Sarah Tytler

“ Not even the presence of three queens—of England, Prussia, and Belgium—two kings, a prince consort, an archduke, and a future emperor and empress, could propitiate the adverse barometer, or change the sulky face of the sky. Between showers the Queen had a glimpse of the romantic scenery, and perhaps Ehrenbreitstein was most in character when the smoke from the firing of twenty thousand troops "brought home to the imagination the din and lurid splendours of a battle." ”

“ The King of the Belgians was hardly more her second father than the Duke of Wellington had been.
Besides, the Duke was not only a soldier; he had been a statesman, tried and true as far as his vision extended; brave here no less than in the stricken field, honest with an upright man's straightforwardness, wise with a practical man's sense of what could and could not be done, what must be yielded when the time came.
The Queen might well mourn for her grey-bearded captain, her faithful old councillor. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Queen danced with her cousin, Prince George of Cambridge. Her Majesty wore a wonderful dress of cloth of gold and cloth of silver, with daisies and poppies worked in silks, and shaded the natural colours; trimmings and ruffles of exquisite old lace, stomacher covered with old lace and jewels, the sacque set off with scarlet ribands, the fair hair powdered under a tiara and crown of diamonds, dainty white satin shoes with scarlet rosettes—a diamond in each rosette, the Order of the Garter on the arm, the Star and Riband of the Order. ”

“ By the beginning of September terrible tidings arrived from India. The massacre of the English women and children at Cawnpore, after the surrender of the fort, and the perilous position of the garrison at Lucknow, darkened the usually joyous stay at Balmoral, to which the Princess Royal was paying her last visit. Another source of distress to the Queen and the Prince, when the mutiny began to be put down, was the indiscriminate vengeance which a section of the rulers in India seemed inclined to take on the natives for the brutalities of the rebels. ”

“ For the Queen can live the life of a private lady—can show herself the most considerate and sympathetic of noble gentlewomen in this primitive locality. She can walk or drive her ponies, or visit on foot her commissioner or her minister, or look in at her school, or call on her sick, aged, and poor, and take to them the comforts she has provided for them, the tokens of her remembrance they prize so much. She can enjoy their simple friendliness and native shrewdness. She can read to them words of lofty promise and tender consolation. ”

“ Brown, the Windsor medical attendant of the family for upwards of twenty years, who was believed to be well acquainted with the Prince's constitution, came to the Queen with the glad tidings "that he had no hesitation in saying he thought the Prince was much better, and that there was ground to hope the crisis was over." There are few experiences more piteous than that last flash of life in the socket which throws a parting gleam of hope on the approaching darkness of death. ”

“ Behind the house a winding footpath leads up the hill to the rocky cleft from which issues in a succession of white and foamy twists and downward springs, the Falls of the Glassalt. Turning round from the spectacle, the stranger looks down on the loch in its semicircle of mountains. Gaining the crest of the hill and descending the edge on the opposite side, the foot of the grim giant Loch-na-Gar is reached.
Among the visitors at Balmoral in 1858 was Florence Nightingale. The Queen had before this presented her with a jewel in remembrance of her services in the Crimea. ”

“ From the palace to the cottage, women's fingers worked eagerly and unweariedly knitting comforters and muffatees to protect the throats and wrists of the shivering men. We have heard that the greatest lady in the land deigned thus to serve her soldiers. We have been told of a cravat worked in crochet by a queen's fingers which fell to the share of a gallant young officer in the trenches—the same brave lad who had carried, unscathed, the colours of his regiment to the heights of the Alma. ”

“ Prince Albert determined to go up Craig Gowan and light the bonfire which had been ready the year before, had been blown down on the day of the battle of Inkermann, and was at last only waiting to be lit. All the gentlemen, in every species of attire, all the servants, and gradually the whole population of the little village, keepers and gillies, were aroused and started, in the autumn night, for the summit of the hill. The happy Queen watched from below the blazing light above. ”

“ Happily for her Majesty, the daily duties of her position as a sovereign, which she could not lay aside though they were no longer shared by the friend of more than twenty years, still occupied a considerable portion of her time. But she wrote in her diary that in fulfilling her task she seemed to live "in a dreadful dream." Do we not also know, many of us, this cruel double life in which the obligations which belong to our circumstances and to old habits contend for mastery with new misery? When she was not thus engaged the Queen sat by her husband, weeping when she could do so unseen. ”

“ Sunday was Prince Albert's birthday, which was not forgotten among these brilliant doings. Loving hands laid out the flower-decorated table with its gifts. At luncheon the Emperor presented the Prince with a picture by Meissonier. The Empress gave a pokal, or mounted cup, carved in ivory. During a quiet drive with the Emperor through the park in the morning, the Queen, with her characteristic sincerity, courageously approached a topic which was a burden on her mind, on which Baron Stockmar had long advised her to act as she was prepared to do. ”

“ Drawing-room, dining-room, billiard-room, and library are spacious enough for royalty, while small enough for comfort when royalty is in happy retreat in little more than a large family circle rusticating from choice. The corridors look brown and simple, like the rest of the house, and lack the white statuary of Osborne, and the superb vases, cabinets, and pictures of Buckingham Palace and Windsor. ”

“ The sagacious and skilled brain which had planned so well the defence of London from the threatened outbreak of the Chartists, would plan no more for Queen and country. No longer would the shouting crowd press round him on every gala, and strangers watch patiently near the Horse Guards for one of the sights of London— the eagle face of the conqueror of him who conquered Europe. ”

“ This was the reverse side of all the splendid wedding festivities-the bride of seventeen quitting family, home, and native country, sitting grave and sad beside her equally pale, and silent father—the couple so tenderly attached, on the eve of the final parting. At Gravesend, where young girls, in spite of the snow, strewed flowers before the bride's steps, the Prince waited to see the ship sail—not without risk in the snowstorm—for Antwerp. But no daughter appeared for a last look; the passionate sorrow of youth hid itself from view. ”

“ 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." ”

“ At the same time the Prince's spirit was so unbroken, his power of work and even of enjoyment so unshaken, while the patience and unselfishness which treated his own bodily discomfort as a matter of little moment had grown so much the habit of his mind, that naturally those nearest to him failed in their very love to see the extent of the physical mischief which was at work. Nevertheless there is abundant evidence that the Queen was never without anxiety on her husband's account, and Baron Stockmar expressed his apprehensions more than once. ”

“ God be merciful to us miserable sinners."
There was more to be encountered in town this year, than the hackneyed round of gaieties—from which even royalty, with all the will in the world, could not altogether free itself. The first shock was the violent opposition, got up alike by the press and in Parliament, to Hyde Park as the site of the building required for the Exhibition. Following hard upon it came the melancholy news of the accident to Sir Robert Peel, which occurred at the very door, so simply and yet so fatally. ”

“ An ideal Queen and an ideal Prince, a thin disguise over the tokens of their magnificence, stealing out with their companions, like so many ghosts, to enjoy common sights and experiences and the little thrill of adventure in the undetected deed. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Great innocent moon-daises, sprightly harebells, sturdy heather, bloom profusely and seem much at home within these royal precincts, under the brow of the hills and within sight and sound of the flashing Dee. Gradually the natural birch wood shows more traces of cultivation, and is interspersed with such trees and shrubs as suit the climate, and the rough pasture gives place to the smooth lawn, with a knot of bright flower-beds on one side. ”

“ In February the Queen opened Parliament. The twenty-first anniversary of the royal wedding-day falling on a Sunday, it was celebrated quietly but with much happiness. The Queen wrote to her uncle, King Leopold, "Very few can say with me that their husband, at the end of twenty-one years, is not only full of the friendship, kindness, and affection which a truly happy marriage brings with it, but of the same tender love as in the very first days of our marriage." ”

“ At Coburg and at Rosenau, which had been one of the old Duke's favourite resorts, his memory haunted his children. "Every sound, every view, every step we take makes us think of him and feel an indescribable hopeless longing for him."
By an affectionate, thoughtful provision for their perfect freedom and enjoyment, Rosenau, Prince Albert's birthplace, was set apart for the Queen and the Prince's occupation on this very happy occasion when they visited Coburg, and still it is the widowed Queen's residence when she is dwelling in the neighbourhood. ”

“ He had stood by her baptismal font; she had been his guest, when she was the girl- Princess, at Walmer. He had sat in her first Council; he had witnessed her marriage; she was to give his name to one of her sons; in fact, he had taken part in every event of her life. The present arrangements were a graceful, well-nigh filial, tribute of affectionate regard for the old man who had served his country both on the battle-field and in the senate, who had watched his Queen's career with the keenest interest, and rejoiced in her success as something with which he had to do. ”

“ The Duke and Duchess took their guests a drive, the people riding, running, and driving with the company, but continuing perfectly well- behaved, and ready to obey any word of the Duke's. It must have been a curious scene, in which all ranks took part. The Queen could not get over the spectacle of the countrymen running the whole way, in their thick woollen coats, in the heat. ”

“ Michael's Mount, dear to the lovers of Arthurian legends, was visited, the Queen climbing the circuitous path up the hill to enter the castle, the Prince mounting to the tower where "St Michael's chair," the rocky seat for betrothed couples, still tests their courage and endurance. Each man and woman races up the difficult path, and the winner of the race who first sits down in the chair claims the right to rule the future home. ”

“ The 27th was the Thanksgiving Day for the Prince of Wales's recovery. No public sight throughout her Majesty's reign was more moving than her progress with the Prince and Princess of Wales and Princess Beatrice to and from St. Paul's. The departure from Buckingham Palace was witnessed by the Emperor and Empress of the French, who stood on a balcony. The decorated streets were packed with incredible masses of people, the cheering was continuous. The Queen wore white flowers in her bonnet and looked happy. The Prince insisted on lifting his hat in return for the people's cheers. ”