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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




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."

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