The Public Life of Queen Victoria Part 10

The Queen, followed by the whole of her brilliant Court, drove to the extreme left of the volunteer line, and thence slowly pa.s.sed along the whole front to where the extreme right came close up to the lofty houses at Albert Gate. Then turning, she drew up on the open ground, the Royal Standard proudly waving above her. The bands of the Household Brigade being placed opposite her, the volunteers now began to defile past, between Her Majesty and the bands. The march was commenced by the mounted corps, few in number, but admirably equipped and with remarkably fine horses. The infantry were headed by the Artillery Company, to whom, as the oldest volunteer body existing, not only in England but in Europe, the priority has always been accorded. For an hour and a half corps after corps marched past, until the long succession was closed by a regiment from Ches.h.i.+re. When the whole had pa.s.sed, and all had returned to their original positions, the whole line advanced in columns of battalions, and, by signal, cheered Her Majesty with vociferous earnestness. After expressing her high satisfaction with what she had seen, the Queen left the ground about six o'clock. Before eight o'clock all the volunteers had been marched out of the park, and there remained within its gates only meagre remnants of the enormous crowd of spectators.

[Sidenote: THE REVIEW AT EDINBURGH.]

The opinions of competent authorities on the creditable manner in which this experimental review pa.s.sed off were of the highest character. The Commander-in-Chief issued a general order, by command of the Queen, in which His Royal Highness spoke in the highest terms of the efficiency displayed by the various corps, and of Her Majesty's appreciation of the loyalty and devotion exhibited by the volunteer movement. Later in the season the Queen, when on her customary autumnal route to Balmoral, reviewed in the Queen's Park, at Edinburgh, the volunteers of her northern kingdom, to the number of 12,000.

CHAPTER XXI.

THE QUEEN IN HER HIGHLAND HOME.

The Queen as an Author--"The Early Years of the Prince Consort"--"Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands"--Love for Children of all Ranks--Mountain Ascents on Pony-back--In Fingal's Cave--"The Queen's Luck"--Salmon-spearing, and a Catastrophe attending it--Erection of a Memorial Cairn--Freedom of Intercourse with Humble Highlanders--Visits to Cottagers--"Mrs. Albert"--Travelling Incognito--Highland Dinners--"A Wedding-Party frae Aberdeen"--A Disguise Detected.

Early in January of the year 1868, Queen Victoria added her name to the distinguished roll of Royal authors. In the year preceding, there had been published a work ent.i.tled, "The Early Years of the Prince Consort," in which the life of her revered and lamented husband is traced from its beginning, down to the first period of their common wedded life. On the t.i.tle-page of this work appears the name, as author, of General the Honourable Charles Grey, a gentleman who accompanied the Prince in a tour to Italy before his marriage, and who has ever since remained attached, in high capacities, to the Royal Household. This book, to which we have been indebted for important materials reproduced by us at certain of the earlier stages of our narrative, was published with the sanction of Her Majesty, and its compiler received from his Royal Mistress most, if not all, of the materials which he very tastefully combined. But the Queen did not appear in it as author _in propria persona_, save in the instance of certain occasional notes and addenda to which her imprint is attached.

The work published in 1868, on the other hand, "Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands," is entirely, save a brief editorial introduction, from the Queen's pen. It is precisely, as its name imports, a series of extracts from a journal kept from day to day, and extended from Her Majesty's earliest married days far into those of her widowhood.

Special pa.s.sages are, in addition, given from similar diaries, which recorded yacht trips to the beautiful estuary of the Tamar, to the Duchy of Cornwall, and to the Channel Islands. There is also furnished a very sparkling and vivacious record of the Queen's first visit to Ireland, in 1849, which will be found duly recorded by us in a previous chapter.

Nothing charms more in these pages than the love displayed for all young people--for the writer's own sons and daughters, who are described by their home pet names; "Vicky," and "Bertie," standing, for example, for Victoria and Albert--for the infant child of a ducal entertainer, depicted as "a dear, white, fat, fair little fellow," and "such a merry, independent little child"--or for the children of humble cottagers at Balmoral, for "Mary Symons and Lizzie Stuart dancing so nicely; the latter with her hair all hanging down." When the Queen and Prince and the children land at Dundee, what charms the fond young mother most is, that "Vicky" behaves like a grown-up person, and is "not put out, nor frightened, nor nervous." And when a little grandchild of Lord Camperdown presented the youthful Princess Royal with a nosegay, the reflection that rose to the mother's mind was, that she could hardly believe that she was travelling as a wife and a mother; for it seemed but as yesterday that she, as a child, in the tours taken with _her_ mother through England, used to receive similar childish tokens. She was at once put in mind of the time when _she_ had been "the little Princess."

[Sidenote: HAPPY DAYS IN THE HIGHLANDS.]

Accounts of rides on s.h.a.ggy Highland ponies to the tops of mountains, and more lengthened _incognito_ excursions in whatever vehicles could be procured at third-rate country inns, are thickly scattered over the pages of the "Journal."

The Western Islands, as well as the Highlands, were at least on one occasion visited. Anchoring close by wondrous Staffa, the Queen disembarked, and was rowed in a barge into Fingal's Cave. This was the first time that the British standard, with a Queen of Great Britain and her husband and children, had ever entered the portals of this wondrous freak of nature, and the Gaelic oarsmen gave three cheers, the echoes of which from the inmost recesses of the cave were most impressive.

On another mountain ramble, the Queen seated herself calmly, the youthful Prince of Wales lying among the heather by her side, while Prince Albert went to stalk a deer. He brought down a "royal," that is, a stag which has over a certain number of "tines" to his horns; on which the somewhat superst.i.tious Highland keeper at once said that "it was Her Majesty's coming out that had brought the good luck." The Highlanders all believed that the Queen had "a lucky foot."

[Sidenote: SALMON-SPEARING IN SCOTLAND.]

Amongst other Highland sports which curiosity and great love of adventure led her to witness, was salmon spearing, or "leistering." While the keepers were beating the waters, the Highland gentlemen wading in the stream, and Prince Albert watching, spear in hand, on a boulder, the Queen watched from the brink this, the most exciting of all river sports, save, perhaps, otter hunting. Suddenly she was alarmed, and with most abundant cause. Two of the men imprudently went into a very deep pool. One of them could not swim, and he sank to the bottom. There was a cry for help, and a general rush by the Prince and others to the spot. The Queen was much frightened, and grasped the arm of the minister in attendance, Lord Carlisle, in great agony. But Dr. Robertson, the Queen's "factor," or agent over the Balmoral estate, swam in and got the too venturesome Gael out safely. The Queen, after this "horrid moment," had the satisfaction of seeing eight salmon speared or netted; and was further amused by a curious piece of Highland courtesy--her own "men" carrying all the "men" of Colonel Forbes, a neighbour, dry shod on their backs through the water.

They had come to see the sport, and the Queen's gillies at once insisted on their conveying them to the most favourable side of the stream.

A great day was that on which a cairn was erected on one of the heights overlooking Balmoral to celebrate the building of the new castle, which the Queen raised in lieu of the mansion which had stood on the estate when she was its tenant, and ere by its purchase she entered into proprietary possession. The morning was a fine one, and at eleven o'clock the Royal party started for the ascent of Craig Cowan, where already nearly all the dependants were a.s.sembled. The Royal children, and all the ladies and gentlemen, accompanied the Queen and Prince. All the children of the Queen's neighbouring tenants, and of her servants, were already on the top. The Queen laid the first stone, and the Prince the second, and then their children according to their ages. Then all the ladies and gentlemen of the Court placed a stone each. The pipers played the while, and whisky was served out to every one. It took an hour to build the cairn, and dancing and merry revels went on without intermission until its completion; the very oldest of the women danced, and the youngsters were wild with glee. An old favourite dog sat reflectively contemplating a scene to which his veteran gravity prevented his indulging in any responsive and sympathetic gambols. At last when the cairn, having attained to the respectable height of some eight feet, was p.r.o.nounced all but complete, the Prince climbed to its summit and placed the last stone, and three hearty cheers announced to the dwellers below the completion of the enterprise and edifice. The Queen concludes her chronicle of its erection in these words:--"It was a gay, pretty, and touching sight, and I felt almost inclined to cry. The view was so beautiful over the dear hills, the day so fine, the whole so _gemuthlich_. May G.o.d bless this place, and allow us yet to see it and enjoy it many a long year!"

The Queen and her family have always made it a practice to enter into the freest and most unrestrained conversation with the dignified, independent, courteous, and truly well-bred Highlanders. As she rode along a hill-side one day, "Alice and Bertie" accompanying her on foot, Prince Albert was conversing very gaily with one of the gillies, upon which the one who led the Queen's pony observed, "It's very pleasant to walk with a person who is always content." And when the Queen, following up her attendant's remark, said that he was never cross after bad sport, the gillie rejoined, "Every one on the estate says there never was so kind a master; our only wish is to give satisfaction." The Queen replied that that wish they certainly succeeded in fulfilling. And at a future date the Queen thus annotated that pa.s.sage in her journal from which we have been borrowing:--"We were always in the habit of conversing with the Highlanders, with whom we came so much in contact in the Highlands. The Prince highly appreciated the good breeding, simplicity, and intelligence which makes it so pleasant, and even instructive, to talk to them."

[Sidenote: THE QUEEN AND SCOTTISH COTTAGERS.]

The Queen takes especial pleasure in visiting the old women's cottages, by some of whom, we have been told, she is not unfrequently addressed--or at least was so, when she was yet new to the north and the northerners new to her--as "Mrs. Albert." One old dame of eighty-six, erect and dignified as she sat at her spinning-wheel, received personally from Her Majesty the gift of a warm flannel petticoat. This was her pious and eloquent form of thanks: "May the Lord ever attend you and yours, here and hereafter, and may the Lord be a guide to ye, and keep ye from all harm!" Another aged pensioner, who was quite friendly, and shook hands with all her party of visitors, chose this form of benediction: "May the Lord attend you with mirth and with joy; may He ever be with you in this world, and when ye leave it!"

[Sidenote: THE QUEEN IN DISGUISE.]

The Queen's mode of travelling as an _incognita_ has never gone beyond a journey of three or four days' duration to some Highland district, in which the very amplitude of her retinue, even when abridged of its usual proportions, prevented her pa.s.sing otherwise than as a person of distinction, but in which it was possible to keep her _queenly_ rank undiscovered. Sometimes the mask was successfully worn to the end of the trip, to the great enjoyment of the Queen, her "gentle" attendants, and her servants. On one or two occasions, recognitions, unfortunate for the success of the very innocent plot, were made by persons to whom the Queen's face was familiar. On one of these trips, two shabby vehicles contained the whole party, which consisted of the Royal pair, Sir George Grey, Lady Churchill, and a small complement of servants. It had been arranged that the tourists should pa.s.s as Lord and Lady Churchill (the Queen and Prince a.s.suming these _roles_), Lady Churchill becoming Miss Spencer, and Sir George Grey becoming "Dr." Grey. Once or twice the servants, who were of necessity in the plot, forgot their instructions, and blurted out "your Majesty," and "your Royal Highness;" but, luckily, no one heard the _faux pas_. After a very long and fatiguing drive through a district remarkably denuded of habitations, they arrived, at nightfall, at an inn of very small pretensions. They alighted, Sir George Grey and Lady Churchill, faithful to the necessities of the situation, giving no indication, by any deference of manner, of the quality of their fellow-travellers. Being ushered into small but tidy sleeping and dressing apartments, they had their travel-stains removed, and sat down to such a dinner as the resources of the establishment afforded. The two gillies in attendance were to have waited at table, but their bashfulness prevented their undertaking duties so entirely out of their line; so a damsel in ringlets, attached to the inn, performed the necessary duties. The repast consisted of a very delicate and delicious Scottish soup, known as "hodge-podge"--which, to be tasted to perfection, however, must be partaken of in early summer, when vegetables (of many kinds of which it is composed) are young and tender--mutton broth, fowls, "good" roast lamb, and "very good" potatoes. A bottle of wine the travellers had taken care to bring with them. They were less fortunate on the occasion of another similar trip, when all that could be procured was a couple of remarkably small and lean fowls, the remnants of which were sent down to the servants, with appet.i.tes rendered voracious by the keen mountain air. On this latter trip, a commercial traveller was much annoyed at his exclusion from the "commercial room," which was reserved for the servants. In answer to his remonstrance, the landlady pacified him by stating that the guests, who occupied her whole house, were "a wedding-party frae Aberdeen."

When the cavalcade of the two "shabby vehicles" drove away, on the next morning, it was evident that "the murder was out," and that the inmates of the inn had discovered the quality of their guests, and communicated it to the scanty population of the village; for "all the people were in the street, and the landlady waved a pocket-handkerchief, and the ringletted maid a flag, from the window."

CHAPTER XXII.

THE WIDOWED QUEEN.

Unbroken Happiness of the Queen's Life up to 1861--Death of the d.u.c.h.ess of Kent--The Prince Consort slightly Ailing--Catches Cold at Cambridge and Eton--The Malady becomes Serious--Public Alarm--Rapid Sinking, and Death--Sorrow of the People--The Queen's Fort.i.tude--Avoidance of Court Display--Good Deeds--Sympathy with all Benevolent Actions--Letter of Condolence to the Widow of President Lincoln--The Albert Medal--Conclusion.

Until 1861 the Queen had never known bereavement in the circle of her own immediate family. Nine children had been born to her, and, although it is understood that certain of her younger offspring do not possess that robustness of health which their elder brothers and sisters enjoy, yet not one had been s.n.a.t.c.hed from their loving parents by the hand of the Great Destroyer. Early in 1861 came the first pang of bereavement. The d.u.c.h.ess of Kent, ripe in years, one of the best of mothers and one of the best of grandmothers, a lady to whose memory all Britons now and hereafter owe an incalculable debt of grat.i.tude, pa.s.sed peacefully away with her descendants gathered around her bedside.

[Sidenote: LAST DAYS OF PRINCE ALBERT.]

When the Royal Family returned from Balmoral in October, it was observed that the Prince Consort was not in his usual health and vigour, but he had no p.r.o.nounced ailment, and nothing approaching to serious alarm was for many weeks apprehended. In the course of the succeeding month he went to Cambridge, to visit the Prince of Wales, who was a student at that University, as he had previously been for a short time at Oxford. He went out shooting while there, got wet, and, as the Duke of Kent had done, was so imprudent as to sit down without removing his wet clothes.

Nevertheless, on his return to Windsor, he pursued his usual daily avocations. About the beginning of December he appeared in public with the Queen, and reviewed the volunteer corps raised among the Eton boys. The rain fell fast, and the Prince was seized on the review ground with acute pains in the back. Feverish symptoms supervened, and the doctors ordered confinement to his room. Still no alarm was entertained, and it was believed that he suffered only from a pa.s.sing malady. The general public knew nothing of the ailment until some solicitude was caused by a bulletin, which appeared in the _Court Circular_ of the 8th December:--

His Royal Highness the Prince Consort has been confined to his apartments for the past week, suffering from a feverish cold, with pains in his limbs. Within the last few days the feverish symptoms have rather increased, and are likely to continue for some time longer, but there are no unfavourable symptoms. The party which had been invited by Her Majesty's command to a.s.semble at Windsor Castle on Monday has been countermanded.

Not until the 13th was any bulletin issued which caused real anxiety and alarm. On the day following, the morning papers contained the ominous announcement that he had "pa.s.sed a restless night, and the symptoms had a.s.sumed an unfavourable character during the day." The _Times_, in a leading article, while hoping for the best, startled all by its statement that "the fever which has attacked him is a weakening and wearying malady." On the morning of Sat.u.r.day there was a favourable turn, but which was soon followed by a most serious relapse. About four p.m. the fever a.s.sumed a malignant typhoid type, and he began to sink with such rapidity that all stimulants failed to check the quick access of weakness. At nine o'clock a telegram was received in the City that the Prince was dying fast, and at a few minutes before eleven all was over. "On Sat.u.r.day night last," said one of the daily journals of the succeeding Monday, "at an hour when the shops in the metropolis had hardly closed, when the theatres were delighting thousands of pleasure-seekers, when the markets were thronged with humble buyers seeking to provide for their Sunday requirements, when the foot-pa.s.sengers yet lingered in the half-emptied streets, allured by the soft air of a calm, clear evening, a family in which the whole interest of this great nation is centred were a.s.sembled, less than five-and-twenty miles away, in the Royal residence at Windsor, in the deepest affliction around the death-bed of a beloved husband and father. In the prime of life, without--so to speak--a longer warning than that of forty-eight hours, Prince Albert, the Consort of our Queen, the parent of our future Monarchs, has been stricken down by a short but malignant disorder." Shortly after midnight, the great bell of St. Paul's, which is never tolled except upon the death of a member of the Royal Family, boomed the fatal tidings over a district extending, in the quietude of the early Sabbath morn, for miles around the metropolis.

[Sidenote: DEATH OF PRINCE ALBERT.]

The Queen, the Princess Alice, and the Prince of Wales, who had been hastily summoned from Cambridge, sat with the dying good man until the last. After the closing scene the Queen supported herself n.o.bly, and after a short burst of uncontrollable grief, she is said to have gathered her children around her, and addressed them in the most solemn and affectionate terms. "She declared to her family that, though she felt crushed by the loss of one who had been her companion through life, she knew how much was expected of her, and she accordingly called on her children to give her their a.s.sistance, in order that she might do her duty to them and the country." The Duke of Cambridge and many gentlemen connected with the Court, with six of the Royal children, were present at the Prince's death. In answer to some one of those present who tenderly offered condolence, the Queen is reported to have said: "I suppose I must not fret too much, for many poor women have to go through the same trial."

The sad news became generally known in the metropolis and in the great cities of the empire early on Sunday. Unusually large congregations filled the churches and chapels at morning service. "There was a solemn eloquence in the subdued but distinctly perceptible sensation which crept over the congregations in the princ.i.p.al churches when, in the prayer for the Royal family, the Prince Consort's name was omitted. It was well remarked, if ever the phrase was permissible, it might then be truly said that the name of the departed Prince was truly conspicuous by its absence, for never was the gap that this event has made in our national life, as well as in the domestic happiness of the Palace, more vividly realised than when the name that has mingled so familiarly in our prayers for the last twenty years was, for the first time, left out of our public devotions." Many thousands of mute pious pet.i.tions were specially addressed to Heaven for the bereaved widow and orphans when the prayer of the Litany for "all who are desolate and oppressed" was uttered, and in the chapels of Nonconformists the extemporaneous prayers of the ministers gave articulate expression to the heartfelt orisons of the silent wors.h.i.+ppers. Every one thought of and felt for the Queen, and during the week intervening between the death and the funeral, the question on every one's lips in all places of resort, and where men and women congregated, was, "How will the Queen bear it?"

Prince Albert sleeps the long sleep at Frogmore, to which his mortal remains were borne reverently, and without ostentation, as he himself would have wished. The inscription on his coffin ran thus:--

DEPOSITUM ILl.u.s.tRISSIMI ET CELSISSIMI ALBERTI, PRINCIPIS CONSORTIS, DUCIS SAXONIae, DE SAXE-COBURG ET GOTHA PRINCIPIS, n.o.bILISSIMI ORDINIS PERISCELIDIS EQUITIS, AUGUSTISSIMae ET POTENTISSIMae VICTORIae REGINae, CONJUGIS PERCARISSIMI, OBIIT DIE DECIMO QUARTO DECEMBRIS, MDCCCLXI.

ANNO aeTATIS SUae XLIII.

[Here lies the most ill.u.s.trious and exalted Albert, Prince Consort, Duke of Saxony, Prince of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Knight of the Most n.o.ble Order of the Garter, the most beloved husband of the most august and potent Queen Victoria. He died on the fourteenth day of December, 1861, in the forty-third year of his age.]

Thus died and was buried a great and a good man, one of the most useful men of his age, one to whom England owes much.

"For that he loved our Queen, And, for her sake, the people of her love, Few and far distant names shall rank above His own, where England's cherish'd names are seen."

[Sidenote: THE QUEEN IN HER WIDOWHOOD.]

The Queen has ever since her great bereavement most constantly and piously revered the Prince's memory. Her reverence has taken the practical form of the deepest sympathy with the woes and sorrows of the poorest and humblest of her subjects. She has eschewed the pomp and ceremony of State, and deliberately set herself to discover and soothe sorrow, and to recognise all good deeds of the same character performed by others. When the n.o.ble Peabody bestowed his princely act of munificence on the poor of London, no recognition was made of his generosity more signal than that made by the Queen. She has been among the first to help by loving words and by practical aid the sufferers by any great national calamity--a Lancas.h.i.+re famine, a s.h.i.+pwreck or railway accident, a colliery explosion, a catastrophe caused by mad and futile sedition. Ready and sympathetic condolence has especially flowed from her to those bereaved like herself, and when President Lincoln perished at his post, the Queen sent to his widow a long letter which her son described as "the outgus.h.i.+ng of a woman's heartfelt sympathy," and which, with rare and commendable good taste, has never been exposed to the public eye. Most fitly has she specially commemorated her husband's memory by the inst.i.tution of a fit companion and complement to the Victoria Cross, the "Albert Medal," which is bestowed on brave men who save lives from the "Peril of the Sea or s.h.i.+pwreck."

Many consolations have been vouchsafed by Heaven to the widowed Queen.

Since she lost her great stay and support her realm has for the most part been prosperous and contented. Though environed by many troubles, and though the clang of battle has shaken the world, the dove of peace has benignantly hovered o'er Britain. Much advance has been made in those fields of social, moral, political, and educational improvement which were so dear to Albert's heart, as they have always been to her own. And shortly before the period when these pages are first given to the public, the political progress of the nation has received a great stimulus, such as is given in a people's history only at rare and long intervals. Her children grow up from youth to maturity, and from maturity to maternity and paternity, without a slur upon their fair names, and are, with those to whom the elder of them have united themselves in wedlock, all that a proud mother's heart could wish. G.o.d has stricken her; but He has proved also an Infinite Healer and Solacer. Ours be it to add to the ordinary motives of patriotism, those more tender and touching influences which arise from the recollection that our Queen is now, as said that Queen of England whose subjects were Shakespeare and Bacon, Spenser and Sidney--"Married to her People."

THE END.