Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen Volume II Part 5

On the Queen's return to Greenock she sailed past Roseneath, and followed the windings of Loch Long, getting a good view of the Cobbler, the rugged mountain which bears a fantastic resemblance to a man mending a shoe. At the top of the loch, Ben Lomond came in sight.

"There was no sun, and twice a little mist; but still it was beautiful," wrote the Queen.

On "a bright fresh morning" in August, when the hills were just "slightly tipped with clouds," the Queen sailed through the Kyles of Bute, that loveliest channel between overtopping mountains, and entered Loch Fyne, another fine arm of the sea, of herring celebrity.

A Highland welcome awaited the Queen at the little landing-place of Inverary, made gay and fragrant with heather. Old friends, whom she was honouring by her presence, waited to receive her, the Duke and d.u.c.h.ess of Argyle--the latter the eldest daughter of the d.u.c.h.ess of Sutherland, who was also present with her son, Lord Stafford, her unmarred daughter, Lady Caroline Leveson-Gower, and her son-in-law and second daughter, Lord and Lady Blantyre. An innocent warder stood in front of the old feudal keep. In the course of the Queen's visit to Germany she had made the acquaintance, without dreaming of what lay concealed in the skirts of time, of one of her future sons-in-law in a fine little boy of eight years. Now her Majesty was to be introduced, without a suspicion of what would be the result of the introduction, to the coming husband of another daughter still unborn. Here is the Queen's description of the son and heir of the house of Argyle, who was yet to win a princess for his bride. "Outside, stood the Marquis of Lorne, just two years old--a dear, white, fat, fair little fellow, with reddish hair but very delicate features, like both his mother and father; he is such a merry, independent little child. He had a black velvet dress and jacket, with a 'sporran,' scarf, and Highland bonnet."

Her Majesty lunched at the castle, "the Highland gentlemen standing with halberts in the room," and returned to the _Fairy_, sailing down Loch Fyne when the afternoon was at its mellowest, and the long shadows were falling across the hillsides. At five Lochgilphead was reached, when Sir John Orde lent his carriage to convey the visitors to the Crinan Ca.n.a.l. The next day's sail, in beautiful weather still, was through the cl.u.s.ters of the nearest of the western islands, up the Sound of Jura, amidst a flotilla of small boats crowned with flags.

Here were fresh islands and mountain peaks, until the strangers were within hail of Staffa.

It is not always that an approach to this northern marvel of nature is easy or even practicable; but fortune favours the brave. Her Majesty has described the landing. "At three we anch.o.r.ed close before Staffa, and immediately got into the barge, with Charles, the children, and the rest of our people, and rowed towards the cave. As we rounded the point the wonderful basaltic formation came into sight. The appearance it presents is most extraordinary, and when we turned the corner to go into the renowned Fingal's Cave the effect was splendid, like a great entrance into a vaulted hall; it looked almost awful as we entered, and the barge heaved up and down on the swell of the sea. It is very high, but not longer than two hundred and twenty-seven feet, and narrower than I expected, being only forty feet wide. The sea is immensely deep in the cave. The rocks under water were all colours-- pink, blue, and green, which had a most beautiful and varied effect.

It was the first time the British standard, with a queen of Great Britain and her husband and children, had ever entered Fingal's Cave, and the men gave three cheers, which sounded very impressive there."

On the following day the Atlantic rains had found the party, though for the present the affliction was temporary. It poured for three hours, during which her Majesty drew and painted in her cabin. The weather cleared in the afternoon; sitting on the deck was again possible, and Loch Linnhe, Loch Eil, and the entrance to Loch Leven were not lost.

At Fort William the Queen was to quit the yacht and repair to the summer quarters of Ardverikie. Before doing so she recorded her regret that "this delightful voyage and tour among the western lochs and isles is at an end; they are so beautiful and so full of poetry and romance, traditions and historical a.s.sociations."

Rain again, more formidable than before, on Sat.u.r.day, the 21st of August. It was amidst a hopeless drenching drizzle, which blots out the chief features of a landscape, that the Queen went ash.o.r.e, to find "a great gathering of Highlanders in their different tartans" met to do her honour. Frasers, Forbeses, Mackenzies, Grants, replaced Campbells, Macdonalds, Macdougals, and Macleans. By a wild and lonely carriage-road, the latter part resembling Glen Tilt, her Majesty reached her destination.

Ardverikie, which claimed to have been a hunting-seat of Fergus, king of the Scots, was a shooting lodge belonging to Lord George Bentinck, rented from him by the Marquis of Abercorn, and lent by the marquis to the Queen. It has since been burnt down. It was rustic, as a shooting lodge should be, very much of a large cottage in point of architecture, the bare walls of the princ.i.p.al rooms characteristically decorated with rough sketches by Landseer, among them a drawing of "The Stag at Bay," and the whole house bristling with stags' horns of great size and perfection. In front of the house lay Loch Laggan, eight miles in length.

The Queen remained at Ardverikie for four weeks, and doubtless would have enjoyed the wilds thoroughly, had it not been for the lowest deep of persistently bad weather, when "it not only rained and blew, but snowed by way of variety."

Lord Campbell heard and wrote down these particulars of the royal stay at Ardverikie. "The Queen was greatly delighted with the Highlands in spite of the bad weather, and was accustomed to sally for a walk in the midst of a heavy rain, putting a great hood ever her bonnet, and showing nothing of her features but her eyes. The Prince's invariable return to luncheon about two o'clock, in spite of grouse-shooting and deer-stalking, is explained by his voluntary desire to please the Queen, and by the intense hunger which always a.s.sails him at this hour, when he likes, in German fas.h.i.+on, to make his dinner."

In a continuance of the most dismally unpropitious weather, the Queen and her children left Ardverikie on the 17th of September, the Prince having preceded her for a night that he might visit Inverness and the Caledonian Ca.n.a.l. The storm continued, almost without intermission, during the whole of the voyage home.

CHAPTER VIII.

THE FRENCH FUGITIVES--THE PEOPLE'S CHARTER.

Long before the autumn of 1847, the mischievous consequences of the railway mania, complicated by the failure of the potato crop, showed itself in great bankruptcies in the large towns all over the country.

The new year came with trouble on its wings. The impending storm burst all over Europe, first in France. Louis Philippe's dynasty was overthrown.

In pairs or singly, sometimes wandering aside in a little distraction, so as to be lost sight of for days, the numerous brothers and sisters, with the parent pair, reached Dreux and Eu, and thence, with the exception of the d.u.c.h.esse d'Orleans and her sons, straggled to England.

One can guess the feelings of the Queen and Prince Albert when they heard that their late hosts, doubly allied to them by kindred ties, were fugitives, seeking refuge from the hospitality of a foreign nation. And the first confused tidings of the French revolution which reached the Queen and Prince Albert were rendered more trying, by the almost simultaneous announcement of the death of the old Dowager- d.u.c.h.ess of Gotha, to whom all her grandchildren were so much attached.

The ex-King and Queen arrived at Newhaven, Louis Philippe bearing the name of Mr. Smith. Queen Victoria had already written to King Leopold on the 1st of March: "About the King and Queen (Louis Philippe and Queen Amelie) we still know nothing.... We do everything we can for the poor family, who are, indeed, sorely to be pitied. But you will naturally understand that we cannot make common cause with them, and cannot take a hostile position to the new state of things in France.

We leave them alone; but if a Government which has the approbation of the country be formed, we shall feel it necessary to recognise it in order to pin them down to maintain peace and the existing treaties, which is of the greatest importance. It will not be pleasant to do this, but the public good and the peace of Europe go before one's personal feelings."

As soon as it could be arranged under the circ.u.mstances, the Queen had an interview with the exiles. What a meeting after the last parting, and all that had come to pa.s.s in the interval! This interview took place on the 6th of March, when Louis Philippe came privately to Windsor.

The same intelligent chronicler, Lady Lyttelton, who gave such a graphic account of the Citizen-King's first visit to Windsor, had also to photograph the second. Once more she uses with reason the word "historical." "To-day is historical, Louis Philippe having come from Claremont to pay a private (_very_ private) visit to the Queen.

She is really enviable now, to have in her power and in her path of duty, such a boundless piece of charity and beneficent hospitality.

The reception by the _people_ of England of all the fugitives has been beautifully kind."

That day the Queen wrote sadly to Baron Stockmar: "I am quite well; indeed, particularly so, though G.o.d knows we have had since the 25th enough for a whole life--anxiety, sorrow, excitement; in short, I feel as if we had jumped over thirty years' experience at once. The whole face of Europe is changed, and I feel as if I lived in a dream." She added, with the tenderness of a generous nature, referring to the very different circ.u.mstances in which her regard for the Orleans house had been established, and to the alienation which had arisen between her and some of its members: "You know my love for the family; you know how I longed to get of terms with them again ... and you said, 'Time will alone, but will certainly, bring it about.' Little did I dream that this would be the way we should meet again and see each other, all in the most friendly way. That the d.u.c.h.esse de Montpensier, about whom we have been quarrelling for the last year, and a half, should be here as a fugitive and dressed in the clothes I sent her, and should come to thank _me for my kindness_, is a reverse of fortune which no novelist would devise, and upon which one could moralise for ever."

It was a comfort to the Queen and Prince Albert that Belgium, which had at first appeared in the greatest danger, ended by standing almost alone on the side of its King and Government.

The tide of revolution, which swept over the greater states, did not spare the small. The Duke of Coburg-Gotha's subjects, who had seemed so happily situated and so contented at the time of the Queen's visit, were in a ferment like the rest of their countrymen. Bellona's hot breath was in danger of withering the flowers of that Arcadia. The Princes of Leiningen and Hohenlohe, the Queen's brother and brother- in-law, were practically dispossessed of seigneurial rights and lands, and ruined. The Princess of Hohenlohe wrote to her sister: "We are undone, and must begin a new existence of privations, which I don't care for, but for poor Ernest" (her husband) "I feel it more than I can say."

In the meantime, on the 18th of March a fourth English Princess was born. There was more than usual congratulation on the safety and well- being of mother and child, because of the great shocks which had tried the Queen previously, and the anxiety which filled all thoughtful minds for the result of the crisis in England. Her Majesty's courage rose to the occasion. She wrote to King Leopold in little more than a fortnight: "I heard all that pa.s.sed, and my only thoughts and talk were political. But I never was calmer or quieter, or less nervous.

Great events make one calm; it is only trifles that irritate my nerves."

England had its own troubles and was in high excitement about an increased grant of money for the support of the army and navy, and the continuance of the income-tax. The Chartists threatened to make a great demonstration on Kennington Common.

The first threat in London, for the 13th of March, a few days before the birth of the little Princess, ended in utter failure. The happy termination was a.s.sisted by the state of the weather, great falls of rain antic.i.p.ating the work of large bodies of police prepared to scatter the crowd. But as another demonstration, with the avowed intention of walking in procession to present to the House of Commons a monster pet.i.tion, miles long, for the granting of the People's Charter, was announced to take place on the 10th of April, great uncertainty, and agitation filled the public mind. It was judged advisable that the Queen should go to the Isle of Wight for a short stay at Osborne, though it was still not more than three weeks since her confinement.

The second demonstration collapsed like the first. Only a fraction-- not more than twenty-three thousand of the vast mult.i.tude expected to appear--a.s.sembled at the meeting-place, and the people dispersed quietly. But it is only necessary to mention the precautions employed to show how great had been the alarm. The Duke of Wellington devised and conducted the steps which were taken beforehand. On the bridges were ma.s.sed bodies of foot and horse police, and special constables, of whom nearly two hundred thousand--one of them Prince Louis Napoleon, the future Emperor of the French--are said to have been sworn in. In the immediate neighbourhood of each bridge strong forces of military, while kept out of sight, were ready "for instant movement." Two regiments of the line were at Millbank Penitentiary, twelve hundred infantry at Deptford Dockyard, and thirty pieces of heavy field ordnance at the Tower prepared for transport by hired steamers to any spot where help might be required. Bodies of troops were posted in unexpected quarters, as in the area of the untenanted Rose Inn yard, but within call. The public offices at Somerset House and in the City were liberally supplied with arms. Places like the Bank of England were "packed" with troops and artillery, and furnished with sand-bag parapets for their walls, and wooden barricades with loopholes for firing through, for their windows.

"Thank G.o.d," her Majesty wrote to the King of the Belgians, "the Chartist meeting and procession have turned out a complete failure.

The loyalty of the people at large, has been very striking, and their indignation at their peace being interfered with by such wanton and worthless men immense."

Never was cheerfulness more wanted to lighten a burden of work and care. In this year of trouble "no less than twenty-eight thousand dispatches were received or sent out from the Foreign Office." All these dispatches came to the Queen and Prince Albert, as well as to Lord Palmerston, the Minister for Foreign Affairs.

Across the Channel the inflammatory speeches and writings of Messrs.

Mitchel, Meagher, and Smith O'Brien became so treasonable in tone that, after the pa.s.sing of a Bill in Parliament for the better repression of sedition, the three Irish leaders were arrested and brought to trial, the jury refusing to commit in the case of Meagher and Smith O'Brien, but in that of Mitchel, who was tried separately, finding him guilty, and sentencing him to transportation for fourteen years.

On the 2nd of May the Court returned to Buckingham Palace, and the baptism of the infant princess took place on the 13th, in the private chapel of Buckingham Palace, when the Archbishop of Canterbury officiated. The sponsors were Duke Augustus of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, represented by Prince Albert, and the d.u.c.h.ess of Saxe-Meiningen and the Grand-d.u.c.h.ess of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, represented by the Queen- dowager and the d.u.c.h.ess of Cambridge. The names given to the child were, "Louise Caroline Alberta," the first and last for the child's grandmother on the father's side and for the royal father himself. A chorale was performed, which the Prince had adapted from an earlier composition written to the hymn--

In life's gay morn, ere sprightly youth By vice and folly is enslaved, Oh! may thy Maker's glorious name Be on thy infant mind engraved; So shall no shades of sorrow cloud The suns.h.i.+ne of thy early days, But happiness, in endless round, Shall still encompa.s.s all thy ways.

Bishop Wilberforce describes the scene. "The royal christening was a very beautiful sight, in its highest sense of that word 'beauty.' The Queen, with the five royal children around her, the Prince of Wales and Princess Royal hand-in-hand, all kneeling down quietly and meekly at every prayer, and the little Princess Helena alone, just standing, and looking round with the blue eyes of gazing innocence."

When the statues of the royal children were executed by Mrs.

Th.o.r.n.ycroft, Princess Helena was modelled as Peace. The engraving is a representation of the graceful piece of sculpture, in which a slender young girl, wearing a long loose robe and having sandalled feet, holds the usual emblematic branch and cl.u.s.ter--one in each hand.

As one Princess was born, another of a former generation, whose birth had been hailed with equal rejoicing, pa.s.sed away, on the 27th of May, immediately after the Birthday Drawing-room. Princess Sophia, the youngest surviving daughter and twelfth child of George III. and Queen Charlotte, died in her arm-chair in the drawing-room of her house at Kensington, aged seventy-one. At her own request she was buried at Kensal Green, where the Duke of Suss.e.x was interred.

CHAPTER IX.

THE QUEEN'S FIRST STAY AT BALMORAL.

From France, in June, came the grievous news of the three days'

fighting in the streets of Paris, because no Government provision could secure work and bread for the artisans. The insurrection was only put down by martial law under the Dictator, General Cavaignac.

In Sardinia the King, Charles Albert, fighting gallantly against the Austrian rule, was defeated once and again, and driven back.

In England, though the most swaggering of the Chartists still bl.u.s.tered a little, attention could be given to more peaceful concerns. In July Prince Albert went to York, though he could "ill be spared" from the Queen's side in those days of startling events and foreign turmoil, to be present at a meeting of the Royal Agricultural Society, of which he had been governor for half-a-dozen years. The acclamations with which the Prince was received, were only the echo of the tempest of cheers which greeted and encouraged her Majesty every time she appeared in public this year.