A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P R S T U V W X Z

Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II

S >> Sarah Tytler >> Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen, (Victoria) Vol II




The old churchyard in which John Brown, the Queen's trusty Scotch
servant, faithful as a squire of old, sleeps, lies down in the low
land near the Dee. John Brown's house, solid and unpretending like the
man himself, which he only occupied once, when his coffin lay for a
night in the dining-room, is in the neighbourhood.

The Queen has white cottages not far from the castle gate, built on
the model of the Osborne cottages, pretty and convenient homes of
keepers, keepers' widows, &c., &c., with the few artisans whose
services are necessary for the small population. There are other
cottages of the old, homely sort, containing no more than "the butt
and the benn" of stereotyped Scotch architecture, with the fire made
of "peats" or of sticks on the hearth-floor. In some of these, the
walls of the better rooms are covered with good plates and photographs
of every member of the royal family, with whose lineaments we are
familiar, from the widowed Queen to the last royal couple among her
grandchildren. These likenesses are much-valued gifts from the
originals.

As a nucleus to the cottages, there is _the_ shop or Highland
store with a wide door and a couple of counters representing two
branches of trade in the ordinarily distinct departments of groceries
and haberdashery. Probably this is the one shop in her Majesty's
domains in which, as we have evidence in her journal, [Footnote: "Life
in the Highlands"--Queen's journal. "Albert went out with Alfred for
the day, and I walked out with the two girls and Lady Churchill,
stopped at the shop and made some purchases for poor people and
others. Drove a little way, got out and walked up the hill to
_Balnacroft_, Mrs. P. Farquharson's, and she walked round with us
to some of the cottages to show me where the poor people lived, and to
tell them who I was.... I went into a small cabin of old Kitty Kear's,
who is eighty-six years old, quite erect, and who welcomed us with a
great air of dignity. She sat down and spun. I gave her, also, a warm
petticoat; she said, 'May the Lord ever attend ye and yours, here and
hereafter, and may the Lord be a guide to ye and keep ye from all
harm.' ... We went into three other cottages--to Mrs. Symons's
(daughter-in-law to the old widow living next door) who had an 'unwell
boy,' then across a little burn to another old woman's, and afterwards
peeped into Blair's, the fiddler. We drove back and got out again to
visit old Mrs. Grant (Grant's mother), who is so tidy and clean, and
to whom I gave a dress and a handkerchief; and she said, 'You're too
kind to me, you're over kind to me, ye give me more every year, and I
get older every year.' After talking some time to her, she said, 'I am
happy to see ye looking so nice.' She had tears in her eyes, and
speaking of Vicky's going said, 'I'm very sorry, and I think she is
sorry hersel'.'..."] she avails herself of the feminine privilege of
shopping. For the Queen can live the life of a private lady--can show
herself the most considerate and sympathetic of noble gentlewomen in
this primitive locality. She can walk or drive her ponies, or visit on
foot her commissioner or her minister, or look in at her school, or
call on her sick, aged, and poor, and take to them the comforts she
has provided for them, the tokens of her remembrance they prize so
much. She can enjoy their simple friendliness and native shrewdness.
She can read to them words of lofty promise and tender consolation.
She can do all as if she were not crowned Queen and ruler of a great
kingdom. In hardly any other part of her empire would such pleasant
familiar intercourse and gentle personal charities be possible for
her. The association has been deepened and strengthened by a duration
of more than thirty years. The Queen came while still a young wife to
Balmoral, and she has learnt to love and be loved by her neighbours in
the long interval which leaves her a royal widow of threescore. Her
children were fair-haired little boys and girls, making holiday here,
playing at riding and shooting, getting into scrapes like other
children, [Footnote: There is a story told of one of the little
princes having chased an old woman's hen and been soundly scolded by
her for the offence. Her neighbours remonstrated with her, and her
heart failed her when, a few days afterwards, she saw the Prince
Consort coming up the path to her house leading the small offender.
But the visit was one of courteous deprecation, in order that the
little hunter of forbidden game might personally apologise for his
delinquency.] prattling to the old women in "mutches" and "short
gowns," whose houses were so charmingly queer and convenient, with the
fires on the hearths to warm cold little toes, and the shadowy nooks
ready for hide-and-seek. These children are now older than their
mother was when she first came up Dee-side, heads of houses in their
turn, but they have not forgotten the friends of their youth.

The rustic community is pervaded in an odd and fascinating manner with
the fine flavour of a Court. It has, as it were, a touch of Arcady.
Among tales of the great storms and fragments of old legends, curious
reflections of high life and gossip of lords and ladies crop up. Not
only are noble names and distinguished personages, everyday sounds and
friendly acquaintances in this privileged region, but when the great
world follows its liege lady here, it is to live in _villiagiatura_, to
copy her example in adapting itself to the ways of the place and in
cultivating the natives. Courtiers are only courtly in being frankly at
ease with the whole human race. Ladies-in-waiting and maids of honour
lose their pride of rank and worldly ambition--if they ever had any,
stroll about, drop into this or that cottage at will, and have their
cronies there as in loftier localities. We hear of this or that
marriage, which has yet to be announced in the _Morning Post_; how a
noble duke, who was conveniently in attendance on the Prince, once
walked with a fair and gentle lady, whose father was in waiting on the
Queen, through the birch woods and by the brawling Dee, and a marriage,
only too shortlived, came of it. And we end by listening to the piteous
details of the swift fading away of the much-loved young duchess. Other
names, with which the Court Calendar has made us familiar, are
constantly coming to the surface in the conversation, generally in
association with some act of cheery good fellowship. The son of an earl
found a dog for his mother at one of these cottage hearths, and never
returned to the neighbourhood without punctually reporting himself to
tell its old mistress how well her former pet was thriving--that it had
its dinner with the family in the dining-room, and drove every day with
the countess in her carriage.

The fine old white house of Abergeldie, with its single-turreted
tower, has become the Scotch home of a genial prince and a beautiful
princess, who, we may remember, remained steadfastly settled there
during the darkening, shortening days of a gloomy autumn, in devoted
watch over her lady-in-waiting lying sick, nigh unto death with fever.
Abergeldie has another cherished memory, that of the good old Duchess
of Kent, for whom Prince Albert first rented the castle, who often
stayed in it, accompanied by her son, the Prince of Leiningen, her
daughter, the Princess of Hohenlohe, or some member of their families.
The peculiar cradle which used to be swung across the Dee here,
conveying passengers as well as parcels, has been removed in
consequence of the last disaster which befell its progress. An earlier
tragedy of a hapless bride and bridegroom who perished in making the
passage is still remembered. Remoter traditions, like that of the
burning of a witch on Craig-na-Ban, linger in the neighbourhood.

Beyond Balmoral, in the Braemar direction, stretches the fine deer-
forest--a great fir-wood on broken ground--of Ballochbuie, a remnant of
the old forest of Mar, where a pretended hunting expedition meant a
projected rebellion. It is said an earl of that name bestowed it on a
Farquaharson in exchange for so small a matter as a plaid. It is now
part of the estate of Balmoral. The hills of Craig Nortie and Meal
Alvie lie not far off, while on the opposite side rise Craig-na-Ban
and Craig Owsel.

Of all the Queen's haunts, that which she has made most her own, where
she has stayed for a day or two at a time, seeming to prefer to do so
when the hills have received their first powdering of snow, [Footnote:
"A little shower of snow had fallen, but was succeeded by brilliant
sunshine. The hills covered with snow, the golden birch-trees on the
lower brown hills, and the bright afternoon sky, were indescribably
beautiful"--Extract from the Queen's journal.] almost every year
during her residence in Aberdeenshire, is that which includes Alt-na-
Giuthasach and the Glassalt Shiel. This retreat is now reached by a
good carriage-road over a long tract of moorland among brown hills,
opening now and then in different directions to show vistas closed in
by the giant heads and shoulders--here of dark Loch-na-Gar, there of
Ben Macdhui, both of them presenting great white splashes on their
seamed and scarred sides--wide patches of winter snow on this July
day, far more than usual at the season, which will not melt now while
the year lasts. "Burns," the Girnoch and the Muich, trot by turns
along with us, singing their stories, half blythe, half plaintive.
Once or twice a lowly farmhouse has a few grass or oat-fields spread
out round it, with the solitude of the hills beyond. A cross-road to
such a house was so bad that a dog-cart brought up to it, had been
unyoked and left by the side of the main road, while its occupants
trudged to their destination on foot, leading with them the horse,
which needed rest and refreshment still more than its masters. The
blue waters of Loch Muich come in sight with bare precipitous hills
round; a little wood clothes the mouth of the pass and the loch, and
helps to shelter Alt-na-Ginthasach. The hut is now the Prince of
Wales's small shooting-lodge. The modest blue stone building, with its
brown wooden porch and its offices behind, is built on a knoll, and
commands a beautiful view of the loch and the steep rocky crags to
those who care for nature at the wildest. The only vestige of soft
green is the knoll on which the hut stands. All the rest is bleak and
brown, or purple when the heather is in bloom. The hills, torn by the
winter torrents, are glistening after a summer shower with a hundred
silver threads in the furrows of the watercourses.

There are fences and gates to the royal domicile, but there is hardly
an attempt to alter its character within, unless by a round plot of
rhododendrons offering a few late blossoms. But all nature, however
stern and savage, smiles on a July day. The purple heather-bell is in
bloom, the tiny blue milkwort and the yellow rock-rose help to make a
summer carpet which is rendered still gayer by many a pale peach-
coloured orchis and by an occasional spray of wild roses, deeper in
the rose than the same flower is in the low countries, or by a tall
white foxglove. Loch Muich may be desolation itself when the heather
and bracken are sere, when the lowering sky breathes nothing save
gloom, and chill mist-wreaths creep round its precipices; but when the
air is buoyant in its tingling sharpness, when the dappled white
clouds are reflected in water--blue, not leaden, and there is enough
sunshine to cast intermittent shadows on the hillsides and the loch,
though a transient darkness and a patter of raindrops vary the scene,
it has its day and way of blossoming.

The Queen's house or shiel of the Glassalt stands near the head of the
two miles long loch, just beyond the point where the Glassalt burn
comes leaping and dashing down the hillside. Here, too, is a small
sheltering fir and birch plantation, though not large enough to hide
the full view of the sentinel hills. A "roundel" of _Alpenrosen_,
or dwarf rhododendrons, is the only break in the growth of moss and
heather. The loch is so near the house that a stone thrown by a
child's hand from the windows of the principal rooms would fall into
the watery depths.

The interior is almost as simple and limited in accommodation as Alt-
na-Giuthasach was when the Queen described it in her journal. The
dining-room and drawing-room might, in old fashioned language, be
called "royal closets"--cosy and sweet with chintz hangings and covers
to chairs and couches, a small cottage piano, a book-tray in which
Hill Burton's "History of Scotland" and Sir Walter Scott's "Tales of a
Grandfather," find their place among Scotch poetry old and new. The
engravings on the walls tell of that fidelity to the dead which
implies truth to the living. There are likenesses of the Prince--who
died before this house was built, as in the great palaces; the Duchess
of Hesse--best known in the north as Princess Alice; the Princess of
Hohenlohe, with her handsome matronly face, full of sense and
kindness, and her young daughter, Princess Elise, who passed away in
the springtime of her life. In these rustic sitting-rooms and the
adjacent bedrooms and dressing-rooms we come again on many a portrait
of the humble friends of the family--the dogs which we seem to know so
well; the early group of little Dash and big Nero, and Hector with the
parrot Lorey; Cairnach, Islay, Deckel, &c. [Footnote: An anecdote of
the royal kennels states that when no notice has been given, the
servants shall know of her Majesty's presence in the vicinity, and
will say among themselves, "The Queen is at Frogmore" by the actions
of the dogs, the stir and excitement, the eager listening, sniffing of
the air, wagging of tails, and common desire to break bounds and
scamper away to greet their royal mistress.]

Behind the house a winding footpath leads up the hill to the rocky
cleft from which issues in a succession of white and foamy twists and
downward springs, the Falls of the Glassalt. Turning round from the
spectacle, the stranger looks down on the loch in its semicircle of
mountains. Gaining the crest of the hill and descending the edge on
the opposite side, the foot of the grim giant Loch-na-Gar is reached.

Among the visitors at Balmoral in 1858 was Florence Nightingale. The
Queen had before this presented her with a jewel in remembrance of her
services in the Crimea. The design was as follows: a field of white
enamel was charged with a St. George's cross in ruby red enamel, from
which shot rays of gold. This field was encircled by a black band
bearing the scroll "Blessed are the merciful." The shield was set in a
framework of palm-branches in green enamel tipped with gold, and
united at the bottom by a riband of blue enamel inscribed "Crimea" in
gold letters. The cypher V.R. surmounted by a crown in diamonds, was
charged upon the centre of the cross. On the back was a gold tablet
which bore an inscription from the hand of her Majesty.

While the Queen was in Scotland the marriage in Germany of one of the
daughters of the Princess of Hohenlohe took place. Princess Adelaide,
like her sister Princess Elise, possessed of many attractions, became
the wife of Prince Frederick of Schleswig Holstein Sonderberg-
Augustenberg, the brother of Prince Christian, destined to become the
husband of Princess Helena.




CHAPTER XXIX.


DEATH OF THE PRINCE Of LEININGEN--BIRTH OF PRINCESS BEATRICE--BESTOWAL
OF THE VICTORIA CROSS--INDIAN MUTINY.

The court returned to Windsor in October, and in November a severe
blow struck the Queen in the death of her brother, the Prince of
Leiningen. A second fit of apoplexy ended his life while his sister,
the Princess of Hohenlohe, watched by his death-bed. Prince Leiningen
was fifty-two years of age. He had served in the Bavarian army, and
was a man of recognised influence among his countrymen in the German
troubles of 1848, which cost him his principality. He had married in
1829, when he was twenty-seven years of age and when the Queen was
only a little girl of ten, Marie (née) Countess of Kletelsberg. He
left two sons, the eldest of whom, Prince Ernest, entered the English
navy.

Her Majesty's references to the death in her letters to King Leopold
are very pathetic. "Oh! dearest uncle, this blow is a heavy one, my
grief very bitter. I loved my dearest, only brother, most tenderly."
And again, "We three were particularly fond of each other, and never
felt or fancied that we were not real _geschwister_ (children of
the same parents). We knew but one parent, _our_ mother, so
became very closely united, and so I grew up; the distance which
difference of age placed between us entirely vanished...." The aged
Duchess of Kent was "terribly distressed, but calm and resigned."

Baron Stockmar was with the royal family at this time. It was his last
visit to England. His company, always earnestly coveted, especially by
the Prince, was apt to be bestowed in an erratic fashion
characteristic of the man. Some one of the royal children would
unexpectedly announce, "Papa, do you know the Baron is in his room,"
which was the first news of his arrival.

During the stay of the Court at Osborne in December, the graceful gift
of the _Resolute_ was made by the Americans to the Queen, and
accepted by her Majesty in person, with marked gratification. The
_Resolute_ was one of the English ships which had gone to the
north seas in search of Sir John Franklin. It had been abandoned in
the ice, found by an American vessel, taken across the Atlantic,
refitted, and by a happy thought offered as a suitable token to the
Queen.

On the 14th of April, 1857, the Queen's fifth daughter and ninth and
last child was born at Buckingham Palace. A fortnight afterwards the
Duchess of Gloucester, the last of George the III. and Queen
Charlotte's children, died in her eighty-third year. The Queen wrote
of her to King Leopold, who must have been well acquainted with her in
his youth, "Her age, and her being a link with bygone times and
generations, as well as her great kindness, amiability, and
unselfishness, rendered her more and more dear and precious to us all,
and we all looked upon her as a sort of grandmother." Sixty-two years
before, when the venerable Princess was a charming maiden of eighteen,
she had gloried in the tidings of her princely cousin's laurels, won
on the battlefields of Flanders. More than twenty years afterwards,
when Princess Charlotte descended the staircase of Carlton House after
her marriage with Prince Leopold, "she was met at the foot with open
arms by the Princess Mary, whose face was bathed in tears." The first
wedding had removed the obstacle to the second, which was celebrated a
few weeks later. The Duchess lived for eighteen years happily with her
husband, then spent more than twenty years in widowhood. She ended her
long life at Gloucester House, Park Lane. At her earnest request, she
was buried without pomp or show with her people in the family vault at
Windsor.

Before the late Duchess of Gloucester's funeral, Prince Albert,
according to a previous pledge, opened, on the 5th of May, the great
Art Exhibition at Manchester, to which the Queen contributed largely.

On the announcement to Parliament of the Princess Royal's approaching
marriage, the House of Commons voted in a manner gratifying to the
Queen and the Prince a dowry of forty thousand, with an annuity of
eight thousand a year to the Princess.

At Osborne the Queen had a flying visit from one of her recent
enemies, the Archduke Constantine, the Admiral-in-Chief of the Russian
navy.

On the 14th of June, the young Archduke Maximilian of Austria arrived.
He was an object of peculiar interest to the Queen and the Prince, as
the future husband of their young cousin, Princess Charlotte of
Belgium. He seemed in every way worthy of the old king's careful
choice for his only daughter. Except in the matter of looks, he was
all that could have been wished--good, clever, kind. But man proposes
and God disposes; so it happened that the marriage attended by such
bright and apparently well-founded hopes resulted in one of the most
piteous tragedies that ever befell a noble and innocent royal pair.
Another bridegroom, Prince Frederick William, was in England to meet
the Archduke, and a third was hovering in the background in the person
of Don Pedro of Portugal, whose marriage with Princess Stephanie of
Hohenzollern Prince Albert had been requested to negotiate. Marriage-
bells were in the air, and that must indeed have been a joyous
christening at which two of the bridegrooms were present. Prince
Frederick William of Prussia acted as godfather to his future little
sister-in-law, while his betrothed bride was one of the godmothers.
The infant was named as her Majesty explained to King Leopold: "She is
to be called Beatrice, a fine old name, borne by three of the
Plantaganet princesses, and her other names will be Mary (after poor
Aunt Mary), Victoria (after mamma and Vicky, who with Fritz Wilhelm
are to be the sponsors), and Feodore (the Queen's sister)." Her
Majesty's last baby was a beautiful infant, soon to exhibit bright and
winning ways, the pet plaything of her brothers and sisters, and
especially of her father.

On the 25th of June the Queen conferred on Prince Albert, by letters
patent, the title of "Prince Consort." The change was desirable, to
insure the proper recognition of his rank, as her Majesty's husband,
at foreign courts.

On the following day, the 26th, the interesting ceremony of the first
bestowal of the Victoria Cross took place in Hyde Park before many
thousands of spectators. The idea was to provide a decoration which
might be earned by officers and soldiers alike, as it should be
conferred for a single merit--the highest a soldier could possess, yet
in its performance open to all--devoted, unselfish courage. Thus arose
the most coveted and honourable of English orders, which confers more
glory on its wearer than the jewelled star of the Order of the Garter
gives distinction. In excellent keeping with the motive of the
creation, the Maltese cross is of the plainest material, iron from the
cannon taken at Sebastopol; in the centre is the crown, surmounted by
the lion; below it the scroll "For Valour." On the clasp are branches
of laurel; the cross hangs suspended from it by the letter V--a red
riband being for the army, a blue for the navy. The decoration
includes a pension of ten pounds a year. The arrangements for the
ceremony were similar to those at the distribution of the medals,
except that her Majesty was on horseback. She rode a grey roan, and
wore a scarlet jacket with a black skirt. Stooping from her seat on
horseback, she pinned the cross on each brave man's breast, while the
Prince saluted him with "a gesture of marked respect." [Footnote:
"Life of the Prince Consort."] Prince Frederick William was with the
royal party.

A few days afterwards, the Queen, the Prince, their two elder
daughters and two elder sons and Prince Frederick William of Prussia,
a large party, paid a visit to Manchester, staying two nights at
Worsley Hall. They inspected the great picture exhibition, received
addresses, and traversed the streets to Peel Park, where a statue to
her Majesty had been recently erected, the whole amidst much
rejoicing.

In the end of June, King Leopold arrived with his daughter on a
farewell visit before her marriage, so that there were two young
brides comparing experiences and anticipating what the coming years
would bring, under her Majesty's wing. The princesses were nearly of
an age, neither quite seventeen. They had been playmates and friends
since childhood, but the fates in store for them were very different.

In the second week of July the freedom of the City of London was
presented to Prince Frederick William of Prussia; the Prince Consort
was sworn in master of the Trinity House, and the Queen and the Prince
visited the camp at Aldershott. On the 27th the marriage of the
Princess Charlotte of Belgium and the Archduke Maximilian was
celebrated at Brussels. The Prince went abroad for a few days, to make
one in the group of friends and relations, among whom was the old
French Queen Amélie, the grandmother of the bride. Queen Victoria
wrote to King Leopold, that she was present with them in spirit, and
that she could not have given a greater proof of her love than she had
shown in urging her husband to go. "You cannot think how much this
costs me," she added, "or how completely forlorn I am and feel when he
is away, or how I count the hours till he returns. All the numerous
children are as nothing to me when he is away. It seems as if the
whole life of the house and the home were gone."

On the 6th of August, the Emperor of the French's yacht, with the
Emperor and Empress on board, arrived on the English coast, and a
private visit of a few days' length was paid to the Queen and the
Prince at Osborne. On the 19th of August Her Majesty and the Prince,
with six of their children, in the royal yacht, paid an equally
private visit to Cherbourg, in the absence of the Emperor and Empress.
During the short stay there was a long country drive to an old
chateau, when darkness overtook the adventurous party, and all was
agreeably fresh and foreign.

Copyright (c) 2007. famouswriterz.com. All rights reserved.