Chapter 3 - Page 2

everybody, must have been most painful.'

The day after the marriage the Queen wrote to Baron Stockmar: 'There cannot exist a purer, dearer, nobler being in the world than the prince;' and she never had cause to take these words back. The blessing of loving and being loved was certainly given to Queen Victoria.

The royal pair spent three days of honeymoon at Windsor, and then Her Majesty had to return to London, to hold court, and to receive addresses of congratulation on her marriage; indeed, she was nearly 'addressed to death.' The Queen and Prince Albert went everywhere together; to church, to reviews, to races, theatres, and drawing-rooms; and everywhere the people were charmed with their beauty and happiness.

One of the trials of royalty is that they are the observed of all observers, and from the first Prince Albert understood the extreme delicacy of his position. How well he met the difficulty is told by General Gray (Early Years):

'From the moment of his establishment in the English palace as the husband of the Queen, his first object was to maintain, and, if possible, even raise the character of the court. With this view he knew that it was not enough that his own conduct should be in truth free from reproach; no shadow of a shade of suspicion should by possibility attach to it. He knew that, in his position, every action would be scanned--not always, possibly, in a friendly spirit; that his goings out and his comings in would be watched; and that in every society, however little disposed to be censorious, there would always be found some prone, where an opening afforded, to exaggerate and even invent stories against him, and to put an uncharitable construction on the most innocent acts. He therefore, from the first, laid down strict, not to say severe rules for his guidance. He imposed a degree of restraint and self-denial upon his own movements which could not but have been irksome, had he not been sustained by a sense of the advantage which the throne would derive from it.

'He denied himself the pleasure--which, to one so fond as he was of personally watching and inspecting every improvement that was in progress, would have been very great--of walking at will about the town. Wherever he went, whether in a carriage or on horseback, he was accompanied by his equerry. He paid no visits in general society. His visits were to the studio of the artist, to museums of art or science, to institutions for good and benevolent purposes. Wherever a visit from him, or his presence, could tend to advance the real good of the people, there his horses might be seen waiting; never at the door of mere fashion. Scandal itself could take no liberty with his name. He loved to ride through all the districts of London where building and improvements were in progress, more especially when they were such as would conduce to the health or recreation of the working classes; and few, if any, took such