A small piece of wedding cake from an 1871 Royal Wedding is going on sale this week in England, with interesting resonance for us in Canada.

The wedding was between Princess Louise, daughter of Queen Victoria, and a commoner, John Campbell, the Marquess of Lorne.  It was hugely controversial – no royal Brit had married a commoner since 1515, when Henry VIII’s sister Mary Tudor had married for the second time (Mary’s first husband only lasted three months, reputedly worn out in the bedchamber).  Louise was insistent that she would not be burdened by the ritual of marrying royalty, and thus had decided upon the Lord of Lorne, after a brief courtship. Queen Victoria realized that times were changing, and such a union would strengthen the throne both ‘morally and physically’; she allowed the wedding to go ahead despite the huge public uproar.

Princess Louise and John Campbell, Marquis of Lorne, official wedding photo

Their wedding cake was massive, 5 foot tall from base to the top tier, and weighing over 220 pounds!  Her Majesty’s chief confectioner took 3 months to make it – the white satin-embellished base had both their coats of arms, while the cake was decorated in wreathes and vases filled with orange blossoms.  The top was doves drinking from a fountain, four statues and a temple.

The Canadian connection to the wedding couple is considerable:  in 1878, Lord Lorne, as he became known, was appointed as Governor-General of Canada, creating huge excitement in our country, the citizenry besmitten by  the proximity of royalty.  Their tenure was successful in Canada: it helped that  Canada had just pulled out of a troublesome recession, and was filled with a national sense of optimism.  Lord Lorne became deeply interested in Canada and Canadians, setting up quite a number of institutions, travelling extensively, meeting with First Nations representatives, and so on, while together they hosted many social functions.  Louise herself was artistic, a talented writer, sculptor, and artist; her work is still visible in Ottawa. She further endeared herself to Canadians when she personally tended to the sick during a scarlet fever epidemic.  Personally, though, she was quite homesick while in the rough-and-tumble new country.

Louise’s impact on Canada was more than just social – there are quite a few more tangible results of her time here.  She personally named the city of Regina, and the province of Alberta, after her relatives, and Lake Louise is named in her honor.  As well ‘Lorne’ is an uncommon first name in the rest of the world, but often used here.

Sadly the marriage between the two was not a happy one, mainly because Lord Lorne much preferred the favors of men over women.  One of his lovers was Frank Shackleton, the dissolute brother of the Antarctic explorer, who was one of the key suspects in the theft of the Crown Jewels; it is widely suspected that the official investigation of that scandalous theft was suppressed because of Shackleton’s intimate relationship with Lord Lorne. By 1901 the couple had drifted apart; needless to say, there were no children.

And now, 138 years later – a tiny slice is available. The cake, kept for generations in a ‘cabinet of curiosity’, has been offered up by a descendant of a noble family from Kent, with the note that the slice should ‘probably not’ be eaten by the eventual buyer.  The slice of cake, about 1 inch thick, with an asking price of £145, around $270 Canadian, will be sold this weekend.

Tags: royal, Wedding Cake

This entry was posted on Friday, April 24th, 2009 at 6:00 am and is filed under Wedding Cake. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.