COMMONWEALTH: Alexandra

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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.