The Empress Frederick: a memoir. AnonymousЧитать онлайн книгу.
earth. In her warm heart there was no room for hatred or for contempt of others, and she was equally incapable of shrugging her shoulders at the foibles and follies of poor humanity.
This eagerness to be up and doing was, however, combined, as has been often seen in the history of mankind, with a touching faith in the power of logic and reason. It was not exactly that the Empress held too high an opinion of human nature, but she undoubtedly showed too little appreciation of human stupidity and, we must add, of human malice. She had been brought up with kindly, honourable, well-bred, and, on the whole, very intelligent people, and when she came into rough collision with less agreeable qualities of human nature, she suffered intensely. But she was not soured as a less noble nature might have been; on the contrary, she continued to the end of her life always to believe the best of people, always to assume that they are actuated by good motives, as well as by reason and common-sense. She seems to have missed the key to the oddities and the vagaries, as well as to the baser qualities of human nature, and therein lies, perhaps, the secret of the tragedy of her life.
That tragedy, as we know, was greatly enhanced by the singular blows of fate. Her rank had, strangely enough, given her a marriage of love and affection more real and more lasting than often falls to the lot of private persons. But the husband whom she adored, as well as two idolized children, were taken from her.
It was her fate also to be constantly misunderstood; to see the purity of her motives doubted and her most innocent actions misconstrued. Owing partly to the circumstances of her time, partly to her own generous and warm-hearted but imprudent impulsiveness, she failed to win the affection of her adopted country as a whole, though she certainly earned its respect and esteem. This was not the least bitter trial of her life, for she was one of those natures who have a craving for affection and understanding sympathy; and the criticism and even the hostility with which she was regarded in Germany were all the more painful to her in that she could not in the least understand on what they were based.
Perhaps she was too deeply convinced of the superiority of England and of English institutions, and made too little allowance for the sensitiveness of a people who were then slowly emerging into a national in place of a particularist consciousness. At the same time it is certain that, however she had comported herself, she could not have escaped criticism of which she was no more than the ostensible object, and the real purpose of which is to be found in the political cross-currents of the period.
In this memoir the attempt is made to draw a true picture of this singularly engaging and generous personality, who played her part in great affairs, and who suffered all reversals of fortune, the anguish of bereavement, and the pain of cruel disease, alike with unflinching courage and dignity.
The materials have been found, not only in many works of history, biography, memoir and reminiscence, both German and English, some of which are little known, especially to English readers, but also in the recollection of persons who were honoured with the Empress’s friendship. The aim of the writer has been, while avoiding such indiscriminate laudation as really degrades the subject of it, to draw a full-length portrait of one of the noblest and most attractive characters in the long history of the Royal Houses of Europe.
ILLUSTRATIONS
| The Empress Frederick (Photogravure) | Frontispiece |
| FACING PAGE | |
| The Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal | 18 |
| The Princess Royal, Victoria Adelaide Mary Louisa | 54 |
| Her Royal Highness Victoria, Princess Royal | 98 |
| His Royal Highness, Prince Frederick William of Prussia | 138 |
| Her Royal Highness, Princess Frederick William of Prussia | 180 |
| Her Royal Highness, Princess Frederick William of Prussia and Infant Prince Frederick William Victor Albert | 218 |
| Frederick William, Crown Prince of Prussia, after the Franco-Prussian War | 258 |
| The Late Empress Frederick | 302 |
| The Late Empress Frederick | 342 |
THE EMPRESS FREDERICK
CHAPTER I
CHILDHOOD AND GIRLHOOD
BEFORE the birth of the Princess Royal in November 1840, no direct heir had been born to a reigning British Sovereign for nearly eighty years. The Prince Regent, afterwards George IV, was born in 1762, two years after his father’s accession, and the death in childbirth of the Prince Regent’s daughter, Princess Charlotte, when she was only twenty, was still vividly remembered.
Queen Victoria was now but little older than Princess Charlotte, and the birth of her first child was regarded with a certain anxiety by the nation. It might prove to be the only child, and in that event much would hang on the preservation of its life. Those members of the “Old Royal Family” who were next in succession were not popular, and the little Princess Royal may truly be described as having been the child of many prayers.
It was natural that Queen Victoria should have recourse to Prince Albert’s confidential adviser, Baron Stockmar, the more so that he was a skilled physician. Stockmar therefore came to London early in November. Those were not the days of trained nurses, but rather of the types immortalised by Dickens, and it is interesting to find the shrewd old German, characteristically in advance of his time, urging the Prince to be most careful in the choice of a nurse, “for a man’s education begins the first day of his life, and a lucky choice I regard as the greatest and finest gift we can bestow on the expected stranger.”
On November 13 the Court arrived at Buckingham Palace, where on the 21st the Princess was born. “For a moment only,” the Queen says, “was the Prince disappointed at its being a daughter and not a son.”
The character of the monarchy in England has changed so much, both absolutely and also relatively to the people, that it is difficult for us to realise the measure of prejudice and even contempt which still subsisted before Queen Victoria had had time to win the full confidence of her subjects. It is not therefore really surprising that the little Princess Royal should have been greeted on her first appearance with