The last day had come, with its inevitable sadness. "I can't—won't think of it," wrote the Queen, referring to her approaching departure. She drove and walked, and, with her brother-in-law and his Duchess, was ferried over to the "Island of Graves," the burial-place of the old Dukes of Gotha when the duchy was distinct from that of Coburg. An ancient gardener pointed out to the visitors that only one more flower-covered grave was wanted to make the number complete. When the Duchess of Gotha should be laid to rest with her late husband and his fathers, then the House of Gotha, in its separate existence, would have passed away.
One more drive through the hayfields and the noble fir-trees to the vast Thuringerwald, and, "with many a longing, lingering look at the pine-clad mountains," the Queen and the Prince turned back to attend a ball given in their honour by the townspeople in the theatre.
On the following day the homeward journey was begun. After partings, rendered still more sorrowful by the fact that the age of the cherished grandmother of the delightful "dear" family party rendered it not very probable that she, for one, would see all her children round her again, the Duke and Duchess of Coburg went one stage with the travellers, and then there was another reluctant if less painful parting.
The Queen and the Prince stopped at the quaint little town of Eisenach, which Helen of Orleans was yet to make her home. They were received by the Grand Duke and Hereditary Duchess of Saxe-Weimar, with whom the strangers drove through the autumn woods to the famous old fortress of the Wartburg, which, in its time, dealt a deadly blow to Roman Catholicism by sheltering, in the hour of need, the Protestant champion, Luther. Like the good Protestants her Majesty and the Prince were, they went to see the great reformer's room, and looked at the ink-splash on the wall—the mark of his conflict with the devil—the stove at which he warmed himself, the rude table at which he wrote and ate, and above all, the glorious view over the myriads of tree-tops with which he must have refreshed his steadfast soul. But if Luther is the hero of the Wartburg, there is also a heroine—the central figure of that "Saint's Tragedy" which Charles Kingsley was to give to the world in the course of the next two or three years—St. Elizabeth of Thuringia, the tenderest, bravest, most tortured soul that ever received the doubtful gain of canonization. There is the well by which she is said to have ministered to her sick poor, half-way up the ascent to the Wartburg, and down in the little town nestling below, may be seen the remains of an hospital bearing her name.
From Fulda, where the royal party slept, they journeyed to Goethe's town of Frankfort, where Ludwig I., who turned Munich into a great picture and sculpture gallery, and built the costly Valhalla to commemorate the illustrious German dead, dined with her Majesty.
At Biberich the Rhine was again hailed, and a steamer, waiting for the travellers, carried them to Bingen, where their own little vessel, The Fairy, met and brought them on to Deutz, on the farther side from Cologne. The Queen says naively that the Rhine had lost its charm for them all—the excitement of novelty was gone, and the Thuringerwald had spoilt them. Stolzenfels, Ehrenbreitstein, and the Sieben-Gebirge had their words of praise, but sight-seeing had become for the present a weariness, and after Bonn, with its memories, had been left behind, it was a rest to the royal travellers—as to most other travellers at times—to turn away their jaded eyes, relinquish the duty of alert observation, forget what was passing around them, and lose themselves in a book, as if they were in England. Perhaps the home letters had awakened a little home-sickness in the couple who had been absent for a month. At least, we are given to understand that it was of home and children the Queen and the Prince were chiefly thinking when they reached Antwerp, to which the King and Queen of the Belgians had preceded them, and re-embarked in the royal yacht Victoria and Albert, though it was not at once to sail for English waters. In gracious compliance with an urgent entreaty of Louis Philippe's, the yacht was to call, as it were in passing, at Tréport.
On the morning of the 8th of September the Queen's yacht again lay at anchor off the French seaport. The King's barge, with the King, his son, and son-in-law, Prince Joinville, and Prince Augustus of Saxe- Coburg, and M. Guizot, once more came alongside. After the friendliest greetings, the Queen and Prince Albert landed with their host, though not without difficulty. The tide would not admit of the ordinary manner of landing, and Louis Philippe in the dilemma fell back on a bathing-machine, which dragged the party successfully if somewhat unceremoniously over the sands.
The Queen of the French was there as before, accompanied among others by her brother, the Prince of Salerno and his Princess, sister to the Emperor of Austria. The crowd cheered as loudly as ever; there seemed no cloud on the horizon that bright, hot day; even the plague of too much publicity and formality had been got rid of at Château d'Eu. The Queen was delighted to renew her intercourse with the large, bright family circle—two of them her relations and fast friends. "It put me so much in mind of two years ago," she declared, "that it was really as if we had never been away;" and the King had to show her his Galerie Victoria, a room fitted up in her honour, hung with the pictures illustrating her former visit and the King's return visit to Windsor.
Although she had impressed on him that she wished as much as possible to dispense with state and show on this occasion, the indefatigable old man had been at the trouble and expense of erecting a theatre, and bringing down from Paris the whole of the Opéra Comique to play before her, and thus increase the gaiety of the single evening of her stay.
Only another day was granted to Château d'Eu. By the next sunset the King was conducting his guests on board the royal yacht and seizing the last opportunity, when Prince Albert was taking Prince Joinville over the Fairy, glibly to assure the Queen and Lord Aberdeen that he, Louis Philippe, would never consent to Montpensier's marriage to the Infanta of Spain till her sister the Queen was married and had children.
At parting the King embraced her Majesty again and again. The yacht lay still, and there was the most beautiful moonlight reflected on the water. The Queen and the Prince walked up and down the deck, while not they alone, but the astute statesman Aberdeen, congratulated themselves on how well this little visit had prospered, in addition to the complete success of the German tour. With the sea like a lake, and sky and sea of the deepest blue, in the early morning the yacht weighed anchor for England. Under the hot haze of an autumn noonday sun the royal travellers disembarked on the familiar beach at Osborne. The dearest of welcomes greeted them as they "drove up straight to the house, for there, looking like roses, so well and so fat, stood the four children."
The Queen referred afterwards to that visit to Germany as to one of the happiest times in her life. She said when she thought of it, it made her inclined to cry, so pure and tender had been the pleasure.
CHAPTER IV.
RAILWAY SPECULATION—FAILURE OF THE POTATO CROP—SIR ROBERT PEEL'S RESOLUTIONS—BIRTH OF PRINCESS HELENA—VISIT OF IBRAHIM PASHA.
One thousand eight hundred and forty-five had begun with what appeared a fresh impetus to national prosperity—a new start full of life and vigour, by which the whole resources of the country should be at once stirred up and rendered ten times more available than they had ever been before. This was known afterwards as "the Railway Mania," which, like other manias, if they are not mere fever-fits of speculation, but are founded on real and tangible gains, had its eager hopeful rise, its inflated disproportioned exaggeration, its disastrous collapse, its gradual recovery, and eventually its solid reasonable success. In 1845 the movement was hurrying on to the second stage of its history.
The great man of 1845 was Hudson the railway speculator, "the Railway King." Fabulous wealth was attributed to him; immense power for the hour was his. A seat in Parliament, entrance into aristocratic circles, were trifles in comparison. We can remember hearing of a great London dinner at which the lions were the gifted Prince, the husband of the Queen, and the distorted shadow of George Stephenson, the bourgeois creator of a network of railway lines, a Bourse of railway shares; the winner, as it was then supposed, of a huge fortune. It was said that Prince Albert himself had felt some curiosity to see this man and hear him speak, and that their encounter on this occasion was prearranged and not accidental.
The autumn of 1845 revealed another side to the country's history. The rainy weather in the summer brought to sudden hideous maturity the lurking potato disease. Any one who recalls the time and the aspect of the fields must retain a vivid recollection of the sudden blight that fell upon acres on acres of what had formerly been luxuriant vegetation, under the sunshine which came late only to complete the work of destruction; the withering and blackening of the leaves of the plant, the sickening foetid odour of the decaying bulbs, which tainted the heavy air for miles; the dismay that filled the minds of the people, who, in the days of dear corn, had learnt more and more to depend upon the cultivation of potatoes, to whom their failure meant ruin and starvation.
This was especially the case in Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland, where the year closed in gloom and apprehension; famine stalked abroad, and doles of Indian corn administered by Government in addition to the alms of the charitable, alone kept body and soul together in fever-stricken multitudes.
About this time also, like another feature of the spirit of adventure which sent Franklin to the North Pole, and operated to a certain extent in the flush of railway enterprise, England was talking half chivalrously, half commercially, and alas! more than half sceptically, of Brook and Borneo, and the new attempt to establish civilization and herald Christianity under English influence in the far seas. All these conflicting elements of new history were felt in the palace as in other dwellings, and made part of Queen Victoria's life in those days.
A great statesman closed his eyes on this changing world. Earl Grey, who had been in the front in advocating change in his time, died.
A brave soldier fell in the last of his battles. Sir Robert Sale, who had been the guest of his Queen a year before, having returned to India and rejoined the army of the Sutlej on fresh disturbances breaking out in the Punjab, was killed at the battle of Moodkee.
Something of the wit and humour of the country was quenched or undergoing a transformation and passing into other hands. Two famous English humorists, Sydney Smith and Tom Hood the elder, went over to the great majority.
By the close of 1845 it had become clear that a change in the Corn Laws was impending. In the circumstances Sir Robert Peel, who, though he had been for some time approaching the conclusion, was not prepared to take immediate steps—who was, indeed, the representative of the Conservative party—resigned office. Lord John Russell, the great Whig leader, was called upon by the Queen to summon a new Ministry; but in consequence of difficulties with those who were to have been his colleagues, Lord John was compelled to announce himself unable to form a Cabinet, and Sir Robert Peel, at the Queen's request, resumed office, conscious that he had to face one of the hardest tasks ever offered to a statesman. He had to encounter "the coolness of former friends, the grudging support of unwilling adherents, the rancour of disappointed political antagonists."
In February, 1846, the royal family spent a week at Osborne, glad to escape from the strife of tongues and the violent political contention which they could do nothing to quell. The Prince was happy, "out all day," directing the building which was going on, and laying out the grounds of his new house; and the Queen was happy in her husband and Children's happiness. During this short absence Sir Robert Peel's resolutions were carried, and his Corn Bill, which was virtually the repeal of the Corn Laws, passed. He had only to await the consequences.
In the middle of the political excitement a single human tragedy, which Sir Robert Peel did something to prevent, reached its climax. Benjamin Haydon, the painter, the ardent advocate, both by principle and practice, of high art, took his life, driven to despair by his failure in worldly success—especially by the ill-success of his cartoons at the exhibition in Westminster Hall.
On the 25th of May a third princess was born, and on the 20th of June Sir Robert Peel's old allies, the Tories, who had but bided their time for revenge, while his new Whig associates looked coldly on him, conspired to defeat him in a Government measure to check assassination in Ireland, so that he had no choice save to resign. He had sacrificed himself as well as his party for what he conceived to be the good of the nation. His reign of power was at an end; but for the moment, at least, he was thankful.
To Lord John Russell, who was more successful than on an earlier occasion, the task of forming a new Ministry was intrusted. The parting from her late ministers, on the 6th of July, was a trial to the Queen, as the same experience had been previously. "Yesterday," her Majesty wrote to King Leopold, "was a very hard day for me. I had to part from Sir Robert Peel and Lord Aberdeen, who are irreparable losses to us and to the country. They were both so much overcome that it quite upset me. We have in them two devoted friends. We felt so safe with them. Never during the five years that they were with me did they ever recommend a person or a thing that was not for my or the country's best, and never for the party's advantage only…. I cannot tell you how sad I am to lose Aberdeen; you cannot think what a delightful companion he was. The breaking up of all this intercourse during our journeys is deplorable."
In the separation the Queen turned naturally to a nearer and dearer friend, whom only death could remove from her. "Albert's use to me, and I may say to the country, by his firmness and sagacity in these moments of trial, is beyond all belief." And beyond all gainsaying must have been the deep satisfaction with which the uncle, who was like a father, heard the repeated assurance of how successful had been his work—what a blessing had rested upon it.
Here is a note of exultation on the political changes from the opposite side of the House. Lord Campbell wrote: "The transfer of the ministerial offices took place at Buckingham Palace on the 6th of July. I ought to have been satisfied, for I received two seals, one for the Duchy of Lancaster and one for the County Palatine of Lancaster. My ignorance of the double honour which awaited me caused an awkward accident, for, when the Queen put two velvet bags into my hand, I grasped one only, and the other with its heavy weight fell down on the floor, and might have bruised the royal toes, but Prince Albert good-naturedly picked it up and restored it to me."
In July the Court again paid a short visit to Osborne, that the Queen's health might be recruited before the baptism of the little Princess. Her Majesty earnestly desired that the Queen of the Belgians might be present, as the baby was to be the godchild of the young widow of Queen Louise's much-loved brother, the late Duc d'Orleans. Unfortunately the wish could not be fulfilled. The child was christened at Buckingham Palace. She received the names of "Helena Augusta Victoria." Her sponsors were the Duchesse d'Orleans, represented by the Duchess of Kent; the Duchess of Cambridge; and the Hereditary Grand Duke of Mecklenburg-Strelitz. The illustration represents the charming little Princess at rather a more advanced age.
At the end of July Prince Albert was away from home for a few days. He visited Liverpool, which he had greatly wished to see, in order to lay the foundation-stone of a Sailors' Home and open the Albert Dock. In the middle of the bustle and enthusiasm of his reception he wrote to the Queen: "I write hoping these lines, which go by the evening post, may reach you by breakfast time to-morrow. As I write you will be making your evening toilette, and not be ready in time for dinner. [Footnote: The Queen dressed quickly, but sometimes she relied too much on her powers in this respect, and failed in her wonted punctuality.] I must set about the same task and not, let me hope, with the same result. I cannot get it into my head that there are two hundred and fifty miles between us…. I must conclude and enclose, by way of close, two touching objects—a flower and a programme of the procession."
The same day the Queen wrote to Baron Stockmar: "I feel very lonely without my dear master; and though I know other people are often separated for a few days, I feel habit could not make me get accustomed to it. This I am sure you cannot blame. Without him everything loses its interest…. It will always be a terrible pang for me to separate from him even for two days." Then she added with a ring of foreboding, "And I pray God never to let me survive him." She concluded with the true woman's proud assertion, "I glory in his being seen and heard."
CHAPTER V.
AUTUMN YACHTING EXCURSIONS—THE SPANISH MARRIAGES—WINTER VISITS.
In the beginning of August the Queen and the Prince, accompanied by the King and Queen of the Belgians, went again to Osborne. This autumn the Queen, the Prince and their two elder children, made pleasant yachting excursions, of about a week's duration each, to old admired scenes and new places. In one of these Baron Stockmar was with them, since he had come to England for a year's visit. He expressed himself as much gratified by the Prince's interest and judgment in politics, and his opinion of the Queen was more favourable than ever. "The Queen improves greatly," he noted down as the fruits of his keen observation, "and she makes daily advances in discernment and experience. The candour, the tone of truth, the fairness, the considerateness with which she judges men and things, are truly delightful; and the ingenuous self-knowledge with which she speaks of herself is simply charming." The yachting excursions included Babbicombe, with the red rocks and wooded hills, which gave the Queen an idea of Italy, where she had never been, "or rather of a ballet or play where nymphs are to appear;" and Torbay, where William of Orange landed. It was perhaps in reference to that event that her Majesty made her little daughter "read in her English history." It seems to have been the Queen's habit, in these yachting excursions, to take upon herself a part, at least, of the Princess Royal's education. "Beautiful Dartmouth" recalled—it might be all the more, because of the rain that fell there—the Rhine with its ruined castles and its Lurlei. Plymouth Harbour and the shore where the pines grew down to the sea, led again to Mount Edgcumbe, always lovely. But first the Queen and the Prince steamed up the St. Germans and the Tamar rivers, passing Trematon Castle, which belonged to the little Duke of Cornwall, and penetrated by many windings of the stream into lake-like regions surrounded by woods and abounding in mines, which made the Prince think of some parts of the Danube. The visitors landed at Cothele, and drove up to a fine old house unchanged since Henry VII.'s time. When they returned in the Fairy to the yacht proper, they found it in the centre of a shoal of boats, as it had been the last time it sailed in these waters.
Prince Albert made an excursion to Dartmoor, and could have believed he was in Scotland, while her Majesty contented herself with another visit to Mount Edgcumbe, the master of which, a great invalid, yet contrived to meet her near the landing-place at which his wife and sons, with other members of the family, had received the royal visitor. The drowsy heat and the golden haze were in keeping with the romantically luxuriant glories of the drive, which the Queen took with her children and her hostess. The little people went in to luncheon while the Queen sketched.
After Prince Albert's return in the afternoon, the visit was repeated. "The finest and tallest chestnut-trees in existence," and the particularly tall and straight birch-trees, were inspected, and Sir Joshua Reynolds's portraits examined. Well might they flourish at Mount Edgcumbe, since Plymouth was Sir Joshua's native town, and some of the Edgcumbe family were among his first patrons, when English art stood greatly in need of such patronage.
The next excursion was an impromptu run in lovely weather to Guernsey, which had not been visited by an English sovereign since the days of King John. The rocky bays, the neighbouring islands, the half-foreign town of St. Pierre, with "very high, bright-coloured houses," illuminated at night, pleased her Majesty greatly. On the visitors landing they were met by ladies dressed in white singing "God save the Queen," and strewing the path with flowers. General Napier, a white- haired soldier, received the Queen and presented her with the keys of the fort. The narrow streets through which she drove were "decorated with flowers and flags, and lined with the Guernsey militia." The country beyond, of which she had a glimpse, was crowned with fine vegetation.
Whether or not it was to prevent Jersey, with St. Helier's, from feeling jealous, ten days later the Queen and the Prince, the Prince of Wales, and the Princess Royal, the usual suite, Lord Spencer, and Lord Palmerston, set out on a companion trip to the sister island. The weather was colder and the sea not so calm. Indeed, the rolling of the vessel in Alderney Race was more than the voyagers had bargained for. After it became smoother the little Prince of Wales put on a sailor's dress made by a tailor on board, and great was the jubilation of the Jack Tars of every degree.
The whole picturesque coast of Jersey was circumnavigated in order to reach St. Helier's, which was gained when the red rocks were gilded with the setting sun. A little later the yacht was hauled up under the glow of bonfires and an illumination. On a splendid September day, which lent to the very colouring a resemblance to Naples, the Queen passed between the twin towers of Noirmont Point and St. Aubin, and approached Elizabeth Castle, with the town of St. Helier's behind it. The Queen landed amidst the firing of guns, the playing of military bands, and the roar of cheers, the ladies of the place, as before, strewing her path with flowers, and marshalling her to a canopy, under which her Majesty received the address of the States and the militia. The demonstrations were on a larger and more finished scale than in Guernsey, greater time having been given for preparation.
The French tongue around her arrested the Queen's attention. So did a seat in one of the streets filled with French women from Granville, "curiously dressed, with white handkerchiefs on their heads." The Queen drove through the green island, admiring its orchards without end, though the season of russet and rosy apples was past for Jersey. The old tower of La Hogue Bie was seen, and the castle of Mont Orgueil was still more closely inspected, the Queen walking up to it and visiting one of its batteries, with a view across the bay to the neighbouring coast of France. Mont Orgueil is said to have been occupied by Robert of Normandy, the unfortunate son of William the Conqueror. Her Majesty heard that it had not yet been taken, but found this was an error, though it was true the island of Guernsey had never been conquered.
The close of the pleasant day was a little spoilt by the heat and glare, which sent the Queen ill to her cabin. The next day saw the party bound for Falmouth, where they arrived under a beautiful moon, with the sea smooth as glass—not an unacceptable change from the rolling swell of the first part of the little voyage.
Something unexpected and unwelcome had happened before the close of the excursion, while the French coast which the Queen had hailed with so much pleasure was still full in sight. Whether the news which arrived with the other dispatches had anything to do with the fit of indisposition that rendered the heat and glare unbearable, it certainly marred the enjoyment of the last part of her trip. Before quitting Jersey the Queen was made acquainted with the fact that Louis Philippe's voluntary protestations with regard to the marriage of his son, the Duc de Montpensier, had been so many idle words. He had stolen a march both upon England and Europe generally. The marriage of the Due de Montpensier with the Infanta Luisa of Spain was announced simultaneously with the marriage of her sister, the Queen of Spain, to her cousin the Due de Cadiz.
Everybody knows at this date how futile were Louis Philippe's schemes for the aggrandisement of his family, and how he learnt by bitter experience, as Louis XIV. had done before him, that a coveted Spanish alliance, in the very fact of its attainment, meant disaster and humiliation for France.
Louis Philippe had the grace, as we sometimes say, to shrink from writing to announce the double marriage against which he had so often solemnly pledged himself to the Queen. He delegated the difficult task to Queen Amélie, who discharged it with as much tact as might have been expected from so devoted a wife and kind a woman.
The Queen of England's reply to this begging of the question is full of spirit and dignity:—
"OSBORNE, September 10, 1846.
"MADAME,—I have just received your Majesty's letter of the 8th, and I hasten to thank you for it. You will, perhaps remember what passed at Eu between the King and myself. You are aware of the importance which I have always attached to the maintenance of our cordial understanding, and the zeal with which I have laboured towards this end. You have no doubt been informed that we refused to arrange the marriage between the Queen of Spain and our cousin Leopold (which the two Queens [Footnote: The reference is to the young Queen of Spain and her mother the Queen-dowager Christina.] had eagerly desired) solely with the object of not departing from a course which would be more agreeable to the King, although we could not regard the course as the best. [Footnote: The confining of the Queen of Spain's selection of a husband to a Bourbon prince, a descendant of Philip V.] You will therefore easily understand that the sudden announcement of this double marriage could not fail to cause us surprise and very keen regret.
"I crave your pardon, Madame, for speaking to you of politics at a time like this, but I am glad that I can say for myself that I have always been sincere with you. Begging you to present my respectful regards to the King, I am, Madame, your Majesty's most devoted friend,
"VICTORIA."
The last yachting excursion of the season was to Cornwall. The usual party accompanied the Queen and the Prince, the elder children, and the ladies and gentlemen in waiting, her Majesty managing, as before, to hear her little daughter repeat her lessons. Lizard Point and Land's End were reached. At Penzance Prince Albert landed to inspect the copper and serpentine-stone works, while the Queen sketched from the deck of the Fairy. As the Cornish boats clustered round the yacht, and the Prince of Wales looked down with surprise on the half- outlandish boatmen, a loyal shout arose, "Three cheers for the Duke of Cornwall."
The romantic: region of St. Michael's Mount, dear to the lovers of Arthurian legends, was visited, the Queen climbing the circuitous path up the hill to enter the castle, the Prince mounting to the tower where "St Michael's chair," the rocky seat for betrothed couples, still tests their courage and endurance. Each man and woman races up the difficult path, and the winner of the race who first sits down in the chair claims the right to rule the future home.
The illustration from a painting by Stanfield represents the imposing pile of the "old religious house" crowning the noble rock, the royal yacht lying off the shore commanding St. Michael's Mount, the numerous spectators on shore and in boats haunting the royal footsteps—in short, the whole scene in the freshness and stir which broke in upon its sombre romance.
On Sunday service was held under the awning with its curtains of flags, Lord Spencer—a captain in the navy—reading prayers "extremely well." On Monday there was an excursion to the serpentine rocks, where caves and creeks, cormorants and gulls, lent their attractions to the spot. At Penryn the corporation came on board, "very anxious to see the Duke of Cornwall." The Queen makes a picture in writing of the quaint interview. "I stepped out of the pavilion on deck with Bertie. Lord Palmerston told them that that was the Duke of Cornwall, and the old mayor of Penryn said he hoped 'he would grow up a blessing to his parents and his country.'"
The party were rowed up the beautiful rivers Truro and Tregony, between banks covered with stunted oaks or woods of a more varied kind down to the water's edge, past charming pools, creeks, and ferries, with long strings of boats on the water and carts on the shore, and a great gathering of people cheering the visitors, especially when the little Duke of Cornwall was held up for them to see. The Queen took delight in the rustic demonstration, so much in keeping with the place, and the simple loyalty of the people.
Her Majesty went to Fowey, and had the opportunity of driving through some of the narrowest, steepest streets in England, till she reached the hilly ground of Cornwall, "covered with fields, and intersected with hedges," and at last arrived at her little son's possession, the ivy-covered ruin of the old castle of Restormel, an appanage of the Duchy of Cornwall, in which the last Earl of Cornwall had resided five hundred years before.
The Queen also visited the Restormel iron-mines. She was one of the comparatively few ladies who have ventured into the nether darkness of a pit. She saw her underground subjects as well as those above ground, and to the former no less than to the latter she bore the kindly testimony that she found them "intelligent good people." We can vouch for this that these hewers and drawers of ore, in their dark-blue woollen suits, the arms bare, and caps with the candles or lamps stuck in the front, lighting up the pallid grimy faces, would be fully conscious of the honour done them, and would yield to no ruddy, fustian-clad ploughman or picturesque shepherd, with his maud and crook in loyalty to their Queen.
The Queen and the Prince got into a truck and were drawn by the miners, the mineral agent for Cornwall bringing up the rear, into the narrow workings, where none could pass between the truck and the rock, and "there was just room to hold up one's head, and not always that." As it is with other strangers in Pluto's domains, her Majesty felt there was something unearthly about this lit-up cavern-like place, where many a man spent the greater part of his life. But she was not deterred from getting out of the truck with me Prince, and scrambling along to see the veins of ore, from which Prince Albert was able to knock off some specimens. Daylight was dazzling to the couple when they returned to its cheerful presence.
The last visit paid in Cornwall was by very narrow stony lanes to "Place," a curious house restored from old plans and drawings to a fac-simile of a Cornwall house of the past as it had been defended by one of the ancestresses of the present family, the Treffrys, against an attack made upon her, by the French during her husband's absence. The hall was lined with Cornwall marble and porphyry.
On the 15th of September the new part of Osborne House was occupied for the first time by its owners. Lady Lyttelton chronicled the pleasant event and some ceremonies which accompanied it. "After dinner we were to drink the Queen and Prince's health as a 'house-warming.' And after it the Prince said very naturally and simply, but seriously, 'We have a hymn' (he called it a psalm) 'in Germany for such occasions. It begins'—and then he repeated two lines in German, which I could not quote right, meaning a prayer to 'bless our going out and coming in.' It was long and quaint, being Luther's. We all perceived that he was feeling it. And truly entering a new house, a new palace, is a solemn thing to do, to those whose probable span of life in it is long, and spite of rank, and health, and youth, down- hill now."
Sir Theodore Martin, who quotes Lady Lyttelton's letters in the "Life of the Prince Consort," gives such a hymn, which is a paraphrase of the 121st Psalm, as it appears in the Coburg Gesang-Buch, and supplies a translation of the verse in question.
Unsern ausgang segne Gott,
Unsern erngang gleicher massen,
Segne unser taglich brod,
Segne unser thun und lassen.
Segne uns mit sel'gem sterben,
Und mach uns zu Himmel's Erben
* * * * *
By Tre, Con and Pen,
You may know the Cornish men
God bless our going out, nor less
Our coming in, and make them sure,
God bless our daily bread, and bless
Whate'er we do, whate'er endure,
In death unto his peace awake us,
And heirs of his salvation make us
"I forgot," writes Lady Lyttelton again, "much the best part of our breaking in, which was that Lucy Kerr (one of the maids of honour) insisted on throwing an old shoe into the house after the Queen, as she entered for the first night, being a Scotch superstition. It looked too strange and amusing. She wanted some melted lead and sundry other charms, but they were not forthcoming. I told her I would call her Luckie, and not Lucy."
During the autumn the Princess of Prussia, who was on a visit to her aunt, Queen Adelaide, went to Windsor Castle, where Madame Bunsen met her. "I arrived here at six," writes Madame Bunsen "and at eight went to dinner in the great hall, hung round with Waterloo pictures, the band playing exquisitely, so placed as to be invisible, so that what with the large proportions of the hall and the well-subdued lights, and the splendours of plate and decorations, the scene was such as fairy tales present; and Lady Canning, Miss Stanley, and Miss Dawson were beautiful enough to represent an ideal queen's ideal attendants.
"The Queen looked well and rayonnante, with the expression of countenance that she has when pleased with what surrounds her, and which you know I like to see. The old Duke of Cambridge failed not to ask after you.
"This morning at nine we were all assembled at prayers in the private chapel, then went to breakfast, headed by Lady Canning, after which Miss Stanley took the Countess Haach and me to see the collection of gold plate. Three works of Benvenuto Cellini, and a trophy from the Armada, an immense flagon or wine-fountain, like a gigantic old- fashioned smelling-bottle, and a modern Indian work—a box given to the Queen by an Indian potentate—were what interested me the most. Then I looked at many interesting pictures in the long corridor.
"I am lodged in what is called the Devil's Tower, and have a view of the Round Tower, of which I made a sketch as soon as I was out of bed this morning."
In October the Queen and the Prince spent several days on a private visit to the Queen-dowager at her country house of Cashiobury. From Cashiobury the royal couple went on, in bad weather, to Hatfield House, which had once been a palace, but had long been the seat of the Cecils, Marquises of Salisbury. Here more than anywhere else Queen Victoria was on the track of her great predecessor, Queen Elizabeth, while the virgin queen was still the maiden princess, considerably oppressed by her stern sister Queen Mary. Queen Victoria inspected all the relics of the interesting old place, "the vineyard," the banqueting-room fallen down into a stable, and the oak still linked with the name of Queen Bess.
At Hatfield there was a laudable innovation on the usual round of festivities. From four to five hundred labourers were regaled on the lawn with a roasted ox and hogsheads of ale.
On the 1st of December, the Queen and Prince, who had been staying at Osborne, paid the Duke of Norfolk a visit at Arundel. Not only was the Duke the premier duke and Earl-Marshal of England, but he held at this time the high office in the Household of Master of the Horse. The old keep and tower at Arundel were brilliantly illuminated in honour of the Queen's presence, and bonfires lit up the surrounding country. The Duke of Wellington was here also, walking about with the Queen, while the younger men shot with Prince Albert. On the second day of her stay her Majesty received guests in the state drawing-room. The third day included the usual commemorative planting of trees in the Little Park. In the evening there was dancing, in which the Queen joined.
There were great changes, ominous of still further transitions, in the theatrical and literary world. Liston, the famous comedian who had delighted a former generation, was dead, and amateur actors, led by authors in the persons of Charles Dickens, Douglas Jerrold, &c. &c., had come to the front, and were winning much applause, as well as solid benefits for individuals and institutions connected with literature requiring public patronage. A man and a woman unlike in everything save their cordial admiration for each other, bore down all opposition in the reading world: William Makepeace Thackeray, in 1846, in spite of the discouragement of publishers, started his "Vanity Fair," and Charlotte Brontë, from the primitive seclusion of an old- fashioned Yorkshire parsonage, took England by storm with her impassioned, unconventional "Jane Eyre." The fame of these two books, while the authors were still in a great measure unknown, rang through the country.
Art in England was still following the lines laid down for the last twenty or thirty years, unless in the case of Turner, who had entered some time before on the third period of his work, the period marked by defiance and recklessness as well as by noble power.
CHAPTER VI.
INSTALLATION OF PRINCE ALBERT AS CHANCELLOR OF CAMBRIDGE.
One thousand eight hundred and forty-seven began with the climax of the terrible famine in Ireland, and the Highlands, produced by the potato disease, which, commencing in 1845, had reappeared even more disastrously in 1846. In the Queen's speech in opening Parliament, she alluded to the famine in the land with a perceptibly sad fall of her voice.
In spite of bad trade and bad times everywhere, two millions were advanced by the Government for the relief of the perishing people, fed on doles of Indian meal; yet the mortality in the suffering districts continued tremendous.
In February, 1847, Lord Campbell describes an amusing scene in the Queen's closet. "I had an audience, that her Majesty might prick a sheriff for the county of Lancaster, which she did in proper style, with the bodkin I put into her hand. I then took her pleasure about some Duchy livings and withdrew, forgetting to make her sign the parchment roll. I obtained a second audience, and explained the mistake. While she was signing, Prince Albert said to me, 'Pray, my lord, when did this ceremony of pricking begin?' CAMPBELL. 'In ancient times, sir, when sovereigns did not know now to write their names.' QUEEN, as she returned me the roll with her signature, 'But we now show we have been to school.'" In the course of the next month his lordship gives a lively account of dining along with his wife and daughter at Buckingham Palace. "On our arrival, a little before eight, we were shown into the picture gallery, where the company assembled. Bowles, who acted as master of the ceremonies, arranged what gentlemen should take what lady. He said, 'Dinner is ordered to be on the table at ten minutes past eight, but I bet you the Queen will not be here till twenty or twenty-five minutes after. She always thinks she can dress in ten minutes, but she takes about double the time.' True enough, it was nearly twenty-five minutes past eight before she appeared; she shook hands with the ladies, bowed to the gentlemen, and proceeded to the salle à manger. I had to take in Lady Emily de Burgh, and was third on her Majesty's right, Prince Edward of Saxe- Weimar and my partner being between us. The greatest delicacy we had was some very nice oat-cake. There was a Highland piper standing behind her Majesty's chair, but he did not play as at State dinners. We had likewise some Edinburgh ale. The Queen and the ladies withdrawing, Prince Albert came over to her side of the table, and we remained behind about a quarter of an hour, but we rose within the hour from the time of our sitting down to dinner…. On returning to the gallery we had tea and coffee. The Queen came up and talked to me. She does the honours of the palace with infinite grace and sweetness, and considering what she is both in public and domestic life, I do not think she is sufficiently loved and respected. Prince Albert took me to task for my impatience to get into the new House of Lords, but I think I pacified him, complimenting his taste. A dance followed. The Queen chiefly delighted in a romping sort of country-dance, called the Tempête. She withdrew a little before twelve."
The beginning of the season in London was marked by two events in the theatrical and operatic world. Fanny Kemble (Mrs. Pierce Butler) reappeared on the stage, and was warmly welcomed back. Jenny Lind sang for the first time in London at the Italian Opera House in the part of "Alice" in Roberto il Diavolo, and enchanted the audience with her unrivalled voice and fine acting.
In the month of May, in the middle of the Irish distress, the great agitator of old, Daniel O'Connell, died in his seventy-second year, on his way to Rome. The news of his death was received in Ireland as only one drop more in the full cup of national misery. In the same month of May another and a very different orator, Dr. Chalmers, the great impassioned Scotch divine, philosopher, and philanthropist, one of the leaders in the disruption from the Church of Scotland, died in Edinburgh, in his sixty-eighth year.
Prince Albert had been elected Chancellor of Cambridge University—a well-deserved compliment, which afforded much gratification both to the Queen and the Prince. They went down to Cambridge in July for the ceremony of the installation, which was celebrated with all scholarly state and splendour.
"The Hall of Trinity was the scene of the ceremony for which the visit was paid. Her Majesty occupied a chair of state on a dais. The Chancellor, the Prince in his official robes, supported by the Duke of Wellington, Chancellor of Oxford, the Bishop of Oxford, the Vice- Chancellor of Cambridge, and the Heads of the Houses entered, and the Chancellor read an address to her Majesty congratulatory on her arrival. Her Majesty made a gracious reply and the Prince retired with the usual profound obeisances, a proceeding which caused her Majesty some amusement," so says the Annual Register. This part of the day's proceedings seems to have made a lively impression on those who witnessed it.
Bishop Wilberforce gives his testimony. "The Cambridge scene was very interesting. There was such a burst of loyalty, and it told so on the Queen and Prince. E—- would not then have thought that he looked cold. It was quite clear that they both felt it as something new that he had earned, and not she given, a true English honour; and so he looked so pleased and she so triumphant. There was also some such pretty interludes when he presented the address, and she beamed upon him and once half smiled, and then covered the smile with a gentle dignity, and then she said in her clear musical voice, 'The choice which the University has made of its Chancellor has my most entire approbation.'" The Queen records in her Diary, "I cannot say how it agitated and embarrassed me to have to receive this address and hear it read by my beloved Albert, who walked in at the head of the University, and who looked dear and beautiful in his robes, which were carried by Colonel Phipps and Colonel Seymour. Albert went through it all admirably, almost absurd, however, as it was for us. He gave me the address and I read the answer, and a few kissed hands, and then Albert retired with the University."
After luncheon a Convocation was held in the Senate House, at which the Queen was present as a visitor. The Prince, as Chancellor, received her at the door, and led her to the seat prepared for her. "He sat covered in his Chancellor's chair. There was a perfect roar of applause," which we are told was only tamed down within the bounds of sanity by the dulness of the Latin oration, delivered by the public orator. Besides the princes already mentioned, and several noblemen and gentlemen, Sir George Grey, Sir Harry Smith (of Indian fame), Sir Roderick Murchison, and Professor Muller, received university honours.
Her Majesty and the new Chancellor dined with the Vice-Chancellor at Catherine Hall—probably selected for the honour because it was a small college, and could only accommodate a select party. After dinner her Majesty attended a concert in the Senate House—an entertainment got up in order to afford the Cambridge public another opportunity of seeing their Queen. Later the Prince went to the Observatory, and her Majesty walked in the cool of the evening in the little garden of Trinity Lodge, with her two ladies.
The following day the royal party again went to the Senate House, the Prince receiving the Queen, and conducting her as before to her seat. With the accompaniment of a tremendous crowd, great heat, and thunders of applause, the prize poems were read, and the medals distributed by the Prince. Then came the time for the "Installation Ode," written at the Prince's request by Wordsworth, the poet laureate, set to music, and sung in Trinity Hall in the presence of the Queen and Prince Albert with great effect. Poetry, of all created things, can least be made to order; yet the ode had many fine passages and telling lines, besides the recommendation claimed for it by Baroness Bunsen: "The Installation Ode I thought quite affecting, because the selection of striking points was founded on fact, and all exaggeration and humbug were avoided."
The poem touched first on what was so prominent a feature in the history of Europe in the poet's youth—the evil of unrighteous and the good of righteous war, identifying the last with the successes of England when Napoleon was overthrown.
Such is Albion's fame and glory,
Let rescued Europe tell the story
Then the measure changes to a plaintive strain.
But lo! what sudden cloud has darkened all
The land as with a funeral pall?
The rose of England suffers blight,
The flower has drooped, the isle's delight
Flower and bud together fall,
A nation's hopes he crushed in Claremont's desolate hall
Hope and cheer return to the song.
Time a chequered mantle wears,
Earth awakes from wintry sleep,
Again the tree a blossom bears
Cease, Britannia, cease to weep,
Hark to the peals on this bright May morn,
They tell that your future Queen is born
A little later is the fine passage—
Time in his mantle's sunniest fold
Uplifted on his arms the child,
And while the fearless infant smiled
Her happy destiny foretold
Infancy, by wisdom mild,
Trained to health and artless beauty,
Youth by pleasure unbeguiled
From the lore of lofty duty,
Womanhood, in pure renown
Seated on her lineal throne,
Leaves of myrtle in her crown
Fresh with lustre all their own,
Love, the treasure worth possessing
More than all the world beside,
This shall be her choicest blessing,
Oft to royal hearts denied.
After a brief period of rest, which meant a little quiet "reading, writing, working, and drawing"—a far better sedative for excited nerves than entire idleness—the Queen and the Prince attended a flower-show in the grounds of Downing College, walking round the gardens and entering into all the six tents, "a very formidable undertaking, for the heat was beyond endurance and the crowd fearful." In the evening there was a great dinner in Trinity Hall. "Splendid did that great hall look," is Baroness Bunsen's admiring exclamation; "three hundred and thirty people at various tables … the Queen and her immediate suite at a table at the raised end of the hall, all the rest at tables lengthways. At the Queen's table the names were put on the places, and anxious was the moment before one could find one's place." Then the Queen gave a reception in Henry VIII.'s drawing-room, when the masters, professors and doctors, with their wives, were presented. When the reception was over, at ten o'clock, in the soft dim dusk, a little party again stole out, to see with greater leisure and privacy those noble trees and hoary buildings. Her Majesty tells us the pedestrians were in curious costumes: "Albert in his dress-coat with a mackintosh over it, I in my evening dress and diadem, and with a veil over my head, and the two princes in their uniforms, and the ladies in their dresses and shawls and veils. We walked through the small garden, and could not at first find our way, after which we discovered the right road, and walked along the beautiful avenues of lime-trees in the grounds of St. John's College, along the water and over the bridges. All was so pretty and picturesque, in particular the one covered bridge of St. John's College, which is like the Bridge of Sighs at Venice. We stopped to listen to the distant hum of the town; and nothing seemed wanting but some singing, which everywhere but here in this country we should have heard. A lattice opened, and we could fancy a lady appearing and listening to a serenade."
Shade of quaint old Fuller! thou who hast described with such gusto Queen Elizabeth's five days' stay at Cambridge, what wouldst thou not have given, hadst thou lived in the reign of Victoria, to have been in her train this night? Shades more formidable of good Queen Bess herself, Bluff King Hal, Margaret Countess of Richmond, and that other unhappy Margaret of Anjou, what would you have said of this simple ramble? In truth it was a scene from the world of romance, even without the music and the lady at the lattice. An ideal Queen and an ideal Prince, a thin disguise over the tokens of their magnificence, stealing out with their companions, like so many ghosts, to enjoy common sights and experiences and the little thrill of adventure in the undetected deed.
On the last morning there was a public breakfast in the grounds of Trinity College, attended by thousands of the county gentry of Cambridge and Lincolnshire. "At one the Queen set out through the cloisters and hall and library of Trinity College, to pass through the gardens and avenues, which had been connected for the occasion by a temporary bridge over the river, with those of St. John's." Madame Bunsen and her companions followed her Majesty, and had the best opportunity of seeing everything, and in particular "the joyous crowd that grouped among the noble trees." The Queen ate her déjeuner in one of the tents, and on her return to Trinity Lodge, she and Prince Albert left Cambridge at three o'clock for London. Baroness Bunsen winds up her graphic descriptions with the statement, "I could still tell much of Cambridge— of the charm of its 'trim gardens,' of how the Queen looked and was pleased, and how well she was dressed, and how perfect in grace and movement."
CHAPTER VII.
THE QUEEN'S VISIT TO THE WESTERN ISLANDS OP SCOTLAND AND STAY AT ARDVERIKIE.
On the 11th of August her Majesty and Prince Albert, with the Prince of Wales, the Princess Royal, and the Prince of Leiningen, attended by a numerous suite, left Osborne in the royal yacht for Scotland. They followed a new route and succeeded, in spite of the fogs in the Channel, in reaching the Scilly Isles. The voyage, to begin with, was not a pleasant one. There had been a rough swell on the sea as well as fogs off shore. The children, and especially the Queen, on this occasion suffered from sea-sickness. However, her Majesty landed on the tiny island of St. Mary's.
As the royal party approached Wales the sea became calmer and the sailing enjoyable. The yacht and its companions lay in the great harbour of Milford Haven, under the reddish-brown cliffs. Prince Albert and the Prince of Leiningen went to Pembroke, while the Queen sat on the deck and sketched.
On a beautiful Sunday the Queen sailed through the Menai Straits in the Fairy, when the sight of "Snowdon rising splendidly in the middle of the fields and woods was glorious." The "grand old Castle of Caernarvon" attracted attention; so did Plas Newydd, where her Majesty had spent six weeks, when she had visited Wales as Princess Victoria, in one of her girlish excursions with the Duchess of Kent. The Isle of Man, with the town of Douglas, surmounted by bold hills and cliffs, a castle and a lighthouse, looked abundantly picturesque, but the landing there was reserved for the return of the voyagers, though it was on this occasion that a tripping Manxman described Prince Albert, in a local newspaper, as leading the Prince Regent by the hand; a slip which drew from the Prince the gay rejoinder that "usually one has a regent for an infant, but in Man it seems to be precisely the reverse."
The Mull of Galloway was the first Scotch land that was sighted, and just before entering Loch Ryan the huge rock, Ailsa Craig, with its moving clouds of sea-fowl, rose to view.
Arran and Goatfell, Bute and the Bay of Rothesay, were alike hailed with delight. But the islands were left behind for the moment, till more was seen of the Clyde, and Greenock, of sugar-refining and boat- building fame, was reached. It was her Majesty's first visit to the west coast of Scotland, and Glasgow poured "down the water" her magistrates, her rich merchants, her stalwart craftsmen, her swarms from the Gorbels and the Saut Market, the Candle-rigs and the Guse- dibs. Multitudes lined the quays. No less than forty steamers over- filled with passengers struggled zealously in the wake of royalty. "Amidst boats and ships of every description moving in all directions," the little Fairy cut its way through, bound for Dumbarton.
On the Queen's return to Greenock she sailed past Roseneath, and followed the windings of Loch Long, getting a good view of the Cobbler, the rugged mountain which bears a fantastic resemblance to a man mending a shoe. At the top of the loch, Ben Lomond came in sight. "There was no sun, and twice a little mist; but still it was beautiful," wrote the Queen.
On "a bright fresh morning" in August, when the hills were just "slightly tipped with clouds," the Queen sailed through the Kyles of Bute, that loveliest channel between overtopping mountains, and entered Loch Fyne, another fine arm of the sea, of herring celebrity.
A Highland welcome awaited the Queen at the little landing-place of Inverary, made gay and fragrant with heather. Old friends, whom she was honouring by her presence, waited to receive her, the Duke and Duchess of Argyle—the latter the eldest daughter of the Duchess of Sutherland, who was also present with her son, Lord Stafford, her unmarred daughter, Lady Caroline Leveson-Gower, and her son-in-law and second daughter, Lord and Lady Blantyre. An innocent warder stood in front of the old feudal keep. In the course of the Queen's visit to Germany she had made the acquaintance, without dreaming of what lay concealed in the skirts of time, of one of her future sons-in-law in a fine little boy of eight years. Now her Majesty was to be introduced, without a suspicion of what would be the result of the introduction, to the coming husband of another daughter still unborn. Here is the Queen's description of the son and heir of the house of Argyle, who was yet to win a princess for his bride. "Outside, stood the Marquis of Lorne, just two years old—a dear, white, fat, fair little fellow, with reddish hair but very delicate features, like both his mother and father; he is such a merry, independent little child. He had a black velvet dress and jacket, with a 'sporran,' scarf, and Highland bonnet."
Her Majesty lunched at the castle, "the Highland gentlemen standing with halberts in the room," and returned to the Fairy, sailing down Loch Fyne when the afternoon was at its mellowest, and the long shadows were falling across the hillsides. At five Lochgilphead was reached, when Sir John Orde lent his carriage to convey the visitors to the Crinan Canal. The next day's sail, in beautiful weather still, was through the clusters of the nearest of the western islands, up the Sound of Jura, amidst a flotilla of small boats crowned with flags. Here were fresh islands and mountain peaks, until the strangers were within hail of Staffa.
It is not always that an approach to this northern marvel of nature is easy or even practicable; but fortune favours the brave. Her Majesty has described the landing. "At three we anchored close before Staffa, and immediately got into the barge, with Charles, the children, and the rest of our people, and rowed towards the cave. As we rounded the point the wonderful basaltic formation came into sight. The appearance it presents is most extraordinary, and when we turned the corner to go into the renowned Fingal's Cave the effect was splendid, like a great entrance into a vaulted hall; it looked almost awful as we entered, and the barge heaved up and down on the swell of the sea. It is very high, but not longer than two hundred and twenty-seven feet, and narrower than I expected, being only forty feet wide. The sea is immensely deep in the cave. The rocks under water were all colours— pink, blue, and green, which had a most beautiful and varied effect. It was the first time the British standard, with a queen of Great Britain and her husband and children, had ever entered Fingal's Cave, and the men gave three cheers, which sounded very impressive there."
On the following day the Atlantic rains had found the party, though for the present the affliction was temporary. It poured for three hours, during which her Majesty drew and painted in her cabin. The weather cleared in the afternoon; sitting on the deck was again possible, and Loch Linnhe, Loch Eil, and the entrance to Loch Leven were not lost.
At Fort William the Queen was to quit the yacht and repair to the summer quarters of Ardverikie. Before doing so she recorded her regret that "this delightful voyage and tour among the western lochs and isles is at an end; they are so beautiful and so full of poetry and romance, traditions and historical associations."
Rain again, more formidable than before, on Saturday, the 21st of August. It was amidst a hopeless drenching drizzle, which blots out the chief features of a landscape, that the Queen went ashore, to find "a great gathering of Highlanders in their different tartans" met to do her honour. Frasers, Forbeses, Mackenzies, Grants, replaced Campbells, Macdonalds, Macdougals, and Macleans. By a wild and lonely carriage-road, the latter part resembling Glen Tilt, her Majesty reached her destination.
Ardverikie, which claimed to have been a hunting-seat of Fergus, king of the Scots, was a shooting lodge belonging to Lord George Bentinck, rented from him by the Marquis of Abercorn, and lent by the marquis to the Queen. It has since been burnt down. It was rustic, as a shooting lodge should be, very much of a large cottage in point of architecture, the bare walls of the principal rooms characteristically decorated with rough sketches by Landseer, among them a drawing of "The Stag at Bay," and the whole house bristling with stags' horns of great size and perfection. In front of the house lay Loch Laggan, eight miles in length.
The Queen remained at Ardverikie for four weeks, and doubtless would have enjoyed the wilds thoroughly, had it not been for the lowest deep of persistently bad weather, when "it not only rained and blew, but snowed by way of variety."
Lord Campbell heard and wrote down these particulars of the royal stay at Ardverikie. "The Queen was greatly delighted with the Highlands in spite of the bad weather, and was accustomed to sally for a walk in the midst of a heavy rain, putting a great hood ever her bonnet, and showing nothing of her features but her eyes. The Prince's invariable return to luncheon about two o'clock, in spite of grouse-shooting and deer-stalking, is explained by his voluntary desire to please the Queen, and by the intense hunger which always assails him at this hour, when he likes, in German fashion, to make his dinner."
In a continuance of the most dismally unpropitious weather, the Queen and her children left Ardverikie on the 17th of September, the Prince having preceded her for a night that he might visit Inverness and the Caledonian Canal. The storm continued, almost without intermission, during the whole of the voyage home.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE FRENCH FUGITIVES—THE PEOPLE'S CHARTER.
Long before the autumn of 1847, the mischievous consequences of the railway mania, complicated by the failure of the potato crop, showed itself in great bankruptcies in the large towns all over the country.
The new year came with trouble on its wings. The impending storm burst all over Europe, first in France. Louis Philippe's dynasty was overthrown.
In pairs or singly, sometimes wandering aside in a little distraction, so as to be lost sight of for days, the numerous brothers and sisters, with the parent pair, reached Dreux and Eu, and thence, with the exception of the Duchesse d'Orleans and her sons, straggled to England.
One can guess the feelings of the Queen and Prince Albert when they heard that their late hosts, doubly allied to them by kindred ties, were fugitives, seeking refuge from the hospitality of a foreign nation. And the first confused tidings of the French revolution which reached the Queen and Prince Albert were rendered more trying, by the almost simultaneous announcement of the death of the old Dowager- Duchess of Gotha, to whom all her grandchildren were so much attached.
The ex-King and Queen arrived at Newhaven, Louis Philippe bearing the name of Mr. Smith. Queen Victoria had already written to King Leopold on the 1st of March: "About the King and Queen (Louis Philippe and Queen Amélie) we still know nothing…. We do everything we can for the poor family, who are, indeed, sorely to be pitied. But you will naturally understand that we cannot make common cause with them, and cannot take a hostile position to the new state of things in France. We leave them alone; but if a Government which has the approbation of the country be formed, we shall feel it necessary to recognise it in order to pin them down to maintain peace and the existing treaties, which is of the greatest importance. It will not be pleasant to do this, but the public good and the peace of Europe go before one's personal feelings."
As soon as it could be arranged under the circumstances, the Queen had an interview with the exiles. What a meeting after the last parting, and all that had come to pass in the interval! This interview took place on the 6th of March, when Louis Philippe came privately to Windsor.
The same intelligent chronicler, Lady Lyttelton, who gave such a graphic account of the Citizen-King's first visit to Windsor, had also to photograph the second. Once more she uses with reason the word "historical." "To-day is historical, Louis Philippe having come from Claremont to pay a private (very private) visit to the Queen. She is really enviable now, to have in her power and in her path of duty, such a boundless piece of charity and beneficent hospitality. The reception by the people of England of all the fugitives has been beautifully kind."
That day the Queen wrote sadly to Baron Stockmar: "I am quite well; indeed, particularly so, though God knows we have had since the 25th enough for a whole life—anxiety, sorrow, excitement; in short, I feel as if we had jumped over thirty years' experience at once. The whole face of Europe is changed, and I feel as if I lived in a dream." She added, with the tenderness of a generous nature, referring to the very different circumstances in which her regard for the Orleans house had been established, and to the alienation which had arisen between her and some of its members: "You know my love for the family; you know how I longed to get of terms with them again … and you said, 'Time will alone, but will certainly, bring it about.' Little did I dream that this would be the way we should meet again and see each other, all in the most friendly way. That the Duchesse de Montpensier, about whom we have been quarrelling for the last year, and a half, should be here as a fugitive and dressed in the clothes I sent her, and should come to thank me for my kindness, is a reverse of fortune which no novelist would devise, and upon which one could moralise for ever."
It was a comfort to the Queen and Prince Albert that Belgium, which had at first appeared in the greatest danger, ended by standing almost alone on the side of its King and Government.
The tide of revolution, which swept over the greater states, did not spare the small. The Duke of Coburg-Gotha's subjects, who had seemed so happily situated and so contented at the time of the Queen's visit, were in a ferment like the rest of their countrymen. Bellona's hot breath was in danger of withering the flowers of that Arcadia. The Princes of Leiningen and Hohenlohe, the Queen's brother and brother- in-law, were practically dispossessed of seigneurial rights and lands, and ruined. The Princess of Hohenlohe wrote to her sister: "We are undone, and must begin a new existence of privations, which I don't care for, but for poor Ernest" (her husband) "I feel it more than I can say."
In the meantime, on the 18th of March a fourth English Princess was born. There was more than usual congratulation on the safety and well- being of mother and child, because of the great shocks which had tried the Queen previously, and the anxiety which filled all thoughtful minds for the result of the crisis in England. Her Majesty's courage rose to the occasion. She wrote to King Leopold in little more than a fortnight: "I heard all that passed, and my only thoughts and talk were political. But I never was calmer or quieter, or less nervous. Great events make one calm; it is only trifles that irritate my nerves."
England had its own troubles and was in high excitement about an increased grant of money for the support of the army and navy, and the continuance of the income-tax. The Chartists threatened to make a great demonstration on Kennington Common.
The first threat in London, for the 13th of March, a few days before the birth of the little Princess, ended in utter failure. The happy termination was assisted by the state of the weather, great falls of rain anticipating the work of large bodies of police prepared to scatter the crowd. But as another demonstration, with the avowed intention of walking in procession to present to the House of Commons a monster petition, miles long, for the granting of the People's Charter, was announced to take place on the 10th of April, great uncertainty, and agitation filled the public mind. It was judged advisable that the Queen should go to the Isle of Wight for a short stay at Osborne, though it was still not more than three weeks since her confinement.
The second demonstration collapsed like the first. Only a fraction— not more than twenty-three thousand of the vast multitude expected to appear—assembled at the meeting-place, and the people dispersed quietly. But it is only necessary to mention the precautions employed to show how great had been the alarm. The Duke of Wellington devised and conducted the steps which were taken beforehand. On the bridges were massed bodies of foot and horse police, and special constables, of whom nearly two hundred thousand—one of them Prince Louis Napoleon, the future Emperor of the French—are said to have been sworn in. In the immediate neighbourhood of each bridge strong forces of military, while kept out of sight, were ready "for instant movement." Two regiments of the line were at Millbank Penitentiary, twelve hundred infantry at Deptford Dockyard, and thirty pieces of heavy field ordnance at the Tower prepared for transport by hired steamers to any spot where help might be required. Bodies of troops were posted in unexpected quarters, as in the area of the untenanted Rose Inn yard, but within call. The public offices at Somerset House and in the City were liberally supplied with arms. Places like the Bank of England were "packed" with troops and artillery, and furnished with sand-bag parapets for their walls, and wooden barricades with loopholes for firing through, for their windows.
"Thank God," her Majesty wrote to the King of the Belgians, "the Chartist meeting and procession have turned out a complete failure. The loyalty of the people at large, has been very striking, and their indignation at their peace being interfered with by such wanton and worthless men immense."
Never was cheerfulness more wanted to lighten a burden of work and care. In this year of trouble "no less than twenty-eight thousand dispatches were received or sent out from the Foreign Office." All these dispatches came to the Queen and Prince Albert, as well as to Lord Palmerston, the Minister for Foreign Affairs.
Across the Channel the inflammatory speeches and writings of Messrs. Mitchel, Meagher, and Smith O'Brien became so treasonable in tone that, after the passing of a Bill in Parliament for the better repression of sedition, the three Irish leaders were arrested and brought to trial, the jury refusing to commit in the case of Meagher and Smith O'Brien, but in that of Mitchel, who was tried separately, finding him guilty, and sentencing him to transportation for fourteen years.
On the 2nd of May the Court returned to Buckingham Palace, and the baptism of the infant princess took place on the 13th, in the private chapel of Buckingham Palace, when the Archbishop of Canterbury officiated. The sponsors were Duke Augustus of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, represented by Prince Albert, and the Duchess of Saxe-Meiningen and the Grand-Duchess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, represented by the Queen- dowager and the Duchess of Cambridge. The names given to the child were, "Louise Caroline Alberta," the first and last for the child's grandmother on the father's side and for the royal father himself. A chorale was performed, which the Prince had adapted from an earlier composition written to the hymn—
In life's gay morn, ere sprightly youth
By vice and folly is enslaved,
Oh! may thy Maker's glorious name
Be on thy infant mind engraved;
So shall no shades of sorrow cloud
The sunshine of thy early days,
But happiness, in endless round,
Shall still encompass all thy ways.
Bishop Wilberforce describes the scene. "The royal christening was a very beautiful sight, in its highest sense of that word 'beauty.' The Queen, with the five royal children around her, the Prince of Wales and Princess Royal hand-in-hand, all kneeling down quietly and meekly at every prayer, and the little Princess Helena alone, just standing, and looking round with the blue eyes of gazing innocence."
When the statues of the royal children were executed by Mrs. Thornycroft, Princess Helena was modelled as Peace. The engraving is a representation of the graceful piece of sculpture, in which a slender young girl, wearing a long loose robe and having sandalled feet, holds the usual emblematic branch and cluster—one in each hand.
As one Princess was born, another of a former generation, whose birth had been hailed with equal rejoicing, passed away, on the 27th of May, immediately after the Birthday Drawing-room. Princess Sophia, the youngest surviving daughter and twelfth child of George III. and Queen Charlotte, died in her arm-chair in the drawing-room of her house at Kensington, aged seventy-one. At her own request she was buried at Kensal Green, where the Duke of Sussex was interred.