ing above two or three minutes. The Duke of Cambridge came into the small library where I was standing and wished me joy."*

The Queen always wore a bracelet with the Prince's picture, and "it seemed," she adds in her Journal, "to give me courage at the Council." She returned the same evening, with the Duchess of Kent, to Windsor.

The declaration made by the Queen is thus recorded in the Gazette, Nov. 23d, 1839:

"I have caused you to be summoned at the present time in order that I may acquaint you with my resolution in a matter which deeply concerns the welfare of my people, and the happiness of my future life.

"It is my intention to ally myself in marriage with the Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. Deeply impressed with the solemnity of the engagement which I am about to contract, I have not come to this decision without mature consideration, nor without feeling a strong assurance that, with the blessing of Almighty God, it will at once secure my domestic felicity, and serve the interests of my country.

"I have thought fit to make this resolution known to you at the earliest period, in order that you may be apprised of a matter so highly important to me and to my kingdom, and which, I persuade myself, will be most acceptable to all my loving subjects."

"Whereupon," it is stated in the Minutes of Council, "all the Privy Councilors present made it their humble request to her Majesty that her Majesty's most gracious * The Queen's Journal, November 23, 1839.

declaration to them might be made public, which her Majesty was pleased to order accordingly.

"C. C. GREVILLE."

Of the eighty-three members of the Privy Council present on the occasion, including the illustrious names of the Duke of Wellington, Lord Lansdowne, Sir Robert Peel, etc., etc., upward of sixty are now dead. But they are gone, for the most part, full of years and honorstheir mission on earth fulfilled. Alas! that he, to hear the announcement of whose selection as her husband by their Queen they were now met, should also have gone from us-gone in the full vigor of his age, ere more than half his race was run-the goal scarce yet in sight—his work of good-thus far how nobly performed-still incomplete!*

The settlement of this marriage was not a source of joy to the members of the Queen's family alone, and especially to her mother the Duchess of Kent, who was much attached to her nephews; its announcement was received with great rejoicing throughout the country, and congratulations flowed in from all sides. People not only indulged in the most loyal and heartfelt wishes for the happiness of their beloved sovereign, they also hailed with satisfaction the prospect of a final separation between England and Hanover-the union with which, no less than the monarch who now occupied the Hanoverian throne (and who, failing the Queen, would have ascended that of England), was in the highest degree unpopular.

*See Appendix D. for the list of Members of Privy Council present at the declaration. Those marked with an asterisk are since dead.

After the Prince returned to Germany, the Queen corresponded constantly with him, and says, in the memorandum already so largely quoted, "that the letters she then received from the Prince are the greatest treasures now in her possession. During this time," she adds, "precedents were searched for to see what the Prince's household should consist of; and, unfortunately, the one commonly referred to was that of Prince George of Denmark, the very stupid and insignificant husband of Queen Anne. He was a peer, and also for some time Lord High Admiral of England, but seems never to have played any thing but a very subordinate part."*

What a noble contrast to the acceptance of these of fices by Prince George of Denmark is afforded by the refusal of our Prince to accept the command of the army when pressed upon him many years afterward by no less a man than the great Duke of Wellington! It has already been mentioned that he had determined, even before his marriage, to accept no English title that should be offered to him. He was known only as Prince Albert till very many years later, when, a more correct estimate being formed of his position, and it becoming more generally understood how completely he was identified with every act of the Queen's, it was thought advisable that he should assume the title of Prince Consort.

But while in England the news of the Queen's intended marriage was received with universal satisfaction, and her choice of a husband met with very general approval, far different was the feeling in the Prince's own country. In Coburg and in Gotha, in both of which duchies he *Memorandum by the Queen.

was equally beloved, but one voice of lamentation was raised for his loss!

Yet what was the sorrow of the people of the duchies, deep and general as it might be, to that of the grandmother left behind at Gotha?

She could be under no delusion on the subject; she felt that the coming separation from her beloved grandson, if not absolutely final, must be complete and lasting. And what consideration of earthly grandeur or high position could reconcile her to the thought? In a letter to the Duke of Coburg, written on the 12th of December, 1839, the duchess gives the following affecting expression to her feelings:

"Gotha, December 12, 1839.

"MY DEAR DUKE,—I received your letter of the 8th the day before yesterday, and thank you much for it. I was also pleased to hear from Wangenheim, who brought me, in your name, the programme of last Sunday's festivities, and also from Von Stein, that you are very well and happy.

"I am very much upset. The brilliant destiny awaiting our Albert can not reconcile me to the thought that his country will lose him forever; and, for myself, I lose my greatest happiness. But I think not of myself. The few years I may yet have to live will soon have passed away. May God protect dear Albert, and keep him in the same heavenly frame of mind! I hope the Queen will appreciate him. I have been much pleased that she has shown herself so kind toward me, especially as I am sure I owe it all to the affection of my Albert. And yet I can not rejoice. May God spare our Ernest, at least,

who will now be our only joy, and the only hope of the country!

"To celebrate the betrothal of dear Albert, I held a reception last Sunday afternoon, in the course of which I showed the lovely portrait of the Queen to the whole assembly. Every body was much moved, for Albert is certainly much beloved both here and in Coburg. I was sorry to hear that he was unwell on Monday, but he was very considerate in making Florschütz write to me the next day to say that he was nearly well again. Thank God for it."

On the 8th of December the official declaration of the intended marriage between the Queen of England and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg was made in the most sol emn and formal manner at Coburg.*

Writing to the Queen two days after the ceremony, the Prince thus alludes to what then took place: "The day before yesterday the great ceremony of the Declaration took place, which was really very splendid, and went off well. . . . . The day affected me much, as so many emotions filled my heart! Your health was drunk at dinner, where three hundred persons were present, with a universal cheer.

"The joy of the people was so great that they went on firing in the streets with guns and pistols during the whole night, so that one might have imagined that a battle was taking place.

* A copy of the official notice of the ceremonial to be observed in making the Declaration, and of the Declaration itself, will be found in Appendix E.