Page:The Queens of England.djvu/599

 VICTORIA. 539 to some foreign potentate, regardless of age or those personal qualities that make for or destroy happiness and right influence. Lord Torrington was sent to escort the bridegroom to England, and directly on his arrival at Buckingham Palace the oath of naturalization was administered to him by the Lord Chancellor. The marriage took place in the Royal Chapel at St. James', on the ioth of February, 1840. The royal couple proceeded to Windsor, which has ever been the favorite home of the Queen. The Princess Royal was born November 21, 1840, and a year later the heir was born and christened Albert Edward, the united names of his father and grandfather. The christening ceremony was attended with great pomp in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, the Archbishop of Canterbury presiding. The Queen mother soon created him Prince of Wales and Earl of Chester. Victoria has been a fond and devoted mother, but even when the nursery was full of little ones, not even the youngest ever caused the mother to relax the vigilance of the Queen. The horrors of the Afghan troubles were still fresh in heart and mind when the Princess Alice was born, April 25, 1843. The next year Prince Alfred was born, August 16, and Princess Helena, May 25, 1846. The Irish rebellion agitated the Queen and her realm in 1848, and while the Princess Louise was still but a few months old she made her first visit to her Irish sub- jects, then, as now, finding them warm-hearted and loyal. The insurrection in Canada gave the young Queen her first experi- ence with foreign troubles and showed her the importance of a sovereign being untrammeled by party inclination or prejudice. Throughout the reign there has been controversy between the Liberal and Conservative parties — parties that under William the Fourth emerged from the Whig and Tory with much the same nature, for all the change of names. Onlookers who have decried this party struggle as injurious to the welfare of the nation, forget that party spirit is essential to development ; that progress is impossible without action against a certain amount of opposition. From the uprising in Canada to the strange war now waging in Africa, mighty problems have taxed the thought and sym- pathy of the Queen in behalf of her colonies. It is impossible from this date in time, the very threshold of the twentieth cen- tury, to look back over the sixty-three years of her Majesty's reign and cite even the most important events, achievements, ac- quisitions in territory and power, in science, literature and art,