At length, on 1st December, the King recovered consciousness, and his first remark to those about him was, “This is the Princess’s birthday.” The next coherent utterance came when he heard that Queen Victoria had been at Sandringham. “Has the Queen come from Scotland? Does she know I am ill?” he asked; but this slight rally did not continue, and soon all the Royal family were summoned to Sandringham. On 9th December the fever had spent itself, but the patient’s strength was considered to be exhausted. Special prayers were offered up in all churches; and shortly before the service in St. Mary Magdalene’s, Sandringham, the Vicar received the following note from Queen Alexandra:--
“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 not 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 Vicar, before reading the Collect, in a voice trembling with emotion, which he vainly strove to suppress, said: “The prayers of the congregation are earnestly sought for His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales, who is now most seriously ill.”
The day following, an article in the _Times_ began: “The Prince still lives, and we may still therefore hope”; and so the weary days dragged on. On the 16th it was recorded that the patient had enjoyed a quiet and refreshing sleep, and on the 17th, a Sunday, those of the Royal family who were then at Sandringham were present at church, when, by special request, the Prince and Blegge were recommended to the mercy of God in the same prayer. That same day Queen Alexandra visited the poor dying groom, and after his death, which occurred within the next few hours, both she and Queen Victoria found time, in the midst of their terrible anxiety, to visit and comfort his relations.
By Christmas Day the danger may be said to have been over, and on 26th December Queen Victoria wrote the following letter to the nation:--
“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 those 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.…”
