Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen Volume II Part 6

In August strong measures had again to be taken in Ireland. These included the gathering together of a great military force in the disturbed districts, and the a.s.semblage of a fleet of war-steamers on the coast. As in the previous instance, little or no resistance was offered. In the course of a few days the former leaders, Meagher, Smith O'Brien, and Mitchel, were arrested. They were brought to trial in Dublin, convicted of high treason, and sentenced to death--a sentence commuted into transportation for life.

The Queen had the pleasure of finding her brother, the Prince of Leiningen, appointed head of the department of foreign affairs in the short-lived Frankfort a.s.sembly of the German states. It showed at least the respect in which he was held by his countrymen.

On the 5th of September the Queen went in person to prorogue Parliament, which had sat for ten months. The ceremony took place in the new House of Lords. There was an unusually large and brilliant company present on this occasion, partly to admire the "lavish paint and gilding," the stained-gla.s.s windows, with likenesses of kings and queens, and Dyce's and Maclise's frescoes, partly to enjoy the emphatically-delivered sentence in the royal speech, in which the Queen acknowledged, "with grateful feelings, the many marks of loyalty and attachment which she had received from all cla.s.ses of her people."

The Queen and the Prince, with three of their children and the suite, sailed from Woolwich for a new destination in Scotland--a country- house or little castle, which they had so far made their own, since the Prince, acting on the advice of Sir James Clark, the Queen's physician, had acquired the lease from the Earl of Aberdeen.

The royal party were in Aberdeen Harbour at eight o'clock in the morning of the 7th September. On the 8th Balmoral was reached. The first impression was altogether agreeable. Her Majesty has described the place, as it appeared to her, in her Journal. "We arrived at Balmoral at a quarter to three. It is a pretty little castle in the old Scottish style. There is a picturesque tower and garden in the front, with a high wooded hill; at the back there is a wood down to the _Dee_, and the hills rise all around."

During the first stay of the Court at Balmoral, the Queen has chronicled the ascent of a mountain. On Sat.u.r.day, the 16th of September, as early as half-past nine in the morning, her Majesty and Prince Albert drove in a postchaise four miles to the bridge in the wood of Ballochbuie, where ponies and guides awaited them. Macdonald, a keeper of Farquharson of Invercauld's and afterwards in the service of the Prince, a tall, handsome man, whom the Queen describes as "looking like a picture in his shooting-jacket and kilt," and Grant, the head-keeper at Balmoral, on a pony, with provisions in two baskets, were the chief attendants.

Through the wood and over moss, heather, and stones, sometimes riding, sometimes walking; Prince Albert irresistibly attracted to stalk a deer, in vain; across the stony little burn, where the faithful Highlanders piloted her Majesty, walking and riding again, when Macdonald led the bridle of the beast which bore so precious a burden; the views "very beautiful," but alas! mist on the brow of Loch-na-gar.

Prince Albert making a detour after ptarmigan, leaving the Queen in the safe keeping of her devoted guides, to whom she refers so kindly as "taking the greatest care of her." Even "poor Batterbury," the English groom, who seems to have cut rather a ridiculous figure in his thin boots and gaiters and non-enjoyment of the expedition, "was very anxious also" for the well-being of his royal lady, whose tastes must have struck him as eccentric, to say the least.

The mist intensified the cold when the citadel mountain was reached, so that it must have been a relief to try a spell of walking once more, especially as the first part of the way was "soft and easy,"

while the party looked down on the two _lochans_, known as _Na Nian_. Who that has any knowledge of the mountains cannot recall the effect of these solitary tarns, like well-eyes in the wilderness, gleaming in the suns.h.i.+ne, dark in the gloom? The Prince, good mountaineer as he was, grew glad to remount his pony and let the docile, sure-footed creature pick its steps through the gathering fog, which was making the ascent an adventure not free from danger.

Everything not within a hundred yards was hidden. The last and steepest part of the mountain (three thousand seven hundred and seventy-seven feet from the sea-level) was accomplished on foot, and at two o'clock, after four hours' riding and walking, a seat in a little nook where luncheon could be taken was found; for, unfortunately, there was no more to be done save to seek rest and refreshment. There was literally nothing to be seen, in place of the glorious panorama which a mountain-top in favourable circ.u.mstances presents.

This was that "dark Loch-na-gar" whose "steep frowning glories" Lord Byron rendered famous, for which he dismissed with scorn, "gay landscapes and gardens of roses."

No doubt the snowflakes, in corries on the mountain-side, do look deliciously cool on a hot summer day. But such a drizzling rain as this was the other side of the picture, which her Majesty, with a s.h.i.+ver, called "cold, wet, and cheerless." In addition to the rain the wind began to blow a hurricane, which, after all, in the case of a fog was about the kindest thing the wind could do, whether or not the spirits of heroes were in the gale.

At twenty minutes after two the party set out on their descent of the mountain. The two keepers, moving on as pioneers in the gloom, "looked like ghosts." When walking became too exhausting, the Queen, "well wrapped in plaids," was again mounted on her pony, which she declared "went delightfully," though the mist caused the rider "to feel cheerless."

In the course of the next couple of hours, after a thousand feet of the descent had been achieved, by one of those abrupt transitions which belong to such a landscape, the mist below vanished as if by magic, and it was again, summer suns.h.i.+ne around.

But the world could not be altogether shut out at Balmoral, and the echoes which came from afar, this year, were of a sufficiently disturbing character. Among the most notable, Sir Theodore Martin mentions the Frankfort riots, in which two members of the German States Union were a.s.sa.s.sinated, and the startling death of the Conservative leader, Lord George Bentinck, who had suddenly exchanged the _role_ of the turf for that of Parliament, and come to the front during the struggle over the abolition of the Corn Laws.

A third strangely significant omen was the election of Prince Louis Napoleon, by five different French Departments, as a deputy to the new French Chamber.

The Court left Balmoral on the 28th of September, stayed one night in London, and then proceeded for ten days to Osborne. On the return of the Queen and the Prince to Windsor, on the 9th of October, a sad accident occurred in their sight. As the yacht was crossing on a misty and stormy day to Portsmouth, she pa.s.sed near the frigate _Grampus_, which had just come back from her station in the Pacific. In their eagerness to meet their relations among the crew on board, five unfortunate women had gone out in an open boat rowed by two watermen, though the foul-weather flag was flying. "A sudden squall swamped the boat" without attracting the attention of anyone on board the _Grampus_ or the yacht. But one of the watermen, who was able to cling to the overturned boat, was seen by the men in a Custom-house boat, who immediately aroused the indignation of Lord Adolphus Fitzclarence and his brother-officers by steering, apparently without any reason, right across the bows of the _Fairy_. Prince Albert, who was on deck, was the first to discover the cause of the inexplicable conduct of the men in the Custom-house boat. "He called out that he saw a man in the water;" the Queen hurried out of her pavilion, and distinguished a man on what turned out to be the keel of a boat. "Oh dear! there are more!" cried Prince Albert in horror, "which quite overcame me," the Queen wrote afterwards. "The royal yacht was stopped and one of its boats lowered, which picked up three of the women--one of them alive and clinging to a plank, the others dead." The storm was violent, and the responsibility of keeping the yacht exposed to its fury lay with Lord Adolphus. Since nothing further could be attempted for the victims of their own rashness, he did not think it right that the yacht should stay for the return of the boat, as he held the delay unsafe, although both the Queen and the Prince, with finer instincts, were anxious this should be done. "We could not stop," wrote her Majesty again, full of pity. "It was a dreadful moment, too horrid to describe. It is a consolation to think we were of some use, and also that, even if the yacht had remained, they could not have done more. Still, we all keep feeling we might, though I think we could not.... It is a terrible thing, and haunts me continually."

The Magyar War under Kossuth was raging in Hungary. In the far-away Punjab the Sikh War, in which Lieutenant Edwardes had borne so gallant a part in the beginning of the year, was still prolonged, with Mooltan always the bone of contention.

In October all aristocratic England was excited by the sale of the Art treasures of Stowe, which lasted for forty days. Mrs. Gaskell made a fine contribution to literature in her novel of "Mary Barton," in which genius threw its strong light on Manchester life.

The Queen had a private theatre fitted up this year in the Rubens Room, Windsor Castle. The first of the _dramatis personae_ in the best London theatres went down and acted before the Court, giving revivals of Shakespeare--which it was hoped would improve the taste for the higher drama--varied by lighter pieces.

On the 24th of November the Queen heard of the death of her former Minister and counsellor William Lamb, Viscount Melbourne. "Truly and sincerely," her Majesty wrote in her Journal, "do I deplore the loss of one who was a most disinterested friend of mine, and most sincerely attached to me. He was, indeed, for the first two years and a half of my reign, almost the only friend I had, except Stockmar and Lehzen, and I used to see him constantly, daily. I thought much and talked much of him all day."

CHAPTER X.

PUBLIC AND DOMESTIC INTERESTS--FRESH ATTACK UPON THE QUEEN.

The Queen and the Prince were now pledged--alike by principle and habit--to hard work. They were both early risers, but before her Majesty joined Prince Albert in their sitting-room, where their writing-tables stood side by side, we are told he had already, even in winter, by the light of the green German lamp which he had introduced into England, prepared many papers to be considered by her Majesty, and done everything in his power to lighten her labours as a sovereign.

Lord Campbell describes an audience which he had from the Queen in February. "I was obliged to make an excursion to Windsor on Sat.u.r.day, and have an audience before Prince Albert's lunch. I was with the Queen in her closet, _solus c.u.m sola_. But I should first tell you my difficulty about getting from the station at Slough to the Castle. When we go down for a council we have a special train and carriages provided for us. I consulted Morpeth, who answered, 'I can only tell you how I went last--on the top of an omnibus; but the Queen was a little shocked.' I asked how she found it out. He said he had told her himself to amuse her, but that I should be quite _en regle_ by driving up in a fly or cab. So I drove up in my one horse conveyance, and the lord-in-waiting announced my arrival to her Majesty. I was shown into the royal closet, a very small room with one window, and soon she entered by another door all alone. My business was the appointment of a sheriff for the County Palatine, which was soon despatched. We then talked of the state of the finances of the Duchy, and I ventured to offer her my felicitations on the return of this auspicious day--her wedding-day. I lunched with the maids of honour, and got back in time to take a part in very important deliberations in the Cabinet."

In February, 1849, the Queen opened Parliament in person. Perhaps the greatest source of anxiety was now the Sikh War, in which the warlike tribes were gaining advantages over the English troops, though Mooltan had been reduced the previous month. A drawn battle was fought between Lord Gough's force and that of Chuttar Singh at Chillianwallah. While the English were not defeated, their losses in men, guns and standards were sore and humiliating to the national pride. Sir Charles Napier was ordered out, and, in spite of bad health, obeyed the order. But in the meantime Lord Gough had retrieved his losses by winning at Goojerat a great victory over the Sikhs and Afghans, which in the end compelled the surrender of the enemy, with the restoration of the captured guns and standards. On the 29th of March the kingdom of the Punjaub was proclaimed as existing no longer, and the State was annexed to British India; while the beneficial influence of Edwardes and the Lawrences rendered the wild Sikhs more loyal subjects, in a future time of need, than the trained and petted Sepoy mercenaries proved themselves.

On the afternoon of the 19th of May, after the Queen had held one of her most splendid Drawing-rooms, when she was driving in a carriage with three of her children up Const.i.tution Hill, she was again fired at by a man standing within the railings of the Green Park. Prince Albert was on horseback, so far in advance that he did not know what had occurred, till told of it by the Queen when he a.s.sisted her to alight. But her Majesty did not lose her perfect self-possession. She stood up, motioned to the coachman, who had stopped the carriage for an instant, to go on, and then diverted the children's attention by talking to them. The man who had fired was immediately arrested.

Indeed, he would have been violently a.s.saulted by the mob, had he not been protected by the police. He proved to be an Irishman, named Hamilton, from Limerick, who had come over from Ireland five years before, and worked as a bricklayer's labourer and a navvy both in England and France. Latterly he had been earning a scanty livelihood by doing chance jobs. There was this to distinguish him from the other dastardly a.s.sailants of the Queen: he was not a half-crazed, morbidly conceited boy, though he also had no conceivable motive for what he did. He appears to have taken his measures, in providing himself with pistol and powder, from a mere impulse of stolid brutality. His pistol contained no ball, so that he was tried under the Felon's Act, which had been provided for such offences, and sentenced to seven years'

transportation.

The education of their children was a subject of much thought and care to the Queen and Prince Albert. Her Majesty wrote various memoranda on the question which was of such interest to her. Some of these are preserved in the life of the Prince Consort. She started with the wise maxim, "that the children should be brought up as simply and in as domestic a way as possible; that (not interfering with their lessons) they should be as much as possible with their parents, and learn to place their greatest confidence in them in all things." She dwelt upon a religious training, and held strongly the conviction that "it is best given to a child, day by day, at its mother's knee." It was a matter of tender regret to the Queen when "the pressure of public duty" prevented her from holding this part of her children's education entirely in her own keeping. "It is already a hard case for me," was the pathetic reflection of the young mother in reference to the childhood of the Princess Royal, "that my occupations prevent me being with her when she says her prayers." At the same time the Queen and the Prince had strong opinions on the religious training which ought to be given to their children, and strove to have them carried out.

The Queen wrote, still of the Princess Royal, "I am quite clear that she should be taught to have great reverence for G.o.d and for religion, but that she should have the feelings of devotion and love which our Heavenly Father encourages His earthly children to have for Him, and not one of fear and trembling; and that the thoughts of death and an after life should not be represented in an alarming and forbidding view, and that she should be made to know _as yet_ no difference of creeds, and not think that she can only pray on her knees, or that those who do not kneel are less fervent and devout in their prayers."

Surely these truly reverent, just, and liberal sentiments on the religion to be imparted to young children must recommend themselves to all earnest, thoughtful parents.

In the accompanying engraving the girl-Princesses, Helena and Louise, who are represented wearing lilies in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of their frocks, look like sister-lilies--as fresh, pure, and sweet.

In 1849 Mr. Birch, who had been head boy at Eton, taken high honours at Cambridge, and acted as one of the under masters at Eton, was appointed tutor to the Prince of Wales when the Prince was eight years of age.

CHAPTER XI.

THE QUEEN'S FIRST VISIT TO IRELAND.

Parliament was prorogued by commission, and the Queen and the Prince, with their four children, sailed on the 1st of August for Ireland.

Lady Lyttelton watching the departing squadron from the windows of Osborne, wrote with something like dramatic emphasis, "It is done, England's fate is afloat; we are left lamenting. They hope to reach Cork to-morrow evening, the wind having gone down and the sky cleared, the usual weather compliment to the Queen's departure."

The voyage was quick but not very pleasant, from the great swell in the sea. At nine o'clock, on the morning of the 2nd, Land's End was pa.s.sed, and at eight o'clock in the evening the Cove of Cork was so near that the bonfires on the hill and the showers of rockets from the s.h.i.+ps in the harbour to welcome the travellers, were distinctly visible. Unfortunately the next day was gray and "muggy"--a quality which the Queen had been told was characteristic of the Irish climate.

The saluting from the various s.h.i.+ps sent a roar through the thick air.

The large harbour with its different islands--one of them containing a convict prison, another a military depot--looked less cheerful than it might have done. The captains of the war-steamers came on board to pay their respects; so did the Lord-Lieutenant, Lord Bandon, and the commanders of the forces at Cork. Prince Albert landed, but the Queen wrote and sketched till after luncheon. The delay was lucky, for the sun broke out with splendour in the afternoon. The _Fairy_, with its royal freight, surrounded by rowing and sailing boats, went round the harbour, all the s.h.i.+ps saluting, and then entered Cove, and lay alongside the gaily-decorated crowded pier. The members, for Cork, the clergymen of all denominations, and the yacht club presented addresses, "after which," wrote the Queen, "to give the people the satisfaction of calling the place 'Queenstown,' in honour of its being the first spot on which I set foot upon Irish ground, I stepped on sh.o.r.e amid the roar of cannon (for the artillery was placed so close as quite to shake the temporary room which we entered), and the enthusiastic shouts of the people.".

The _Fairy_ lay alongside the pier of Cork proper, and the Queen received more deputations and addresses, and conferred the honour of knighthood on the Lord Mayor. The two judges, who were holding their courts, came on board in their robes.

Then her Majesty landed and entered Lord Bandon's carriage, accompanied by Prince Albert and her ladies, Lord Bandon and General Turner riding one on each side. The Mayor went in front, and many people in carriages and on horseback joined the royal cortege, which took two hours in pa.s.sing through the densely-crowded streets and under the triumphal arches. Everything went well and the reception was jubilant. To her Majesty Cork looked more like a foreign than an English town. She was struck by the noisy but good-natured crowd, the men very "poorly, often-raggedly, dressed," many wearing blue coats and knee-breeches with blue stockings. The beauty of the women impressed her, "such beautiful dark eyes and hair, and such fine teeth; almost every third woman was pretty, and some remarkably so.

They wear no bonnets, and generally long blue cloaks."

Re-embarking at Cork, the visitors sailed to Waterford, arriving in the course of the afternoon.

The travellers sailed again at half-past eight in the morning, having at first a rough pa.s.sage, with its usual unacceptable accompaniment of sea-sickness, but near Wexford the sea became gradually smooth, and there was a fine evening. At half-past six Dublin Bay came in sight.

The war-steamers, four in number, waiting for her Majesty, were at their post. Escorted by this squadron, the yacht "steamed slowly and majestically" into Kingstown Harbour, which was full of s.h.i.+ps, while the quays were lined with thousands of spectators cheering l.u.s.tily.

The sun was setting as this stately "procession of boats" entered the harbour, and her Majesty describes in her Journal "the glowing light"

which lit up the surrounding country and the fine buildings, increasing the beauty of the scene.

Next morning, while the royal party were at breakfast, the yacht was brought up to the wharf lined with troops. The Lord-Lieutenant, Lord Clarendon, and Lady Clarendon, Prince George of Cambridge, Lords Lansdowne and Clanricarde, the Archbishop of Dublin, &c. &c., came on board, an address was presented from the county by the Earl of Charlemont, to which a written reply was given. At ten Lord Clarendon, bowing low, stepped before the Queen on the gangway, Prince Albert led her Majesty on sh.o.r.e, the youthful princes and princesses and the rest of the company following, the s.h.i.+ps saluting so that the very ground shook with the heavy 68-pounders, the bands playing, the guard of honour presenting arms, the mult.i.tude huzzaing, the royal standard floating out on the breeze.

Along a covered way, lined with ladies and gentlemen, and strewn with flowers, the Queen proceeded to the railway station, and after a quarter of an hour's journey reached Dublin, where she was met by her own carriages, with the postillions in the Ascot liveries.