Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen Volume I Part 14

D'Este became the wife of Lord Chancellor Truro.] who, coming into the room together, produced a most striking effect by their great beauty and their exquisite dress. They both wore magnificent dresses of white lace over white satin, ornamented with large cactus flowers, those of the blonde Marchioness being of the sea-sh.e.l.l rose colour, and the dark Mademoiselle D'Este's of deep scarlet, and in the bottom of each of those large veined blossoms lay, like a great drop of dew, a single splendid diamond. The women were n.o.ble samples of fair and dark beauty, and their whole appearance, coming in together attired with such elegance and becoming magnificent simplicity, produced an effect of surprise and admiration on the whole brilliant a.s.sembly." Of this year's Drawing-rooms we happen to have two characteristic reports. Baroness Bunsen attended one on April 8th, and wrote: "I was extremely struck with the splendour of the scene at the Drawing-room, and had an excellent place near enough to see everybody come up to the Queen [Footnote: "At a Levee or Drawing-room it is his (the Lord Chamberlain's) duty to stand next to the Queen and read out the names of each one approaching the royal presence.... Any peeress on presentation, as also daughters of dukes, marquises, and earls, have the privilege of being kissed by her Majesty; all other ladies make the lowest Court curtsey they can, and lifting the Queen's hand, which she offers, on the palm of their hand, it is gently kissed.... It seems unnecessary to say that of course the right-hand glove is removed before reaching the Presence Chamber."--"_Old Court Customs and Modern Court Rule," by the Hon. Mrs. Armytage_.] and pa.s.s off again. I was very much entertained, and admired a number of beautiful persons. But n.o.body did I admire more than Mrs. Norton, whom I had never seen before, and Lady Canning's face always grows upon me." f.a.n.n.y Kemble also attended a Drawing-room and described it after her fas.h.i.+on. "You ask about my going to the Drawing-room, which happened thus. The Duke of Rutland dined some little time ago at the Palace, and speaking of the late party at Belvoir, mentioned me, when the Queen asked why I didn't have myself presented? The Duke called next day, at my house, but we did not see him, and he being obliged to go out of town, left a message for me with Lady Londonderry to the effect that her Majesty's interest about me (curiosity would have been the more exact word I suspect) rendered it imperative that I should go to the Drawing-room; and indeed Lady Londonderry's authoritative 'Of course you'll go,' given in her most gracious manner, left me no doubt whatever as to my duty in that respect...."

"You ask me how I managed about diamonds to go to Court in?" she wrote afterwards in reply to a friend's question. "I used a set of the value of seven hundred pounds, which I also wore at the fete at Apsley House; they were only a necklace and earrings, which I wore ... st.i.tched on scarlet velvet and as drops in the middle of scarlet velvet bows in my hair, and my dress being white satin and point lace, trimmed with white Roman pearls, it all looked nice enough.

"I suffered agonies of nervousness, and I rather think did all sorts of awkward things; but so I dare say do other people in the same predicament, and I did not trouble my head much about my various mis-performances. One thing, however, I can tell you, if her Majesty has seen me, I have not seen her, and should be quite excusable in cutting her wherever I met her.

'A cat may look at a king,' it is said; but how about looking at the Queen? In great uncertainty of mind on this point I did not look at my sovereign lady. I kissed a soft white hand which I believe was hers; I saw a pair of very handsome legs in very fine silk stockings, which I am convinced were not hers, but am inclined to attribute to Prince Albert; and this is all I perceived of the whole Royal family of England, for I made a sweeping curtsey to the 'good remainders of the Court' and came away, with no impression but that of a crowded ma.s.s of full-dressed confusion, and neither know how I got in or out of it."

We might furnish a third sketch of a Drawing-room from one of the letters of Bishop, then Archdeacon, Wilberforce, who was often at Court about this time. In the early part of 1842 he paid a visit to Windsor, of which he has left a graphic account. "All went on most pleasantly at the Castle. My reception and treatment throughout was exceedingly kind. The Queen and the Prince were both at church, as was also Lord Melbourne, who paid his first visit at the same time. The Queen's meeting with him was very interesting.

The exceeding pleasure which lighted up her countenance was quite touching. His behaviour to her was perfect--the fullest attentive deference of the subject with a subdued air of 'your father's friend' that was quite fascinating. It was curious to see (for I contemplated myself at the moment objectively--and free from the consciousness of subjectivity), sitting round the Queen's table, (1) the Queen, (2) the Prince, (3) Lord Melbourne, (4) Archdeacon, (5) Lady F. Howard, (6) Baron Stockmar, (7) d.u.c.h.ess of Kent, (8) Lady Sandwich, in the evening, discussing Coleridge, German literature, &c., with 2 and 3, and a little with 4 and 6, who is a very superior man evidently. The remarks of 3 were highly characteristic, his complaints of 'hard words,' &c., and 2 showed a great deal of interest and taste in German and English literature, and a good deal of acquaintance with both. I had orders to sit by the d.u.c.h.ess of Kent at dinner, just opposite to 1 and 2, 3 sitting at l's right, and the conversation, especially after dinner, was much more general across the table on etymology," &c. &c.

CHAPTER XIII.

FRESH ATTEMPTS AGAINST THE QUEEN'S LIFE.--MENDELSSOHN.--DEATH OF THE DUC D'ORLEANS.

On the 30th of May a renewed attempt to a.s.sa.s.sinate the Queen, almost identical in the circ.u.mstances and the motive--or no motive, save morbid vanity--with the affair of Oxford, awoke the same disgust and condemnation. This was a double attack, for on the previous day, Sunday, at two o'clock, as the Queen and the Prince were driving home from the Chapel Royal, St. James's, in pa.s.sing along the Mall, near Stafford House, amidst a crowd of bowing, cheering spectators, the Prince saw a man step out and present a pistol at him. He heard the trigger snap, but the pistol missed fire. The Queen, who had been bowing to the people on the opposite side, neither saw nor heard anything. On reaching the Palace the Prince questioned the footmen in attendance, but neither had they noticed anything, and he could judge for himself that no commotion, such as would have followed an arrest, had taken place. He was tempted to doubt the evidence of his senses, though he thought it necessary to make a private statement before the Inspector of Police. Confirmation came in the story of a stuttering boy named Pea.r.s.e. He had witnessed the scene, and after a little delay arrived of his own accord at the Palace, to report what had happened. Everybody concerned was now convinced of the threatened danger, but it was judged best to keep it secret. The Prince, writing afterwards to his father, mentions in his simple straightforward fas.h.i.+on that they were both naturally much agitated, and that the Queen was very nervous and unwell; as who would not be with the sword of Damocles quivering ready to fall on the doomed head? Her Majesty's doctor wished that she should go out, and the wish coincided with the quiet courage and good sense of the Royal couple. To have kept within doors might have been to shut themselves up for months, and the Queen said later, "she never could have existed under the uncertainty of a concealed attack. She would much rather run the immediate risk at any time than have the presentiment of danger constantly hovering over her." But the brave, generous woman, a true queen in facing the dastardly foe, was careful to save others from unnecessary exposure. The _Annual Register_ of the year mentions that she did not permit her female attendants to accompany her according to her usual practice, on that dangerous drive. Lady Bloomfield, who as Miss Liddell was one of the Maids of Honour in waiting, amply confirms the statement. No whisper of what was expected to occur had reached the ladies of the Household. They waited at home all the afternoon counting on being summoned to drive with the Queen. Contrary to her ordinary habit and to her wonted consideration for them, they were neither sent for to accompany her, nor apprised in time that they were not wanted, so that they might have disposed of their leisure elsewhere. The Queen went out alone with Prince Albert. When she returned and everybody knew what she had encountered, she said to Miss Liddell: "I dare say, Georgy, you were surprised at not driving with me this afternoon, but the fact was that as we returned from church yesterday, a man presented a pistol at the carriage window, which flashed in the pan; we were so taken by surprise that we had not time to escape, so I knew what was hanging over me, and was determined to expose no life but my own." The young Maid of Honour, in speaking warmly of the Queen's courage and unselfishness, shrewdly reminds her readers that had three ladies driven rapidly by instead of one, the would-be a.s.sa.s.sin might have been bewildered and uncertain in his aim. The Queen and the Prince had driven in the direction of Hampstead in "superb weather," with "hosts of people on foot" around them--a strange contrast in their ease and tranquillity to the beating hearts and watchful eyes in the Royal carriage. There had been no misadventure and nothing suspicious observed, though every turn, almost every face was scanned, till on the way home, between the Green Park and the garden wall, at the same spot, though on the opposite side from where Oxford had stood two years before, a shot was fired about five paces off. The Prince immediately recognised the man who had aimed at him the day before, "a little swarthy ill-looking rascal," who had been already seized, though too late to stop the shot, by a policeman close at hand.

When the worst was over without harm done, "We felt as if a load had been taken off our hearts," wrote the Prince, "and we thanked the Almighty for having preserved us a second time from so great a danger." The Prince added, "Uncle Mensdorff [Footnote: The d.u.c.h.ess of Kent's eldest sister married a private gentleman, originally a French _emigre_, afterwards a distinguished officer in the Austrian service. His sons were Prince Albert's early companions and intimate friends.] and mamma were driving close behind us. The d.u.c.h.ess Bernhard of Weimar was on horseback--not sixty paces from us."

It was said that when the Queen arrived at the Palace and met the d.u.c.h.ess of Kent, whom Count Mensdorff had conducted thither, the poor mother was deeply affected and fell upon her daughter's neck with a flood of tears, "while the Queen endeavoured to rea.s.sure her with cheerful words and affectionate caresses." Indeed the Queen was greatly relieved, and in the reaction she recovered her spirits. She wrote to the King of the Belgians the day afterwards, "I was really not at all frightened, and feel very proud at dear Uncle Mensdorff calling me 'very courageous,' which I shall ever remember with peculiar pride, coming from so distinguished an officer as he is." We may mention that the general impression made on the public by the Queen's bearing under these treacherous attacks was that of her utter fearlessness and strength of nerve; a corresponding idea, which we think quite mistaken, was that the Prince showed himself the more nervous of the two.

A great crowd a.s.sembled to cheer the Queen when she drove out on the following day. "One long shout of hurrahs," with waving of hats and handkerchiefs, greeted her. She bowed and smiled and appeared calm and collected, though somewhat flushed; but when she came back from what is described as like a triumphal progress, it was observed that, in spite of her gratification, she looked pale and not so well as she had done on the day preceding the attack. The bravest heart in a woman's breast could not surmount unmoved such an ordeal; she was at the Italian Opera the same evening, however, and heard the national anthem interrupted at every line by bursts of cheering.

In this case, as in the other, the offender was a mere lad, little over twenty, named John Francis. He was the son of a stage-carpenter, and had himself been a young carpenter who had led an irregular life, and been guilty of dishonesty. He behaved at first with much coolness and indifference, jeering at the magistrates. Francis was tried in the month of June for high treason, and sentenced to death, when his bl.u.s.ter ceased, and he fell back in a fainting fit in the arms of the turnkey.

The Queen was exceedingly anxious that the sentence should not be executed, though "fully conscious of the encouragement to similar attempts--which might follow from such leniency," and the sentence of death was commuted to banishment for life.

On the very day after the commutation of the sentence had been announced, Sunday, the 3rd of July, the Queen was again fired at as she sat by the side of her uncle, King Leopold, on her way to the Chapel Royal, St.

James's. The pistol missed fire, and the man who presented it, a hunchback, was seized by a boy of sixteen called Da.s.set. So ridiculous did the group seem, that the very policemen pushed away both captor and captive as actors in a bad practical joke. Then the boy Da.s.set, who retained the pistol, was in danger of being taken up as the real culprit, trying to throw the blame upon another. At last several witnesses proved the true state of the case. The pistol was discovered to contain only powder, paper, and some bits of a tobacco-pipe rammed together. On examination it was found that the hunchback, another miserable lad named Bean, was a chemist's a.s.sistant, who had written a letter to his father declaring that he "would never see him again, as he intended doing something which was not dishonest, but desperate."

The Queen was not aware of Bean's attempt till she came back from St.

James's, "when she betrayed no alarm, but said she had expected a repet.i.tion of the attempts on her life, so long as the law remained unaltered by which they could be dealt with only as acts of high treason."

"Sir Robert Peel hurried up from Cambridge on hearing what had occurred, to consult with the Prince as to the steps to be taken. During this interview her Majesty entered the room, when the Minister, in public so cold and self-controlled, in reality so full of genuine feeling, out of his very manliness, was unable to control his emotion, and burst into tears;" [Footnote: "Life of the Prince Consort"] an honourable sequel to the difficulties and misunderstanding which had heralded the Premier's entrance on office.

It was, indeed, high time that a suitable provision should be made to meet what seemed likely to be a new and base abuse of Royal clemency.

In the meantime, Prince Albert's fair and fearless treatment of the whole matter was very remarkable. He wrote that he could imagine the circ.u.mstance of Bean's attempt being made the day after Francis received his pardon would excite much surprise in Germany. But the Prince was satisfied that Bean's letter making known his intention had been written days before. Prince Albert was convinced that, as the law then stood, Francis's execution, notwithstanding the verdict of the jury, would have been nothing less than a judicial murder, as it was essential that the act should be committed with intent to kill or wound, and in Francis's case this, to all appearance, was not the fact; at least it was open to grave doubt. There was no proof that Francis's pistol was loaded. "In this calm and wise way," observes Mr. Justin M'Carthy, "did the husband of the Queen, who had always shared with her whatever of danger there might be in the attempts, argue as to the manner in which they ought to be dealt with." The historian adds, "The ambition which moved most or all the miscreants who thus disturbed the Queen and the country, was that of the mountebank rather than the a.s.sa.s.sin." It merited contempt no less than severity. A bill was brought forward on the 12th of July, and pa.s.sed on the 16th, making such attacks punishable, as high misdemeanours, by transportation for seven years, or imprisonment with or without hard labour for a term not exceeding three years; the culprit to be publicly or privately whipped as often and in such manner and form as the court shall direct, not exceeding thrice. Bean was tried by this law on the 25th of August, and sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment.

One of the attractions of the season was the reappearance of Rachel, ravis.h.i.+ng all hearts by her acting of Camille in _Les Horaces_, and winning ovations of every kind up to roses dropped from the Queen's bouquet.

Mendelssohn was also in London, and went to Buckingham Palace. He has left a charming account of one of his visits in a letter to his mother. "I must tell you," he writes, "all the details of my last visit to Buckingham Palace.... It is, as G. says, the one really pleasant and thoroughly comfortable English house where one feels _a son aise_. Of course I do know a few others, but yet on the whole I agree with him. Joking apart, Prince Albert had asked me to go to him on Sat.u.r.day at two o'clock, so that I might try his organ before I left England; I found him alone, and as we were talking away, the Queen came in, also alone, in a simple morning-dress. She said she was obliged to leave for Claremont in an hour, and then, suddenly interrupting herself, exclaimed, 'But, goodness, what a confusion!' for the wind had littered the whole room, and even the pedals of the organ (which, by the way, made a very pretty picture in the room), with leaves of music from a large portfolio that lay open. As she spoke she knelt down, and began picking up the music; Prince Albert helped, and I too was not idle. Then Prince Albert proceeded to explain the stops to me, and she said that she would meanwhile put things straight.

"I begged that the Prince would first play me something, so that, as I said, I might boast about it in Germany. He played a chorale by heart, with the pedals, so charmingly, and clearly, and correctly, that it would have done credit to any professional; and the Queen, having finished her work, came and sat by him and listened, and looked pleased. Then it was my turn, and I began my chorus from _St. Paul_, "How lovely are the messengers." Before I got to the end of the first verse they both joined in the chorus, and all the time Prince Albert managed the stops for me so cleverly--first a flute, at the _forte_ the great organ, at the D major part the whole register, then he made a lovely _diminuendo_ with the stops, and so on to the end of the piece, and all by heart--that I was really quite enchanted. Then the young Prince of Gotha came in, and there was more chatting; and the Queen asked if I had written any new songs, and said she was very fond of singing my published ones. 'You should sing one to him,' said Prince Albert, and after a little begging she said she would try the 'Fruhlingslied' in B flat. 'If it is still here,' she added, 'for all my music is packed up for Claremont.' Prince Albert went to look for it, but came back saying it was already packed.

'But one might, perhaps, unpack it,' said I. 'We must send for Lady ----,' she said (I did not catch the name). So the bell was rung, and the servants were sent after it, but without success; and at last the Queen went herself, and while she was gone, Prince Albert said to me, 'She begs you will accept this present as a remembrance,' and gave me a little case with a beautiful ring, on which is engraved 'V. R., 1842.'

"Then the Queen came back and said, ' Lady ---- is gone, and has taken all my things with her. It really is most annoying.' You can't think how that amused me. I then begged that I might not be made to suffer for the accident, and hoped she would sing another song. After some consultation with her husband, he said, 'She will sing you something of Gluck's.'

Meantime, the Princess of Gotha had come in, and we five proceeded through various corridors and rooms to the Queen's sitting-room. The d.u.c.h.ess of Kent came in too, and while they were all talking, I rummaged about amongst the music, and soon discovered my first set of songs; so, of course, I begged her rather to sing one of those than the Gluck, to which she very kindly consented; and which did she choose? '_Schoner und schoner schmuck sich_,' sang it quite charmingly, in strict time and tune, and with very good execution. Only in the line '_Der Prosa Lasten und muh_,' where it goes down to D, and then comes up again by semi-tones, she sang D sharp each time, and as I gave her the note the two first times, the last time she sang D, where it ought to have been D sharp. But with the exception of this little mistake it was really charming, and the last long G I have never heard better, or purer, or more natural, from any amateur. Then I was obliged to confess that f.a.n.n.y had written the song (which I found very hard; but pride must have a fall), and to beg her to sing one of my own also. 'If I would give her plenty of help she would gladly try,' she said, and then she sang '_Pilgerspruch_,' '_La.s.s dich nur_,' really quite faultlessly, and with charming feeling and expression. I thought to myself, one must not pay too many compliments on such an occasion, so I merely thanked her a great many times, upon which she said. 'Oh, if only I had not been so frightened! generally I have such long breath.' Then I praised her heartily, and with the best conscience in the world; for just that part with the long C at the close, she had done so well, taking it and the three notes next to it all in the same breath, as one seldom hears it done, and therefore it amused me doubly that she herself should have begun about it.'

"After this Prince Albert sang the '_Arndle-lied_,' '_Es ist ein schnitter_,' and then he said I must play him something before I went, and gave me as themes the chorale which he had played on the organ, and the song he had just sung. If everything had gone as usual I ought to have improvised dreadfully badly, for it is almost always so with me when I want it to go well, and then I should have gone away vexed with the whole morning. But just as if I were to keep nothing but the pleasantest, most charming recollection of it, I never improvised better; I was in the best mood for it, and played a long time, and enjoyed it myself so much that, besides the two themes, I brought in the songs that the Queen had sung quite naturally; and it all went off so easily, that I would gladly not have stopped; and they followed me with so much intelligence and attention, that I felt more at my ease than I ever did in improvising to an audience. The Queen said several times she hoped I would soon come to England again, and pay them a visit, and then I took leave; and down below I saw the beautiful carriages waiting, with their scarlet outriders, and in a quarter of an hour the flag was lowered, and the _Court Circular_ announced, 'Her Majesty left the palace at twenty minutes past three.'"

The Queen and the Prince were enjoying the company of Prince Albert's brother, Prince Ernest, the hereditary Prince of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, and his newly-wedded wife, who were both with the Court during its short stay at _Claremont_. There the news reached her Majesty of the sad and sudden death of the Duc d'Orleans, the eldest son of Louis Philippe, and the favourite brother of the Queen of the Belgians. The Duc d'Orleans had been with the King and Queen of France at Neuilly, from which he was returning in order to join the d.u.c.h.esse d'Orleans at Plombieres, when the horses in his carriage started off near the Porte Maillot. Fearing that he should be overturned the Prince rashly leaped out, when his spurs and his sword caught in his cloak and helped to throw him to the ground with great violence. The result was concussion of the brain, from which he died within three hours, never recovering consciousness. The Duc d'Orleans was a young man of great promise, and his death was not only a source of deep distress to all connected with him, it was in the end, so far as men can judge, fatal to the political interests of his family. Many of us can recollect still something of the agonised prayer of the poor mother by the dying Prince, "My G.o.d, take me, but save my child!" and the cry of the bereaved father, the first time he addressed the Chamber afterwards, when he broke down and could utter nothing save the pa.s.sionate lamentation of David of old, "My son, my son!" The Queen and Prince Albert were doubly and trebly allied to the Orleans family by the marriages of the Queen of the Belgians, the Duc de Nemours, and later of Princess Clementine, to three members of the Coburg family--the uncle and two of the cousins of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. They felt much for the unhappy family in their terrible bereavement. The Queen grieved especially for her particular friend, Queen Louise, and for the young widow, a cultured, intellectual German Princess, with her health already broken. "My poor dearest Louise, how my heart bleeds for her. I know how she loved poor Chartres, [Footnote: The Duc de Chartres was the earlier t.i.tle of the Duc d'Orleans, which he bore when his father was still Duc d'Orleans, before he became King of France as "Louis Philippe." Apparently the son continued "Chartres" to his intimate friends.] and deservedly, for he was so n.o.ble and good. All our anxiety now is to hear how poor dear frail Helene (the d.u.c.h.esse d'Orleans) has borne this too dreadful loss. She loved him so, and he was so devoted to her."

During the night of the 27th of July this year, London was visited by the most violent thunderstorm which had been experienced for many summers. It lasted for several hours. The fine spire of the church of St.

Martin-in-the-Fields was struck by the lightning and practically destroyed.

On the 9th of August the Queen prorogued Parliament, when the Prince and Princess of Saxe-Coburg Gotha witnessed the interesting ceremony, occupying chairs near the chair of State, kept vacant for the Prince of Wales to the right of the Queen, while Prince Albert sat in the chair to her left.

The Prince of Wales was still at a considerable distance from the occupancy of that chair. Even as we see him here, in a copy of Mrs.

Th.o.r.n.ycroft's graceful statue, he is in the character of a shepherd lad, like David of old, and not in that of the heir-apparent to the throne.

At the close of this season, the Queen's old friend and servant Baroness Lehzen withdrew from Court service and retired to Germany to end her days in her native country, in the company of a sister. Lady Bloomfield saw the Baroness Lehzen in her home at Buckeburg, within a day's journey of Hanover, a few years subsequently. "She resided with her sister in a comfortable small house, where she seemed perfectly contented and happy.

She was as much devoted to the Queen as ever, and her rooms were filled with pictures and prints of her Majesty." The Prince and Princess of Buckeburg were very kind to her, and she had as much society as she liked or desired. What a change from the great monarchy of England to the tiny princedom of Buckeburg! But the Baroness was a German, and could reconcile the two ideas in her mind. She was also an ageing woman, to whom the rest and freedom of domestic life were sweet and the return to the customs of her youth not unacceptable..

CHAPTER XIV.

THE QUEEN'S FIRST VISIT TO SCOTLAND.

The Queen had never been abroad. It was still well-nigh an unconst.i.tutional step for a sovereign of England to claim the privilege, enjoyed by so many English subjects, of a foreign tour, let it be ever so short. However, this year the proposal of a visit to her uncle King Leopold at Brussels, where several members of Louis Philippe's family were to have met her, was made. But the lamentable death of the Duc d'Orleans put an end for the present to the project. Neither were affairs at home in so flouris.h.i.+ng a condition as to encourage any great departure from ordinary rule and precedent. The manufacturing districts were in a most unsettled state. The perpetually recurring riots--so long as the corn laws stood in the way of a sure and abundant supply of grain, which meant cheap bread, and as the people believed prosperous trade--had broken out afresh in Lancas.h.i.+re, Yorks.h.i.+re, and the Midland counties. The aspect of Manchester alone became so threatening, that all the soldiers who could be spared from London, including a regiment of the Guards, were dispatched to the North of England. Happily, the disturbances were quelled, though not without bloodshed; and it was resolved, notwithstanding the fact that similar rioting had taken place in Lanarks.h.i.+re, the Queen and the Prince should pay their first visit to Scotland, a country within her dominions, but different in physical features and history from the land in which she had been born and bred. How much the royal visitors were gratified, has been amply shown; but to realise what the Queen's visit was to the Scotch people, it is necessary to go back to the nation's loyalty and to the circ.u.mstance that since the exile of the Stewarts, nay, since the days when James VI. left his ancient capital to a.s.sume the crown of England, the monarchs had shown their faces rarely in the north; while in the cases of Charles I. and Charles II. there had been so much of self-interest and compulsion in their presence as to rob it of its grace. George IV. had come and gone certainly, but though he was duly welcomed, it was difficult even for his most zealous supporters to be enthusiastic about him. At the proposed arrival of the young Queen, who was well worthy of the most ardent devotion, the "leal" heart of Scotland swelled with glad antic.i.p.ation. The country had its troubles like the rest of the world. In addition to vexed questions between perplexed mill-masters, s.h.i.+pbuilders, and mine-owners on the one side, and on the other, penniless mechanics and pitmen, the crisis which more than all others rent the Covenanting church, so dear to the descendants of the old Whigs, was close at hand. All was forgotten for the hour in the strange resemblance which exists between one strain of the character of the staid Scotch, and a vein in the nature of the impulsive French, two nations that used to be trusty allies. There is, indeed, a bond to unite "Caledonia stern and wild" and "the sunny land of France;" a weft of pa.s.sionate poetry crosses alike the woof of the simple cunning of the Highlander and the slow canniness of the Lowlander.

Scotland as well as France has been

The chosen home of chivalry, the garden of romance.

The news that the Queen and the Prince were coming, travelled with the rapidity of the ancient clansmen's fiery cross from the wan waters of the south to the stormy friths of the north, and kindled into a blaze the latent fire in every soul. The fields, the pastures, the quarries, the shootings, were all very well, and the Kirk was still better; but the Queen was at the door--the Queen who represented alike Queen Mary, King Jamie--all the King Jamies,--King William, the good friend of religious liberty, and of "Cardinal Carstairs," "Bonnie Prince Charlie," at once pitied and condemned, and King George, "honest man!" not unfair or unmerciful, whatever his minister Walpole might advise. The Queen was, above all, herself the flower of her race. Who would not hurry to meet and greet her, to give her the warmest reception?

All the traditions, all the instincts of the people thrilled and impelled them. Mult.i.tudes formed of broadly and picturesquely contrasting elements flocked to Edinburgh to hail her Majesty's landing. Manifold preparations were made for her entrance into the capital, the one regret being that she was not to dwell in her own beautiful palace of Holyrood--unoccupied by royal tenants since the last French exiles, Charles X., the Dauphin and the Dauphiness (the Daughter of the Temple), and the d.u.c.h.esse de Berri, with her two children, the young Duc de Bourdeaux and his sister, found a brief refuge within its walls. The Queen, like her uncle George IV., was to be in the first place the guest of the Duke of Buccleugh at Dalkeith Palace.

Her Majesty and the Prince left Windsor at five o'clock on the morning of the 29th August, 1842, and after journeying to London and Woolwich, embarked on board the _Royal George_ yacht under a heavy shower of rain. The yacht was attended by a squadron of nine vessels, the Trinity House steamer, and a packet, besides being followed for some distance, in spite of the unpropitious weather, by innumerable little pleasure-boats.

The squadron was both for safety and convenience; certain vessels conveyed the ladies and gentlemen of the suite, and one took the two dogs, the chosen companions of their master and mistress, "Eos," and another four-footed favourite, "Cairnach." [Footnote: Sir Edwin Landseer painted these two dogs for the Queen, "Eos" with the Princess Royal in 1841, "Eos"

alone, a sketch for a large picture in 1842, "Cairnach" in 1841. In 1838, the great animal painter had painted for her Majesty "little Dash" along with two other dogs, and "Lorey," a pet parrot belonging to the d.u.c.h.ess of Kent.]

The voyage was both tedious and trying, the sea was rough, and the royal voyagers were ill. On the morning of the 31st they were only coasting Northumberland, when the Queen saw the Fern Islands, where Grace Darling's lighthouse and her heroic story were still things of yesterday. Before her Majesty's return to England, she heard what she had not known at the time, that the brave girl had died within twenty-four hours of the royal yacht's pa.s.sing the lighthouse station.

The Queens first remark on the Scotch coast, though it happened to be the comparatively tame east coast, was "very beautiful--so dark, rocky, bold, and wild--totally unlike our coast." All her observations had the naive freshness and sympathetic willingness to be pleased, of an unexhausted, unvitiated mind. She noticed everything, and was gratified by details which would have signified nothing to a sated, jaded nature, or, if they had made an impression, would only have called forth more weariness, varied by contemptuous criticism. The longer light in the north, that dear summer gloaming which is neither night nor day, but borrows something from both--from the silence and solemn mystery of the latter, and from the clear serenity of the former--a leisure time which is a.s.sociated from youth to age with a host of happy, tender a.s.sociations; the pipes playing in one of the fis.h.i.+ng-boats; the reel danced on board an attendant steamer; the bonfires on the coast--nothing was too trivial to escape the interested watcher, or was lost upon her, Queen though she was.

The anchor of the royal yacht was let down in Leith Roads at midnight. At seven o'clock on the morning of the 1st of September the Queen saw before her the good town of Leith, where Queen Mary had landed from France; and in the background, Edinburgh half veiled in an autumn fog, lying at the foot of its semicircle of hills--the grim couchant lion of Arthur's seat; Salisbury Crags, grey and beetling; the heatherly slopes of the Pentlands in the distance. A little after eight her Majesty landed at Granton Pier, amidst the cheers of her Scotch subjects. The Duke of Buccleugh, whose public-spirited work the pier was, stood there to receive his sovereign, when she put her foot on sh.o.r.e, as he had already been on board the yacht to greet her arrival in what was once called Scotland Water.

When Queen Mary landed at Leith, it took her more than one day, if we remember rightly, to make a slow progress to her capital. Things are done faster in the nineteenth century; a few minutes by railway now separate Granton from Edinburgh. But the Edinburgh and Granton railway did not exist in 1842. Her Majesty and the Prince drove in a barouche, followed by the ladies and gentlemen of her suite in other carriages, and escorted by the Duke of Buccleugh and several gentlemen on horseback, to the ancient city of her Stewart ancestry. An unfortunate misconception robbed the occasion of the dignified ceremony and the exhibition of fervent personal attachment which had awaited it. All the previous day the authorities and the crowd had been on the look-out for the great event, and in the delay had pa.s.sed the time quite happily in watching the preparations, and the decorations and devices for the coming illumination. The Lord Provost, Sir James Forrest, had taken the precaution to send a carriageful of bailies over night, or by dawn of day, to catch the first sign of the Queen's landing, and drive with it, post-haste, to the chief magistrate, who with his fellows was to be stationed at the barrier erected in the High Street, to present the keys of the city to the sovereign claiming admittance. But whether the bailies blundered over their instructions or slept at their post, or lost their way, no warning of the Queen's approach reached the Provost and his satellites in time. They were calm in the confident persuasion that the Queen would not arrive till noon--at the soonest--a persuasion which was based on the conviction that the event was too great to be hurried over, and which left out of sight the consideration of the disagreeable sea-voyage, and the natural desire to be on solid ground, and at rest, on the part of the travel-tossed voyagers. "We both felt dreadfully tired and giddy," her Majesty wrote of herself and the Prince when they reached Dalkeith.

The result was that these gentlemen in office were seated at breakfast as usual, or were engaged in getting rid betimes of some of the numerous engagements which beset busy men on a busy day, when the cry arose that the Queen was there, in the midst of them, with n.o.body to meet her, no silver keys on a velvet cus.h.i.+on to be respectfully offered and graciously returned. The ancient inst.i.tution of the Royal Archer Guard, one of the chief glories of the situation, was only straggling by twos and threes to its muster-ground. The Celtic Society was in a similar plight, headed in default of the Duke of Argyle by the Marquis of Lorn, a golden-haired stripling in a satin kilt of the Campbell set, who looked all the slighter and more youthful, with more dainty calves in his silken hose, because of the big burly chieftains--Islay conspicuous among them--whom he led. The stands, the windows, the very grand old streets were half empty as yet, in the raw September morning. No King or Queen had visited Edinburgh for a score of years, and when at last the Queen of Hearts did come, the citizens were found napping--a sore mortification with which her Majesty deals very gently in her Journal, scarcely alluding to the inopportune accident. In truth only a moiety of early risers--those mostly country folks who had trooped into the town--restless youthful spirits, ardent holiday-makers, who could not find any holiday too long--or gallant devoted innocent Queen-wors.h.i.+ppers, sleepless with the thought that the Queen was so near and might already be stirring--were abroad and intent on what was pa.s.sing, looking at the vacant places, speculating on how they would be choke full in a couple of hours, amusing themselves easily with the idlest trifles, by way of whetting the appet.i.te for the great sight, which they were to remember all their lives. These spectators were startled by seeing a gentleman, said afterwards to have been Lord John Scott, the popular but somewhat madcap brother of the Duke of. Buccleugh, gallop up the street bareheaded, waving his hat above his head and shouting "The Queen, the Queen!" The listeners looked at each other and laughed. How well the hoax was gone about; but who would presume to play such a trick, it was too much even from Lord John--did not somebody say it was Lord John? On the line of route too! What were the police thinking of?

Then swift corroboration followed, in the train of carriages rolling up, the first attended by a few of the Royal Archers, in their picturesque costumes of green and gold, each with his bow in one hand and his arrows in his belt. But the calmest had his equanimity disturbed by the consciousness that the main body of his comrades, all n.o.blemen and gentlemen of Scotland, were running pell-mell behind, in a desperate effort to form into rank and march in due order. One eager confused glance, one long-drawn breath, one vehement heart-throb for her who was the centre of all, and the disordered pageant had swept past.

The Queen wrote in her Journal that the Duke of Roxburgh and Lord Elcho were the members of the Body Guard on her side of the carriage, and that Lord Elcho, whom she did not know at the time, pointed out the various monuments and places of interest.

Both the Queen and Prince Albert were much struck by the beautiful town, the ma.s.sive stone houses, the steep High Street, the tall buildings, "and the Castle on the grand rock in the middle of the town, and Arthur's Seat in the background, a splendid spectacle."

On the country road to Dalkeith, the cottages built of stone, the walls ("dry stane d.y.k.es") instead of fences, the old women in their close caps ("sou-backed mutches"), the girls and children of the working cla.s.ses, with flowing hair, often red, and bare feet, all the little individual traits, which impress us on our first visit to a foreign country, were carefully noted down. The Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Buccleugh proved a n.o.ble host and hostess, but they could provide no such cicerone for the Queen as was furnished for George IV., when Sir Walter Scott showed him Edinburgh, and for the Governor of the Netherlands, when Rubens introduced him to Antwerp. Neither did any peer or chief appear on the occasion of the Queen's visit, with such a telling accompaniment as that ruinous "tail" of wild Highlanders, attached to Glengarry, when he waited on the King.