Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol I (1901).djvu/97

 Alfred  an income of 15,000l. a year, dating back to the day of his majority (6 Aug. 1865), and on the queen's birthday (24 May 1866) he was created Duke of Edinburgh and Earl of Ulster and Kent. The orders of the Garter, Thistle, and St. Patrick, Grand Cross of the Bath, St. Michael and St. George, Star of India, Indian Empire, and all the principal foreign orders were conferred on him. In March 1866 he was elected master of the Trinity House ; in June he received the freedom of the city of London.

In January 1867 he commissioned the Galatea, and in her visited Rio Janeiro, the Cape, Adelaide, Melbourne, Tasmania, and Sydney. At this last place he was shot in the back by an Irishman named O'Farrell (12 March 1868). The wound was fortunately trifling, but the indignation excited was very great, and O'Farrell was tried, convicted, and executed in the course of a few weeks. The Galatea returned to England in the summer of 1868. After a short stay she again sailed for the far East, visiting India, China, and Japan, where the duke was honourably received by the Mikado. The Galatea returned to England and was paid off in the summer of 1871. In February 1876 the duke was appointed to the ironclad Sultan, one of the fleet in the Mediterranean under Sir Geoffrey Thomas Phipps Hornby [q. v. Suppl.] With Hornby he proved himself an apt pupil. He attained a particular reputation for his skill in manoeuvring a fleet, and that not as a prince, but as a naval officer.

On 30 Dec. 1878 he was promoted, by order in council, to the rank of rear-admiral, and in November 1879 was appointed to the command of the naval reserve, which he held for three years. During that period he mustered the coastguard ships each summer, and organised them as a fleet in the North Sea or the Baltic. On 30 Nov. 1882 he was promoted to be vice-admiral, and from December 1883 to December 1884 commanded the Channel squadron. From 1886 to 1889 he was commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean, and it was specially at this time that his skill in handling a fleet was most talked of. It was commonly said that, with the exception of Hornby, no one in modern times could be compared with him. On 18 Oct. 1887 he was made an admiral, and from 1890 to 1893 he was commander-in-chief at Devonport. On 3 June 1893 he was promoted to the rank of admiral of the fleet.

A little more than two months afterwards, 22 Aug. 1893, on the death of his father's brother, he succeeded him as reigning duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, in virtue of the renunciation in 1863 by his brother, the Prince of Wales, of the title to that duchy. The question was then raised whether as a German sovereign prince he could retain his privileges as an English peer or his rank as an English admiral of the fleet. This last he was permitted to hold by an order in council of 23 Nov. 1893, but it was understood that he had no longer a voice or seat in the House of Lords. He relinquished, too, the income of 15,000l. which had been settled on him on attaining his majority, but kept the further 10,000l. which was granted on his marriage in 1874, as an allowance to keep up Clarence House, London, where he resided for a part of each year. In Germany there were many who affected to resent the intrusion of a foreigner among the princes of the empire ; but among his own subjects he speedily overcame hostile prejudices, adapting himself to his new duties and new surroundings, and taking an especial interest in all that concerned the agricultural and industrial prosperity of the duchies. A keen sportsman, a man of refined tastes, passionately fond of music, and a good performer on the violin, he was yet of a somewhat reserved disposition which prevented him from being so popular as his brothers ; but by those who were in a position to know him best he was admired and esteemed. He died suddenly at Rosenau, near Coburg, on 30 July 1900 of paralysis of the heart, which, it was understood, saved him from the torture of a slow death by an internal disease of a malignant nature. He was buried on 4 Aug. in the mausoleum erected by his uncle Duke Ernest II in the cemetery at Coburg.

Duke Alfred married, at St. Petersburg on 23 Jan. 1874, the Grand Duchess Marie Alexandrovna, only daughter of the Tsar of Russia, Alexander II, and left by her four daughters, three of whom married in their father's lifetime, in each case before completing their eighteenth year. The eldest daughter. Princess Marie Alexandra Victoria (b. 29 Oct. 1875), married, 10 Jan. 1893, Ferdinand, crown prince of Roumania; the second daughter, Princess Victoria Melita (b. 25 Nov. 1876), married, on 19 April 1894, her first cousin Louis, grand duke of Hesse; the third daughter, Princess Alexandra Louise Olga Victoria (b. 1 Sept. 1878), married the Hereditary Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg on 20 April 1896; the fourth daughter, Princess Beatrice Leopoldine Victoria, was born on 20 April 1884.

Duke Alfred's only son, Alfred Alexander William Ernest Albert, born on 15 Oct.