ALEXANDRA (1844-1925), Queen Consort of Edward VII., King of Great Britain and Ireland, eldest daughter of Prince Christian of Gluecksburg, afterwards King Christian IX. of Denmark, and Louise, daughter of the Landgrave William of Hesse, was born at Copenhagen Dec. 1, 1844, her full name being Alexandra Caroline Maria Charlotte Louisa Julia. One of her sisters married the tsar of Russia and became the mother of the Tsar Nicholas II. As a child Alexandra was simply brought up and early evinced a love of music and of fairy tales, being encouraged in this by her parents' friendship with Hans Andersen. She was married to Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, afterwards Edward VII., March io, 1863, and was crowned with him in Westminster Abbey, Aug. 9, 1902.
Her singular beauty and charm—first celebrated in Tennyson's A Welcome to Alexandra (1863) when she came to England as a bride—preserved even into old age, won her immense popularity, and her progress through the streets of London on Alexandra Day, or Rose Day, a yearly event inaugurated by her in 1912 to raise funds for the London hospitals by the selling of roses in the streets, attracted vast crowds. She had earlier shown her great interest in the care of the sick by giving her name to the Queen Alexandra's Imperial Nursing Service, organized in 1902 to supply nurses for naval and military hospitals, as well as by her gift to the London Hospital in 1899 of the first Finsen lamp for light treatment of skin diseases. Her love of country life, and especially of horses and dogs, endeared her to a nation, like herself, lovers bf animals. Though she took her full share in all public ceremonials, she was happiest in her country home at Sandringham. There in Dec. 1924 she kept her Both birthday, surrounded by her children and grandchildren, and there she died Nov. 20, 1925. She was buried beside King Edward in St. George's Chapel, Windsor.
(J. E. C.)