ny and attendant functions was
said to have been fully two million dollars. A part of this was,
however, due to the entertainments accorded King Frederick William IV.,
who, as the chief Protestant monarch of the Continent, was given a
particularly cordial and elaborate welcome. In connection with the
christening of the future King it is interesting to note that an
ecclesiastical newspaper, of Toronto, called _The Church_, referred to
the event on March 19th, 1842, and declared that should the Prince live
to be King he would be known as Edward VII. On February 3rd Queen
Victoria opened Parliament in person with the following as the
preliminary words in the Speech from the Throne: "I cannot meet you in
Parliament assembled without making a public acknowledgment of my
gratitude to Almighty God on account of the birth of the Prince, my son;
an event which has completed the measure of my domestic happiness and
has been hailed with every manifestation of affectionate attachment to
my person and Government by my faithful and loyal people."

CHILDHOOD OF THE PRINCE

The early events of the Prince's life were followed with much interest
by the public and with a personal and individual feeling which grew in
volume with the ever-increasing popularity of the young Queen. The Court
in those years was a gay one and events such as the Queen's famous
Plantagenet Ball of 1842; the state visit to King Louis Philippe of
France in 1843; the coming of Nicholas I., Czar of all the Russias, to
the Court of St. James in 1844, followed a little later by William,
Prince of Prussia--afterwards William I. of Germany, and by a return
visit of the King and Queen of the French; kept the social demands of
the period up to a very high pitch. Yet the quiet, careful surroundings
of an almost ideal home were given to the young Prince and to those who
afterwards came to the family circle, by a mother who, in the midst of
many national cares and private anxieties could write to her
much-respected friend and uncle--Leopold of Belgium--that "my happiness
at home, the love of my husband, his kindness, his advice, his support
and his company make up for all and make me forget all."

The Princess Victoria, afterwards for a brief year Empress of Germany,
had been born on November 21, 1840; the Prince of Wales was the next
child; the Princess Alice, who afterwards married the Grand Duke of
Hesse, was born on April 25, 1843; Prince Alfred--Duke of Edinburgh and