Death and funeral of Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha facts for kids
| Date |
|
|---|---|
| Location |
|
| Participants | British royal family and members of various other royal houses |
| Burial |
|
The Funeral of Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, the husband of the Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom, occurred on December 23, 1861, after that his death occurred on December 14, 1861.
Contents
Description
In August 1859, Albert fell seriously ill with stomach cramps. His steadily worsening medical condition led to a sense of despair; the biographer Robert Rhodes James describes Albert as having lost "the will to live". Albert later had an accidental brush with death during a trip to Coburg in October 1860, when he was driving alone in a carriage drawn by four horses that suddenly bolted. As the horses continued to gallop toward a wagon waiting at a railway crossing, Albert jumped for his life from the carriage. One of the horses was killed in the collision, and Albert was badly shaken though his only physical injuries were cuts and bruises. He confided in his brother and eldest daughter that he sensed that his time had come.
Death
On 9 December, one of Albert's doctors, William Jenner, diagnosed him with typhoid fever. Albert died at 10:50 p.m. on 14 December 1861 in the Blue Room at Windsor Castle, in the presence of the Queen and five of their nine children. He was 42 years old. The contemporary diagnosis was typhoid fever, but modern writers have pointed out that Albert's ongoing stomach pain, which left him ill for at least two years before his death, may indicate that a chronic disease such as Crohn's disease, kidney failure or abdominal cancer was the cause of death.
Funeral
Albert's funeral was held on 23 December 1861 at St George's Chapel, Windsor Castle. His body was temporarily entombed in the chapel's Royal Vault. A year after his death, his remains were deposited at the Royal Mausoleum, Frogmore, which remained incomplete until 1871. The sarcophagus, in which both he and the Queen were eventually laid, was carved from the largest block of granite that had ever been quarried in Britain. Despite Albert's request for no effigies of him to be raised, many public monuments were erected all over the country and across the British Empire. The most notable are the Royal Albert Hall and the Albert Memorial in London. The plethora of memorials erected to Albert became so great that Charles Dickens told a friend that he sought an "inaccessible cave" to escape from them.
When Princess Alice called her mother back into the Blue Room at Windsor Castle where the Prince Consort lay suffering from typhoid fever on the evening of Saturday, December 14, 1861, Queen Victoria knew that death was at hand. At 10.50pm Prince Albert died. Years later, in 1872, the Queen could still vividly recall how:
Two or three long but perfectly gentle breaths were drawn, the hand clasping mine and... all , all , was over... I stood up, kissed his dear heavenly forehead & called out in a bitter and agonising cry 'Oh! my dear Darling!' and then dropped on my knees in mute, distracted despair, unable to utter a word or shed a tear! Ernest Leningen & Sir C. Phipps lifted me up, and Ernest led me out.
She returned to the death chamber twice the next day and wrote to her eldest daughter, the Crown Princess of Prussia, that Prince Albert appeared 'beautiful as marble – and the features so perfect, though grown very thin'. Although the body was not placed in the coffin until the 18th, Queen Victoria did not look upon it again, for, as she told her daughter, 'I felt I would rather (as I know He wished) keep the impression given of life and health than have this one sad though lovely image imprinted too strongly on my mind!' Prostrate with grief, the Queen retired to Osborne on the 19th, unable to face the ordeal of the funeral service which was conducted in St George's Chapel on the 23rd.
After the transfer of his mortal remains to the Chapel of St. George, a legend in Latin emerged that said in Latin:
Depositum Illustrissimi et celsissimi Alberti Principis Consortis, Ducis Saconiae, De Saxe Coburg et Gothia, Principis Nobilissimi Ordinis Perisceldi Equitis. Augustissimæ et potentissimæ Victoriæ Reginæ Conjugis percarissimi,
Obiit die 14 Decembria, 1861, anno ætatis suæ 43.
Sources
