Alexandra

(British Commonwealth of Nations)

Last week the great, mournful bell of St. Paul's pealed for the first time since the death of Edward VII; tolled for the Dowager Queen Alexandra, his royal consort, who died of a lingering heart trouble at Sandringham, their onetime summer home.

Early in the week Queen Alexandra's physicians announced that "Her Majesty, who for some time past has been failing in health, has suffered a severe heart attack"; and at once King George and Queen Mary hastened to her bedside, at Sandringham, in Norfolk. Already there were George's three sisters, Louise, the Princess Royal; the Princess Victoria; and Queen Maud of Norway. At London a special train waited, with steam up, ready at an instant's notice to speed the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York toward Sandringham, should their grandmother be declared upon the point of death.

Seldom has Edward of Wales been placed in a more difficult position. Although indisputably Alexandra's favorite grandson, he was expected, while she lay dying, to dine as the Lord Mayor's guest at a great Guildhall banquet, to which over 800 of his father's most distinguished subjects had been invited for the sole purpose of hearing the Prince discourse officially upon his Empire Tour (TIME, Oct. 23 et ante).

As the minutes ticked on, viands and floral decorations to the value of several thousand pounds were got ready at Guildhall; and the streets were cleared for a state procession which was to escort the Prince thither like a conqueror.

Suddenly an urgent message flashed from Sandringham. A powerful limousine darted from the Prince's residence to the railway station. Out over a cleared track roared the special train--too late! Four minutes before it reached Wolferton, the local station adjacent to Sandringham, the Queen Mother breathed her last.*

Queen Alexandra, although usually described as "the eldest daughter of King Christian IX of Denmark," was not, curiously enough, born of the blood royal. At the time of her birth, in 1844, her father was only "Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Gluuecksburg," a younger son of a somewhat minor German house. Not until the death of King Frederick VII of Denmark, when the reigning house of Denmark became extinct, was Christian elected king of Denmark by popular vote, in 1863. Thus it chanced that Alexandra and her sister Dagmar spent their youth as impecunious though radiantly beautiful princesses, who made most of their own clothes and lived quietly with their mother, the former Princess Louise of Hesse-Cassel.

With the elevation of Christian and his family to royal rank, all that was changed. The Princess Dagmar married Alexander III, becoming Tsarina of All the Russias, gave birth to the last Tsar Nicholas II, escaped the Bolsheviki, and now resides once more at Copenhagen. Their brother George, elected King of Greece, was assassinated in 1913. Only Alexandra, as consort of Edward VII, achieved not only imperial rank, but serenity; lived to be the mother of a reigning king and reigning queen.

The arrival of the Princess Alexandra Caroline Marie Charlotte Louise Julia of Denmark, at Gravesend, in 1863, on her way to be married to Prince Edward of Wales under the stern eye of Victoria, was thus described by noted author William Makepeace Thackeray:

"Since womankind existed, has any woman had such a greeting? Imagine beacons flaming, rockets blazing, yards manned, ships and forts saluting with their thunder, every steamer and vessel, every town and village from Ramsgate to Gravesend, swarming with happy gratulation; young girls with flowers scattering roses before her; staid citizens and aldermen pushing and squeezing and panting to make the speech and bow the knee and bid her welcome."

Poet Tennyson wrote:

Sea-kings' daughter from over the

sea, Alexandra!

Saxon and Norman and Dane are

we,

But all of us Danes in our welcome

of thee, Alexandra!

The ingenious Mr. W. R. H. Trowbridge, writing of the events of the day, said:

From King William Street to the Mansion House was a battleground strewn with hats, caps, bonnets, shoes, crinolines and the fragments of almost every variety of human attire, male and female, torn from their wearers in the fearful crush. But for the good temper that prevailed, there might have been loss of life. As it was, many were injured and some past recovery. Above the cheering the shrieks of women were painfully audible, and boys in a pitiable state of terror were seen waging a struggle for life. The Princess herself was seen to rescue the head of a youth which had got entangled in the wheels. The calmness of the young Princess in all this agitation was marvelous and it was in no small degree due to her enchanting smile that the temper of the tortured mass remained amiable."

Quoth Mr. Gladstone, justly, of the bride who shortly emerged from Windsor, after the first royal marriage celebrated there since that of Henry I in 1122: "The Princess of Wales has permitted the nation to love her."

Roared a crowd of Cambridge youths good-humoredly at Alexandra, a year later: "Three cheers for the baby!"

Shortly afterward "the baby" proved to be the ill fated Albert Victor, Prince of Wales, Duke of Clarence and Avondale, Earl of Athlone, whose death of influenza at the age of 28 left the present George V, Alexandra's second son, heir to the throne of Britain.

Alexandra's personality was both resolute and charming. Few women have ever insisted more determinedly upon receiving the last atom of homage that was their due; yet the beauty and winning grace of Alexandra made such homage appear as a matter of course to the almost literally infatuated English public. Her undoubtedly sincere interest in numberless charities likewise enhanced her popularity. And she brought with her from Denmark something of the Nordic genius for frank and clear-eyed democracy.

To the last she characteristically refused to be mentioned officially as either "The Dowager Queen" or "The Queen Mother." She considered it her prerogative to be known as "Queen" Alexandra; and her daughter-in-law, "Queen" Mary, has been obliged to put up with what would be considered in other countries a somewhat high-handed retention of a title which should "rightfully" have "passed" to the reigning sovereign's consort.

At one time Alexandra carried this insistance to such an extreme that the great publishing firm of Eyre & Spottiswoode was forced to destroy an entire edition of The Book of Common Prayer in which had appeared a form of prayer "for the Queen Mother." She also commissioned the Court Musician, Sir Paolo Tosti, to compose for her a new patriotic anthem: "God Save Queen Alexandra."

Alexandra's deafness was pointedly recalled at New York by Dr. Miller Reese Hutchison, inventor of the Klaxon horn. Inventor Hutchison revealed that he had supplied Queen Alexandra with another of his inventions, the noted "acousticon" or "electric ear." With its aid, she was able, in some measure, to combat her gathering deafness.

Dr. Hutchison prefaced his remarks by saying that during Alexandra's lifetime he had declined to discuss the matter out of consideration for Alexandra's sensitiveness about her deafness. He got his statement into the same edition of the New York Times which announced her death.

*At London the flustered Lord Mayor was unable to reach his other guests by telephone soon enough to inform them in advance that the banquet had been canceled. Many arrived, resplendent in uniforms or sables, only to return home when they learned of Alexandra's death. To the London hospitals were swiftly despatched : all floral decorations, half a ton of turtle soup, 1,000 mutton cutlets, 400 pounds of fish, 300 pheasants, 1,000 ices, 2,000 rolls. Some 560 bottles of champagne were returned to the cellars.

*George of England and Maud of Norway.