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Majesty with an expression of our deep sorrow at the great loss which you
have sustained by the death of His Imperial Majesty, your beloved consort.
It was with unfeigned pleasure and rejoicing that we welcomed His
Imperial Majesty on the auspicious occasion of your marriage, realizing
that between the two peoples of your Majesty's native and adopted lands
there existed ties of kinship, cemented by many years of alliance and
unbroken peace. It has been a source of increasing gratification to us
that the promise held out by the Prince in his early life has been more
than fulfilled in mature years.
A beloved commander, a brave leader, a generous adversary, a true
friend, a trusted ally, one who bore victory nobly and modestly as in his
later days he endured suffering heroically, we can but lament that his
valued life has, in the providence of God, been brought to so early a
termination, and tender our profound sympathy to your Imperial Majesty
on the loss of such a consort, and to the German people on the loss of such
a Sovereign.
Given under the Common
Seal of the Vestry this
fifth day of July, in the
year of our Lord, one
thousand eight hundred
and eighty-eight.
(Signed)
HARRY WILKINS,
Vestry Clerk.
The Address to the Queen was forwarded through the
Home Secretary, who stated that Her Majesty was pleased to
receive the same very graciously. The Address to the
Empress Frederick was sent to the Marquis of Salisbury,
Secretary for Foreign Affairs, with a request that it might
be forwarded to the British Ambassador at the German
Court, for presentation to Her Imperial Majesty. The
Address having been thus presented, a letter was received in
due course from the German Ambassador to the Court of
St. James's, tendering the sincerest thanks of the EmpressQueen
for the Vestry's expression of sympathy.