Page:Dictionary of National Biography, Second Supplement, volume 1.djvu/576

 in November for the rest of the Michaelmas term, and in December the queen paid him a visit there. At the end of the year he left Oxford for good. Next month his protracted education was continued at Cambridge. As at Oxford, a private residence, Madingley Hall, was hired for him. The Cambridge house was of more inspiring character then Frewen Hall ; it was an old and spacious country mansion, four miles from the town, 'with large grounds and capital stables.' Col. Bruce and his wife took domestic control, and under their eyes the prince was free to entertain his friends. He entered Trinity College, while Dr. Whewell was Master, on 18 Jan. 1861. A set of rooms in the college was placed at his disposal, but he did not regularly occupy them. Joseph Barber Lightfoot [q. v.] was his college tutor, and when in 1897 the prince visited Durham, of which Lightfoot was then bishop, he recalled the admiration and regard with which Lightfoot inspired him. History remained his main study and was directed by the professor of history, Charles Kingsley. The prince attended Kingsley's lectures at the professor's own house, together with some half-dozen carefully selected undergraduates, who included the present Viscount Cobham, and George Howard, ninth earl of Carlisle [q. v. Suppl. II]. The prince rode over thrice a week to the professor's house and each Saturday Kingsley recapitulated the week's work with the prince alone. He was examined at the end of each term ; the course finally brought English history ; up to the reign of George IV. Kingsley was impressed by his pupil's attention and courtesy, and like all who came into contact with him, bore him thenceforth deep affection.

In 1861 there began for the court a period of gloom, which long oppressed it. On 16 March the prince's grandmother, the duchess of Kent, died ; and he met his first experience of death at close quarters. He first attended a drawing-room on 24 June 1861 in the sombre conditions of official mourning. But more joyful experience intervened, before there fell on him the great blow of his father's premature death. In the summer vacation he went for a fourth time to Ireland, at first as the guest of the lord-lieutenant ; but his chief purpose was to join in camp at the Curragh the regiment, the 10th hussars, to which he was just gazetted. For the first time in his life he was freed from the strict and punctilious supervision of his veteran guardians and mentors. The pleasures of liberty which he tasted were new to him. A breach of discipline exposed him to punishment, and he grew impatient of the severe restrictions of his previous career. His mother and father came over in August to a review of the troops in which he took part. 'Bertie,' she wrote, 'marched past with his company, 'and did not look at all so very small' (Letters, 26 Aug. 1861). With his parents he spent a short holiday in Killarney, and then for a second time he crossed the Channel to visit his sister, the Princess Royal, at Berlin (Sept. 1861). After accompanying her and her husband on a tour through the Rhenish provinces, he witnessed at Coblenz the military manœuvres of the German army of the Rhine.

This German tour had been designed with an object of greater importance than mere pleasure or change. The prince was reaching a marriageable age, and the choice of a wife was in the eyes of King Leopold, of Stockmar, and of the youth's parents a matter of momentous concern. It was inevitable that selection should be made from among princely families of Germany. Seven young German princesses were reported to be under the English court's consideration as early as the summer of 1858 (The Times, 5 July 1858). Fifth on this list was Princess Alexandra, eldest daughter of Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg, next heir to the throne of Denmark, which he ascended on 15 Nov. 1863 as Christian IX. She was barely seventeen, nearly three years the prince's junior. Her mother, Louise of Hesse-Cassel, was sole heiress of the old Danish royal family, and the princess was born and brought up at Copenhagen. Though her kinship was with Germany, her life was identified with Denmark. King Leopold, who discussed the choice of a bride with Queen Victoria, reported favourably of her beauty and character. But the prince's parents acknowledged his right of selection, and a meeting between him and Princess Alexandra was arranged, while he was in Germany in the summer of 1861. The princess was staying near at hand with her mother's father, the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, at the castle of Rumpenheim. The prince saw her for the first time in the cathedral at Speier (24 Sept. 1861). Next day they met again at Heidelberg.