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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




In June and July the Queen of Prussia and the Sultan of Turkey came in
turn to England. The latter was with her Majesty in her yacht at a
great naval review held in most tempestuous weather off Spithead. In
the end of July the Empress of the French paid a short private visit
to her Majesty at Osborne.

On the 20th of August the Queen left for Balmoral. On her way north
she spent a few days with the Duke and Duchess of Roxburgh at Fleurs,
when her Majesty visited Melrose and Abbotsford. After inspecting with
great interest the memorials of Sir Walter Scott, who had been
presented to her when she was a little girl at Kensington Palace, she
complied with a request that she should write her name in the great
author's journal, adding the modest comment in her own journal that
she felt it presumption in her to do so.

During the autumn the Queen paid an informal visit to the Duke of
Richmond's shooting lodge in Glen Fiddich. On the first evening of her
stay the break with the luggage failed to appear, and her Majesty had
to suffer some of the half-comical inconveniences of ordinary
travellers. She had to dine in her riding skirt, with a borrowed black
lace veil arranged as a head-dress, and she had to go to bed without
the necessary accompaniments to her toilette.

In 1867 the terrible news from Mexico that the Emperor Maximilian
(Archduke of Austria and husband of the Queen's cousin, Princess
Charlotte of Belgium) had been shot by his rebel subjects, while his
wife was hopelessly insane, rendered it a mercy to all interested in
the family that old King Leopold had not lived to see the wreck of so
many hopes.

In 1868 the Queen gave to her people the first "Leaves" from her
journal in the Highlands, which afforded most pleasant glimpses of the
wonderfully happy family life, the chief holidays of which had been
spent at Balmoral. Her Majesty sent a copy to Charles Dickens, with
the graceful inscription that it was the gift of "one of the humblest
of writers to one of the greatest."

On the 13th of May the Queen laid the foundation stone of St. Thomas's
Hospital, and on the 20th she held a great review of twenty-seven
thousand volunteers in Windsor Park. Instead of her mother or her
little children, her daughter-in-law and grown-up daughters, the
Princess of Wales, Princess Christian, and Princess Louise, were in
the carriage with her, while in room of her husband and her brother or
cousin, her two soldier sons rode one on each side of the carriage.

On the 5th of July her Majesty, whose health required change of air
and scene, left for Switzerland, which must have possessed a great
attraction to so ardent an admirer of mountain scenery. She went
incognito as Countess of Kent. She was accompanied by Prince Leopold
and the Princesses Louise and Beatrice. The Queen travelled in her
yacht to Cherbourg, and thence by railway to Paris, where she stayed
all day in seclusion in the house of the English Ambassador, receiving
only a private visit from the Empress Eugénie--a different experience
of Paris from the last. The Queen continued her journey in the evening
to Basle, and from Basle to Lucerne, where for nearly two months she
occupied the Pension Wallis, delightfully situated on the Hill
Gibraltar above the lake. She made numerous enjoyable excursions on
her pony "Sultan" to the top of the Rhigi, and in the little steamboat
_Winkelried_ on the lovely lake of the Four Cantons, under the
shadow of Pilatus, to William Tell's country--she even ventured as far
as the desolate, snow-crowned precipices of the Engelberg. Her Majesty
returned by Paris, driving out to St. Cloud, and being much affected
as she walked in the grounds, but not venturing to enter the house,
where she had lived with the Prince during her happy fortnight's visit
to her ally in the Crimean war.

Three days after her arrival in England the Queen proceeded as usual
to Balmoral, where she took a lively interest in all the rural and
domestic affairs which stood out prominently in the lives of her
humbler neighbours. The passages from her journal in this and in
subsequent years are full of graphic, appreciative descriptions of the
stirring incidents of "sheep-juicing," "sheep-shearing," the
torchlight procession on "Hallowe'en," a "house-warming;" of the grave
solemnity of a Scotch communion, and the kindliness and pathos of more
than one cottage "kirstenin," death-bed, and funeral, with the simple
piteous tragedy of "a spate" in which two little brothers were
drowned.

Considerable excitement was caused in the House of Commons during the
debate on the disestablishment of the Irish Church, by the Premier,
Mr. Disraeli, mentioning the Queen's name in connection with an
interview he had with her on his resignation of office and on the
dissolution of Parliament. The conduct of Mr. Disraeli was stigmatised
as unconstitutional both in advising a dissolution of Parliament and
in apparently attempting to shift the responsibility of the situation
from the Government to the Crown.

The Queen lost by death this year her old Mistress of the Robes, one
of the earliest and most attached of her friends, Harriet, Duchess of
Sutherland.

In September, 1869, her Majesty, with the Princesses Louise and
Beatrice, paid a ten days' visit to Invertrosachs, occupying Lady
Emily Macnaghten's house, and learning to know by heart Loch Katrine,
Loch Lomond, &c., &c.

In November the Queen was in the City after a long absence, for the
double purpose of opening Blackfriars Bridge and the Holborn Viaduct.
Happily for the cheering multitudes congregated on the occasion the
day was bright and fair though cold, so that she could drive in an
open carriage accompanied by her younger daughters and Prince Leopold.
The Queen still wore deep mourning after eight years of widowhood, and
her servants continued to have a band of crape on one arm. Her Majesty
was received by the Lord Mayor, &c., &c. After Blackfriars Bridge had
been declared open for traffic her carriage passed across it, followed
by his. The same ceremony was performed at the Holborn Viaduct.

This season the Prince of Wales revisited the East, accompanied by the
Princess.

In 1870 the Queen signed the order in council resigning the royal
prerogative over the army.

On the 11th May her Majesty opened the University of London. She was
received by Earl Granville and Mr. Grote. Baboo Keshub Shunder Sen was
conspicuous among the company. The Queen received an address, said in
a clear voice "I declare this building open," and the silver trumpets
sounded.

Charles Dickens died on the 9th of June.

The Franco-German war, in which the Crown Prince of Prussia and Prince
Louis of Hesse were both engaged with honour, happily this time on the
same side, was filling the eyes of Europe; and before many months had
passed since "_Die Wacht am Rhein_" had resounded through the
length and breadth of Germany, the Empress of the French arrived in
England as a fugitive, to be followed ere long by the Emperor.

In the autumn at Balmoral, Princess Louise, with the Queen's consent,
became engaged to the Marquis of Lorne, eldest son of the Duke of
Argyle. The proposal was made and accepted during a walk from the
Glassalt Shiel to the Dhu Loch.

In November the Queen visited the Empress at Chislehurst.

During the war, while the number of the French wounded alone in
Darmstadt amounted to twelve hundred, and Princess Alice was visiting
the four hospitals daily, her second son was born.

The death of Sir James Clark, at Bagshot, was the snapping to the
Queen of another of the links which connected the present with the
past.

In 1871 the Queen again opened Parliament in person, with her speech
read by the Lord Chancellor. As described by an eye-witness, her
Majesty sat "quite still, her eyes cast down, only a slight movement
of the face." The approaching marriage of the Princess Louise was
announced, and reference was made to the fact that the King of Prussia
had become Emperor of Germany.

For the first time since the death of the Prince Consort, the Queen
spent the anniversary of their marriage-day at Windsor.

On the 21st of March Princess Louise was married in St George's
Chapel, Windsor, to the Marquis of Lorne. The bridegroom was supported
by Earl Percy and Lord Ronald Leveson-Gower. The bride walked between
the Queen and the Duke of Saxe-Coburg. Her Majesty by a gesture gave
away her daughter. Princess Louise was twenty-three, Lord Lorne
twenty-six years of age. The Princess has rooms in Kensington Palace
for her London residence.

Eight days afterwards the Queen opened the Albert Hall.

On the 3rd of April her Majesty visited the Emperor of the French at
Chislehurst--a trying interview.

On the 21st of June the Queen opened St. Thomas's Hospital, knighting
the treasurer.

This summer the Emperor and Empress of Brazil visited London, while
the Tichborne trial was running its long course.

On the Queen's return from Balmoral in November, she was met by the
alarming tidings that the Prince of Wales lay ill of typhoid fever at
Sandringham. The Queen went to her son on the 29th and remained for a
few days. The disease seemed progressing favourably, and she returned
to Windsor in the beginning of December, leaving the invalid devotedly
nursed by the Princess of Wales and Princess Alice--who had been
staying with her brother when the fever showed itself, and by the Duke
of Edinburgh. On the 8th there was a relapse, when the Queen and the
whole of the royal family were sent for to Sandringham. During many
days the Prince hovered between life and death. The sympathy was deep
and universal. The reading of the bulletins at the Mansion House was a
sight to be remembered. A prayer was appointed by the Archbishop of
Canterbury for "Albert Edward Prince of Wales, lying upon the bed of
sickness," and for "Victoria our Queen and the Princess of Wales in
this day of their great trouble." Supplications were sent up alike in
Catholic churches and Jewish synagogues. On the night of Wednesday the
14th, a date which had been dreaded as that of the Prince Consort's
death ten years before, a slight improvement took place, sleep at last
was won, and gradual recovery established. The Queen returned to
Windsor on the 19th, and wrote on the 26th of December to thank her
people for their sympathy.

On the 8th of February, 1872, the Governor-General of India, Lord
Mayo, was assassinated.

The 27th was the Thanksgiving Day for the Prince of Wales's recovery.
No public sight throughout her Majesty's reign was more moving than
her progress with the Prince and Princess of Wales and Princess
Beatrice to and from St. Paul's. The departure from Buckingham Palace
was witnessed by the Emperor and Empress of the French, who stood on a
balcony. The decorated streets were packed with incredible masses of
people, the cheering was continuous. The Queen wore white flowers in
her bonnet and looked happy. The Prince insisted on lifting his hat in
return for the people's cheers. The royal party were met at Temple Bar
by the Lord Mayor and a deputation from the Common Council. The City
sword was presented and received back again, when the chief magistrate
of London remounted and rode before the Queen to St. Paul's. Thirteen
thousand persons were in the City cathedral. The pew for the Queen and
the Prince was enclosed by a brass railing. The _Te Deum_ was
sung by a picked choir. There was a special prayer, "We praise and
magnify Thy glorious name for that Thou hast raised Thy servant Albert
Edward Prince of Wales from the bed of sickness." The sermon was
preached by the Archbishop of Canterbury. The return was led by the
Lord Mayor and Aldermen to the bounds of the City. When Buckingham
Palace was reached the Queen showed herself with the Prince for a
moment on the central balcony. There was an illumination in the
evening.

On the 29th of February, as the Queen was returning from a drive in
the Park, having come down Constitution Hill and entered the
courtyard, when about to alight, a lad with a paper in one hand and a
pistol in the other rushed first to the left and then to the right
side of the carriage, with arms extended to the Queen, who sat quite
unmoved. Her Majesty's attendant, John Brown, seized the assailant. He
was a half-witted Irish lad, named Arthur O'Connor, about seventeen
years of age, who had been a clerk to an oil and colour merchant. He
had climbed over the railings. There was no ball in the pistol, which
was broken. The paper was a petition for the Fenians. The public
indignation was great against the miserable culprit, who was dealt
with as in former outrages of the kind, according to the nature of the
offence and with reference to the mental condition of the offender.
The Queen, who had been about to institute a medal as a reward for
long and faithful service among her domestics, gave a gold medal and
an annuity of twenty-five pounds to John Brown for his presence of
mind and devotion on this occasion.

Her Majesty had gone to Balmoral for her birthday, and was still there
on the 16th of June when she heard of the death of her valued friend,
Dr. Norman Macleod. He had preached to her and dined with her so
recently as the 26th of May. What his loss was to her she has
expressed simply and forcibly in a passage in her journal.... "When I
thought of my dear friend Dr. Macleod and all he had been to me--how
in 1862, '63, '64, he had cheered and comforted and encouraged me--how
he had ever sympathised with me ... and that this too like so many
other comforts and helps was for ever gone, I burst out crying."

On the 1st of July the Queen, accompanied by the Duke of Edinburgh and
Prince Leopold and the two younger princesses, visited the Albert
Memorial, Hyde Park, which was complete save for the statue.

Three days afterwards, in very hot weather, her Majesty was present at
a great review at Aldershot.




CHAPTER XXXIX.


STAY AT HOLYROOD--DEATHS OF PRINCESS HOHENLOHE AND OF PRINCE FREDERICK
OF DARMSTADT--MARRIAGE OF THE DUKE OF EDINBURGH.

The Queen arrived at Holyrood on the 14th of August, and made a stay
of a few days in Edinburgh for the first time during eleven years. A
suite of rooms called the "Argyle rooms" had been freshly arranged for
her occupation. She went over Queen Mary's rooms again for the
gratification of Princess Beatrice, and with the Princess and Prince
Leopold took the old drives to Dalkeith and Leith which her Majesty
had first taken thirty years before.

A favourite project in the past had been that her Majesty should go so
far north as to visit Dunrobin, and rooms had been prepared for her
reception. When the visit was paid the castle was in the hands of
another generation, and the Queen laid the foundation stone of a cross
erected to the memory of the late Duchess.

Soon after her Majesty's return to Balmoral, on the 23rd September,
she had the grief to receive a telegram announcing the death of her
sister, Princess Hohenlohe. Though not more than sixty-five years of
age the Princess had been for some time very infirm. She had received
a great shock in the previous spring from the unexpected death by
fever, at the age of thirty-three, of her younger surviving daughter,
Princess Feodore, the second wife of the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen.

The Emperor Napoleon III, who had long been labouring under sore
disease, laid down his wearied and vanquished life at Chislehurst on
the 9th of January, 1873.

The coming marriage of the Duke of Edinburgh to the Grand Duchess
Marie of Russia was announced to Parliament.

On the 2nd of April the Queen was present at the opening of the
Victoria Park. Prince Arthur was created Duke of Connaught.

A fatal accident to the younger son of Prince and Princess Louis of
Hesse happened at Darmstadt on the 29th of May. The nurse had brought
the children to see the Princess while she was in bed, and had left
the two little boys playing beside her. The windows of the bedroom and
of a dressing-room beyond were open. Princess Louis, hearing Prince
Ernest, the elder brother, go into the dressing-room, leapt out of bed
and hurried after him. In her momentary absence Prince Frederick,
between two and three years of age, leant out of one of the bedroom
windows, lost his balance, and fell on the pavement below, receiving
terrible injuries, from which he died in a few hours, to the great
sorrow of his parents.

In September the Queen and Princess Beatrice, with Lady Churchill and
General Ponsonby, spent a week at Inverlochy, occupying the house of
Lord Abinger at the foot of Ben Nevis, among the beautiful scenery
which borders the Caledonian Canal, and is specially associated with
Prince Charlie--in pity for whom her Majesty loved to recall the drops
of Stewart blood in her veins.

This year more than one figure, well-known in different ways to the
Queen in former years, passed out of mortal sight--Bishop Wilberforce,
Landseer, Macready.

In January, 1874, the Duke of Edinburgh was married at the Winter
Palace, St. Petersburg, to the Grand Duchess Marie of Russia. The Duke
was in his thirtieth, the Grand Duchess in her twenty-first year. The
royal couple arrived at Gravesend on March 7th, and entered London on
March 12th in a heavy snowstorm. In spite of the weather the Queen and
the Duchess, with the Duke of Edinburgh and Princess Beatrice seated
opposite, drove slowly through the crowded streets in an open carriage
drawn by six horses. The Prince and Princess of Wales, Princess
Louise, &c., were at the windows of Buckingham Palace. The Queen went
out with the Duke and Duchess on the balcony. The Duke and Duchess's
town and country houses are Clarence House and Eastwell Park.

In March her Majesty, accompanied by all her family in England,
reviewed the troops returned from the Ashantee War in Windsor Great
Park, and gave the orders of St. Michael and St. George to Sir Garnet
Wolseley and the Victoria Cross to Lord Gifford.

The first volume of the "Life of the Prince Consort," by Sir Theodore
Martin, came out and made a deep impression on the general public.

Her Majesty had for many years honoured with her friendship M. and
Madame Van de Weyer, who were the Queen's near neighbours at Windsor,
the family living at the New Lodge. In addition they had come for
several seasons to Abergeldie, when the Court was at Balmoral. M. Van
de Weyer was not only the trusted representative of the King of the
Belgians, he was a man highly gifted morally and intellectually. This
year the friendship was broken by his death.

On the 15th of October the Duke and Duchess of Edinburgh's son--was
born.

The news of Livingstone's death reached England.

Early in 1875 Prince Leopold, then twenty-two years of age, suffered
from typhoid fever. So great were the fears entertained for his life
that the Queen was prevented from opening Parliament in person.
Already Princess Alice in her letters had referred to her youngest
brother as having been three times given back to his family from the
brink of the grave.

During the spring the Queen was deprived by death of her Clerk to the
Council and literary adviser in her first book, Sir Arthur Helps.
Charles Kingsley, whose work was much admired by the Prince Consort,
died also.

On the 18th of August, when the Queen was sitting on the deck of the
royal yacht as it crossed from Osborne to Gosport, the yacht
_Mistletoe_ ran across its bows and a collision took place, the
_Mistletoe_ turning over and sinking. The sister-in-law of the
owner of the yacht was drowned. The master, an old man, who was struck
by a spar, died after he had been picked up. The rest of the crew were
rescued. Her Majesty, who was greatly distressed, aided personally in
the vain efforts to restore one of the sufferers to consciousness.

In September the Queen, in paying a week's visit to the Duke and
Duchess of Argyle at Inverary, had the pleasure of seeing Princess
Louise in her future home. It was twenty-eight years since her Majesty
had been in the house of MacCallummore, and then her son-in-law of to-
day had been a little fellow of two years, in black velvet and fair
curls.

Towards the end of the year the Prince of Wales left for his
lengthened progress through her Majesty's dominions in India, which
was accomplished with much éclat and success.

In 1876 the Queen opened Parliament in person.

On the 25th of February her Majesty, accompanied by the Princess of
Wales, Princess Beatrice, and Prince Leopold, and received by the Duke
of Edinburgh, attended a state concert given in the morning at the
Albert Hall. Since 1866 the Queen had been able gradually to hear and
enjoy again the music in which she had formerly delighted, but she had
taken the gratification in her domestic life. Her royal duties had
been only intermitted for the briefest space. Every act of beneficence
and gracious queenliness had been long ago resumed. But no place of
public amusement had seen the face of the widowed Queen.

Lady Augusta Stanley died, after a lingering illness, on the 1st of
March. It was the close--much lamented from the highest to the lowest--
of a noble and beautiful life. The Queen afterwards erected a
memorial cross to Lady Augusta Stanley's memory in the grounds at
Frogmore.

On the 7th of March her Majesty, accompanied by Princess Beatrice,
opened a new wing of the London Hospital.

Two days afterwards the statue of the Prince Consort in the Albert
Memorial was unveiled without any ceremony. The whole memorial thus
completed stood, as it stands to-day, one of the most splendid tokens
--apart from its artistic merit--of a nation's gratitude and a Queen's
love. Opinions may differ on the use of gilding and colours, as they
have been rarely employed in this Country, upon the towering facades
and pinnacles, and on the choice of the central gilt figure of the
Prince, colossal, in robes of state. But there can hardly be a doubt
as to the striking effect of the magnificent monument taken
altogether, especially when it has the advantage of a blue sky and
brilliant sunshine, and of the charm of the four white marble groups
which surround the pedestal, seen in glimpses through the lavish green
of Kensington Gardens. An engraving of the statue of the Prince is
given in Vol. I., p. 172.

In the end of the month the Queen, travelling incognito as Countess of
Kent, having crossed to Cherbourg, arrived at Baden-Baden accompanied
by Princess Beatrice. Her Majesty visited the Princess Hohenlohe's
grave. She continued her journey to Coburg. In passing through Paris
on her return to England towards the end of April, her Majesty had an
interview with the President of the French Republic.

On the 1st of May the Queen was proclaimed Empress of India.

In the season the Empress of Germany and the ex-royal family of
Hanover visited England. On the 17th of August the Queen, with the
Princes Arthur and Leopold and Princess Beatrice, stayed two nights at
Holyrood for the purpose of unveiling the equestrian statue to the
late Prince in Charlotte Square. Her Majesty recalled the coincidence
that the last public appearances of both her husband and mother were
in Edinburgh--the Prince Consort in laying the foundation stone of the
new post-office in October, 1861, only six weeks before his death, the
Duchess of Kent at the summer volunteer review in 1860. The town was
gay and bright and crowded with company. In Charlotte Square the Duke
of Buccleuch, chairman of the committee, read the address, to which
the Queen read a reply. On her return to the palace she knighted the
sculptor, Sir John Steel, and Professor Oakeley, the composer of the
chorale which was sung on the occasion. In the evening there was once
more a great dinner at Holyrood--Scotts, Kerrs, Bruces, Primroses,
Murrays, &c., &c, being gathered round their Queen.

A month afterwards at Ballater, amidst pouring rain, her Majesty
presented new colours to the 79th regiment, "Royal Scots," of which
her father was colonel when she was born. She spoke a few kind words
to the soldiers, and accepted from them the gift of the old colours,
which are in her keeping.

On the 15th December the Queen and the Princess Beatrice paid a visit
to Lord Beaconsfield at Hughenden, lunched, and remained two hours,
during which the royal visitors planted trees on the lawn.

In consequence of fever in the Isle of Wight her Majesty held her
Christmas at Windsor for the first time since the death of the Prince
Consort.

On New Year's day, 1877, the Queen was proclaimed Empress of India at
Delhi. Her Majesty opened Parliament on the 8th of February.

In September, when the war between Russia and Turkey was raging, her
Majesty, Princess Beatrice, the Duchess of Roxburgh, &c., spent a week
at Loch Maree Hotel, enjoying the fine Ross-shire scenery, making
daily peaceful excursions, to which such a telegram as told of the
bombardment of Plevna must have been a curious accompaniment.

In February, 1878, the Queen's grandchild, Princess Charlotte of
Prussia, was married at Berlin to the hereditary Prince of Saxe-
Meiningen, at the same time that her cousin, Princess Elizabeth of
Prussia, was married to the hereditary Grand Duke of Oldenburg.

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