THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXIX, Issue 5, 31 January 1901, Page 2

THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN.

♦ THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS OF HER REIGN.

Victoria Alexanbbina, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland and Empress of India, who was born at Kensington Palace, London, on May 24, 1819, died at Osborne, Isle of Wight, on January 22, 1901, in the eighty-second year of her age, and the sixty-fourth of her reign, In May 1818 the Duke of Kent, fourth son of George 111., married the Princess of Leiningen, sister of Prince Leopold of SaxeCoburg and Gotha. She was a widow with two ohildren, and of this marriage was born on the 24th of May of the following year Alexandrina Victoria, the first name being given in gratitude for some act of kindness to the Duke of Kent from the Czar Alexander of Russia. She alone of a number of Royal children born in that year was English by actual birth. The prospectß of Alexandrina Victoria coming to the throne of England appeared at first some* what remote, as George IV. might marry again on the death of his unacknowledged Queen, whom he hated, and as a matter of fact several children were born to the Duke of Clarence — afterwards William IV.— after the birth of the Princess Victoria. The Duke . of Kent died when his child was only eight months old, but the education of the future Queen of England was attended to with the utmost care by her mother. THE ACCESSION. William IV. died in the night, and at five in the morning of Jane 20, 18:57. the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Lord Chamberlain, and the Royal physician drove up to Buckingham Palace, and bad Home difficulty in making themHelven heard by the sleeping household. In a few minutes the young Queen came in her dress* ing-gown, and at the words ' Your Majesty ' she held out her hand to be kissed. By nine o'clock she was ready for her first Privy Council, where she sat to receive the homage of the Ministers, of whom Viscount Melbourne was Premier. Afterwards ehe went to St James's Palace to show herself at the window while proclamation of her accession was made by the heralds. ' There was no acclamation,' writes Charlotte M. Yonge, ' loyalty had been a good deal trifled away by the two latter kings, and she had to win it back again.' Her first object was that the debts her father had left should be paid, and for this she avoided all unnecessary expense or display. Her Majesty opened Parliament in person, and Napoleon 111., who was then passing through London as an unknown personage, said that no sight had ever more impressed him than that of the youthful maiden on the throne, reading her speech in a sweet clear voice. THE CORONATION. The coronation took place on June 28, 1838, when it was decided that instead of a banquet in Westminster flail, whioh would only gratify a few, there should be a grand procession from Buckingham Palace to Westminster Abbey. It was said that half a million of people came in from the oountry to Bee the pageant and Misi Youge describes the ceremony as follows : — ' Three swords were borne before her, the emblems of justice, of defence, and the blunted Cur tana, the sword of mercy, betokening that the sovereign alone can pardon a convicted criminal. Her train was borne by the eight fairest girls to be found among the daughters of the dukes and marquises, all in cloth of gold, with roses in their hair. It is said that the service used was that drawn up by St. Duns tan about the year 979, and with some modifications has been used ever Binoe. After the anointing she took her seat on the throne, or rather St. Edward's Chair, bo named from Edward the Confessor. Beneath the seat lies a rough stone, called the Lia Fail, or Stone of Destiny. Tradition declares that it wa* once Jacob's pillow at Bethel, whence it was brought to Cashel, where the kings of Munster sat on it to be crowned, in 513 King Fergus having conquered part of Sootland carried it thither, and the Scottish kings took their seat on it 1296, when Edward 1., thinking he had annexed Scotland, transferred it to Westminster, and placed it where it has ever sinoa remained. Here the Queen received the ring betrothing her to her people, the orb of Empire — a small globe surmounted by a cross— and the sceptre of rule.' 1840 to 1861. The next important event in the life of the late Queen was her marriage to her cousin on February 6, 1840. The Prince Consort was three months junior to her Majesty, and had been carefully

educated, having been selected by the family whilst yet a youth as the husband of the Queen. Although in after years when the people came to know him better the Prince Consort became i popular.still for a long time he was considered proud, stiff, and 'oold. In the June following the marriage an attack was made on the Queen's life by an insane pot-boy named Oxford, who was soon after placed in a lnnatio asylum. On the 21st of November, 1840 was born the Queen's first child, Princess Victoria, and on the 9th of November of the following year was born the Prince of Wales now King Edward VII. In the summer of 1852 two attempts were made on her Majesty's life — in the first instance by a man named Francis, and in the latter by a hunchback named Bean. Since the Queen's aooession the Empire had enjoyed a time of comparative peace, and consequently it was a great shock to the nation when, early in 1842, tidings were brought from India of the utter destruction of a British force in the Khyber Pass, in the mountains of Afghanistan. This was very soon followed by the Sikh war, which resulted in the Punjaub being placed under British protection. In the summer of 1845 were noticed the first symptoms of the potato blight, and although it affected the crop in the whole of the United Kingdom, still it was only in Ireland its effects were most severely felt, the tuber being the chief article of food with the bulk of the people. Our readers are only too well aware of the fearful results of the failure of the potato orop in Ireland : whole districts were depopulated by hunger, disease, and emigration. In 1851 was opened the first of those great international exhibitions which help to bring together the people of various oountries in friendly rivalry. For the housing of the produce of the art and industry of the oivilised world the Crystal Palace, a huge building constructed of glass and iron, was erected. The opening ceremony was witnessed by over 700,000 persons. In the following year the Duke of Wellington passed away, to the keen grief of the Queen. Scarcely had the grave closed over the great soldier before there were signs of a European war. In 1852 Louis Napoleon was eleoted Emperor of France, and soon after allied himself with England for the protection of Turkey against Russia, the outcome of which was the Crimean war. A few years later was instituted the Victoria Cross as a badge of honor for deeds of valor and self-sacri-fioe in face of the enemy. The first distribution was made by the Queen's own hands in Hyde Park in June, 1857. Shortly after word reached England of the beginning of the mutiny in India, which looked at one time as if it would result in the overthrow of British rule in that land. It is not necessary to go into the dreadful details of those times, suffice to say that order was eventually restored during the following year, and the East India Company severed its connection with the country. WIDOWHOOD. In December, 1861, the Prince Consort died, to the inexpressible grief of her Majesty and the nation. On the lOth of March 1 , 18(13 the Prince of Wales, now King Edward VII., was married to the Princess Alexandra of Denmark. The years that followed were uneventful. In 1868 the Liberals came into power and one of the first acts was the disestablishment and disendowment of the Protestant Church in Ireland. On the Ist of January, 1876, the Queen was proclaimed Empress of India, and about the same time the Transvaal — which was destined to cause so much anxiety to her Majesty in the closing days of her reign — was annexed. During those days the Queen was not without her domestic trouble*, for illness and death visit royal households in aa unceremonious a manner as they do those of the meanest subjects. In June, 1887, her Majesty celebrated the jubilee of her acoession, and the event was taken advantage of by her subjects in all parts of the world to show their loyalty and love for one who had been a model as a ruler and a woman. VARIA. The late Queen occupied the throne for 64 years, reigning longer than any previous English sovereign, and only exceeded in length of life by George 111. Tne Victorian era will be remembered as a period of great progress in the arts and sciences. As an illustration it might be mentioned that the news of the death of George 111. took four months to *ea°h Sydney, whilst the demise of the Queen was known in the New South Wales capital in as many hours after the sad event took place. The Parliament which assembled in December at Westminster was the fifteenth of Queen Victoria's reign. This established a peat record in the annals of Parliamentary history, for since the •JS. 6 *^ Henry VIII -> wn «n Parliaments of more than one session lrst began to be usual, the greatest number ever summoned by one sovereign was 12, by George 111., in his reign of nearly 60 years. The only two other reigns of any long duration during the ■ame period are Queen Elizabeth's and George ll.'s. During the former 10 were called and dissolved, and during the latter only During her Majesty's lifetime, it might be said that she had won the entire world transformed. In 1838, the year after she came to the throne, the first steamboat whioh ever crossed the Atlantic or any other ocean started from Savannah to Liverpool, making the voyage in 26 days. The same distance is now made in less that six. She wm mx years of age when the first railway train in the world ■carted Co oarry passengers. She was eighteen years of age, and nad iuit ascended the throne, when the Morse system of telegraphy was first patented. Thirty-nine years of her life had passed when the first oable was laid under the Atlantic. Fifty-six years of it expired before the first telephone went into practical operation. At the time of her birth the tramp of Bonaparte's armies had just ceased to shake the world, and Bonaparte himself was a prisonee on a British island in the South Atlantic. She has seen nearly every

throne in Europe vacated many time*. She has ae«n her own country transformed politically from an oligarchy, in which only one out of 50 of the population was permitted to vote, into a democraoy in which the voters numbered one out of six of the inhabitants. „ _ A V"|»tratinic her wonderful long reign her Majesty had seen 11 Lord Chancellors, 10 Prime Ministers, six Speakers of the House of Commona, at least three Bishops of every See, and five or six of many Sees, five Archbishops of Canterbury and sir Archbishops of York, and five Commanders-in-Chief. She had Been five Dukes of Isorfolk succeed each other as Earl Marshal, and had outlived every duke and duchess and every marquis and marchioness who bore that rank in 1837. She outlived every member of the Jockey Club and every Master of the Hounds who flourished in 1837. She had seen 17 Presidents of the United States, 10 Viceroys of Canada, 15 Viceroys of India, and France successively ruled by one King, one Emperor, and seven Presidents of a Republic It is strange to note how the dynasties which have reigned over England have gradually improved in length of life. The average age of the Norman Kings was 57. That of the Plantagenets wag only 46, not one King of the Houses of Lancaster or York attaining the age of 50. The Tudor Sovereigns averaged 48 years, Queen Elizabeth being the first ruler of England to live into her seventieth year, and having no equal in this respeot for a century and a half, when George 11. surpassed her. The Stuarts averaged 52 years, in spite of the premature taking-off of Charles I. The five predecessors of her Majesty of the Hanoverian line lived to the vastly increased average of 73 years. An appreciation of her late Majesty's personal character and worth appears in our leading columns this week.