There was all the brilliancy and gorgeousness that can be imagined, for it was the wedding of the heir to the British crown. There were heralds, drummers, and trumpeters, all in quaint and handsome costumes. The gleam of gold, the flash of diamonds, and the burning glow of rubies made the Chapel a wilderness of color and brightness. Very slowly the beautiful Princess and her bridesmaids moved up the long aisle to the altar, too slowly for the comfort of Prince Arthur and his brother Leopold in their Highland dress, for the small German nephew had been put under their care, and the naughty little Frederick William Victor Albert bit their bare legs whenever they told him to be quiet.
The whole floor of the Chapel was radiant with beauty and aglow with happiness, but in the "Closet," up above the heads of the joyous throng, stood the Queen of England in the deepest mourning, glad in the gladness of her eldest son and in her love for the maiden who was his choice, but with the sorrow at her heart that forbade her to share in the rejoicings of her people.
In the midst of all the royalties that were present at the wedding of the Prince of Wales were the two great novelists of the realm, Thackeray and Dickens; but Tennyson, the Poet Laureate, was not there. Again "someone had blundered," and his invitation had been missent. Both the Queen and Prince Albert felt a sincere admiration and reverence for the poet, and the Prince had asked the favor of an autograph with far more hesitation than most schoolboys would have shown. This is the way in which he made his very modest petition:
"Will you forgive me if I intrude upon your leisure with a request which I have thought some little time of making, viz., that you would be good enough to write your name in the accompanying volume of the 'Idylls of the King'?" Prince Albert was very fond of the "Idylls," and when, only a month after his death, Tennyson brought out a new edition of the poems, it contained a beautiful dedication, which began:
"These to his memory--since he held them dear."
The lines do not sound as if the poet felt obliged to write them because he had been appointed Laureate, but rather as if he meant every word that he wrote. In this dedication he speaks very earnestly of Prince Albert's wisdom and ability and unselfishness, and gives us the exquisite line which everyone quotes who writes of the Prince Consort: