3-034-855 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

Illness of the Prince of Wales - Sandringham Church, Sunday, Dec. 10: anxious inquiries, 1871. 'The intense anxiety that has prevailed everywhere through the country during the last week seemed, in the neighbourhood of the place where the Prince of Wales lay sick nigh unto death, to bear the character of a family affliction. On Sunday morning the churches in all the district were filled with devout worshippers, and all offered up prayers for the Prince. The morning service at Sandringham church was touching and impressive, and marked by more than one incident which strongly aroused the feelings of the worshippers...When the little congregation separated the Vicar was met at the door by crowds of his people, who eagerly asked him what he knew of the state of the Prince...They were able to learn with thankfulness that the condition of the Prince continued to offer some slight encouragement, and so they went their way, doubtingly and oppressed with anxieties, but refreshed in spirit and entertaining feelings of prayerful hope'. The Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) suffered - and survived - an attack of typhoid fever (the illness of which his father had died 10 years earlier) while at his home at Sandringham in Norfolk. From "Illustrated London News", 1871.