[Illustration: MARRIAGE OF THE PRINCESS ALICE.]
“Sunday: the whole household, Queen and Royal Family, were assembled at 10.15. A temporary pulpit was erected. I began with a short prayer, then read Job xxiii., Psalm xlii., beginning and end of John xiv., and end of Revelation vii. After the Lord’s Prayer I expounded Hebrews xii. 1-12, and concluded with prayer. The whole Service was less than an hour. I then, at 12, preached at Crathie[141] on ‘All things are ours.’ In the evening at Crathie on ‘Awake, thou that sleepest.’ The household attended both Services.”
“On Monday I had another long interview with the Queen. She was much more like her old self--cheerful--and full of talk about persons and things. She, of course, spoke of the Prince. She said that he always believed he was to die soon, and that he often told her that he had never any fear of death. I also saw the Princesses Alice and Helen--each by herself. No words of mine can express the deep sympathy I have for all these mourners.... The more I hear about the Prince Consort, the more I agree with what the Queen said to me about him on Monday, ‘that he really did not seem to comprehend a selfish character or what selfishness was.’”[142]
[Illustration: PRINCE LOUIS OF HESSE-DARMSTADT.]
After her father’s death, the Princess Alice was so deeply affected by her mother’s grief and her own bereavement, that for a time Prince Louis of Hesse thought she would not hold to her engagement with him. However, this fear soon passed away, and it was duly announced that the Princess would be married on the 1st of July. The ceremony took place in private at Osborne, and was performed by the Archbishop of York, in the absence of the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was suffering from a severe illness. The Queen attended in deep mourning, but her agitation was so great that, when the service was ended, she had to be led away to her room. The Crown Prince of Prussia, all the bride’s brothers and sisters, the parents, brothers, and sisters of the bridegroom, and many other near and dear relatives, were present. The Duke of Saxe-Coburg-and-Gotha gave the Princess, his niece, away at the altar, and the married couple, after the ceremony was over, drove off quietly to St. Clare, near Ryde, which Colonel and Lady Catherine Harcourt had placed at their disposal. There they remained three days. On the 9th of July they left for Hesse-Darmstadt, accompanied by the kindliest wishes of all classes in the country, who had watched with sympathy and interest the affectionate solicitude with which the Princess had solaced the Queen under the first shock of her bereavement.