Queen's Men

“ And you began to understand, as never before, what the Empire amounts to. Not only that we possess all these remote outlandish places, and can bring men from every end of the earth to join us in honouring our Queen, but also that all these people are working, not simply under us, but with us that we send out a boy here and a boy there, and the boy takes hold of the savages of the part he comes to, and teaches them to march and shoot as he tells them, to obey him and believe in him, and die for him and the Queen. ”

“ The Queen, whose enthusiasm for her beloved army and navy was very earnest, and frankly shown, who had suffered with their sufferings and exulted in their exploits, followed with a keen, personal, unfaltering interest the efforts made for their relief. "Tell these poor, noble wounded and sick men that no one takes a warmer interest, or feels more for their sufferings, or admires their courage and heroism more than their Queen. ”

“ During those troublous times, when some men's hearts were failing them for fear, and some men's were madly panting for the fray, asking nothing better than to see the Lion of England pitted against the Bear of Russia, the Prince was in some quarters most violently and viciously assailed, as a designing, dangerous "influence behind the throne"—treacherous to England, and so to England's Queen. ”

“ The completion of the Sixtieth year of the Queen’s reign will be the occasion of much retrospect and review, in the course of which the great men who, under the auspices of Her Majesty and her predecessors, have helped to make the British Empire what it is to-day, will naturally be brought to mind. ”

“ Other imaginative young men with heads less "level" (to use an American expression) than that of the great novelist, actually went mad—"clean daft"—the noble passion of loving loyalty ending in an infatuation as absurd as it was unhappy. Before the Queen left Kensington Palace she was much annoyed by the persistent attentions of a provincial admirer, a respectable gentleman, who labored under the hallucination that it was his destiny and his duty to espouse the Queen. ”

“ The Queen loved gallant men and characters distinguished for boldness: the King was without any sense of military merit, and felt uncomfortable in the presence of men of enterprising spirit. He thought that he could only trust those whom he had chained to himself by favours, presents, and benefits. ”

“ I would make this country a collective monarchy, and all the girls and women in it should be the Queen. They should never come into contact with politics or economics—or any of those things. And we men would work for them and serve them in loyal fealty.”
“That’s rather the theory now,” said Ann Veronica. “Only so many men neglect their duties.” ”

“ This, so the story informs us, was the beginning of servile labor; and such a view of caste was no more displeasing to the peasantry, who knew nothing better, than it was to the baron, whose pride it pampered.
A poem of the latter part of the fifteenth century gives the wishes appropriate to the men and women of the different ranks of French society. Those of the women are most characteristic. Thus, the queen wishes to love God and the king, and to live in peace; the duchess, to have all the enjoyments and pleasures of wealth; the countess, to have a husband who is loyal and brave ”

“ Enter QUEEN MARGARET, PRINCE EDWARD, SOMERSET, OXFORD, and soldiers QUEEN MARGARET Great lords, wise men ne'er sit and wail their loss,
But cheerly seek how to redress their harms. ”

“ Indeed, Miss P., when I consider Her Majesty's complicated suffering,--increased as it was to misery by attacks from quarters whence only love and duty might have been expected, harassed by politics and cabals, torn by national and foreign dissension, herself deprived of all protection, and yet protecting with almost masculine fortitude a beloved husband and King,--I say with all my heart that to have attained such heights of courage, resignation, and ability, is much, much more than to be Queen of England, or possessed of the most shining genius the world has known. ”

“ People did not then know, as they know now, how heavy a weight of labour and anxiety had been thrown upon the Queen by the death of the Prince. During his life her labours as Sovereign had been lightened by the constant presence at her side of a counsellor to whom the welfare of the Empire was as dear as to herself, whose life was merged in hers, on whose strong brain and constant devotion she had, for over twenty years, been accustomed to lean for support and guidance. While he lived, the cares of Royalty pressed comparatively lightly upon the Queen. ”

“ A leaflet was written for general distribution, which ran as follows: 'The women and girls of the United Kingdom, of all ages, ranks, classes, beliefs, and opinions, are asked to join in one common offering to their Queen, in token of loyalty, affection, and reverence, towards the only female sovereign in history who, for fifty years, has borne the toils and troubles of public life, known the sorrows that fall to all women, and as wife, mother, widow, and ruler held up a bright and spotless example to her own and all other nations. Contributions to range from one penny to one pound. ”

“ Bitter were the tears she shed, while her husband sought in vain to soothe her with words of comfort and counsel, warning her, above all things, never to leave the castle, to hold no intercourse with strangers, to beware of evil counsellors, and especially to be on her guard against strange women. And the Queen promised faithfully to obey her royal lord and master in these four matters.
So when the King set out on his expedition she shut herself up with her ladies in her own apartments, and spent her time in spinning and weaving, and in thinking of her royal husband. ”

“ The various attacks that have been made on the Queen’s life belong more, perhaps, to her private than to her public life, for they have been the work of half-witted scoundrels rather than of political desperadoes. ”

“ The dominant quality in the Queen's character, it seemed to me, was her strong common-sense. It enabled her to see things in their just proportion, to avoid extremes, as a rule, in her estimate of persons, of opinions, and events; to accept the inevitable without futile murmur or resistance. Very early this quality must have been developed, and it will account for that perfect self-possession on the announcement of her accession and at her first Privy Council, which created surprise and admiration in all who witnessed it. ”

“ Everybody, moreover, had told him of the King’s kindliness and simplicity, his desire for peace, and his passion for sport, solitude, and the open air, which, amidst the worries of power, must often have made him dream of a life of freedom far from the imperious duties of royalty for which he seemed unfitted.* But the Queen was yet more tenderly loved. ”

“ The consequence is, that as until now, the plots have been set on foot by the commonalty, and persons of mean extraction, so from the fickleness of that nation, were they excited by some personage or nobleman of importance, there is no doubt, they would create a great revolution throughout the realm, much to the personal danger of the Queen, and of her life, the kingdom being still full of humours and discontent, and the country showing a greater inclination and readiness for change than ever, provided it has a leader. ”

“ We have seen how it touched the oldest statesmen, to whom State ceremonials had become hackneyed—who were perhaps a little sceptical of virtue in high places. It may be imagined, then, how the knowledge, with each striking and picturesque detail, thrilled and engrossed all the sensitive, romantic young hearts in the Queen's dominions. It seemed as if womanhood and girlhood were exalted in one woman and girl's person—as if a new era must be inaugurated with such a reign, and every man worthy of the name would rally round this Una on the throne. ”

“ Whether it is true, as I hear, that the air of London is hurtful to her, giving her severe headaches, or that the scenes of her childhood and early queenhood, and of her marriage, are too much for her, and heart- ache is the matter, I know not; but it is undeniable that the Queen prefers any one of her other homes to Buckingham Palace. She only comes to it when absolute compelled by the duties of State. ”

“ There is, however, something wonderfully interesting in the picture of a royal family living en bourgeois—a King sitting with his spectacles on his forehead and his newspaper on his knee, playfully alluding to observations whose fallacy he alone can demonstrate; a Queen busily engaged amid the toils of the work-table, around which Princesses of every European royalty are seated, gaily chatting over their embroidery, or listening while an amusing book is read out by a husband or a brother: even an American would be struck by such a view of monarchy. ”

“ You have heard that the enemy you are to meet, from his surpassing numbers, and long acquaintance with war, is deemed invincible; but let not that give you discouragement. I, a woman, here throw by my sex, and all care for my own person, to be your leader. Yes, I myself, your Queen, will be your general, your judge, and the rewarder of every one of your virtues in the field. ”

“ As the rule stood, they were all required after kneeling to her, and pledging their allegiance, to rise and kiss her on the left cheek. She might be able to bear up under the salutes of those holy old gentlemen, the archbishops and bishops—but the anticipation of the kisses of all the temporal Peers, old and young, was enough to appall her—there were six hundred of them. So she issued a proclamation excusing the noble gentlemen from that onerous duty, and at the coronation only the Royal Dukes, Sussex and Cambridge, kissed the Queen's rosy cheek, by special kinship privilege. ”

“ Their loyalty was to the superb, the estimable, and the Queen to them was the sample of the ideal womanhood, holding them enslaved by the power that is the firmest of all powers—the hair-line of respect. ”

“ The throngs in the streets, in the windows, in every place people could stand upon, all looking so pleased; the splendid Horse Guards, the Grenadiers of the Guard ... the Yeomen of the Body-Guard. Then in the House of Lords, the Peers in their robes, the beautifully dressed ladies with many very beautiful faces; lastly, the procession of the Queen’s entry, and herself, looking worthy and fit to be the converging point of so many rays of grandeur. It is self-evident that she is not tall, but were she ever so tall, she could not have more grace and dignity.... ”

“ But the English people, even those directly inconvenienced at times by those unbending habits and irrevocable rules, have no right to find fault, for these be the right royal results of the admirable but somewhat unyouthful qualities they adored in the young Queen. ”

“ The queen was more beautiful than wise, more accomplished than politic, for she studied more to fill the court of her husband with her own relations, than to gain the friendship of the king's. This impolitic conduct gave a mutual disgust to the royal family and the nobility. ”

“ One day there comes a singular piping sound,—it is the cry of the royal babe,—the hive is filled with rejoicing,—there is no longer any interregnum of the purple,—the queen is born! Perhaps the queen-makers have been too much in earnest, and at nearly the same moment the inmates of two royal cells issue together. Then is the time to try one's mettle,—no shrinking, no bias, nothing but pure patriotism. Let a ring be formed, and she who proves herself victor is worthy of homage. ”

“ It begins with a statement that, to promote certain claims on the crown, the Queen's life was threatened in a highly treasonable manner, and enters into a union in God's name, in which each man pledges himself to the others, to combat with word and deed, and even to pursue with arms, all who should make any attempt on the Queen's person ”

“ Now might not an ill-natured Philosopher (but all philosophers are ill-natured) interpret these yearnings for masculine royalty as something like pensive regrets that the throne should ever be filled by the feminine sex? For own part we are perfectly satisfied that the Queen (may she live to see the Prince of Wales wrinkled and white-headed!) is a Queen, and think VICTORIA THE FIRST sounds quite as musically—has in it as full a note of promise—as if the regal name had run—GEORGE THE FIFTH! ”

“ And the overflowing multitudes whose dense masses lined the whole long way, and in whose tumultuous cheering pealing bells and sounding trumpets and thundering cannon were almost unheard as the young Queen passed through the shouting ranks, formed themselves the most impressive spectacle to the half-hostile foreign witnesses, who owned that the sight of these rejoicing thousands of freemen was grand indeed, and impossible save in that England which, then as now, was not greatly loved by its rivals. ”

“ The memory of the great Queen who has passed from our midst without a stain upon her character as a woman, or a flaw in her wisdom as a Monarch, may exercise a softening charm and refining influence upon us through the chastening sorrow we feel at her irreparable loss. But that there are breakers ahead for England, who shall deny? Who can refuse to see the gathering clouds? Who that is not wilfully deaf cannot hear the ominous rising of the storm-wind? ”

“ It is, therefore, madame, through your means, and the well-known friendship you have ever evinced for the Royal Family, and the general welfare of the French nation, that I wish to obtain a private audience of Her Majesty, the Queen, in order to induce her to exert the never-failing ascendency she has ever possessed over the mind of our good King, in persuading him to the sacrifice of a small proportion of his power, for the sake of preserving the monarchy to his heirs ”