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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




Among the multitude of guests assembled at Buckingham Palace, the
privileged few who danced in the Queen's minuets, as well as the
members of the royal family, arrived by the Garden Gate and were
received in the Yellow Drawing-room. Included in this select company
was a German princess who had lately married an English subject--
Princess Marie of Baden, wife of the Marquis of Douglas, not the first
princess who had wedded into the noble Scotch house of Hamilton,
though it was many a long century since Earl Walter received--

all Arran's isle
To dower his royal bride

The Queen had special guests with her on this occasion--her brother
the Prince of Leiningen, the much-loved uncle of the royal children;
and the favourite cousin of the circle, the young Duchesse de Nemours,
with her husband. The Queen and Prince Albert, accompanied by their
visitors, the various members of the English royal family present at
the ball, and the different suites, passed into the ball-room at half-
past ten. The first dance, the graceful march of the German
_polonaise_, was danced by all, young and old, the bands striking
up simultaneously, and the dance extending through the whole of the
State apartments, the Queen leading the way, preceded by the Vice-
Chamberlain, the Comptroller and Treasurer of the Household, and two
gentlemen ushers to clear a space for her. After the _polonaise_
the company passed slowly before the Queen. A comical incident
occurred in this part of the programme through the innocent mistake of
an old infantry officer, who in his progress lifted his peaked hat and
gave the Queen a military salute, as he walked by.

Then her Majesty left the ball-room and repaired to the throne-room,
where the first minuet was formed. It is only necessary to recall that
most courtly of slow and graceful dances to judge how well suited it
was for this ball. The Queen danced with her cousin, Prince George of
Cambridge. Her Majesty wore a wonderful dress of cloth of gold and
cloth of silver, with daisies and poppies worked in silks, and shaded
the natural colours; trimmings and ruffles of exquisite old lace,
stomacher covered with old lace and jewels, the sacque set off with
scarlet ribands, the fair hair powdered under a tiara and crown of
diamonds, dainty white satin shoes with scarlet rosettes--a diamond in
each rosette, the Order of the Garter on the arm, the Star and Riband
of the Order.

Prince George was less fortunate in the regimentals of a cavalry
officer a century back; for, as it happened, while the costume of
1740-50 was favourable to women and to civilians, it was trying to
military men.

Prince Albert danced with the Duchesse de Nemours. These two had been
early playmates who never, even in later and sadder days, got together
without growing merry over the stories and jokes of their childhood in
Coburg. The Prince must have been one of the most graceful figures
there, in a crimson velvet coat edged with gold and lined with white
satin, on the left breast the splendid Star of the Order of the
Garter, shoulder-strap and sword inlaid with diamonds, white satin
waistcoat brocaded with gold, breeches of crimson velvet with gold
buttons, shoes of black kid with red heels and diamond buckles, three-
cornered hat trimmed with gold lace, edged with white ostrich
feathers, a magnificent loop of diamonds, and the black cockade of the
Georges, not the white cockade of the Jameses.

His golden-haired partner was in a tastefully gay and fantastic as
well as splendid costume of rose-coloured Chinese damask, with gold
blonde and pearls, over a petticoat of point d'Alençon, with a deep
border of silver and silver rosettes. The stomacher of brilliants and
pearls, on the left shoulder a nosegay with diamond wheat-ears
interspersed, shoes of purple satin with fleurs-de-lys embroidered in
gold and diamonds, as became a daughter of France, and gloves
embroidered with similar fleurs-de-lys.

There were many gay and gallant figures and fair faces in that minuet
of minuets. Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar was meant to dance with the
young Marchioness of Douro, but she by some strange chance came too
late for the honour, and her place was supplied by another young
matron and beauty, Lady Jocelyn, formerly Lady Fanny Cowper. Prince
Leiningen, who wore a white suit faced with blue and a buff waistcoat
edged with silver lace, danced with Lady Mount-Edgcumbe. The Duke of
Beaufort once more disputed with the Earl of Wilton the distinction of
being the finest gentleman present.

The Queen danced in four minuets, standing up in the second with
Prince Albert. This minuet also included several of the most beautiful
women of the time and of the Court; notably Lady Seymour, one of the
Sheridan sisters, the Queen of Beauty at the Eglinton tournament; and
Lady Canning.

After the second minuet the Queen and all the company returned to the
ball-room, where two other minuets, those of Lady Jersey and Lady
Chesterfield, were danced, and between them was given Lady
Breadalbane's strathspey. There was such crowding to see these dances
that the Lord Chamberlain had difficulty in making room for them.
While Musard furnished special music for the minuets and quadrilles,
adapting it in one case from airs of the '45, the Queen's piper,
Mackay, gave forth, for the benefit of the strathspey and reel-
dancers, the stirring strains of "Miss Drummond of Perth,"
"Tullochgorum," and "The Marquis of Huntly's Highland Fling," which
must have rung with wild glee through the halls of kings.

Lady Chesterfield's minuet was the last dance before supper, served
with royal splendour in the dining-room, to which the Queen passed at
twelve o'clock. After supper the Queen danced in a quadrille and in
the two next minuets. Her first partner was the Duc de Nemours, who
wore an old French infantry general's uniform--a coat of white cloth,
the front covered with gold embroidery, sleeves turned up with crimson
velvet, waistcoat and breeches of crimson velvet, stockings of crimson
silk, and red-heeled shoes with diamond buckles. In the second minuet
her Majesty had her brother, the Prince of Leiningen, for her partner.
The ball was ended, according to a good old English fashion, by the
quaint changing measure of "Sir Roger de Coverley," known in Scotland
as "The Haymakers," in which the Queen had her husband for her
partner. This country-dance was danced in the picture gallery.

Let who would be the beauty at the Queen's ball, there was at least
one poetess there in piquant black and cerise, with cerise roses and
priceless point à l'aiguille, Lady John Scott, who had been the witty
heiress, Miss Spottiswoode of Spottiswoode. She wrote to an old
refrain one of the most pathetic of modern Scotch ballads--

Douglas, Douglas, tender and true

The beauty of the ball was the Marchioness of Douro, who not so long
ago had been the beauty of the season as Lady Elizabeth Hay, daughter
of the Marquis of Tweeddale, when she caught the fancy of the elder,
son and heir of the Duke of Wellington. In this case beauty was not
unadorned, for the lovely Marchioness, [Footnote: Her likeness is
familiar to many people in an engraving from a well-known picture of
the Duke of Wellington showing his daughter-in-law the field of
Waterloo] the Greek mould of whose head attracted the admiration of
all judges, was said to wear jewels to the value of sixty thousand
pounds, while the superb point-lace flounce to her white brocade must
have been a source of pious horror to good Roman Catholics, since it
was believed to have belonged to the sacred vestments of a pope.

We have said that lace and jewels gave the distinguishing stamp to the
ball--such lace!--point d'Alençon, point de Bayeux, point de Venise,
point a l'aiguille, Mechlin, Guipure, Valenciennes, Chantilly, enough
to have turned green with envy the soul of a cultured _petit-
maître_, an aesthetic fop of the present day.

Some of the jewels, no less than the lace, were historical. The
Marchioness of Westminster, besides displaying _sabots_ of point-
lace, which had belonged to Caroline, queen of George II., wore the
Nassuk and Arcot diamonds.

Miss Burdett-Coutts wore a lustrous diadem and necklace that had once
graced the brow and throat of poor Marie Antoinette, and had found
their way at last into jewel-cases no longer royal, owing their
glittering contents to the wealth of a great city banker.

A word about the antiquated finery of the Iron Duke, with which the
old soldier sought to please his young mistress. It provoked a smile
or two from the more frivolous as the grey, gaunt, spindle-shanked old
man stalked by, yet it was not without its pathetic side. The Duke
wore a scarlet coat, a tight fit, laced with gold, with splendid gold
buttons and frogs, the brilliant star of the Order of the Garter, and
the Order of the Golden Fleece, a waistcoat of scarlet cashmere
covered with gold lace, breeches of scarlet kerseymere trimmed with
gold lace; gold buckles, white silk stockings, cocked hat laced with
gold, sword studded with rose diamonds and emeralds.

It is nearly forty years since these resplendent masquers trod the
floors of Buckingham Palace, and if the changes which time has brought
about had been foreseen, if the veil which shrouds the future had been
lifted, what emotions would have been called forth!

Who could have borne to hear that the bright Queen and giver of the
fete would pass the years of her prime in the mournful shade of
disconsolate widowhood? That the pale crown of a premature death was
hovering over the head of him who was the life of her life, the active
promoter and sustainer of all that was good and joyous in that great
household, all that was great and happy in the kingdom over which she
ruled?

Who would have ventured to prophesy that of the royal kindred and
cherished guests, the Prince of Leiningen was to die a landless man,
the Duc de Nemours to spend long years in exile, the Duchesse to be
cut down in the flower of her womanhood? Who would have guessed that
this great nobleman, the head of an ancient house, was to perish by a
miserable accident in a foreign hotel; that his sister, the wife of an
unfortunate statesman, was to be dragged through the mire of a divorce
court; that the treasures of a princely home were to pass away from
the race that had accumulated them, under the strokes of an
auctioneer's hammer? Who could have dreamt that this fine intellect
and loving heart would follow the lord of their destiny to Hades, and
wander there for evermore distracted, in the land of shadows, where
there is no light of the sun to show the way, no firm ground to stay
the tottering feet and groping hands? As for these two fair sisters in
Watteau style of blue and pink, and green and pink taffetas, lace, and
pearls, and roses--surely the daintiest, most aristocratic
shepherdesses ever beheld--one of them would have lost her graceful
equanimity, reddened with affront, and tingled to the finger-tips
with angry unbelief if she had been warned beforehand that she would
be amongst the last of the high-born, high-bred brides who would
forfeit her birthright and her presence at a Queen's Court by agreeing
to be married at the hands of a blacksmith instead of a bishop, before
the rude hymeneal altar at Gretna.

But to-night there was no alarming interlude, like a herald of evil,
to shake the nerves of the company--nothing more unpropitious than the
_contretemps_ to an unlucky lady of being overcome by the heat
and seized with a fainting-fit, which caused her over-zealous
supporters to remove her luxuriant powdered wig in order to give her
greater air and coolness, so that she was fain, the moment she
recovered, to hide her diminished head by a rapid discomfited retreat
from what remained of the revelry.

On the 21st of June the Queen and the Prince, with the Lords of the
Admiralty, inspected the fleet off Spithead. The royal yacht was
attended by a crowd of yachts belonging to the various squadrons, a
throng of steamboats and countless small boats. The Queen visited and
went over the flagship--which was the _St. Vincent_--the
_Trafalgar_, and the _Albion_. On her return to the yacht
she held a levee of all the captains of the fleet. A few days
afterwards she reviewed her fleet in brilliant, breezy weather. The
royal yacht took up its position at Spithead, and successive signals
were given to the squadron to "Lower sail," "Make sail," "Shorten sail
and reef," and "Furl topgallant sails," all the manoeuvres--including
the getting under way and sailing in line to St. Helen's--being
performed with the very perfection of nautical accuracy. The review
ended with the order, "Furl sails, put the life-lines on, and man
yards," which was done as only English sailors can accomplish the
feat, while the royal yacht on its return passed through the squadron
amidst ringing cheers.

During the earlier part of the summer Sir John Franklin sailed with
his ships, the _Erebus_ and _Terror_, in search of that
North Pole which, since the days of Sir Hugh Montgomery, "a captain
tall," has been at once the goal and snare of many a gallant English
sailor. The good ships disappeared under the horizon, never to reach
their haven. By slow degrees oblivion, more or less profound, closed
over the fate of officers and men, while, for lack of knowledge of
their life or death, the light of many a hearth was darkened, and
faithful hearts sickened with hope deferred and broke under the
strain. As one instance, out of many, of the desolation which the
silent loss of the gallant expedition occasioned, sorrow descended
heavily on one of the happy Highland homes among which the Queen had
dwelt the previous summer. Captain, afterwards Lord James, Murray,
brother of Lord Glenlyon, was married to Miss Fairholme, sister of one
of the picked men of whom the explorers were composed. When no tidings
of him came, year after year, from the land of mist and darkness,
pining melancholy seized upon her and made her its prey.

In the month of July the King of the Netherlands, who, as Prince of
Orange, had served on the Duke of Wellington's staff at the close of
the Peninsular War, came to England and took up his quarters at
Mivart's Hotel, the Queen being in the Isle of Wight, where he joined
her. Prince Albert met the King at Gosport and escorted him to
Osborne. On his return to London the King, who was already a general
in the English army, received his appointment as field-marshal, and
reviewed the Household troops in Hyde Park. He paid a second visit to
the Queen at Osborne before he left Woolwich for Holland.

A curious accident happened when the Queen prorogued Parliament on the
9th of August. The Duke of Argyle, an elderly man, was carrying the
crown on a velvet cushion, when, in walking backwards before the
Queen, he appeared to forget the two steps, leading from the platform
on which the throne stands to the floor, and stumbled, the crown
slipping from the cushion and falling to the ground, with the loss of
some diamonds. The Queen expressed her concern for the Duke instead of
for the crown; but on her departure the keeper of the House of Lords
appeared in front of the throne, and prevented too near an approach to
it, with the chance of further damage to the dropped jewels. The
misadventure was naturally the subject of a good deal of private
conversation in the House.




CHAPTER III.


THE QUEEN'S FIRST VISIT TO GERMANY.

On the evening of the day that she prorogued Parliament, the Queen and
the Prince with the Earl of Aberdeen as the minister in attendance,
started from Buckingham Palace that she might pay her first visit to
Germany. Surely none of all the new places she had visited within the
last few years could have been of such surpassing interest to the
traveller. It was her mother's country as well as her husband's, the
home of her brother and sister, the place of which she must have
heard, with which she must have had the kindliest associations from
her earliest years.

The first stage of the journey--in stormy weather, unfortunately--was
to Antwerp, where the party did not land till the following day, when
they proceeded to Malines, where they were met by King Leopold and
Queen Louise, who parted from their royal niece at Verviers. On the
Prussian frontier Lord Westmoreland, the English ambassador, and Baron
Bunsen met her Majesty. "To hear the people speak German," she wrote
in her Journal, "to see the German soldiers, seemed to me so singular.
I overheard people saying that I looked very English."

At Aix-la-Chapelle the King and Prince of Prussia received the
visitors and accompanied them to Cologne. The ancient dirty town of
the Three Kings gave the strangers an enthusiastic reception. The
burghers even did their best to get rid of the unsavoury odours which
distinguish the town of sweet essences, by pouring eau-de-Cologne on
the roadways.

At Bruhl the Queen and the Prince were taken to the palace, where they
found the Queen of Prussia, whose hostility to English and devotion to
Russian interests when Lord Bloomfield represented the English
Government at Berlin, are recorded by Lady Bloomfield. With the Queen
was her sister-in-law, the Princess of Prussia, and the Court. The
party went into one of the _salons_ to hear the famous tatoo
played by four hundred musicians, in the middle of an illumination by
means of torches and coloured lamps. The Queen was reminded that she
was in a land of music by hearing at a concert, in which sixty
regimental bands assisted, "God save the Queen" better played than she
had ever heard it before. "We felt so strange to be in Germany at
last," repeats her Majesty, dwelling on the pleasant sensation, "at
Bruhl, which Albert said he used to go and visit from Bonn."

The next day the visitors went to Bonn, accompanied by the King and
Queen of Prussia. At the house of Prince Furstenberg many professors
who had known Prince Albert were presented to the Queen, "which
interested me very much," the happy wife says simply. "They were
greatly delighted to see Albert and pleased to see me.... I felt as
if I knew them all from Albert having told me so much about them." The
experience is known to many a bride whose husband takes her proudly to
his old _alma mater_.

The day was made yet more memorable by the unveiling of a statue to
Beethoven. But, by an unlucky _contretemps_, the royal party on
the balcony found the back of the statue presented to their gaze. The
_Freischutzen_ fired a _feu-de-joie_. A chorale was sung.
The people cheered and the band played a _Dusch_--such a flourish
of trumpets as is given in Germany when a health is drunk.

The travellers then went to the Prince's "former little house." The
Queen writes, "It was such a pleasure for me to be able to see this
house. We went all over it, and it is just as it was, in no way
altered.... We went into the little bower in the garden, from which
you have a beautiful view of the _Kreuzberg_--a convent situated
on the top of a hill. The _Siebengebirge_ (seven mountains) you
also see, but the view of them is a good deal built up."

This visiting together the ground once so familiar to the Prince
formed an era in two lives. It was the fulfilment of a beautiful,
brilliant expectation which had been half dim and vague when the
ardent lad was a quiet, diligent student, living simply, almost
frugally, like the other students at the university on the Rhine, and
his little cousin across the German Ocean, from whom he had parted in
the homely red-brick palace of Kensington, had been proclaimed Queen
of a great country. The prospect of their union was still very
uncertain in those days, and yet it must sometimes have crossed his
mind as he built air-castles in the middle of his reading; or strolled
with a comrade along those old-fashioned streets, among their
population of "wild-looking students," with long fair hair, pipes
between their lips, and the scars of many a sword-duel on forehead and
cheek; or penetrated into the country, where the brown peasant women,
"with curious caps and handkerchiefs," came bearing their burden of
sticks from the forest, like figures in old fairy tales. He must have
told himself that the time might come when something like the
transformation of a fairy-tale would be effected on his account; the
plain living and high-thinking and college discipline of Bonn be
exchanged for the dignity and influence of an English sovereign's
consort. Then, perhaps, he would bring his bride to the dear old
"fatherland," and show her where he had dreamt about her among his
books.

At the banquet in the afternoon the accomplished King gave the Queen's
health in a speech fit for a poet. He referred to a word sweet alike
to British and German hearts. Thirty years before it had echoed on the
heights of Waterloo from British and German tongues, after days of hot
and desperate fighting, to mark the glorious triumph of their
brotherhood in arms. "Now it resounds on the banks of our fair Rhine,
amidst the blessings of that peace which was the hallowed fruit of the
great conflict. That word is 'Victoria.' Gentlemen, drink to the
health of her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain
and Ireland, and to that of her august consort."

"The Queen," remarked Bunsen, "bowed at the first word, but much lower
at the second. Her eyes brightened through tears, and as the King was
taking his seat again, she rose and bent towards him and kissed his
cheek, then took her seat again with a beaming countenance."

After the four-o'clock dinner, the royal party returned to Cologne,
and from a steamer on the Rhine saw, through a drizzle of rain which
did not greatly mar the spectacle, a splendid display of fireworks and
illumination of the town, in which the great cathedral "seemed to glow
with fire."

We quote a picturesque description of the striking scene. "The Rhine
was made one vast _feu-de-joie_. As darkness closed in, the dim
city began to put forth buds of light. Lines of twinkling brightness
darted like liquid gold or silver from pile to pile, then by the
bridge of boats across the river, up the masts of the shipping, and
along the road on the opposite bank. Rockets now shot from all parts
of the horizon. The royal party embarked in a steamer at St. Tremond
and glided down by the river. As they passed the banks blazed with
fireworks and musketry. At their approach the bridge glowed with
redoubled light, and, opening, let the vessel pass to Cologne, whose
cathedral burst forth a building of light, every detail of the
architecture being made out in delicately-coloured lamps--pinkish,
with an underglow of orange. Traversing in carriages the illuminated
and vociferous city, the King and his companions returned by the
railroad to Bruhl."

Next morning there was a great concert at Bonn--part of the Beethoven
festival, in which much fine music was given, but, oddly enough, not
much of Beethoven's, to her Majesty's regret. The Queen drove to the
University--in the classrooms of which the Prince had sat as a
student--and saw more of the professors who had taught him, and of
students similar to those who had been his class-fellows. Then she
went once more to Cologne, and visited its glory, the cathedral, at
that time unfinished, returning to Bruhl to hail with delight the
arrival of the King and Queen of the Belgians. "It seems like a dream
to them and to me to see each other in Germany," the Queen wrote once
more. The passages from her Majesty's Journal read as if she were
pleased to congratulate herself on being at last with Prince Albert in
his native country.

The last day at Cologne ended in another great concert, conducted by
Meyerbeer, for which he had composed a cantata in honour of the Queen.
Jenny Lind sang in the concert. It was her Majesty's first opportunity
of hearing the great singer, who, of all her sister singers, has most
identified herself with England, and from her noble, womanly character
and domestic virtues, endeared herself to English hearts.

The tutelary genius of the river which is the Germans' watchword was
not able to procure the Queen her weather for her sail on its green
waters. Rain fell or threatened for both of the days. Not even the
presence of three queens--of England, Prussia, and Belgium--two kings,
a prince consort, an archduke, and a future emperor and empress, could
propitiate the adverse barometer, or change the sulky face of the sky.
Between showers the Queen had a glimpse of the romantic scenery, and
perhaps Ehrenbreitstein was most in character when the smoke from the
firing of twenty thousand troops "brought home to the imagination the
din and lurid splendours of a battle."

The halt was made at Schlossenfels, which included among its
distinguished guests Humboldt and Prince Metternich. Next day the King
and Queen of Prussia took leave of their visitors, still under heavy
rain. The weather cleared afterwards for a time, however, and
beautiful Bingen, with the rest of the Rhenish country, was seen in
sunshine. The only inconvenience remaining was the thunder of cannons
and rattle of muskets which every loyal village kept up.

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