last bulletin was issued. The Princess of Wales and the Princess Alice had been his nurses throughout this trying time, and they had never seemed to weary in their devoted care. Nine days after the issue of the last bulletin Dr. William Jenner was gazetted a K.C.B. and Dr. William W. Gull a baronet. There were rumors at this time that the patient had been at one stage actually in extremis, but had been saved by one of those sudden inspirations which sometimes constitute so important a part of medical practice, and which consisted in a vigorous and continuous application of old champagne brandy over the body until returning animation had rewarded the doctor's efforts. The 14th of December, the anniversary of the Prince Consort's death and the day upon which the actual turning point in the disease took place, was commemorated by a brass lectern in the Parish Church of Sandringham, which bears the following inscription:

The good news from Sandringham was received throughout the country with expressions of the most unbounded popular satisfaction; and the announcement that an opportunity would be afforded of returning public thanks to the Almighty for his mercy was universally approved. The day for the National Thanksgiving was finally settled for February 27th, and St. Paul's Cathedral as the place; but before that time came Dr. Stanley—who had now become Dean of Westminster—suggested a private visit to the Abbey and a personal expression of his feelings by the Prince. This was done in absolute privacy, with only the Princess and a few members of the Royal family present. A sermon was preached by the Dean in which, as he told an intimate friend, he was able for once to say what he wished to say.

THE NATION UNITED IN A COMMON SYMPATHY

Many of the papers of the country commented upon the event with much the same freedom as the Dean was able to use on this occasion, and it seemed to be felt that the unbounded solicitude and affection so evidently and profoundly shown for the Prince had given a certain right of counsel to the nation. It was generally admitted that the illness had disclosed to the people as a whole something like an adequate knowledge of their own convictions in connection with the monarchy and concerning its maintenance as a permanent and powerful institution of the realm. Whatever might be the abstract ideas held by individuals in times when Mr. Bradlaugh and Sir Charles Dilke were preaching republicanism and Mr. Chamberlain was suspected of harbouring the same opinions, it had become apparent that the subjects of the Queen in Great Britain were practically a unit in their preference for a constitutional monarchy and in their personal devotion to the Crown and the Royal family. In addition to the event having awakened the nation to the strength of its own sentiment in this regard, it was also believed that an important influence would be found to have been exerted upon the Prince of Wales—a steadying sense of responsibility resulting from holding such a place as he did in the hearts of his countrymen.

THE PUBLIC THANKSGIVING OF THE NATION

The Illustrated London News well embodied this thought in the following comment: "Doubtless what has occurred during the last few weeks has also a meaning for the Heir Apparent to the Throne. No man of the slightest sensibility can witness the emotional effusion of a great nation towards himself without being deeply impressed with the responsibilities of his position. The Prince comes back to the British people from the brink of the tomb, and they who most pathetically lamented his danger hail his return to health with devout thanksgivings and acclamations of joy. Can there be a more powerful incentive to that course of future action which will commend him to their approbation and their love? That he will recognize and respond to it, we cannot allow ourselves to doubt." One of the interesting incidents of the illness was the fact that when the announcement was made that His Royal Highness might only survive a few hours his obituary was, of course, prepared and put in type in all the leading newspaper offices in the land to an extent varying from the pages of a metropolitan daily down to the half dozen columns of the Provincial press. Proofs of the obituaries were, it is understood, afterwards collected and sent to the Prince, who had them pasted into an immense scrap-book at Marlborough House.

The Thanksgiving Day celebration commenced on February 27th at 12 o'clock, when Her Majesty the Queen, accompanied by the Prince and Princess of Wales and the Princess Beatrice and Prince Albert Victor of Wales, drove through the gates of Buckingham Palace. There were nine Royal carriages in the procession, containing a number of ladies and gentlemen of the Court, and the Duke of Edinburgh, Prince Arthur, Prince Leopold and Prince George of Wales. With the latter was the Marquess of Aylesbury, Master of the Horse; Mr. Brand, Speaker of the House of Commons; Lord Hatherley, the Lord Chancellor. H. R. H. the Duke of Cambridge, Commander-in-Chief, headed the procession as it passed slowly through Pall Mall, Charing Cross, the Strand, Fleet Street and Ludgate Hill to St. Paul's Cathedral. The streets were lined with dense masses of people, while every shop-window, doorstep, portico and available roof were black with cheering throngs. Decorations there were of every sort and range—squalid or simple or splendid—but all representing pleasure and loyalty. Along Fleet Street and the Strand they took the form of an actual canopy of banners, standards, streamers and strings of flowers. Venetian masts, flying pennons, countless trophies and miniature shields, with varied mottoes and many kinds of loyal wishes, were seen all along the route. A band of school children numbering 30,000 sang the National Anthem in Green Park, while soldiers lined the roadway from the Palace to the Cathedral. Hearty and enthusiastic cheers greeted the Royal party, and the Queen and Princess were described as looking bright and happy, and the Prince as being pale, but not thin. The Queen wore a black velvet dress trimmed with white ermine, the Princess of Wales was in blue silk covered with black lace, and the Prince was in the uniform of a British General and wearing the orders of the Garter and the Bath.

At Temple Bar the Queen was formally received by the Lord Mayor and Sheriffs of London, and the city sword handed to Her Majesty and returned in the usual way. At one o'clock the Royal party arrived at the Cathedral and passed up a covered way of crimson cloth to the steps, where they were received by the Bishop of London, the Dean and Chapter of St. Paul's and the officers of Her Majesty's Household. The vast interior of the building had been arranged to accommodate 13,000 persons, and was crowded to the doors. Space under the dome was reserved for the Queen, the Royal family, the House of Lords, the House of Commons, the Corps Diplomatique and the distinguished foreigners, the Judges and the dignitaries of the law, the Lords Lieutenant and Sheriffs of Counties, the representatives of universities and other learned bodies. The choir was reserved for the Clergy, and the place assigned to Her Majesty and their Royal Highnesses was slightly raised, made into a kind of pew and covered with crimson cloth.

The Royal procession as it moved up the aisle included, besides the members of the Royal family, such well known officials and members of the Court as Major-General Lord Alfred Paget, Lieutenant-General Sir John Cowell, Colonel H. F. Ponsonby, Major-General Sir T. M. Biddulph, General Sir William Knollys, Rear-Admiral Lord Frederick Kerr, the (late) Lord Methuen, General Lord Strathnairn, the Marquess of Aylesbury, the Viscount Sydney, the Countess of Gainsborough, the Lady Churchill, Lady Caroline Barrington, the Hon. Mrs. Grey, the Countess of Morton and Lord Harris. Most of the great names and great personages of England were present at this function. There were 200 Peers and Peeresses; the Archbishops of Canterbury and York and fourteen Bishops; nearly every member of the House of Commons. Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone were there as were Mr. Disraeli and Viscountess Beaconsfield. Lord Northbrook, Mr. W. E. Forster, Mr. Cardwell, Mr. Chichester Fortescue, Mr. Goschen, and Lord Granville were visible. Throngs of ladies, brilliant in blue and mauve and crimson satin and gems were present, and, as the sun suddenly shone through what had been sullen clouds, the spectacle within those parts of the Cathedral touched by the stream of light was beautiful indeed. It shone upon the bright blue of many dresses—the Royal colour of the day—mixed up in a confusion of effective shadings with the dark blue and burnished gold of the uniforms, the scarlet and white plumes of the officers, the gorgeous robes of the Peers, the white lawn of the Bishops.

After walking up the aisle on the arm of the Prince of Wales, with the Princess on the other side, Her Majesty took her place in the special pew with the chief members of the Royal family on either side. After a brief special service of thanksgiving the Archbishop of Canterbury preached the sermon for the occasion in words of tact and eloquence from which one quotation may be made: "Just as in one of our own homes when death threatens, the whole history of the loved object we fear to lose comes back in the hours of waiting, so England was stirred by a hundred touching memories when danger threatened the Royal house. And God doubtless thus touched our hearts to deepen our loyalty and make us better prize the thousand good things secured in a well-ordered State by love to the head of the State." At the conclusion of the sermon a Thanksgiving Hymn was sung and the benediction given. The following was the concluding verse:

The Royal party then proceeded in due state to their carriages and the procession returned through the streets of the city to Buckingham Palace over the Holborn Viaduct, along Holborn and Oxford street to the Marble Arch, via Hyde Park to Piccadilly, and thence down Constitution Hill. Enthusiastic cheering was heard all along the route and decorations were seen everywhere in the greatest abundance. In the evening London was brilliant with light. The dome of St. Paul's Cathedral, the Mansion House, and the two large triumphal arches were particularly bright and beautiful in their varied colours and illuminations. The Lord Mayor and Lady Mayoress entertained the Lord Mayor of Dublin and the Provincial Mayors to a banquet at the Mansion House and, all over the United Kingdom, celebrations of a popular or religious character, holiday gatherings, crowded meetings and illuminations, marked the day and the pleasure of the people. Addresses poured in by hundreds and rejoicings were not confined to the Island portion of the Empire. An incident of this celebration was the collection of a Thanksgiving Fund for the completion of St. Paul's Cathedral. To it the Queen gave £1000 and the Prince of Wales £500. Another feature of the event was the splendid behaviour of the millions of people who lined the seven-mile route of the procession and paid loyal tribute to their Queen and to the son who was heir to all the traditions of his race and the greatness of the Royal name. On February 29th Her Majesty wrote to Mr. Gladstone a message intended for the nation:

Perhaps the most beautiful and effective presentations of popular feeling and hopes in connection with this now historic sickness of the Heir Apparent were the sermons preached by Dean Stanley. No one has ever been closer in friendship and in personal knowledge to the Prince of Wales than had this eloquent and saintly ecclesiastic. No one has been more admired and respected in the Church of England in modern days than he; nor has any of its clergy possessed a wider view or more generous heart. Speaking in Westminster Abbey on December 10th, 1871, when the nation was awaiting in deep anxiety the issue of a struggle which seemed to be almost fatally and surely decided, he embodied the popular feeling in beautiful and appropriate words: "On a day like this when there is one topic in every household, one question on every lip, it is impossible to stand in this place and not endeavour to give some expression to that of which every heart is full. We all press, as it were, round one darkened chamber, we all feel that with the mourning family, mother, wife, brothers, sisters, who are there assembled, we are indeed one. The thrill of their fears or hopes passes through and through the differences of rank and station; we feel that, while they represent the whole people they also represent and are that which each family and each member of each family, is separately. In the fierce battle between life and death, for the issues of which we are all looking with such eager expectation, we see the likeness of what will befall every individual soul amongst us; and the reflection which this struggle, with all its manifold uncertainties suggests, concerns us all alike."

The sermon which followed was a skillful presentation of thoughts suggested by the text, "To live is Christ and to die is gain." It concluded with an earnest hope that the Royal life which might so greatly influence the national destinies might still be preserved—"a life which, if duly appreciated and fitly used, contains within it special opportunities for good such as no other existence in this great community possesses; a life which may, if worthily employed, stimulate all that is noble and beneficent and discourage all that is low and base and frivolous." In these and other words he concluded a sermon which could not but have had its influence in after days upon the life and character of the Prince who so greatly respected and regarded the preacher. A week later the cloud had lifted from Sandringham and the life which had been so much prayed for in so many lands was slowly passing into the region of safety and strength. It gave the opportunity to Dean Stanley to speak again at the historic Abbey in a strain of instruction and to draw a national moral from the events of the past few months. He referred to the spontaneous outburst of every class and every party which had, to his mind, proved the permanent supremacy of the British Crown in a Christian State. "There are nations and there have been times in which the devotion to the reigning family has been a thing separate and apart from the love of country. There have been times and places when the love of country has existed with no loyal feeling to the reigning family. Let us thank God that in England it is not so. Loyalty with us is the personal, romantic side of patriotism. Patriotism with us is the Christian, philosophic side of loyalty. Long may the two flourish together, each supporting and sustaining the other."

On the Sunday following the Thanksgiving Service at St. Paul's—March 3rd—the Dean preached for the last time upon this subject in Westminster Abbey. After stirring references to the wonderful scene of national enthusiasm lately witnessed and to the gathering in St. Paul's Cathedral of representatives of every creed and religious division in Great Britain (except those of one exclusive body) to offer thanksgivings in "the venerable forms of the National Church" he expressed his belief that the demonstration as a whole was "the response in every English heart to the sense of union—too subtle for analysis yet true and simple as the primitive instincts of our race—which binds the people of England to their Monarchy and the Monarchy to the people." He dealt with the functions and character of that institution in most striking words. "No other existing throne in Europe reaches back to the same antiquity, none other combines with such an undivided charm the associations of the past with the interests of the present. It is the one name and place which, being beyond the reach of personal ambition, beyond the need of private gain, has the inestimable chance of guiding, moulding, elevating the tastes, the customs, the morals of the whole community. It is the one name and place which, being raised high above all party struggles, all local jealousies, over all classes, ecclesiastical as well as civil, is the supreme controlling spring which binds together in their widest meaning all the forces of the State and all the forces of the Church. It is the one institution which by very nature of its existence unites the abstract idea of country and of duty with the personal endearments of family life, of domestic love, of individual character."

It was the greatness of this national possession—one which had steadied national progress and promoted peace in the midst of tumults and freedom in the midst of disorder—which had, Dean Stanley thought, helped to make the people pray that its destined heir should be worthy of his noble inheritance. And then the speaker pointedly and clearly pictured the increased and increasing responsibilities of the Prince of Wales upon whom, henceforth, "as by a new consecration and confirmation, devolves the glorious task of devoting to his country's service that life which is in a special sense no longer his but ours, for which his country's prayers, his country's thanksgivings, have been so earnestly offered." The sermon concluded with a description of these great responsibilities; an appeal to the Prince to begin life afresh and to take the lead in all that was true and holy, just and good; a warning that "of him to whom much has been given, much shall be required;" a picture of a Christian England fighting evil in every form and in every place and growing greater in all the elements of higher national and individual life.