The New Zealand Spectator and Cook’s Strait Guardian, Saturday, March 22, 1862
Death and funeral of Prince
Death and funeral of Prince.
The Times of the 14th December, says:—
“We feel certain that when the bulletin of reaches them, the public will join us in expressing their deep sympathy with the Prince Consort and with the Queen. For some days his Royal Highness has been suffering from a severe gastric fever, and is at present much weakened by the disorder. It need not be said that the best medical skill has been called to his aid, and we hope it will be in our power shortly to announce an improvement in the state of the Royal patient. In the meantime, we are sure that both he and her Majesty will receive the heartfelt sympathy of all her subjects. The natural anxiety which she feels, they can, of course, do nothing to alleviate, but every feeling of esteem and affection which her long and benignant reign has implanted in her people will be called forth on this occasion.
“For more than twenty years the Prince Consort has been the guide and protector of the Queen to a degree that is rarely found in the ordinary life, where the husband is, both in law and reality, the guardian of the wife. During all this period the Prince has devoted the powers of a singularly acute and well [gap — reason: illegible] mind to diminishing the cares of his Consort, by giving her the advice which no one else could have so effectually tendered her. When we consider that almost all Her [sic: her] Majesty’s public life has been passed under his guidance, and that by his influence her steps have been directed in that path of constitutional conduct which has strengthened her throne and banished political discontent from every part of this great empire, we may well join in her Majesty’s distress and anxieties. It is at such a time that we feel how high a position the Prince has taken in this country, and how much he has become one of ourselves. To the great body of the public he has always been present as the zealous and able leader in every useful work, while those who have been concerned in the administration of affairs know what judgment, acuteness, and scientific knowledge, the Prince brought to bear on every subject on which he was consulted. At the present crisis, even the temporary loss of his services, is a misfortune to the country.
“It is only within the last twenty-four hours that the disease of his Royal Highness has taken its present severe form. We trust that the unfavourable symptoms will pass away, and that the disease will yield to the skill of the eminent physicians by whom the Prince is surrounded. The fever which has attacked him is a wearying and weakening malady, but it is well understood, and the treatment is in most cases effectual. The Prince has on his side youth and strength, an unimpaired constitution, and the ablest advice that science can give, and we hope shortly to be able to publish a more cheerful bulletin than that of to-day.“
The bulletin here referred to is as follows:—
“serious illness of the prince consort.
“Windsor Castle, Dec 13.
“A bulletin of the health of the Prince Consort was issued this day:—
“His Royal Highness the Prince Consort passed a restless night, and the symptoms have assumed an unfavourable character during the day.
“James Clark, M.D.
“Henry Holland, M.D.
“Thomas Watson, M.D.
“William Jenner, M.D.
The Melbourne Argus says:—“By way of Mauritius, we have but few particulars relative to the death and burial of H.R.H. Prince Albert. The disease, typhoid fever, being of an infectious nature, the presumption is that the Queen and the other members of the Royal Family were not permitted to attend upon the illustrious patient; a presumption strengthened by the following extract from a correspondent’s letter in the Mauritius Commercial Gazette, by which it would appear that at the time of the funeral the Queen and her children were at Osborne, Isle of Wight:
;—“I mention a touching incident: Amidst the pomp of heraldry, a memento of domestic love was laid upon the Prince’s coffin; a messenger brought from Osborne to Windsor three little wreaths and a bouquet; the wreaths were simple chaplets of moss and violets, wreathed by three elder Princesses, the bouquet of violets, with a white camelia [sic: camellia] in the centre, was sent by the widowed Queen.”
(From the Mauritius papers.)
Funeral of Prince Albert.—No vulgar pomp or vain parade was to be lavished upon one who, by the highest intellectual gifts of mind; cultivated to the highest degree by unbounded amiability, by a love of all things great and beautiful, and by the constant practise [sic: practice] of the truest domestic virtues, had ennobled the Court to which he was called, and won the supreme affection of the whole nation. A prince like this, a man like this, did not stand in need of a torchlight funeral, or of those mediæval pageantries so loved and courted by other monarchs; he knew that he had left behind him an example of domestic virtue and the fulfilment of duty, the memory of which will live in the hearts of all, which could not be increased by anything that the pomp of funerals could bestow. All was simple as became his calm and philosophic mind. There was no ostentatious lying in state, a short and becoming procession from the Castle of Windsor to St. George’s Chapel, the booming of the minute guns, and all was over as far as the mere mortal remains of the much loved Prince Albertwas concerned. On the coffin a modest inscription pointed out the nation’s loss in these few plain words:—
Depositum
Illustrissimi et celsissimi Alberti
Principis Consortis,
Ducis Saconiæ,
De Saxe Coburg et Gothia, Principis
Nobilissimi Ordinis Perisceldi Equitis.
Augustissimæ et potentissimæ Victoriæ Reginæ
Conjugis percarissimi,
Obiit die 14 Decembria, 1861, anno ætatis suæ 43.
A guard of honor of the Grenadiers, of which the Prince was Colonel, mounted guard at Windsor Castle; the short line from the castle to St. George’s Chapel was kept by the Scots Fusiliers, and a few Lite [sic: Light] Guards escorted the hearse. The chief mourners were, the Prince of Wales, supported by Prince Arthur; His [sic: his] Royal Highness the Duke of Saxe Coburg and Gotha, the Duke of Cambridge, the Crown Prince of Prussia, the Duke de Brabant and the Count of Flanders, the Duke de Nemours, Prince Louis of Hesse, Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar, the Prince of Leiningen, Count Gleichen, and the Maharajah Dhuleep Singh. All the Ministers, &c., were present, with the Foreign ambassadors and the representatives of foreign courts. It is consoling in the highest degree to witness the sympathy of the whole continent on this melancholy occasion. Her Majesty, like her mother the Duchess of Kent, intends to have a private mausoleum of her own erected, and when this is completed, the remains of the Prince Consort will be placed there; at present the coffin will remain on the bier outside the iron gates which close the royal vault. Her Majesty and family left Windsor for Osborne on the 19th (Thursday last); and, on the 20th, an Order in Council was published to omit the name of the Prince Consort from the Book of Common Prayer and the usual Church services.