CHAPTER IX.
THE QUEEN'S FIRST STAY AT BALMORAL.
From France, in June, came the grievous news of the three days' fighting in the streets of Paris, because no Government provision could secure work and bread for the artisans. The insurrection was only put down by martial law under the Dictator, General Cavaignac.
In Sardinia the King, Charles Albert, fighting gallantly against the
Austrian rule, was defeated once and again, and driven back.
In England, though the most swaggering of the Chartists still blustered a little, attention could be given to more peaceful concerns. In July Prince Albert went to York, though he could "ill be spared" from the Queen's side in those days of startling events and foreign turmoil, to be present at a meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society, of which he had been governor for half-a-dozen years. The acclamations with which the Prince was received, were only the echo of the tempest of cheers which greeted and encouraged her Majesty every time she appeared in public this year.
In August strong measures had again to be taken in Ireland. These included the gathering together of a great military force in the disturbed districts, and the assemblage of a fleet of war-steamers on the coast. As in the previous instance, little or no resistance was offered. In the course of a few days the former leaders, Meagher, Smith O'Brien, and Mitchel, were arrested. They were brought to trial in Dublin, convicted of high treason, and sentenced to death—a sentence commuted into transportation for life.
The Queen had the pleasure of finding her brother, the Prince of Leiningen, appointed head of the department of foreign affairs in the short-lived Frankfort assembly of the German states. It showed at least the respect in which he was held by his countrymen.
On the 5th of September the Queen went in person to prorogue Parliament, which had sat for ten months. The ceremony took place in the new House of Lords. There was an unusually large and brilliant company present on this occasion, partly to admire the "lavish paint and gilding," the stained-glass windows, with likenesses of kings and queens, and Dyce's and Maclise's frescoes, partly to enjoy the emphatically-delivered sentence in the royal speech, in which the Queen acknowledged, "with grateful feelings, the many marks of loyalty and attachment which she had received from all classes of her people."
The Queen and the Prince, with three of their children and the suite, sailed from Woolwich for a new destination in Scotland—a country- house or little castle, which they had so far made their own, since the Prince, acting on the advice of Sir James Clark, the Queen's physician, had acquired the lease from the Earl of Aberdeen.
The royal party were in Aberdeen Harbour at eight o'clock in the morning of the 7th September. On the 8th Balmoral was reached. The first impression was altogether agreeable. Her Majesty has described the place, as it appeared to her, in her Journal. "We arrived at Balmoral at a quarter to three. It is a pretty little castle in the old Scottish style. There is a picturesque tower and garden in the front, with a high wooded hill; at the back there is a wood down to the Dee, and the hills rise all around."
During the first stay of the Court at Balmoral, the Queen has chronicled the ascent of a mountain. On Saturday, the 16th of September, as early as half-past nine in the morning, her Majesty and Prince Albert drove in a postchaise four miles to the bridge in the wood of Ballochbuie, where ponies and guides awaited them. Macdonald, a keeper of Farquharson of Invercauld's and afterwards in the service of the Prince, a tall, handsome man, whom the Queen describes as "looking like a picture in his shooting-jacket and kilt," and Grant, the head-keeper at Balmoral, on a pony, with provisions in two baskets, were the chief attendants.
Through the wood and over moss, heather, and stones, sometimes riding, sometimes walking; Prince Albert irresistibly attracted to stalk a deer, in vain; across the stony little burn, where the faithful Highlanders piloted her Majesty, walking and riding again, when Macdonald led the bridle of the beast which bore so precious a burden; the views "very beautiful," but alas! mist on the brow of Loch-na-gar. Prince Albert making a detour after ptarmigan, leaving the Queen in the safe keeping of her devoted guides, to whom she refers so kindly as "taking the greatest care of her." Even "poor Batterbury," the English groom, who seems to have cut rather a ridiculous figure in his thin boots and gaiters and non-enjoyment of the expedition, "was very anxious also" for the well-being of his royal lady, whose tastes must have struck him as eccentric, to say the least.
The mist intensified the cold when the citadel mountain was reached, so that it must have been a relief to try a spell of walking once more, especially as the first part of the way was "soft and easy," while the party looked down on the two lochans, known as Na Nian. Who that has any knowledge of the mountains cannot recall the effect of these solitary tarns, like well-eyes in the wilderness, gleaming in the sunshine, dark in the gloom? The Prince, good mountaineer as he was, grew glad to remount his pony and let the docile, sure-footed creature pick its steps through the gathering fog, which was making the ascent an adventure not free from danger.
Everything not within a hundred yards was hidden. The last and steepest part of the mountain (three thousand seven hundred and seventy-seven feet from the sea-level) was accomplished on foot, and at two o'clock, after four hours' riding and walking, a seat in a little nook where luncheon could be taken was found; for, unfortunately, there was no more to be done save to seek rest and refreshment. There was literally nothing to be seen, in place of the glorious panorama which a mountain-top in favourable circumstances presents.
This was that "dark Loch-na-gar" whose "steep frowning glories" Lord Byron rendered famous, for which he dismissed with scorn, "gay landscapes and gardens of roses."
No doubt the snowflakes, in corries on the mountain-side, do look deliciously cool on a hot summer day. But such a drizzling rain as this was the other side of the picture, which her Majesty, with a shiver, called "cold, wet, and cheerless." In addition to the rain the wind began to blow a hurricane, which, after all, in the case of a fog was about the kindest thing the wind could do, whether or not the spirits of heroes were in the gale.
At twenty minutes after two the party set out on their descent of the mountain. The two keepers, moving on as pioneers in the gloom, "looked like ghosts." When walking became too exhausting, the Queen, "well wrapped in plaids," was again mounted on her pony, which she declared "went delightfully," though the mist caused the rider "to feel cheerless."
In the course of the next couple of hours, after a thousand feet of the descent had been achieved, by one of those abrupt transitions which belong to such a landscape, the mist below vanished as if by magic, and it was again, summer sunshine around.
But the world could not be altogether shut out at Balmoral, and the echoes which came from afar, this year, were of a sufficiently disturbing character. Among the most notable, Sir Theodore Martin mentions the Frankfort riots, in which two members of the German States Union were assassinated, and the startling death of the Conservative leader, Lord George Bentinck, who had suddenly exchanged the rôle of the turf for that of Parliament, and come to the front during the struggle over the abolition of the Corn Laws.
A third strangely significant omen was the election of Prince Louis
Napoleon, by five different French Departments, as a deputy to the new
French Chamber.
The Court left Balmoral on the 28th of September, stayed one night in London, and then proceeded for ten days to Osborne. On the return of the Queen and the Prince to Windsor, on the 9th of October, a sad accident occurred in their sight. As the yacht was crossing on a misty and stormy day to Portsmouth, she passed near the frigate Grampus, which had just come back from her station in the Pacific. In their eagerness to meet their relations among the crew on board, five unfortunate women had gone out in an open boat rowed by two watermen, though the foul-weather flag was flying. "A sudden squall swamped the boat" without attracting the attention of anyone on board the Grampus or the yacht. But one of the watermen, who was able to cling to the overturned boat, was seen by the men in a Custom-house boat, who immediately aroused the indignation of Lord Adolphus Fitzclarence and his brother-officers by steering, apparently without any reason, right across the bows of the Fairy. Prince Albert, who was on deck, was the first to discover the cause of the inexplicable conduct of the men in the Custom-house boat. "He called out that he saw a man in the water;" the Queen hurried out of her pavilion, and distinguished a man on what turned out to be the keel of a boat. "Oh dear! there are more!" cried Prince Albert in horror, "which quite overcame me," the Queen wrote afterwards. "The royal yacht was stopped and one of its boats lowered, which picked up three of the women—one of them alive and clinging to a plank, the others dead." The storm was violent, and the responsibility of keeping the yacht exposed to its fury lay with Lord Adolphus. Since nothing further could be attempted for the victims of their own rashness, he did not think it right that the yacht should stay for the return of the boat, as he held the delay unsafe, although both the Queen and the Prince, with finer instincts, were anxious this should be done. "We could not stop," wrote her Majesty again, full of pity. "It was a dreadful moment, too horrid to describe. It is a consolation to think we were of some use, and also that, even if the yacht had remained, they could not have done more. Still, we all keep feeling we might, though I think we could not…. It is a terrible thing, and haunts me continually."
The Magyar War under Kossuth was raging in Hungary. In the far-away Punjab the Sikh War, in which Lieutenant Edwardes had borne so gallant a part in the beginning of the year, was still prolonged, with Mooltan always the bone of contention.
In October all aristocratic England was excited by the sale of the Art treasures of Stowe, which lasted for forty days. Mrs. Gaskell made a fine contribution to literature in her novel of "Mary Barton," in which genius threw its strong light on Manchester life.
The Queen had a private theatre fitted up this year in the Rubens Room, Windsor Castle. The first of the dramatis personae in the best London theatres went down and acted before the Court, giving revivals of Shakespeare—which it was hoped would improve the taste for the higher drama—varied by lighter pieces.
On the 24th of November the Queen heard of the death of her former Minister and counsellor William Lamb, Viscount Melbourne. "Truly and sincerely," her Majesty wrote in her Journal, "do I deplore the loss of one who was a most disinterested friend of mine, and most sincerely attached to me. He was, indeed, for the first two years and a half of my reign, almost the only friend I had, except Stockmar and Lehzen, and I used to see him constantly, daily. I thought much and talked much of him all day."
CHAPTER X.
PUBLIC AND DOMESTIC INTERESTS—FRESH ATTACK UPON THE QUEEN.
The Queen and the Prince were now pledged—alike by principle and habit—to hard work. They were both early risers, but before her Majesty joined Prince Albert in their sitting-room, where their writing-tables stood side by side, we are told he had already, even in winter, by the light of the green German lamp which he had introduced into England, prepared many papers to be considered by her Majesty, and done everything in his power to lighten her labours as a sovereign.
Lord Campbell describes an audience which he had from the Queen in February. "I was obliged to make an excursion to Windsor on Saturday, and have an audience before Prince Albert's lunch. I was with the Queen in her closet, solus cum solâ. But I should first tell you my difficulty about getting from the station at Slough to the Castle. When we go down for a council we have a special train and carriages provided for us. I consulted Morpeth, who answered, 'I can only tell you how I went last—on the top of an omnibus; but the Queen was a little shocked.' I asked how she found it out. He said he had told her himself to amuse her, but that I should be quite en règle by driving up in a fly or cab. So I drove up in my one horse conveyance, and the lord-in-waiting announced my arrival to her Majesty. I was shown into the royal closet, a very small room with one window, and soon she entered by another door all alone. My business was the appointment of a sheriff for the County Palatine, which was soon despatched. We then talked of the state of the finances of the Duchy, and I ventured to offer her my felicitations on the return of this auspicious day—her wedding-day. I lunched with the maids of honour, and got back in time to take a part in very important deliberations in the Cabinet."
In February, 1849, the Queen opened Parliament in person. Perhaps the greatest source of anxiety was now the Sikh War, in which the warlike tribes were gaining advantages over the English troops, though Mooltan had been reduced the previous month. A drawn battle was fought between Lord Gough's force and that of Chuttar Singh at Chillianwallah. While the English were not defeated, their losses in men, guns and standards were sore and humiliating to the national pride. Sir Charles Napier was ordered out, and, in spite of bad health, obeyed the order. But in the meantime Lord Gough had retrieved his losses by winning at Goojerat a great victory over the Sikhs and Afghans, which in the end compelled the surrender of the enemy, with the restoration of the captured guns and standards. On the 29th of March the kingdom of the Punjaub was proclaimed as existing no longer, and the State was annexed to British India; while the beneficial influence of Edwardes and the Lawrences rendered the wild Sikhs more loyal subjects, in a future time of need, than the trained and petted Sepoy mercenaries proved themselves.
On the afternoon of the 19th of May, after the Queen had held one of her most splendid Drawing-rooms, when she was driving in a carriage with three of her children up Constitution Hill, she was again fired at by a man standing within the railings of the Green Park. Prince Albert was on horseback, so far in advance that he did not know what had occurred, till told of it by the Queen when he assisted her to alight. But her Majesty did not lose her perfect self-possession. She stood up, motioned to the coachman, who had stopped the carriage for an instant, to go on, and then diverted the children's attention by talking to them. The man who had fired was immediately arrested. Indeed, he would have been violently assaulted by the mob, had he not been protected by the police. He proved to be an Irishman, named Hamilton, from Limerick, who had come over from Ireland five years before, and worked as a bricklayer's labourer and a navvy both in England and France. Latterly he had been earning a scanty livelihood by doing chance jobs. There was this to distinguish him from the other dastardly assailants of the Queen: he was not a half-crazed, morbidly conceited boy, though he also had no conceivable motive for what he did. He appears to have taken his measures, in providing himself with pistol and powder, from a mere impulse of stolid brutality. His pistol contained no ball, so that he was tried under the Felon's Act, which had been provided for such offences, and sentenced to seven years' transportation.
The education of their children was a subject of much thought and care to the Queen and Prince Albert. Her Majesty wrote various memoranda on the question which was of such interest to her. Some of these are preserved in the life of the Prince Consort. She started with the wise maxim, "that the children should be brought up as simply and in as domestic a way as possible; that (not interfering with their lessons) they should be as much as possible with their parents, and learn to place their greatest confidence in them in all things." She dwelt upon a religious training, and held strongly the conviction that "it is best given to a child, day by day, at its mother's knee." It was a matter of tender regret to the Queen when "the pressure of public duty" prevented her from holding this part of her children's education entirely in her own keeping. "It is already a hard case for me," was the pathetic reflection of the young mother in reference to the childhood of the Princess Royal, "that my occupations prevent me being with her when she says her prayers." At the same time the Queen and the Prince had strong opinions on the religious training which ought to be given to their children, and strove to have them carried out. The Queen wrote, still of the Princess Royal, "I am quite clear that she should be taught to have great reverence for God and for religion, but that she should have the feelings of devotion and love which our Heavenly Father encourages His earthly children to have for Him, and not one of fear and trembling; and that the thoughts of death and an after life should not be represented in an alarming and forbidding view, and that she should be made to know as yet no difference of creeds, and not think that she can only pray on her knees, or that those who do not kneel are less fervent and devout in their prayers."
Surely these truly reverent, just, and liberal sentiments on the religion to be imparted to young children must recommend themselves to all earnest, thoughtful parents.
In the accompanying engraving the girl-Princesses, Helena and Louise, who are represented wearing lilies in the breasts of their frocks, look like sister-lilies—as fresh, pure, and sweet.
In 1849 Mr. Birch, who had been head boy at Eton, taken high honours at Cambridge, and acted as one of the under masters at Eton, was appointed tutor to the Prince of Wales when the Prince was eight years of age.
CHAPTER XI.
THE QUEEN'S FIRST VISIT TO IRELAND.
Parliament was prorogued by commission, and the Queen and the Prince, with their four children, sailed on the 1st of August for Ireland. Lady Lyttelton watching the departing squadron from the windows of Osborne, wrote with something like dramatic emphasis, "It is done, England's fate is afloat; we are left lamenting. They hope to reach Cork to-morrow evening, the wind having gone down and the sky cleared, the usual weather compliment to the Queen's departure."
The voyage was quick but not very pleasant, from the great swell in the sea. At nine o'clock, on the morning of the 2nd, Land's End was passed, and at eight o'clock in the evening the Cove of Cork was so near that the bonfires on the hill and the showers of rockets from the ships in the harbour to welcome the travellers, were distinctly visible. Unfortunately the next day was gray and "muggy"—a quality which the Queen had been told was characteristic of the Irish climate. The saluting from the various ships sent a roar through the thick air. The large harbour with its different islands—one of them containing a convict prison, another a military depot—looked less cheerful than it might have done. The captains of the war-steamers came on board to pay their respects; so did the Lord-Lieutenant, Lord Bandon, and the commanders of the forces at Cork. Prince Albert landed, but the Queen wrote and sketched till after luncheon. The delay was lucky, for the sun broke out with splendour in the afternoon. The Fairy, with its royal freight, surrounded by rowing and sailing boats, went round the harbour, all the ships saluting, and then entered Cove, and lay alongside the gaily-decorated crowded pier. The members, for Cork, the clergymen of all denominations, and the yacht club presented addresses, "after which," wrote the Queen, "to give the people the satisfaction of calling the place 'Queenstown,' in honour of its being the first spot on which I set foot upon Irish ground, I stepped on shore amid the roar of cannon (for the artillery was placed so close as quite to shake the temporary room which we entered), and the enthusiastic shouts of the people.".
The Fairy lay alongside the pier of Cork proper, and the Queen received more deputations and addresses, and conferred the honour of knighthood on the Lord Mayor. The two judges, who were holding their courts, came on board in their robes.
Then her Majesty landed and entered Lord Bandon's carriage, accompanied by Prince Albert and her ladies, Lord Bandon and General Turner riding one on each side. The Mayor went in front, and many people in carriages and on horseback joined the royal cortege, which took two hours in passing through the densely-crowded streets and under the triumphal arches. Everything went well and the reception was jubilant. To her Majesty Cork looked more like a foreign than an English town. She was struck by the noisy but good-natured crowd, the men very "poorly, often-raggedly, dressed," many wearing blue coats and knee-breeches with blue stockings. The beauty of the women impressed her, "such beautiful dark eyes and hair, and such fine teeth; almost every third woman was pretty, and some remarkably so. They wear no bonnets, and generally long blue cloaks."
Re-embarking at Cork, the visitors sailed to Waterford, arriving in the course of the afternoon.
The travellers sailed again at half-past eight in the morning, having at first a rough passage, with its usual unacceptable accompaniment of sea-sickness, but near Wexford the sea became gradually smooth, and there was a fine evening. At half-past six Dublin Bay came in sight. The war-steamers, four in number, waiting for her Majesty, were at their post. Escorted by this squadron, the yacht "steamed slowly and majestically" into Kingstown Harbour, which was full of ships, while the quays were lined with thousands of spectators cheering lustily. The sun was setting as this stately "procession of boats" entered the harbour, and her Majesty describes in her Journal "the glowing light" which lit up the surrounding country and the fine buildings, increasing the beauty of the scene.
Next morning, while the royal party were at breakfast, the yacht was brought up to the wharf lined with troops. The Lord-Lieutenant, Lord Clarendon, and Lady Clarendon, Prince George of Cambridge, Lords Lansdowne and Clanricarde, the Archbishop of Dublin, &c. &c., came on board, an address was presented from the county by the Earl of Charlemont, to which a written reply was given. At ten Lord Clarendon, bowing low, stepped before the Queen on the gangway, Prince Albert led her Majesty on shore, the youthful princes and princesses and the rest of the company following, the ships saluting so that the very ground shook with the heavy 68-pounders, the bands playing, the guard of honour presenting arms, the multitude huzzaing, the royal standard floating out on the breeze.
Along a covered way, lined with ladies and gentlemen, and strewn with flowers, the Queen proceeded to the railway station, and after a quarter of an hour's journey reached Dublin, where she was met by her own carriages, with the postillions in the Ascot liveries.
The Queen and Prince Albert, the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal, occupied one carriage, Prince Alfred and Princess Alice, with the ladies-in-waiting, another. The Commander-in-chief of the soldiers in Ireland, Sir Edward Blakeney, rode on one side of the Queen's carriage, Prince George of Cambridge on the other, followed by a brilliant staff and escort of soldiers. "At the entrance of the city a triumphal arch of great size and beauty had been erected, under which the civic authorities—Lord Mayor, town-clerk, swordbearer, &c. &c.— waited on their sovereign." The Lord Mayor presented the keys and her Majesty returned them. "It was a wonderful and stirring scene," she described her progress in her Journal; "such masses of human beings, so enthusiastic, so excited, yet such perfect order maintained. Then the number of troops, the different bands stationed at certain distances, the waving of hats and handkerchiefs, the bursts of welcome that rent the air, all made it a never-to-be-forgotten scene when one reflected how lately the country had been under martial law."
The Queen admired Dublin heartily, and gave to Sackville Street and Merrion Square their due meed of praise. At the last triumphal arch a pretty little allegory, like a bit of an ancient masque, was enacted. Amidst the heat and dust a dove, "alive and very tame, with an olive- branch round its neck," was let down into the Queen's lap.
The viceregal lodge was reached at noon, and the Queen was received by
Lord and Lady Clarendon and their household.
On the 7th of August, a showery day, the Queen drove into Dublin with her ladies, followed by the gentlemen, but with no other escort. Her Majesty was loudly cheered as she proceeded to the bank, the old Parliament House before the Union, where Curran and Grattan and many a "Monk of the Screw" had debated, "Bloody Toler" had aroused the rage of the populace, and Castlereagh had looked down icy cold on the burning commotion. The famous Dublin schools were next visited. Their excellent system of education and liberal tolerant code delighted the Prince. At Trinity College, with its memories of Dean Swift and "Charley O'Malley," the Queen and the Prince wrote their names in St. Columba's book, and inspected the harp said to have belonged to "King O'Brian." After their return to the lodge, when luncheon had been taken, and Prince Albert went into Dublin again, the Queen refreshed herself with a bit of home life. She wrote and read, and heard her children say some of their lessons.
At five the Queen drove to Kilmainham Hospital, Lord Clarendon accompanying her and her ladies, while the Prince and the other gentlemen rode. The Irish Commander-in-chief and Prince George received her Majesty, who saw and no doubt cheered the hearts of the old pensioners, going into their chapel, hall, and governor's room. Afterwards she drove again into Dublin, through the older quarters, College Green—where Mrs. Delany lived when she was yet Mrs. Pendarvis and the belle of the town, and where there still stands the well- known, often maltreated statue of William III., Stephen's Green, &c. &c. The crowds were still tremendous.
On the 8th of August, before one o'clock, the Queen and her ladies in evening dress, and Prince Albert and the gentlemen in uniform, drove straight to the castle, where there was to be a levee the same as at St. James's. Her Majesty, seated on the throne, received numerous addresses—those of the Lord Mayor and corporation, the universities, the Archbishop and bishops (Protestant and Catholic), the different Presbyterians, and the Quakers. No fewer than two thousand presentations took place, the levee lasting till six o'clock—some five hours.
On the following day there was a review of upwards of six thousand soldiers and police in the Phoenix Park.
The Queen and the Prince dined alone, but in the course of the evening they drove again into Dublin, to the castle, that she might hold a Drawing-room. Two or three thousand people were there; one thousand six hundred ladies were presented. Then her Majesty walked through St. Patrick's Hall and the other crowded rooms, returning through the densely-filled, illuminated streets, and the Phoenix Park after midnight.
On the 10th of August, the Queen had a little respite from public duties in a private pleasure. She and Prince Albert, in company with Lord and Lady Clarendon and the different members of the suite, went on a short visit to Carton, the seat of "Ireland's only Duke," the Duke of Leinster. The party passed through Woodlands, with its "beautiful lime-trees," and encountered a number of Maynooth students near their preparatory college. At Carton the Queen was received by the Duke and Duchess and their eldest son, the Marquis of Kildare, with his young wife, Lady Caroline Leveson-Gower, one of the daughters of the Duchess of Sutherland. All the company walked, to the music of two bands, in the pretty quaint garden with its rows of Irish yews. Was it the same in 1798, when a son of the Leinster house, after thinking to be a king, was hunted down in a poor Dublin lodging, fought like a lion for his life, was taken a wounded prisoner to the castle, and then to Newgate to die?
The Duke led the Queen round the garden, while Prince Albert conducted the Duchess. Her Majesty wrote warmly of her host that "he was one of the kindest and best of men." After luncheon the country people danced jigs in the park, the men in their thick coats, the women in their shawls; one man, "a regular Irishman, with his hat on, one ear," the music furnished by three old and tattered pipers. Her Majesty pronounced the steps of the dancers "very droll."
The Duke and Duchess took their guests a drive, the people riding, running, and driving with the company, but continuing perfectly well- behaved, and ready to obey any word of the Duke's. It must have been a curious scene, in which all ranks took part. The Queen could not get over the spectacle of the countrymen running the whole way, in their thick woollen coats, in the heat.
On the Queen's departure from Kingstown she was followed by the same enthusiasm that had greeted her on her arrival. "As the yacht approached the extremity of the pier near the lighthouse, where the people were most thickly congregated and were cheering enthusiastically, the Queen suddenly left the two ladies-in-waiting with whom she was conversing, ran with agility along the deck, and climbed the paddle-box to join Prince Albert, who did not notice her till she was nearly at his side. Reaching him and taking his arm, she waved her right hand to the people on the piers." As she stood with the Prince while the yacht steamed out of the harbour, she waved her handkerchief in "a parting acknowledgment" of her Irish subjects' loyalty. As another compliment to the enthusiastic farewells of the people, the Queen gave orders "to slacken speed." The paddlewheels became still, the yacht floated slowly along close to the pier, and three times the royal standard was lowered by way of "a stately obeisance" made in response to the last ringing cheers of the Irish. Lord Clarendon wrote afterwards, that "there was not an individual in Dublin who did not take as a personal compliment to himself the Queen's having gone upon the paddle-box and ordered the royal standard to be lowered three times." It was a happy thought of her own.
The weather was thick and misty, and the storm which was feared came on in a violent gale before the yacht entered Belfast Harbour, early on the morning of the 11th of August. The Mayor and other officials came on board to breakfast, and in the course of the forenoon the Queen and the Prince, with the ladies and gentlemen in attendance, entered the barge to row to the Fairy. Though the row was only of two minutes' duration, the swell on the water was so great that the embarkation in the Fairy was a matter of difficulty; and when the smaller yacht was gained the Queen had to take shelter in the pavilion from the driving spray. In such unpropitious circumstances her Majesty passed Carrickfergus, the landing-place of William III., and arrived at the capital of Ulster just as the sun came out and lent its much-desired presence to the gala. Lord Londonderry and his wife and daughters, Lord Donegal, the proprietor of the greater part of Ulster, &c. &c., came on board with various deputations, especially of Presbyterians and members of the linen trade. The Queen knighted the mayor, as she had knighted his brother-magistrate at Cork.
By an odd blunder the gangway, which had been carefully constructed for the Queen's use, was found too large. Some planks on board the yacht had to form an impromptu landing-stage; but the situation was not so awkward as when Louis Philippe had to press a bathing-machine into the royal service at Tréport. The landing-place was covered in and decorated, the Londonderry carriage in waiting, and her Majesty's only regret was for Lord Londonderry, a big man, crowded on the rumble along with specially tall and large sergeant-footmen.
The Scotch-descended people of Belfast had outdone themselves in floral arches and decorations. The galleries for spectators were thronged. There was no stint in the honest warmth of the reception. But the Irish beauty, and doubtless also something of the Irish spirit and glee, had vanished with the rags and the tumbledown cabins. The douce, comfortable people of Ulster were less picturesque and less demonstrative.
Linen Hall, the Botanic Gardens, and the new college were visited, and different streets driven through in returning to the place of embarkation at half-past six on an evening so stormy that the weather prevented the yacht from setting sail. As it lay at anchor there was an opportunity for seeing the bonfires, streaming in the blast, on the neighbouring heights.
Before quitting Ireland the Queen determined to create her eldest son
"Earl of Dublin," one of the titles borne by the late Duke of Kent.
CHAPTER XII.
SCOTLAND AGAIN—GLASGOW AND DEE-SIDE.
In the course of the afternoon the yacht sailed for Loch Ryan. The object of this second visit to the West of Scotland was not so much for the purpose of seeing again the beautiful scenery which had so delighted the Queen and the Prince, as with the view of making up for the great disappointment experienced by the townspeople of Glasgow on her Majesty's having failed to visit what was, after London, one of the largest cities in her empire.
The weather was persistently bad this time, squally and disagreeable. On August 15th the Fairy, with the Queen and Prince on board, sailed for Glasgow, still in pouring rain and a high wind. The storm did not prevent the people from so lining the banks that the swell from the steamer often broke upon them. Happily the weather cleared at last, and the day was fine when the landing-place was reached. As usual, the Lord Provost came on board and received the honour of knighthood, after he had presented one of the many addresses offered by the town, the county, the clergy of all denominations, and the House of Commerce. The Queen landed, with the Prince and all the children that had accompanied her. Sheriff Alison rode on one side of her carriage, the general commanding the forces in Scotland on the other. The crowd was immense, numbering as many as five hundred thousand men, women, and children. The Queen admired the streets, the fine buildings, the quays, the churches. At the cathedral she was received by a man who seemed as venerable as the building itself, Principal MacFarlane. He called her Majesty's attention to what was then the highest chimney in the world, that of the chemical works of St. Rollax. The inspection of the fine cathedral, which the old Protestants of the west protected instead of pulling down, included the crypt. The travellers proceeded by railway to Stirling and Perth.
Early on the morning of the 15th the party started, the Queen having three of the children in the carriage with herself and the Prince, on the long drive through beautiful Highland scenery to Balmoral.
This year her Majesty made her first stay at Alt-na-guithasach, the hut or bothie of "old John Gordon," the situation of which had taken her fancy and that of the Prince. They had another hut built for themselves in the immediate vicinity, so that they could at any time spend a day or a couple of days in the wilds, with a single lady-in- waiting and the most limited of suites. On the 30th of August the Queen, the Prince, and the Honourable Caroline Dawson, maid of honour, set out on their ponies, attended only by Macdonald, Grant, another Highlander, and an English footman. The rough road had been improved, and riding was so easy that Prince Albert could practise his Gaelic by the way.
The Queen was much pleased with her new possession, which meant "a charming little dining-room, sitting-room, bedroom, and dressing-room all en suite; a little bedroom for Miss Dawson and one for her maid, and a pantry." In the other hut were the kitchen where the Gordon family sat, a room where the servants dined, a storeroom, and a loft where the men slept. All the people in attendance on the small party were the Queen's maid, Miss Dawson's maid, Prince Albert's German valet, a footman, and Macdonald, together with the old couple, John Gordon and his wife. After luncheon the visitors went to Loch Muich—a name which has been interpreted "darkness" or "sorrow"—and got into a large boat with four rowers, while a smaller boat followed, having a net. The excursion was to the head of the loch, which joins the Dhu or Black Loch. "Real severe Highland scenery," her Majesty calls it, and to those who know the stern sublimity of such places, the words say a great deal. "The boat, the net, and the people in their kilts in the water and on the shore," called for an artist's pencil. Seventy trouts were caught, and several hawks were seen. The sailing was diversified by scrambling on shore. The return in the evening was still more beautiful. At dinner the German valet and Macdonald, the Highland forester, helped the footman to wait on the company. Whist, played with a dummy, and a walk round the little garden, "where the silence and solitude, only interrupted by the waving of the fir-trees, were very striking," ended the day.
The Queen and her family left Balmoral on the 27th. Travelling by
Edinburgh and Berwick, they visited Earl Grey at Howick. Derby was the
next halting-place. At Reading the travellers turned aside for
Gosport, and soon arrived at Osborne.
Already, on the 16th of September, a special prayer had been read in every church in England, petitioning Almighty God to stay the plague of cholera which had sprung up in the East, travelled across the seas, and broken out among the people. But the dreaded epidemic had nothing to do with the sad news which burst upon the Queen and Prince Albert within, a few days of their return to the south. Both were much distressed by receiving the unexpected intelligence of the sudden death of Mr. Anson, who had been the Prince's private secretary, and latterly the keeper of the Queen's privy purse.
The offices which Mr. Anson filled in succession were afterwards worthily held by Colonel Phipps and General Grey.
CHAPTER XIII.
OPENING OF THE NEW COAL EXCHANGE—THE DEATH OF QUEEN ADELAIDE.
On the 30th of October the new Coal Exchange, opposite Billingsgate, was to have been opened by the Queen in person. A slight illness—an attack of chicken-pox—compelled her Majesty to give up her intention, and forego the motherly pleasure of seeing her two elder children, the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal, make their first appearance in public. Prince Albert, with his son and daughter, accompanied by the Duke of Norfolk as Master of the Horse, drove from Buckingham Palace at twelve o'clock, and embarked on the Thames in the royal barge, "a gorgeous structure of antique design, built for Frederic, Prince of Wales, the great-great-grandfather of the Prince and Princess who now trod its deck." It was rowed by twenty-seven of the ancient craft of watermen, restored for a day to the royal service, clad in rich livery for the occasion, and commanded by Lord Adolphus Fitzclarence. Commander Eden, superintendent of Woolwich Dockyard, led the van in his barge. Then came Vice-Admiral Elliot, Commander-in-chief at the Nore; next the Lord Mayor's bailiff in his craft, preceding the Lord Mayor in the City barge, "rearing its quaint gilded poop high in the air, and decked with richly emblazoned devices and floating ensigns…. Two royal gigs and two royal barges escorted the State barge, posted respectively on its port and starboard bow, and its port and starboard quarter. The Queen's shallop followed; the barges of the Admiralty and the Trinity Corporation barge brought up the rear." [Footnote: Annual Register.] According to ancient custom one barge bore a graceful freight of living swans to do honour to the water procession. Such a grand and gay pageant on the river had not been seen for a century back. It only wanted some of the "water music," which Handel composed for George II., to render the gala complete.
It would be difficult to devise a scene more captivating for children of nine and ten, such as the pair who figured in it. Happily the day, though it was nearly the last of October, was beautiful and bright, and from the position which the royal party occupied in their barge when it was in the middle of the river, "not only the other barges and the platformed steamers and lighters with their living loads, but the densely-crowded banks, must have formed a memorable spectacle. The very streets running down from the Strand were so packed with spectators as to present each one a moving mass. Half a million of persons were gathered together to witness the unwonted sight; the bridges were hung over with them like swarms of flies, and from the throng at intervals shouts of welcome sounded long and loud." Between Southwark and London Bridge the rowers lay on their oars for a moment, in compliment to the ardent loyalty of the scholars of Queen Elizabeth's Grammar School. The most picturesque point was "at the moment the vessels emerged from London Bridge and caught sight of the amphitheatre of shipping in the Upper Pool—a literal forest of masts, with a foliage of flags more variously and brilliantly coloured than the American woods after the first autumn frost. Here, too, the ear was first saluted by the boom of guns, the Tower artillery firing as the procession swept by."
The landing-place on the Custom House Quay was so arranged, by means of coloured canvas, as to form a covered corridor the whole length of the quay, to and across Thames Street, to the principal entrance to the Coal Exchange.
Prince Albert and the young Prince and Princess passed down the corridor, "bowing to the citizens on either side," a critical ordeal for the simply reared children. When the Grand Hall of the Exchange was reached, the City procession came up, headed by the Lord Mayor, and the Recorder read aloud an address "with such emphatic solemnity," it was remarked, that the Prince of Wales seemed "struck and almost awed by his manner." Lady Lyttelton takes notice of the same comical effect produced on the little boy. Prince Albert replied.
At two o'clock the déjeuner was served, when the Lord Mayor and the Lady Mayoress, at Prince Albert's request, sat near him. The usual toasts were given; the health of the Queen was drunk with "loudest cheers," that of the Queen-Dowager with "evident feeling," called forth by the fact that King William's good Queen, who had for long years struggled vainly with mortal disease, was, as everybody knew, drawing near her end. The toast of the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal was received with an enthusiasm that must have tended at once to elate and abash the little hero and heroine of the day.
At three o'clock the royal party re-embarked in the Fairy. As Prince Albert stepped on board, while expressing his gratification with the whole proceedings, he said to his children, with the gracious, kindly tact which was natural to him, "Remember that you are indebted to the Lord Mayor for one of the happiest days of your lives."
Before December wound up the year it was generally known that the Queen-Dowager Adelaide, who had in her day occupied a prominent place in the eyes of the nation, was to be released from the sufferings of many years.
In November Queen Victoria paid her last visit to the Queen-Dowager. "I shall never forget the visit we paid to the Priory last Thursday,", the Queen wrote to King Leopold. "There was death written in that dear face. It was such a picture of misery, of complete prostration, and yet she talked of everything. I could hardly command my feelings when I came in, and when I kissed twice that poor dear thin hand…. I love her so dearly; she has ever been so maternal in her affection to me. She will find peace and a reward for her many sufferings."
Queen Adelaide died quietly on the 2nd of December, at her country seat of Bentley Priory, in the fifty-eighth year of her age. Her will, which reflected her genuine modesty and humility, requested that she should be conveyed to the grave "without any pomp or state;" that she should have as private a funeral as was consistent with her rank; that her coffin should be "carried by sailors to the chapel;" that, finally, she should give as little trouble as possible.
The Queen-Dowager's wishes were strictly adhered to. There was no embalming, lying in State, or torchlight procession. The funeral started from the Priory at eight o'clock on a winter morning, and reached Windsor an hour after noon. There was every token of respect and affection, but an entire absence of show and ostentation. Nobody was admitted to St. George's Chapel except the mourners and those officially connected with the funeral. Few even of the Knights of the Garter were present. Among the few was the old Duke of Wellington, sitting silent and sad; Prince Albert and the Duke of Cambridge also occupied their stalls. The Duchess of Kent and the Duchess of Cambridge, with the Duchess of Saxe-Weimar and two Princesses of Saxe- Weimar, the late Queen's sister and nieces, were in the Queen's closet.
The Archbishop of Canterbury officiated. Ten sailors of the Royal Navy "gently propelled" the platform on which the coffin was placed to the mouth of the vault. Among the supporters of the pall were Lord Adolphus and Lord Frederick Fitzclarence. The chief mourner was the Duchess of Norfolk. Prince George of Cambridge and Prince Edward and Prince Gustaf of Saxe-Weimar, nephews of the late Queen, followed. Then came the gentlemen and ladies of her household. All the gentlemen taking part in the funeral were in plain black with black scarfs; each lady had a large black veil over her head.
After the usual psalms and lessons, Handel's anthem, "Her body is buried in peace," was sung. The black velvet pall was removed and the crown placed on the coffin, which, at the appropriate time in the service, was lowered to the side of King William's coffin. Sir Charles Young, King-at-Arms, proclaimed the rank and titles of the deceased. The late Queen's chamberlain and vice-chamberlain broke their staves of office amidst profound silence, and kneeling, deposited them upon the coffin. The organ played the "Dead March in Saul," and the company retired.
Long years after Queen Adelaide had lain in her grave, the publication of an old diary revived some foul-mouthed slanders, which no one is too pure to escape. But the coarse malice and gross falsehood of the accusations were so evident, that their sole result was to rebound with fatal effect on the memory of the man who retailed them.
CHAPTER XIV.
PREPARATION FOR THE EXHIBITION—BIRTH OF THE DUKE OF CONNAUGHT—THE BLOW DEALT BY FATE—FOREIGN TROUBLES—ENGLISH ART.
The first great public meeting in the interest of the Exhibition was held in London in the February of this year, and on the 21st of March a banquet was given at the Mansion House to promote the same cause. Prince Albert was present, with the ministers and foreign ambassadors; and the mayors and provosts of all the principal towns in the United Kingdom were also among the guests. The Prince delivered an admirable speech to explain his view of the Exhibition.
It was at this time that the Duke of Wellington made the gratifying proposal that the Prince should succeed him as Commander-in-chief of the army, urging the suggestion by every argument in his power, and offering to supply the Prince with all the information and guidance which the old soldier's experience could command. After some quiet consideration the Prince declined the proposal, chiefly on the ground that the many claims which the high office would necessarily make on his time and attention, must interfere with his other and still more binding duties to the Queen and the country.
On May-day, 1850, her Majesty's third son and seventh child was born. The Prince, in announcing the event to the Dowager-Duchess of Coburg, says: "The little boy was received by his sisters with jubilates. 'Now we are just as many as the days of the week,' was the cry, and then a bit of a struggle arose as to who was to be Sunday. Out of well-bred courtesy the honour was conceded to the new-comer."
The circumstance that the 1st of May was the birthday of the Duke of Wellington determined the child's name, and perhaps, in a measure, his future profession. The Queen and the Prince were both so pleased to show this crowning mark of friendship from a sovereign to a subject, that they did not allow the day to pass without intimating their intention to the Duke. "It is a singular thing," the Queen wrote to Baron Stockmar, "that this so much wished-for boy should be born on the old Duke's eighty-first birthday. May that, and his beloved father's name, bring the poor little infant happiness and good fortune!"
An amusing episode of the Queen's visit to Ireland had been the passionate appeal of an old Irishwoman, "Och, Queen, dear! make one of them Prince Patrick, and all Ireland will die for you!" Whether or not her Majesty remembered the fervent request, Prince Arthur had Patrick for one of his names, certainly in memory of Ireland, and William for another, partly in honour of one of his godfathers—the present Emperor of Germany—and partly because it would have pleased Queen Adelaide, whose sister, Duchess Ida of Saxe-Weimar, was godmother. Prince Albert's name wound up the others. The child was baptized on the 22nd of June at Buckingham Palace. The two godfathers were present; so were the Duchesses of Kent and Cambridge (the Duke of Cambridge lay ill), Prince George and Princess Mary of Cambridge, the Prince of Leiningen, and Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar, the ministers and foreign ambassadors. The Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishops of London and Oxford, &c. &c., officiated. Prince Albert's chorale, "In life's gay morn," was performed again. After the christening there was a State banquet in the picture gallery. Prince Arthur was the finest of all the Queen's babies, and the royal nurseries still retain memories of his childish graces.
Before the ceremony of the christening, and within a month of the birth of her child, her Majesty was subjected to one of the most wanton and cowardly of all the attacks which half-crazed brains prompted their owners to make upon her person. She had driven out about six o'clock in the evening, with her children and Lady Jocelyn, to inquire for her uncle, the Duke of Cambridge, who was suffering from his last illness. While she was within the gates of Cambridge House, a tall, gentlemanlike man loitered at the entrance, as it appeared with the by no means uncommon wish to see the Queen. But when her carriage drove out, while it was leisurely turning the corner into the road, the man started forward, and, with a small stick which he held, struck the Queen a sharp blow on the face, crushing the bonnet she wore, and inflicting a severe bruise and slight wound on the forehead. The fellow was instantly seized and the stick wrested from his grasp, while he was conveyed to the nearest police-station.
The Queen drove home, and was able to show herself the same evening at the Opera, where she was received with the singing of the National Anthem and great cheering.
The offender was neither a boy nor of humble rank. He proved to be a man of thirty—a gentleman by birth and education.
The Prince wrote of the miserable occurrence to Baron Stockmar that its perpetrator was a dandy "whom you must often have seen in the Park, where he has made himself conspicuous. He maintains the closest silence as to his motives, but is manifestly deranged. All this does not help to make one cheerful."
The man was the son of a gentleman named Pate, of wealth and position, who had acted as sheriff of Cambridgeshire. The son had had a commission in the army, from which he had been requested to retire, on account of an amount of eccentricity that had led at least to one serious breach of discipline. He could give no reason for his conduct beyond making the statement that he had acted on a sudden uncontrollable impulse. He was tried in the following July. The jury refused to accept the plea of insanity, and he was sentenced, like his predecessor, to seven years' transportation.
At the date of the attack the minds of the Queen and the Prince, and indeed of a large portion of the civilised world, were much occupied with a serious foreign embroilment into which the Government had been drawn by what many people considered the restless and interfering policy of Lord Palmerston, the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs. He had gone so far as to send a fleet into Greek waters for the protection of two British subjects claiming assistance, and in the act he had offended France and Russia.
Much political excitement was aroused, and there were keen and protracted debates in both Houses of Parliament. In the House of Lords something like a vote of censure of the foreign policy of the Government was moved and carried. In the House of Commons the debate lasted five nights, and the fine speech in which Lord Palmerston, a man in his sixty-sixth year, defended his policy, was continued "from the dusk of one day to the dawn of the next."
Apart from these troubles abroad, the country, on the whole, was in a prosperous and satisfactory condition. Trade was flourishing. Neither had literature fallen behind. Perhaps it had rarely shown a more brilliant galaxy of contemporary names, including those of John Stuart Mill in logic, Herbert Spencer in philosophy, Charles Darwin in natural science, Ruskin in art criticism, Helps as an essayist. And in this year Tennyson brought out his "In Memoriam," and Kingsley his "Alton Lock". It seemed but natural that the earlier lights should be dying out before the later; that Lord Jeffrey, the old king of critics, should pass beyond the sound of reviews; and Wordsworth, after this spring, be seen no more among the Cumberland hills and dales; and Jane Porter, whose innocent high-flown romances had been the delight of the young reading world more than fifty years before, should end her days, a cheerful old lady, in the prosaic town of Bristol.
In the Academy's annual exhibition the same old names of Landseer (with his popular picture of the Duke of Wellington showing his daughter-in-law, Lady Douro, the field of Waterloo), Maclise, Mulready, Stanfield, &c. &c., came still to the front. But a new movement, having a foreign origin, though in this case an English development, known as the pre-Raphaelite theory, with Millais, Holman Hunt, and Rossetti as its leaders, was already at work. This year there was a picture by Millais—still a lad of twenty-one—in support of the protest against conventionality in the beautiful, which did not fail to attract attention, though it excited as much condemnation as praise. The picture was "Christ in the House of His Parents," better known as "The Carpenter's Shop."
CHAPTER XV.
THE DEATHS OF SIR ROBERT PEEL, THE DUKE OF CAMBRIDGE, AND LOUIS PHILIPPE.
The Court had been at Osborne for the Whitsun holidays, and the Prince had written to Germany, "In our island home we are wholly given up to the enjoyment of the warm summer weather. The children catch butterflies, Victoria sits under the trees, and I drink the Kissingen water, Ragotzky. To-day mamma-aunt (the Duchess of Kent) and Charles (Prince of Leiningen) are come to stay a fortnight with us; then we go to town to compress the (so-called) pleasures of the season into four weeks. God be merciful to us miserable sinners."
There was more to be encountered in town this year, than the hackneyed round of gaieties—from which even royalty, with all the will in the world, could not altogether free itself. The first shock was the violent opposition, got up alike by the press and in Parliament, to Hyde Park as the site of the building required for the Exhibition. Following hard upon it came the melancholy news of the accident to Sir Robert Peel, which occurred at the very door, so simply and yet so fatally. Sir Robert, who, was riding out on Saturday, the 29th of June, had just called at Buckingham Palace and written his name in her Majesty's visiting-book. He was going up Constitution Hill, and had reached the wicket-gate leading into the Green Park, when he met Miss Ellis, Lady Dover's daughter, with whom he was acquainted, also riding. Sir Robert exchanged greetings with the young lady, and his horse became restive, "swerved towards the rails of the Green Park," and threw its rider, who had a bad seat in the saddle, sideways on his left shoulder. It was supposed that Sir Robert held by the reins, so as to drag the animal down with its knees on his shoulder.
He was taken home in a carriage, and laid on a sofa in his dining- room, from which he was never moved. At his death he was in his sixty- third year.
The vote of the House of Commons settled the question that Hyde Park should be the site of the Exhibition, and Punch's caricature, which the Prince enjoyed, of Prince Albert as "The Industrious Boy," cap in hand, uttering the petition—
"Pity the troubles of a poor young Price,
Whose costly scheme has borne him to your door,"
lost all its sting, when such a fund was guaranteed as warranted the raising of the structure according to Sir Joseph Paxton's beautiful design.
The Queen and the Prince had many calls on their sympathy this summer. On the 8th of July the Duke of Cambridge died, aged seventy-six. He was the youngest of George III and Queen Charlotte's sons who attained manhood. He was one of the most popular of the royal brothers, notwithstanding the disadvantages of having been educated partly abroad, taken foreign service, and held appointments in Hanover which caused him to reside there for the most part till the death of William IV. Neither was he possessed of much ability. He had not even the scientific and literary acquirements of the Duke of Sussex, who had possessed one of the best private libraries in England. But the Duke of Cambridge's good-nature was equal to his love of asking questions— a hereditary trait. He was buried, according to his own wish, at Kew.
The House of Commons voted twelve thousand a year to Prince George, on his becoming Duke of Cambridge, in lieu of the twenty-seven thousand a year enjoyed by the late Duke.
Osborne was a more welcome retreat than ever at the close of the summer, but even Osborne could not shelter the Queen from political worry and personal sorrow. There were indications of renewed trouble from Lord Palmerston's "spirited foreign policy."
The Queen and the Prince believed they had reason to complain of Lord Palmerston's carelessness and negligence, in not forwarding in time copies of the documents passing through his department, which ought to have been brought under the notice both of the sovereign and the Prime Minister, and to have received their opinion, before the over- energetic Secretary for Foreign Affairs acted upon them on his own responsibility.
In these circumstances her Majesty wrote a memorandum of what she regarded as the duty of the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs towards the Crown. The memorandum was written in a letter to Lord John Russell, which he was requested to show to Lord Palmerston.
Except the misunderstanding with Sir Robert Peel about the dismissal of the ladies of her suite, which occurred early in the reign, this is the only difference on record between the Queen and any of her ministers.
During this July at Osborne, Lady Lyttelton wrote her second vivid description, quoted in the "Life of the Prince Consort," of Prince Albert's organ-playing. "Last evening such a sunset! I was sitting, gazing at it, and thinking of Lady Charlotte Proby's verses, when from an open window below this floor began suddenly to sound the Prince's organ, expressively played by his masterly hand. Such a modulation! Minor and solemn, and ever changing and never ceasing. From a piano like Jenny Lind's holding note up to the fullest swell, and still the same fine vein of melancholy. And it came on so exactly as an accompaniment to the sunset. How strange he is! He must have been playing just while the Queen was finishing her toilette, and then he went to cut jokes and eat dinner, and nobody but the organ knows what is in him, except, indeed, by the look of his eyes sometimes."
Lady Lyttelton refers to the Prince's cutting jokes, and the Queen has written of his abiding cheerfulness. People are apt to forget in their very admiration of his noble thoughtfulness, earnestness, and tenderness of heart that he was also full of fun, keenly relishing a good story, the life of the great royal household.
The Queen had been grieved this summer by hearing of the serious illness of her greatest friend, the Queen of the Belgians, who was suffering from the same dangerous disease of which her sister, Princess Marie, had died. Probably it was with the hope of cheering King Leopold, and of perhaps getting a glimpse of the much-loved invalid, that the Queen, after proroguing Parliament in person, sailed on the 21st of August with the Prince and their four elder children in the royal yacht on a short trip to Ostend, where the party spent a day. King Leopold met the visitors—the younger of whom were much interested by their first experience of a foreign town. The Queen had the satisfaction of finding her uncle well and pleased to see her, so that she could call the meeting afterwards a "delightful, happy dream;" but there was a sorrowful element in the happiness, occasioned by the absence of Queen Louise, whose strength was not sufficient for the journey to Ostend, and of whose case Sir James Clark, sent by the Queen to Laeken, thought badly.
The poor Orleans family had another blow in store for them. On Prince
Albert's thirty-first birthday, the 26th of August, which he passed at
Osborne, news arrived of the death that morning, at Claremont, of
Louis Philippe, late King of the French, in his seventy-seventh year.
The Queen and the Prince had been prepared to start with their elder children for Scotland the day after they heard of the death, and by setting out at six o'clock in the morning they were enabled to pay a passing visit to the house of mourning.
We may be permitted to remark here, by what quiet, unconscious touches in letters and journals we have brought home to us the dual life, full of duty and kindliness, led by the highest couple in the land. Whether it is in going with a family of cousins to take the last look at a departed kinsman, or in getting up at daybreak to express personal sympathy with another family in sorrow, we cannot fail to see, while it is all so simply said and done, that no painful ordeal is shirked, no excuse is made of weighty tasks and engrossing occupations, to free either Queen or Prince from the gentle courtesies and tender charities of everyday humanity; we recognise that the noblest and busiest are also the bravest, the most faithful, the most full of pity.
CHAPTER XVI.
THE QUEEN'S FIRST STAY AT HOLYROOD—LIFE IN THE HIGHLANDS—THE DEATH OF THE QUEEN OF THE BELGIANS.
This year the Queen went north by Castle Howard, the fine seat of the Earl of Carlisle, the Duchess of Sutherland's brother, where her Majesty made her first halt. After stopping to open the railway bridges, triumphs of engineering, over the Tyne and the Tweed, the travellers reached Edinburgh, where, to the gratification of an immense gathering of her Scotch subjects, her Majesty spent her first night in Holyrood, the palace of her Stewart ancestors. The place was full of interest and charm for her, and though it was late in the afternoon before she arrived, she hardly waited to rest, before setting out incognito, so far as the old housekeeper was concerned, to inspect the historical relics of the building. She wandered out with her "two girls and their governess" to the ruins of the chapel or old abbey, and stood by the altar at which Mary Stewart, the fair young French widow, wedded "the long lad Darnley," and read the inscriptions on the tombs of various members of noble Scotch houses, coming to a familiar name on the slab which marked the grave of the mother of one of her own maids of honour, a daughter of Clanranald's.
The Queen then visited Queen Mary's rooms, being shown, like other strangers, the closet where her ancestress had sat at supper on a memorable night, and the stair from the chapel up which Ruthven, risen from a sick-bed, led the conspirators who seized Davie Rizzio, dragged him from his mistress's knees, to which he clung, and slew him pitilessly on the boards which, according to old tradition, still bear the stain of his blood. After that ghastly token, authentic or non- authentic, which would thrill the hearts of the young princesses as it has stirred many a youthful imagination, Darnley's armour and Mary's work-table, with its embroidery worked by her own hand, must have fallen comparatively flat.
The next morning the Queen and the Prince, with their children, took their first drive round the beautiful road, then just completed, which bears her name, and, encircling Arthur's Seat, is the goal of every stranger visiting Edinburgh, affording as it does in miniature an excellent idea of Scotch scenery. On this occasion the party alighted and climbed to the top of the hill, rejoicing in the view. "You see the beautiful town, with the Calton Hill, and the bay with the island of Inchkeith stretching out before you, and the Bass Rock quite in the distance, rising behind the coast…. The view when we gained the carriage hear Dunsappie Loch, quite a small lake, overhung by a crag, with the sea in the distance, is extremely pretty…. The air was delicious."
In the course of the forenoon the Prince laid the foundation stone of the Scotch National Gallery, and made his first speech (which was an undoubted success) before one of those Edinburgh audiences, noted for their fastidiousness and critical faculty. The afternoon drive was by the beautiful Scott monument, the finest modern ornament of the city, Donaldson's Hospital, the High Street, and the Canongate, and the lower part of the Queen's Drive, which encloses the Queen's Park. "A beautiful park indeed," she wrote, "with such a view, and such mountain scenery in the midst of it."
In the evening there was assembled such a circle as had not been gathered in royal old Holyrood since poor Prince Charlie kept brief state there. Her Majesty wrote in her journal, "The Buccleuchs, the Roxburghs, the Mortons, Lord Roseberry, Principal Lee, the Belhavens, and the Lord Justice General, dined with us. Everybody so pleased at our living at my old palace." The talk seems to have been, as was fitting, on old times and the unfortunate Queen Mary, the heroine of Holyrood. Sir Theodore Martin thinks it may have been in remembrance of this evening that Lord Belhaven, on his death, left a bequest to the Queen "of a cabinet which had been brought by Queen Mary from France, and given by her to the Regent Mar, from whom it passed into the family of Lord Belhaven." The cabinet contains a lock of Queen Mary's golden hair, and a purse worked by her.
On the following day the royal party left Holyrood and travelled to Balmoral. The Queen, with the Prince and her children, and the Duchess of Kent, with her son and grandson, were at the great gala of the district, the Braemar gathering, where the honour of her Majesty's presence is always eagerly craved.
Another amusement was the leistering, or spearing, of salmon in the Dee. Captain Forbes of Newe, and from forty to fifty of his clan, on their return to Strathdon from the Braemar gathering, were attracted by the fishing to the river's edge, when they were carried over the water on the backs of the Queen's men, who volunteered the service, "Macdonald, at their head, carrying Captain Forbes on his back." The courteous act, which was quite spontaneous, charmed the Queen and the Prince. The latter in writing to Germany gave further details of the incident. "Our people in the Highlands are altogether primitive, true-hearted and without guile…. Yesterday the Forbeses of Strath Don passed through here. When they came to the Dee our people (of Strath Dee) offered to carry them across the river, and did so, whereupon they drank to the health of Victoria and the inmates of Balmoral in whisky (schnapps), but as there was no cup to be had, their chief, Captain Forbes, pulled off his shoe, and he and his fifty men drank out of it."
The Forbeses got permission to march through the grounds of Balmoral, "the pipers going, in front. They stopped and cheered three times three, throwing up their bonnets." The Queen describes the characteristic demonstration, and she then mentions listening with pleasure "to the distant shouts and the sound of the pibroch."
There were two drawbacks to the peace and happiness of Balmoral this year. The one was occasioned by an unforeseen vexatious occurrence, and the complications which arose from it. General Haynau, the Austrian officer whose brutalities to the conquered and to women during the Hungarian war had aroused detestation in England, happened to visit London, and was attacked by the men in Barclay's brewery. Austria remonstrated, and Lord Palmerston made a rash reply, which had to be recalled.
The other care which darkened the Balmoral horizon in 1850 was the growing certainty of a fatal termination to the illness of the Queen of the Belgians. Immediately after the Court returned to Osborne the blow fell. Queen Louise died at Ostend on the 11th of October, 1850. She was only in her thirty-ninth year, not more than eight years older than Queen Victoria. She was the second daughter of Louis Philippe, Princess Marie having been the elder sister.