Queen-Empress formally gave her consent to the marriage at a meeting of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council on 27 January 1885. On 22 July 1885, the Queen made Prince Henry a Knight of the Garter, and granted him the style Royal Highness to give him equal rank with his wife. This style took effect in the United Kingdom, but not in the German Empire (where the Prince was still considered a Serene Highness). Beatrice and Henry were married at St Mildred's Church at Whippingham, near Osborne, on 23 July 1885. On the same day, a bill to naturalise Prince Henry a British subject passed the House of Lords. The couple adopted the style, Their Royal Highnesses Prince and Princess Henry of Battenberg. On 22 August 1885 he was made Honorary Colonel of the 5th (Isle of Wight, Princess Beatrice's) Volunteer Battalion, the Hampshire Regiment, In early 1886 it was announced in The Times that he would be made a captain in the 1st Life Guards, but the Secretary of State for War denied knowledge of this in the House of Commons and the appointment did not take place. Prince and Princess Henry of Battenberg had four children. By Royal Warrant of 13 December 1886, the Queen granted their children the style Highness. This style took immediate effect in the United Kingdom and elsewhere except within the German Empire, where, as Princes and Princesses of Battenberg, they were only entitled to the style Serene Highness. Later life and death In 1889 Prince Henry was made Governor of Carisbrooke Castle and Captain-General and Governor of the Isle of Wight. He was made Lieutenant-Colonel in the Army on 21 June 1887, Colonel on 22 February 1893 and appointed to the Privy Council on 20 November 1894. In November 1895, Prince Henry persuaded Queen Victoria to allow him to go to West Africa to fight in the Ashanti War. He served as the military secretary to the commander-in-chief of British forces, General Sir Francis Scott. He contracted malaria when the expedition reached Prahsu, about from Kumasi, and subsequently died aboard the cruiser HMS Blonde stationed off the coast of Sierra Leone. His body was repatriated by the cruiser HMS Blenheim from the Canary Islands and his funeral service took place on 5 February 1896, at the same St. Mildred's Church, Whippingham on the Isle of Wight where he had been married. Interment followed