Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol III (1901).djvu/438

 2 March they arrived in disguise at Newhaven, and Louis immediately wrote to the queen, throwing himself on her protection. She obtained her uncle Leopold's consent to offer them his own royal residence at Claremont. There Prince Albert at once visited them. To all members of the French royal family the queen showed henceforth unremitting attention. To the Due de Nemours she allotted another royal residence at Bushey. She frequently entertained him and his brothers, and always treated them with the respect which was due to members of reigning families. But it was not only in France that the revolution dealt havoc in the queen's circle of acquaintances. Her half-brother of Leiningen, who had been in Scotland with her the year before, her half-sister, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha (Prince Albert's brother), and their friend, the king of Prussia, suffered severely in the revolutionary movements of Germany. In Italy and Austria, too, kings and princes were similarly menaced. Happily, in England, threats of revolution came to nothing. The great chartist meeting on Kennington Common, on 10 April, proved abortive. By the advice of ministers the queen and her family removed to Osborne a few days before, but they returned on 2 May. During the crisis the queen was temporarily disabled by the birth, on 18 March, of the Princess Louise; but throughout her confinement, she wrote to her uncle, King Leopold, 'My only thoughts and talk were politics, and I never was calmer or quieter or more earnest. Great events make me calm ; it is only trifles that irritate my nerves ' (4 April). When the infant Princess Louise was christened at Buckingham Palace on the 13th, the queen of the Belgians stood godmother, and the strain of anxiety was greatly lessened. A new perplexity arose in June 1848, when Lord John feared defeat in the House of Commons on the old question of the sugar duties, which had already nearly wrecked two governments. The queen, although her confidence in the ministry was chequered by Palmerston's conduct of the foreign office, declared any change inopportune, and she approached with reluctance the consideration of the choice of Lord John's successor. Demurring to Lord John's own suggestion of Lord Stanley, who as a seceder from Peel was not congenial to her, she took counsel with Melbourne, who advised her to summon Peel. But the government proved stronger than was anticipated, and jr three years more Lord John continued in office. On 5 Sept. 1848 the queen prorogued parliament in person, the ceremony taking place for the first time in the Peers' Chamber in the new houses of parliament, which had been rebuilt after the fire of 1834. Her French kinsmen, the Due de Nemours and the Prince de Joinville, were present with her. Popular enthusiasm ran high, in thorough accord with the congratulatory words which her ministers put into her mouth on the steadfastness with which the bulk of her people had resisted incitements to disorder.

On the same afternoon she embarked at Woolwich for Aberdeen in order to spend three weeks at Balmoral House, then little more than a shooting-lodge, which she now hired for the first time of Lord Aberdeen's brother, Sir Robert Gordon. Owing to bad weather the queen tried the new experiment of making practically the whole of the return journey to London by rail, travelling from Perth by way of Crewe. Thenceforth she travelled to and from Scotland in no other way. Later in the year a distressing accident caused the queen deep depression (9 Oct.) While she was crossing from Osborne to Portsmouth, her yacht, the Fairy, ran down a boat belonging to the Grampus frigate, and three women were drowned. 'It is a terrible thing, and haunts me continually,' the queen wrote.

Every year the queen, when in London or at Windsor, sought recreation more and more conspicuously in music and the drama the drama. Elaborate concerts, oratorios, or musical recitations were repeatedly given both at Windsor and at Buckingham Palace. On 10 Feb. 1846 Charles Kemble read the words of the 'Antigone' when Mendelssohn's music was rendered, and there followed like renderings of 'Atbalie' (1 Jan. 1847), again of 'Antigone' (1 Jan. 1848), and of 'Œdipus at Colonos' (10 Feb. 1848 and 1 Jan. 1852). ; During 1842 and 1844 the composer Mendelssohn was many times at court. The great French actress Rachel was invited to recite on more than one occasion, and on 26 Feb. 1851, when Macready took farewell of the stage at Drury Lane, the queen was present. Meanwhile, to give greater brilliance to the Christmas festivities, the queen organised at the end of 1848 dramatic performances at Windsor. Charles Kean was appointed director, and until Prince Albert's death, except during three years in 1850 owing to the queen dowager's death, in 1855 during the gloom of the Crimean war, and in 1858 owing to the distraction of the princess royal's marriage dramatic repre-