Queen dowager

“ When the cart moved away, the Queen-Dowager, fearful lest she should lose any detail of the tragedy, ran down from the tower to the apartments which she occupied on the upper floor of the palace, and from the windows, which commanded a view of the gallows-hill to the west, she saw the last ignominy wrought on the remains of her victims. In after years the Queen-Dowager always lived in these unpretending rooms of the Christiansborg, though at Frederiksberg and the other palaces she took possession of Matilda’s apartments. ”

“ A queen dowager, when married again to a subject, doth not lose her regal dignity, as peeresses dowager do their peerage when they marry commoners. For Katherine, queen dowager of Henry V, though she married a private gentleman, Owen ap Meredith ap Theodore, commonly called Owen Tudor; yet, by the name of Katherine queen of England, maintained an action against the bishop of Carlisle. And so the queen dowager of Navarre marrying with Edmond, brother to king Edward the first, maintained an action of dower by the name of queen of Navarre [27] . ”

“ Here the Queen Dowager of Spain has kept her Court ever since the Jealousy of the present King reclus'd her from Madrid. As Aunt to his Competitor Charles (now Emperor) he apprehended her Intrigueing; for which Reason giving her an Option of Retreat, that Princess made choice of this City, much to the Advantage of the Place, and in all Appearance much to her own Satisfaction. She is a Lady not of the lesser Size ”

“ Elizabeth afterwards came nearer to the point; she designated lord Robert Dudley as the individual on whom she desired that the choice of her royal kinswoman should fall. By a queen-dowager of France, and a queen-regnant of Scotland, the proposal of so inferior an alliance might almost be regarded as an insult, and Mary was naturally haughty; but her hopes and fears compelled her to dissemble her indignation, and even to affect to take the matter into consideration. ”

“ It was said that Juliana Maria at first entertained the idea of deposing the King, and placing her son upon the throne, but Guldberg opposed it, and pointed out that such a step would surely be followed by a protest from the nation and from the foreign powers, with England at their head.
The Queen-Dowager therefore continued to play the rôle of one who had only come forward with the greatest reluctance because her action was urgently needed for the salvation of the King and country. ”

“ In the summer of 1912 the family and their immediate household, including myself, went on another long cruise in Finnish waters. During the cruise the yacht was visited by the Empress Dowager of whom{87} previously I had seen but little. I write with some hesitation about the Empress Dowager, who is still living, and for whom I entertain all due respect. She was, as I remember her then, a small, slender woman, not beautiful certainly, not as attractive as her sister, Queen Alexandra of England, but with a great deal of presence and, when she chose to exert it, considerable personal charm. ”

“ I had been warned that it was not etiquette for me to start any subject of conversation, though I might enlarge on it once it had been broached. The Crown Princess was so kind as to speak of something which she thought would interest me, and the conventional half-hour passed pleasantly and quickly.
I had other audiences. The Queen Dowager, the widow of King Christian VIII., lives in one of the four palaces in the square of Amalienborg. She is very stately, and received me with great etiquette. She was dressed in a stiff black brocade dress, with a white lace head-dress over her bandeaux ”

“ The whole life of the Princess-Dowager—the decorum of her conduct, the order and regularity of her household, her strict principles, the reticence of her character, and the coldness of her temperament—give it the lie. The eighteenth century, with its gross pleasures and low ideals, could not understand a disinterested friendship between a man and a woman, and, not understanding, condemned it. ”

“ I added, with a laugh, "to tell Monsieur de Villardin by no means to put any trust in all those fine petitions and remonstrances of the Princess Dowager, of which you boasted so much when first I saw you."
"No, no," replied Gourville, smiling in turn; "let him not rely upon them for the liberation of his princely friend. Tell him rather, for me, that I now look upon it as absolutely impossible to obtain the freedom of the Princes by any means but the sword. The Parliament and the Queen are alike resolved not to give them their liberty ”

“ A Bill was brought in, limiting the King's choice of a regent to the Queen or any other person of the [Pg 282] royal family, and a question arose whether the Princess Dowager was a member of the royal family. When this was decided in the affirmative, the Duke of Bedford, who was anxious to prevent Bute from the exercise of even indirect control of affairs, persuaded Lord Halifax and Lord Sandwich to tell the King that, if the Princess Dowager's name were included, the House of Commons would reject it. ”

“ The principal events consist of the affair at Canton, and the failure of the Spanish Christina plot, the Exchequer Bill business, the burning of the Tower, and now we are occupied with the approaching delivery of the Queen, and the probable death of the Queen Dowager.
Elliot11 is expected home any day. There is a mighty clamour against him, but he confidently asserts, and his 50 friends fondly hope, that he will be able to make his case good. ”

“ They begged her with tears, to set them to work and employ them in her service, protesting that they were ready to die for her. [105] A few days before, Henry had sent Lord Mountjoy, her chamberlain, and several other gentlemen to Ampthill, to tell her once more that she must henceforth bear the title of Dowager-Princess of Wales. ”

“ He was charming to his royal grandmother. She particularised his youthful attractions—"A beautiful white soft skin, very fine shoulders and limbs, and a very dear face, ... very fair curly hair." The funeral of the Dowager-Duchess took place at seven o'clock on the morning of the 27th September, at Gotha, and was attended by the gentlemen of the party, while the ladies in deep mourning, wearing the pointed veils, were present at a commemorative service in the Schloss Kirche at Coburg. ”

“ He succeeded in bringing back irrefragable proof that the dowager queen mingled deeply in the plot.
Henry hated Elizabeth Woodville. He considered that it was principally through her restless scheming that he had been forced to marry the portionless (her detested claim to his crown her only dower) daughter of York, instead of forming an union with a foreign princess; perhaps Mary of Burgundy, or Anne of Britanny, either of whom would have brought gold to his coffers, or extensive domains to his empire. ”

“ And the first confused tidings of the French revolution which reached the Queen and Prince Albert were rendered more trying, by the almost simultaneous announcement of the death of the old Dowager- Duchess of Gotha, to whom all her grandchildren were so much attached.
The ex-King and Queen arrived at Newhaven, Louis Philippe bearing the name of Mr. Smith. Queen Victoria had already written to King Leopold on the 1st of March: "About the King and Queen (Louis Philippe and Queen Amélie) we still know nothing.... We do everything we can for the poor family, who are, indeed, sorely to be pitied. ”

“ The Princess Dowager of Wales, after an uninterrupted residence of thirty-four years in this country, and after having secluded herself in a manner from the world during the last nine years, set out for Germany, under pretence of visiting her brother, the Duke of Saxe Gotha, and her daughters, the Queen of Denmark, and the Princess of Brunswick. As mystery and policy were imputed to all her actions, her declarations were not believed, merely because162 she made them. The people concluded she went to meet Lord Bute ”

“ This was the beginning of two important phases of the Empress Dowager's life—her affliction and her power, and her greatness is exhibited as well by the way in which she bore the one as by the way in which she wielded the other. In most cases a woman would have been so overcome by sorrow at the loss of her husband, as to have forgotten the affairs of state, or to have placed them for the time in the hands of others. ”

“ The title was first used in England of Catherine of Aragon, widow of Arthur, prince of Wales, who was styled princess dowager till her marriage with Henry VIII. By transference the word is used of an elderly lady. ”

“ There were not wanting those who declared that in secluding the Prince of Wales, and in keeping from him all knowledge of the world—that knowledge, valuable to all, but essential to the making of a useful King—the Princess Dowager had formed the project herself to exercise the regal power that would one day be his; and that her policy was approved by Lord Bute, who, also with an eye to the future, saw that his influence over an ignorant monarch was likely to be much greater than over one well acquainted with men and matters. ”

“ Oh, I was sure from the beginning that you were a really, truly king, even if you didn't wear a crown and velvet robes. But," with a sudden clouding of her face, "you won't go away just when the Queen's coming?"
"Well, you see, the fact is," said the Great Man, setting the Princess carefully in the depths of the Turkish chair, "these meetings with royalty are so unusual for me that I feel hardly prepared for another one the same day. So I think I'll follow in a common car. And in the morning I'll ask for a private audience with the Queen." ”

“ Gourville smiled, and paused for a moment or two, and then, assuming an air of frankness, which I never saw put on suddenly but when it was intended to deceive, he replied, "Oh! indubitably; there is every chance of their liberation. The Princess Dowager, as you well know, is every day presenting some new petition either to the Court or to the Parliament, and undoubtedly her just complaints will be in the end attended to: and the Princes will be restored to that liberty of which they have been most unjustifiably deprived." ”

“ Caring nothing for the innumerable difficulties which beset our Throne, they stand idly by, contenting themselves with delivering oracular opinions and catch-words, and they even go so far as to reproach their Sovereign, the father of his people. We would have them bear in mind that when our Imperial chariot departed in haste from the Forbidden City, the moaning of the wind and the cry of the heron overhead seemed to our startled ears as the tramp of an advancing enemy. As we fled through Ch’ang-ping chou northward to Hsüan-hua, we personally attended on the wants of the Empress Dowager. ”

“ Without taking away from the Emperor the credit of introducing the railroad, the telegraph, the telephone, the new system of education, and many other reforms, we must still admit that it was the personality, power and statesmanship of the Empress Dowager that brought about the realization of his dreams. The movement towards female education as described in another chapter must ever be placed to the credit of this great woman. From the time she came from behind the screen, and allowed her portrait to be painted, the freedom of woman was assured. ”

“ She is small, but pretty, and, as I have indicated, quiet and reticent. She was fond of her father, and naturally fond of the Empress Dowager, who selected her as a wife for her favourite nephew, Prince Chun, to whom she promised the succession at the time of their marriage. After her father's death, and while she was in mourning, she was invited into the palace by the Empress Dowager, where she appeared wearing blue shoes, the colour used in second mourning. ”

“ The first Empress was a pampered daughter of wealth, neither vigorous of body nor strong of mind, caring nothing for political power if only she might have ease and comfort, and there is nothing that exhibits the Empress Dowager's real greatness more convincingly than the fact that she was able to live for thirty years the more fortunate mother of her country's ruler, and, in power, the mistress of her superior, without arousing the latter's envy, jealousy, anger, or enmity. ”

“ We ourselves have laboured diligently, night and day, to perform Our innumerable duties, but in spite of all Our anxious energy and care We are in constant fear lest delay should be the undoing of the country. We now respectfully recall the fact that Her Imperial Majesty the Empress Dowager has on two occasions since the beginning of the reign of H. M. T’ung-Chih, performed the functions of Regent, and that in her administrations of the Government she displayed complete and admirable qualities of perfection which enabled her successfully to cope with every difficulty that arose. ”

“ On rising, the queen found herself surrounded by her most faithful servants—Hamilton, Herries, and Seyton, Mary's father. Light-headed with joy, the queen extended her hands to them, thanking them with broken words, which expressed her intoxication and her gratitude better than the choicest phrases could have done, when suddenly, turning round, she perceived George Douglas, alone and melancholy. ”

“ We can neither sleep nor eat in the anxiety of our thoughts. Reflecting on the arduous labours of our ancestors from whom this great Heritage has descended to us, we are overwhelmed by our unfitness for this task of government. We bear in mind (and the fact is well known to all our subjects) that when first we succeeded by adoption to the Throne, we were honoured with a Decree from the Empress Dowager to the effect that so soon as we should have begotten an heir, he should become the adopted son of His Majesty T’ung-Chih. ”