In September the country was greatly grieved to learn that the Queen had fallen seriously ill. Those who had been reproaching her for retiring from active life now began to suspect what was the truth, namely, that the Queen’s labours were not materially lessened by her withdrawal from the exciting functions of each London season. Her illness took the form of a sore throat, accompanied by glandular swellings under the arm, and the sympathetic sentiment of London was expressed by the _Times_, which mournfully regretted that the Sovereign had ever been pressed to overwork herself.
Gradually the prostration which this illness had caused passed away; but, unhappily, no sooner had her own health ceased to give the Queen cause for anxiety, than that of her eldest son broke down. Nothing could exceed the alarm of the country when it was announced on the 20th of November that the Heir to the Throne was smitten at Sandringham with typhoid fever--the very malady which had cut off his father in his prime. The disease, it was said, had probably been contracted when the Prince was visiting Lord Londesborough at Scarborough, and it was a significant coincidence, not only that Lord Chesterfield, who was staying there at the same time, had been attacked by and had quickly succumbed to the fever, but that six other guests of Lord Londesborough’s had complained of being unwell. On the other hand, it was pointed out that a groom at Sandringham, who had not quitted the place, was smitten at the same time as the Prince, and that it was therefore to bad sanitation at Sandringham that the mishap must be traced. Day by day the nation read the reassuring bulletins with growing anxiety,
[Illustration: THE PRINCE OF WALES’S ILLNESS: CROWD AT THE MANSION HOUSE READING THE BULLETINS.]
relieved only by the knowledge, not only that the Queen herself had taken her place at the sufferer’s sick bed, and that the ever self-sacrificing Princess Louis of Hesse--a nurse of high technical skill--had installed herself in charge of the sick room. The Princess of Wales was herself suffering, doubtless from the same poison which had attacked her husband. Day by day the bulletins were eagerly scanned, not only in the newspapers, but by excited crowds at public places like the Mansion House and Marlborough House, where they were exhibited. After twenty-five days of suffering the Prince, who had shown signs of recovery, had a relapse, and then the worst was feared. The Prince it was thought must die, and the shock of the bereavement might be fatal to the Queen, whose health was already sadly impaired. Englishmen remembered for the first time that only two precarious lives--one of which was flickering between life and death--stood between the country and a Regency. But what might a Regency portend? It had been fatal to the Monarchy in France; within the memory of living men it had nearly proved fatal to the Monarchy in England. When it was announced on the 9th of December that all the members of the Royal Family had suddenly been summoned to Sandringham, securities in the Money Market, with the exception of Consols, fell from one to