Chapter I: Preface

To her own people Queen Victoria was England itself, the emblem of the realm and of the empire. To millions who were not her people the words "the Queen" do not bring even yet the thought of the well-beloved woman who now shares the English throne, but rather of her who for nearly sixty-four years wore the crown of Great Britain and gave freely to her country of the gift that was in her.

Other women have been controlled by devotion to duty, other women have been moved to action by readiness of sympathy, but few have united so harmoniously a strong determination to do the right with a never-failing gentleness, a childlike sympathy with unyielding strength of purpose.

Happy is the realm that can count on the list of its sovereigns one whose career was so strongly marked by unfaltering faithfulness, by honesty of aim, and by statesmanlike wisdom of action.

EVA MARCH TAPPAN.

WORCESTER, MASS. _February, 1903._

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. BABY DRINA, 1

II. THE SCHOOLDAYS OF A PRINCESS, 21

III. EXAMINATION DAY, 43

IV. A QUEEN AT EIGHTEEN, 68

V. THE CORONATION, 89

VI. THE COMING OF THE PRINCE, 114

VII. HOUSEKEEPING IN A PALACE, 138

VIII. A HOME OF OUR OWN, 163

IX. NIS! NIS! NIS! HURRAH! 186

X. THE ROYAL YOUNG PEOPLE, 212

XI. THE QUEEN IN SORROW, 235

XII. THE LITTLE FOLK, 259

XIII. MOTHER AND EMPRESS, 278

XIV. THE JUBILEE SEASON, 299

XV. THE QUEEN AND THE CHILDREN, 319

XVI. THE CLOSING YEARS, 338

ILLUSTRATIONS

Her Majesty the Queen in her state robes. (_From painting by Alfred E. Chalon, R.A., 1838_) _Frontispiece_

_Facing page_

Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent and Princess Victoria (_From painting by Sir W. Beechey, R.A._) 16

The Princess Victoria at the age of eleven 46

The coronation of Queen Victoria. (_From painting by Sir George Hayter_) 110

Albert, Prince Consort, in the uniform of a field marshal 136

The Queen in 1845. (_From a painting by John Partridge_) 158

Queen Victoria; Prince Albert; Victoria, Princess Royal; Albert Edward, Prince of Wales; Prince Alfred; Princess Alice; Princess Helena. (_From a painting by F. Winterhalter, 1848_) 188

Westminster Abbey 216

Balmoral Castle 244

Houses of Parliament 274

Windsor Castle 302

Her Majesty, Queen Victoria. (_From a photograph by A .Bassano_) 338

In the Days of Queen Victoria