t of the Queen's eldest daughter. Too soon those
rumours proved true. Even when the prince rode in the splendid
Jubilee procession, a commanding figure in his dazzling white
uniform, the cruel malady had fastened on him that was to slay him in
less than a year, proving fatal three months after the death of his
aged father had called him to fill the imperial throne. The nation
followed the course of this tragedy with a feverish interest never
before excited by the lot of any foreign potentate, and deeply
sympathised with, the distress of the Queen and of the bereaved
empress.

[Illustration: Duke of Clarence. _From a Photograph by Lafayette,
Dublin_.]

But the year 1892 held in store a blow yet more cruelly felt. The
English people were still rejoicing with the Queen over the betrothal
of the Duke of Clarence, eldest son of the Prince of Wales, to his
kinswoman Princess May of Teck, when the death of the bridegroom
elect in January plunged court and people into mourning. That the
Queen was greatly touched by the universal sympathy with her and hers
was proved by the pathetic letter she wrote to the nation, and by the
frank reliance on their affection which marked the second letter in
which, eighteen months later, she asked them to share her joy in the
wedding of the Duke of York, now heir-presumptive, to the bride-elect
of his late brother. This union has been highly popular, and the
Queen's evident delight in the birth of the little Prince Edward of
York in June, 1894, touched the hearts of her subjects, who
remembered the deep sorrow of 1892.

[Illustration: Duke of York. _From a Photograph by Russell & Sons,
Baker Street, W_.]

[Illustration: Duchess of York. _From a Photograph by Russell & Sons,
Baker Street, W_.]

Once more they were called to grieve with her, when the husband of
her youngest daughter Beatrice, Prince Henry of Battenberg, who for
years had formed part of her immediate circle, died far from home and
England, having fallen a victim to fever ere he could distinguish
himself, as he had hoped, in our last expedition to Ashanti. The
pathos of such a death was deeply felt when the prince's remains were
brought home and laid to rest, in the presence of his widow and her
royal mother, in the very church at Whippingham that he had entered
an ardent bridegroom. Not all gloom, however, has been Her Majesty's
domestic life in these recent years; she has taken joy in the
marriages of many of her descendan