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diff --git a/38627.txt b/38627.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d4b93c4 --- /dev/null +++ b/38627.txt @@ -0,0 +1,3220 @@ +Project Gutenberg's Queen Victoria As I Knew Her, by Sir Theodore Martin + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Queen Victoria As I Knew Her + +Author: Sir Theodore Martin + +Release Date: January 20, 2012 [EBook #38627] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK QUEEN VICTORIA AS I KNEW HER *** + + + + +Produced by Charlene Taylor, David E. Brown and the Online +Distributed Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This +file was produced from images generously made available +by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.) + + + + + + + + + + QUEEN VICTORIA + + + + + QUEEN VICTORIA + AS I KNEW HER + + BY + + SIR THEODORE MARTIN + + K.C.B., K.C.V.O. + + For Private Circulation + + WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS + EDINBURGH AND LONDON + MCMI + + _All Rights reserved_ + + + + + _Stifle the throbbing of this haunting pain, + And dash this tearful sorrow from the eyes! + She is not dead! Though summoned to the skies, + Still in our hearts she lives, and there will reign; + Still the dear memory will the power retain + To teach us where our foremost duty lies, + Truth, justice, honour, simple worth to prize, + And what our best have been to be again._ + + _She hath gone hence, to meet the great, the good, + The loved ones, yearn'd for through long toilsome years, + To share with them the blest beatitude, + Where care is not, nor strife, nor wasting fears, + Nor cureless ills, nor wrongs to be withstood; + Shall thought of this not dry our blinding tears?_ + + + Published in the 'Nineteenth Century,' February 1901. + + + + +QUEEN VICTORIA AS I KNEW HER. + + + + +CHAPTER I. + + +My personal introduction to Queen Victoria was due to the circumstance +of my being chosen by Her Majesty to be the biographer of the Prince +Consort. The obvious difficulties of that task, to which I looked +forward with grave apprehension, could not have been successfully +overcome but for the personal confidence early reposed in me by the +Queen, which led not only to her placing unreservedly at my disposal the +very complete collections made by the Prince Consort of confidential +State and other papers connected with Her Majesty's reign, but also to +the frank communication of such personal details as, while they +illustrated the character of the Prince, threw the strongest light upon +that of the Queen herself. + +After my book was completed, the same confidential relations continued. +This gave me such unusual opportunity of observing Her Majesty's +qualities of mind and heart, that I am tempted to place on record so +much of what I saw as may without impropriety be told. What she was as a +Sovereign will be for historians to tell; it is only of the woman as she +became revealed to me that I would speak, using, where I may, her own +words, as I find them in looking back upon the very voluminous +correspondence with which I was honoured through many years. The +endearing qualities of the Queen have been acknowledged by all who knew +her. They secured for her what might be truly called the affectionate +devotion of the men and women of her Court. I belonged to the outer +world, but by no one were these qualities more warmly felt than by +myself; for to the end, when the work which first brought me into +contact with Her Majesty had long been completed, her gracious kindness +and trust were vouchsafed to me with a constancy that knew no shade of +change. + + * * * * * + +"How came you to be chosen to write the Life of the Prince Consort?" is +a question I have often been asked. It is a question which, in the early +days, I often asked myself, for the selection came upon me as a great +surprise. I did not know the Prince Consort, but I had heard much of him +through my friend Mr (afterwards Sir Arthur) Helps, Clerk of Her +Majesty's Council, and had been consulted by him in his preparation of +the Collection of the Prince's Speeches and Addresses, and of the +admirable monograph with which he introduced them, in the volume +published by Murray in 1862. He must have laid more stress on my +assistance than it merited. The Queen, to whom I was an entire stranger, +presented me with an inscribed copy of the book dated 20th December +1862. It came with a letter from Lady Augusta Bruce (afterwards +Stanley), one of the Queen's ladies, in which she says she had been +commanded to forward it to me, "in remembrance of my co-operation in the +work of giving these precious memorials to our country and to the world, +and as a token of Her Majesty's true appreciation of the spirit in which +that co-operation was afforded." Lady Augusta was an old and valued +friend of my wife, and she, as well as Sir Arthur Helps, may have spoken +of me to the Queen; but I was quite unprepared for such a recognition of +suggestions which in no way merited, to my thinking, the name of +co-operation. From this time onwards I heard much both of the Queen and +Prince from my friend Helps, and my opinion was often asked in +connection with Her Majesty's _Leaves from a Journal_, which he was +engaged in carrying through the press. + +It had been intended that General Charles Grey, the Queen's Private +Secretary, should write the Prince's Life, and a first volume was in +course of being prepared, which dealt with the early years and marriage +of the Prince. The General soon found that he had neither the leisure +nor the strength to carry out the work, and I was aware that the +question how this was to be done had closely occupied Her Majesty's +thoughts. I was, however, taken greatly by surprise when a letter from +Helps reached me in my holiday retreat in North Wales, in which he told +me that the Queen had approved of a suggestion he had made, that I +should be asked to undertake the task. With his letter he sent for my +perusal, through Miss Alice Helps, who was then staying with us, a +memorandum giving an outline of his ideas how the work should be carried +out. + +"It will be a very great thing to do," the memorandum said, "covering +many of the most secret transactions of the reign. General Grey's book +is merely the life of the Prince as a child, and up to his marriage. It +now becomes part of the history of England, and also of foreign States. +A special duty will be to judge what documents shall be published, +taking it for granted that such a work cannot long be kept secret.... +The more I see of the Prince's doings and sayings, the more I am struck +with their largeness and extent." The memorandum goes on to offer +assistance (which, as it turned out, I never used) in looking up and +selecting materials and in furnishing political information, ending with +the assurance, that "after seeing me, Her Majesty would be most +confidential, and would trust everything to me. H. M. would much like Mr +Martin to undertake the work, and he would find no difficulty in getting +her to assent to any of his wishes in regard to it." + +Reflection satisfied me that, as the event proved, Mr Helps had not +fully appreciated either the greatness of the scale on which a +biography, that would in fact be a history, must be constructed, or the +amount of time and labour which it would demand. Much honoured as I felt +by the proposal, I shrank from the task; and in the full sense of my +own unfitness for it, and in the hope that it would not be further +pressed upon me, I replied to Mr Helps as follows:-- + + + _"27th August 1866._ + +"MY DEAR HELPS,--Alice has read to me your memorandum as to the +proposed Life of the Prince Consort, and I have given the subject +very anxious consideration. The work I conceive to be one which, +while full of the greatest interest, is surrounded with the gravest +responsibility. You do not very clearly indicate what precise shape +the Life is intended to take. It is natural and proper that a Life +of the Prince should be prepared, and given to the world, probably +at no distant date, in which the real greatness of his character, +public and private, and the breadth of his views should be +developed, and developed by letting himself speak through the +memoranda and other documents under his own hand, which, I presume, +exist in abundance, wherever these can with propriety be used. But +it is, of course, obvious that the matters to be dealt with involve +so much that is delicate in their bearing both upon individual and +public affairs, that to decide what should and what should not be +given will involve most anxious consideration at every step; while +it is scarcely less certain that much must either be altogether +withheld, or set apart for a volume of _pieces justificatives_, to +be compiled for possible publication at some more remote period. + +"The selection and classification of these materials will occupy +much time and thought before a line of the Biography can be written. +At least such is my present opinion, for I do not think that the +life of any man of mark, much more a man so pre-eminent as the +Prince, can be written until the whole scope and purpose of his +life, as seen in his actions and habits of thought down to its +close, have been, as far as may be, ascertained--until, in +Shakespeare's words, the 'idea of his mind and life' has crept into +the biographer's 'study of imagination.' Then, and then only, can he +hope to paint his portrait with the freedom and warmth of pencil +which can alone be derived from a full mastery of his materials and +thorough sympathy with his theme. Add to this, that much will have +to be read and considered of what has already been said and done in +public matters during the Prince's life. + +"Holding these views of the task, I naturally pause very gravely +before making up my mind whether or not to accept a duty so +honourable, but, at the same time, so onerous. You know how fully my +time is engaged in my profession. This will in itself make anything +like frequent absence from London impossible, and indeed I would +undertake nothing which took me frequently from home, where, as you +know, all my happiness is centred. While, therefore, I might upon +occasion be able to attend Her Majesty for instructions or the +discussion of such points as required explanation, I could only do +so upon occasion, and I could, for the meantime at least, only +pledge myself to give such time to the work as my profession and my +health (which, you know, is far from strong) would admit. Now, it +may not be compatible with the views of Her Majesty to accept my +service under such conditions. But, in any case, it is indispensable +that she should be fully aware of them. If, with the full knowledge +of them, Her Majesty should still be pleased to consider that I can +be useful in carrying out Her Majesty's views, I should then feel +less difficulty in undertaking the task, always understanding that I +am to be assisted, as you propose, in the selection and arrangement +of documents, &c." + + +Mr Helps received my letter at Balmoral, where, as Clerk of the Council, +he was in attendance upon the Queen. "Nothing," he wrote, "can be better +than your letter, which I received yesterday evening, and have just sent +in to the Queen. She has named a time for seeing me to-day, and, if I +have time afterwards, I will tell you what she says." His letter +concludes with an account, that is not unamusing, of one of the +household balls by which the routine of the life at Balmoral was +occasionally broken:-- + +"The ball went off admirably last night; even Her Majesty remained many +hours watching it. In how many points one's education has been +neglected! I could not dance any of these Scotch dances. However, I +enjoyed the fun as a spectator. All ranks danced together, and one of +the best hits I saw made was when the Prince's coachman, a dapper little +fellow, cut out H.R.H. very neatly in what they call a 'perpetual jig.' + +"There was a little 'tiger' who greatly distinguished himself, and +contrived, which is a matter of skill, to get the Princess [of Wales] +for a partner for a short time. Then, perhaps, the little imp was +himself cut out by a duke. The people behaved, as they generally do in +such cases, admirably--free, graceful, and comparatively at their +ease--and yet never forward." + +As I heard no more on the subject of the Life for several days, I had +begun to hope that the subject would drop, so far as I was concerned, +when, on the 11th of September, Mr Helps sent me a letter to himself +from the Queen, in which Her Majesty wrote: "She thinks it most +important that the services of Mr Martin should be engaged in this +all-important work, which she feels should be as _faithful_ a +representation of the greatest and best of men, her dearly loved and +honoured husband, as it possibly can be. The copying and _sifting_ of +papers, and the responsibility for what should be put in or omitted, +would rest with the Queen, General Grey, and Mr Helps, and this, she +hopes, will remove Mr Martin's objection to the task. It will give the +Queen much satisfaction to make Mr Martin's acquaintance." + +On reading this letter, I waited on Mr Helps, when he gave me full +details of what had passed in his interview with Her Majesty after she +had read my letter. Among other things, I remember, he informed me that +she laid great stress upon the fact that through life I had never taken +a side in party politics; that I was thoroughly versed in the German +language, in which a large proportion of the documents which I should +have to consider was written; that I had gone through a full legal +training, and had in my profession come in contact with many men engaged +in undertakings of great importance. After so gracious an expression of +Her Majesty's confidence, I felt that only one course was open to me, +and accordingly I wrote to Mr Helps: "Her Majesty having been graciously +pleased to accept such aid as I can give towards the great object which +Her Majesty has so deeply at heart, I feel that I can no longer hesitate +to place my best services at her disposal. You will understand best how +to make this known to Her Majesty, whose commands I shall hold myself in +readiness to fulfil." + +The Queen soon afterwards returned from Balmoral to Windsor Castle, and +it was arranged that I was to be introduced there by Mr Helps on the +14th of November 1866. The night before was memorable for the +marvellous transit of shooting-stars (the Leonids) across the heavens, +the recurrence of which in subsequent years has been looked for eagerly +but in vain. I remember well wondering to myself, as after midnight I +gazed upon that magnificent spectacle, how I, utter stranger as I was to +the ways and etiquette of courts, should pass through the ordeal that +awaited me. I had been rather disconcerted that evening by hearing that +Mr Helps, whose presence would have somewhat lightened the embarrassment +of a first interview with the Queen, was so unwell that he could not +accompany me to Windsor. Thither, therefore, I had to go alone, and at +the appointed hour was ushered into a room the walls of which were +enriched by part of Her Majesty's great collection of miniatures. Here I +found the Princess Helena awaiting me. I had met her more than once +before, and her presence served to place me more at ease than I should +otherwise have been before Her Majesty appeared. Still, my heart beat +quicker when, very soon, I found myself in the presence of the Queen. In +her face I read at a glance marked traces of the great sorrow she had +undergone. Serene and full of quiet dignity as it was, I seemed to +perceive in the Queen's bearing something of that nervousness, almost +amounting to shyness, which, as I came to know afterwards, Her Majesty +always seemed to feel in first meeting a stranger--a shyness so little +to be expected in a Sovereign who had gone through so many exciting +scenes, and had known nearly all the most distinguished men in Europe. +To show no signs of embarrassment, but to be simple and self-possessed, +I saw at once was my true policy. The consequence was that Her Majesty +herself quickly became at ease, and by her frank, gracious manner made +me feel as it were at home in the long conversation that ensued, and in +which, for the first time, I felt the charm that never failed of her +exquisite smile and of her silver-toned voice. + +The details of that conversation I cannot, after so long an interval of +years, recall. An opportunity was given to me of explaining my views as +to the lines upon which the Life of the Prince should be written, and +the information with which I desired more immediately to be furnished. +The Queen promised to send me such extracts from her own and the +Prince's diaries, and copies of such documents in her possession, as she +considered might be useful. Before she withdrew, Her Majesty turned the +conversation to general topics, and, to my surprise, I found that she +somehow knew much of my home ties, and of my tastes and pursuits in +literature and the arts, in regard to which she encouraged me to give +the frank expression of my opinions. I left her presence deeply +impressed by the simplicity of bearing under which the dignity of the +Queen was unostentatiously present but subtly felt, and by a singular +charm of manner, which grew and grew upon me the more I came under its +influence in the years of frequent intercourse that followed. + +The absence of Mr Helps upon this occasion was, in a sense, fortunate, +as it gave me the opportunity of learning, in the Queen's own words, the +impression Her Majesty had formed of me in this first interview. On the +same day she wrote to Mr Helps. He was a great purist in regard to +style, which will explain the first paragraph of her letter:-- + + + "WINDSOR CASTLE, _Nov. 14, 1866_. + +"The Queen is _so_ grieved (perhaps Mr Helps will scold her for that +_so_!) to hear of Mr Helps feeling so ill to-day, but she thinks he +will be relieved to hear that the first interview with Mr Martin +passed off extremely well, and that the Queen is very much pleased +with him, and _feels sure_ that she can be at her ease with him. He +is clever, kind, and sympathetic, and it will be a great interest to +her to work _with him_ and Mr Helps." + + +Words so kind naturally dispelled some of the misgivings with which I +was haunted in looking forward to what would be expected from the +biographer of the Prince Consort,--expected both by her, who knew what +she herself and her kingdom had lost in him, and by the public, who only +too late had surmised the extent of that loss. No time was lost in +getting together materials for the story of the early part of the +Prince's life. These were supplied to me by the Queen from her journals, +from family correspondence, and, in short, from everything which could +throw light upon the youth and character of the Prince. Much information +was also furnished in interviews with Her Majesty at Windsor Castle, to +which I was frequently summoned. I gathered much, also, from some of the +gentlemen of the household who had known the Prince, and with whom I +became acquainted during my visits to the Castle, where they were at +pains to show me that I was not an unwelcome guest. Most of all I +learned from General Charles Grey, the Queen's Private Secretary, a man +of strong character and conspicuous ability, whose personal friendship +and confidence in me I must ever remember with the warmest gratitude. + +On one of my early visits to the Castle he put to me a question which I +was glad to have an opportunity of answering, and to which, in the +interests of the Queen, he was entitled to a reply. "To what," he said, +"do you look forward in return for executing the onerous task you are +undertaking?" "My compensation," I replied, "will be ample, if I can +make people understand the Prince, how great he was, how devoted to the +welfare of our country, how great the debt which the country owed him. +It must," I added, "be understood that my work is to be without fee or +reward of any kind. My private means are ample for all my wants, and I +can therefore afford full time for doing the work thoroughly. All I +stipulate is that I am to have a free hand both as to the time and +manner in which it is to be done. I foresee that it will be the work of +years, and that it can only be well done if I am allowed entire +independence in forming and expressing my estimate of the Prince, and +of his influence in matters of public or political importance." + +General Grey expressed his satisfaction with what I said, and, no doubt, +lost no time in informing the Queen of its import. However this might +be, from that moment I was treated with unreserved confidence, and the +conditions for which I had stipulated were fully and frankly kept +throughout all my labours. In General Grey I found a cordial friend. He +paid me the compliment of asking my assistance in finally seeing through +the press the work, _The Early Years of the Prince Consort_, on which he +was then engaged, and which was soon afterwards published. It had been +originally intended that my work should begin where his left off. But as +I went on with my studies I found that, to make my biography coherent +and complete, I must go over the ground General Grey had already gone +over, and treat its incidents in my own way, and with a view to my plan +for the further narrative of the Prince's life. + +As I look back on my correspondence with the Queen, it gratifies me to +see how early Her Majesty's letters had passed from formal reserve into +a strain of confidential friendliness. Thus in a letter of December 18, +1867, she writes, "The Queen thanks Mr Martin for his two kind letters," +and invites him to Osborne for two or three days, where he will meet M. +Silvain van de Weyer, "a great and intimate friend of the dear Prince, a +man of great cultivation of mind and of the kindest heart, and who will +give Mr Martin many useful hints about the Prince's character." This +meeting led to an unbroken friendship with the singularly gifted man so +well described by Her Majesty. From him I learned much that was of +service to my immediate purpose in depicting the early part of the +Prince's life. He had been so completely behind the scenes also in all +the political movements of the time, that I hoped to have the benefit of +his knowledge in dealing with the subsequent years as well. But this was +not to be. To my infinite regret, he died before the first volume of the +Life was published;[1] but he read the proof-sheets of the greater part +of it, and I was greatly encouraged by the warmth of his approval. In +the same letter the Queen goes on to say: "The Queen is reading Mr +Martin's _Correggio_,[2] of which she used to hear her governess, the +Baroness Lehzen, so often speak. Would he let her have a copy to send to +the Baroness?" + +"This day," the letter adds, "has been splendid--a cloudless blue sky, +and equally blue sea, with the purest air. But when the Queen awoke this +morning her heart felt _sick_, as she knew how her darling husband would +have enjoyed such a day in his beloved Osborne, and she yearned for one +hour of former happiness." + +I was again summoned to Osborne in the first week of January 1868. A day +or two after my arrival (10th of January) I had a bad accident on the +skating-pond,--so bad that I had to be carried to the Palace, where the +limb was promptly placed in splints by Dr Hofmeister, the Queen's +resident surgeon. The injury was serious, and the pain extreme. On the +Queen's return from her afternoon drive she heard of the accident, and +immediately sent the late Duchess of Roxburghe, her Lady-in-Waiting, to +me. She had been commanded to express Her Majesty's regret that she +could not come at once to see me, as she had so many despatches awaiting +her which required immediate attention. She also added that I was to +write to my wife to come to Osborne: the Royal yacht would be ordered to +Portsmouth to wait her arrival and to bring her over. Before nine +o'clock next morning I was surprised by the appearance of Her Majesty in +my room, where she expressed her warm sympathy with my suffering, and +gave orders for my having the constant attendance of one of her +principal servants. The Queen had scarcely left my room when two +unusually large pillows were brought to me. The Queen, I was told, +thought the pillows I had were too small, and had ordered these larger +ones to replace them. This thoughtful kindness was but the beginning of +a care for my recovery on the part of Her Majesty which left nothing +undone that could minister to my comfort. On the 12th my wife arrived, +and was met by the Duchess of Roxburghe. Soon after, the Queen came to +her room, and her Diary records: "H. M. gave me her hand, and welcomed +me most kindly. I am desired to ask for everything as if I were at +home;" and everything _was_ done to make her feel at home, by Her Majesty, +by the Royal children,--the Princesses Helena, Louise, and Beatrice, and +the Duke of Connaught and Prince Leopold,--and by all the ladies and +gentlemen of the household. What the impression was which she produced +upon the Queen we subsequently learned by a letter from Mr Helps, in +which he quoted Her Majesty's words from a letter he had received:-- + + + "_17th January 1868._ + +"We are selfishly glad that Mr Martin is kept here, and think Mrs +Martin _most_ pleasing, clever, and distinguished--really very +charming." + + +Almost daily during the three following weeks we had the honour of +lengthened visits in our rooms from Her Majesty, in which there was a +frank interchange of views, not only in regard to the subject on which I +was specially engaged, but also upon the events of the day and other +topics of general interest. It so happened that just at this time the +_Leaves from a Journal_ were published. Her Majesty's estimate of that +little volume was most humble; and as, possibly from a feeling of +shyness, she shrank from writing with this first literary effort to the +Poet Laureate, she honoured me by requesting me to do so on her behalf. +The Queen reverenced genius; greatness in birth and station she regarded +as but an accident. To the genius which makes its own position by +commanding the love and admiration of the world she bowed with genuine +humility. How well this was shown in her visit to Abbotsford! "In the +study," she writes, "we saw Sir Walter's Journal, in which Mr Hope Scott +asked me to write my name, _which I felt it would be presumption to +do_." Surely a beautiful appreciation of genius, as distinguished from +the accident of position. + +The _Leaves_ book was inscribed by the Queen's own hand, and this was +the acknowledgment which reached me from Mr Tennyson:-- + + + "FARRINGFORD, FRESHWATER, _21st January 1868_. + +"DEAR MR MARTIN,--We are very sorry to hear of your accident, and +fear, from what you say, that it may have caused you much pain. We +are sure that with the Queen, if anywhere, you will have been made +to forget it. + +"I need not say that I am very much honoured by Her Majesty's +gift--you know that; and I know that I may trust to you to make my +thanks acceptable for a book not only of so much interest in its own +day, but trebly valuable to the historian of that future when we +shall all of us have gone to join Tullus and Ancus. + +"Will you remember us most kindly to Mrs Martin? and with a hope +that you will soon be well, I am, yours very sincerely, + + "A. TENNYSON." + + +I must have written to the Queen in warm terms of satisfaction at the +burst of enthusiastic and affectionate loyalty with which her little +volume was hailed, knowing, as I did, how this feeling contrasted with +much of a very different tenor to which Her Majesty's close retirement +after the Prince's death had given rise, and which had caused her +extreme pain, for on the 16th of January the following note was sent to +my room:-- + +"The Queen was moved to tears on reading Mr Martin's beautiful and too +kind letter. Indeed it is not possible for her to say _how_ touched she +is by the kindness of _every one_. People are far too kind. What has she +done to be so loved and liked? She did suffer acutely last year, she +will not deny, and it made her ill; but the sore feeling has vanished +entirely, and the very thought of it has lost its sting.... Mr Martin +must keep very quiet to-night, and be very good, and _do_ what Mrs +Martin and the doctor tell him." + +Three days later the Queen wrote to me again on the same subject. Her +Majesty had the special virtue of dating all her letters and notes, +however slight--a grace her subjects too little cultivate. + + + "OSBORNE, _Jan. 19, 1868_. + +"The Queen would have liked to go to Mr Martin, but ever since she +came in, at a quarter past five, she has done nothing but read the +reviews in the newspapers. She is very much moved--deeply so--but +not uplifted or 'puffed up' by so much kindness, so much praise. She +sends one [review] that is very gratifying, which Mr Martin has +_probably_ not seen. Pray, let the Queen have it back after dinner. + +"Two things there are in some of the reviews which the Queen wishes +Mr Martin could find means to get rectified and explained: 1. That +the Queen wrote _The Early Years_.[3] Pray, have that contradicted. +2. That it is the Queen's _sorrow_ that keeps her secluded to a +certain extent. Now, it is her _overwhelming work_ and her health, +which is greatly shaken by her sorrow, and the totally overwhelming +amount of work and responsibility--work which she feels really wears +her out. Alice Helps was wonder-struck at the Queen's room; and if +Mrs Martin will look at it, she can tell Mr Martin what surrounds +her. From the hour she gets out of bed till she gets into it again +there is work, work, work--letter-boxes, questions, &c., which are +dreadfully exhausting--and if she had not comparative rest and quiet +in the evening, she would most likely _not be alive_. Her brain is +constantly overtaxed. Could this truth not be openly put before +people? So much has been told them, they should know this very +important fact, for _some_ day she may _quite_ break down." + + +It was not till a subsequent visit that I had an opportunity of seeing, +in Her Majesty's working-room, the huge piles of despatch-boxes arriving +daily from every department of the Government, by which she was +surrounded. But Mrs Martin saw them during this visit, and this is what +she wrote of them to a friend: "Her Majesty took me into her own room +one morning to show me the piles of despatch-boxes, all of them full of +work for her, and all requiring immediate attention; and this goes on +from day to day. It is the Queen's great aim to follow the Prince's +plan, which was to _sign nothing_ until he had read and made notes upon +what he signed. You may imagine how such conscientiousness swallows up +the Royal leisure." + +We were still at Osborne when a gloom was cast over the Palace by the +sudden and very alarming illness of Prince Leopold. Only the day before +he had been in our room full of life and spirit, and when we were told +of his illness we were also told that the very worst was feared. The +prevailing grief showed in a very touching way how much he was beloved. +The Queen was deeply moved; but she bore up with the courage and +hopefulness which was a part of her character, and which, it is well +known, upon occasion put courage and hope into the hearts of her +Ministers, when these were wanted, at times of crisis in either home or +foreign affairs. She had seen crises as bad, or worse, and remembered +their details, and she could remind them how these had been successfully +grappled with and got over. Just so, she had previously seen Prince +Leopold in danger quite as great, and he had recovered. While, then, +those around him were almost in despair, she never lost heart and hope. +The first tidings of a decided change for the better came to us in a +little note from the Queen sent to my room on the evening of the 31st of +January, saying, "Our dear child is going on very satisfactorily, thank +God!" + +When we left Osborne three days afterwards, the Prince was out of +danger, and we started for London with a lighter heart than we should +otherwise have done. We had been permitted to share in the anxiety of +the Royal family, and their joy at its removal was a joy to us also. + +The Queen pressed us hard to delay our journey, but the quiet of home +was absolutely necessary for my complete recovery. We had made our +formal adieus to Her Majesty the previous evening. She had not returned +from her morning drive when we left Osborne. But the following letter +overtook us by special messenger at Southampton:-- + + + "_Feb. 3, 1868._ + +"The Queen was much vexed to find, on coming home, that Mr and Mrs +Martin had already left, as she was anxious to wish them good-bye, +and give Mrs Martin the accompanying souvenir of her stay here.[4] +The Queen thought they would hardly venture across to-day with this +high wind and in the public boat. She trusts, however, the journey +will be performed with comparatively little suffering, and that Mr +Martin will not be the worse. Prince Leopold is going on as well as +possible." + + +On reaching London we wrote to the Queen, and our letters brought the +following reply:-- + +"The Queen thanks Mr and Mrs Martin both very much for their kind +letters. She rejoices so much to hear of Mr Martin not having suffered, +and hopes he and Mrs Martin may frequently revisit Osborne under more +pleasant circumstances." + +The circumstances of our long visit to Osborne on this occasion might +have been in a sense more "pleasant," had they not been dashed, as they +were, by the brief but alarming illness of Prince Leopold, and by the +very painful accident to myself. But more auspicious they could not have +been for my purpose as biographer of the Prince Consort, or my relations +to Her Majesty and the Royal Family. Their kind natures were drawn to me +by sympathy, as, but for my accident, they might not have been, and one +and all vied in making both my wife and myself feel thoroughly at home. +With regard to the Queen herself, frequent personal interviews did what +no amount of correspondence could have done. They served to confirm the +confidence with which I had been previously regarded, a confidence +essential to the successful execution of my task. Insincerity, +selfishness, obsequiousness could not live before her, and when her +trust was given, her own sincere, sensitive, womanly nature was stirred, +and it revealed itself with a frankness, a considerateness, and a +courtesy that were irresistibly fascinating, and raised loyalty to +chivalrous devotion. + + + + +CHAPTER II. + + +The letters above quoted show how deeply the Queen felt hurt by the +severe remarks of many of the journals as to her seclusion and +disappearance from the ceremonials of public life for some years after +the death of the Prince Consort. Her Majesty must also have been aware +that comments to the same effect were current in general society, where +the accustomed gaieties of the Court remained at a standstill. Indeed +one sometimes hears them still urged in reproach to her otherwise +faultless life as a Sovereign, as though her duty to the State had been +sacrificed to a morbid indulgence in the sorrows of her personal +bereavement. At one time there might have been some excuse for such an +impression, but there is none now. 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. But when he died the full burden +of them fell upon her; and from that moment she became the most lonely +of women--for who is so lonely as the survivor of two beings whose +mutual devotion has been so all-sufficing that they have never looked +elsewhere for mental companionship or support? How much more so if the +survivor be a woman! + +With no one to whom she could turn for the same sympathy and guidance, +the Queen had henceforth to look solely to her own resources for +fulfilling the duties and responsibilities of the great position which, +with the Prince's assistance, she had built up for herself before the +world. Together it had been their rule to keep themselves advised from +day to day of every detail of public affairs by the officials of every +department, and to make themselves a living chronicle of everything that +passed in the administration of the Empire. This tradition the Queen had +now to carry on by herself. But for her great powers of work, her quick +perception, and a memory of singular tenacity, this would have been +impossible; and it requires no effort of imagination to understand how +great to her must have been the resulting exhaustion of both body and +mind, and how natural the occasional fear, to use her own words, that +some day "she might quite break down." She was not singular in this +fear, for it was shared by those who knew her best, and especially by +her uncle, the King of the Belgians--and no one knew her better than +he, both in her strength and in her weakness. When spoken to about her +seclusion and the prevailing desire that she could come more into public +life, his advice was to leave her alone. "Pauvre Victoire," M. Van de +Weyer told me were his words, "ne la tourmentez pas!" + +The outside world, of course, did not then know how great was the +additional burden that had been thrown upon Her Majesty. Only the Queen +herself could enlighten her subjects upon this point, unless some of Her +Majesty's Ministers had taken occasion to do so, which they might well +have done, but none of them did. This I had to explain to the Queen when +she asked me, by her note, above cited, of the 19th of January 1868, and +again personally at Osborne, to take means to let the public know the +truth. At the same time, I ventured to offer my opinion, that it was +neither necessary nor desirable to make any public declaration on the +subject. Whatever might be said by some, her people, I was sure, had +entire trust in her doing what was best, and that she would appear in +public whenever the necessity for doing so arose. My views prevailed, +and the enthusiastic reception given within the next few days to the +_Leaves from a Journal_, and the warm expressions of loyal devotion +stimulated by the insight there given into the Queen's character, came, +happily, to confirm my opinion. It was still further confirmed by the +reception given to the Queen on her visiting the City to open the new +Blackfriars Bridge and the Holborn Bridge and Viaduct on the 6th of +November 1869, of which she wrote to me (11th November): "Nothing could +be more successful than the progress and ceremony of Saturday. The +greatest enthusiasm prevailed, and the reception by countless thousands +of all classes, especially in the City, was most loyal and +gratifying--not a word, not a cry, that could offend any one." The +subject of a public statement was not again mooted. Her Majesty was +content to wait until the story I should have to tell in the Prince's +Life should fully open the eyes of her people to the truth. + +Complaints ceased for a time, but during the year 1870 they were renewed +in some of the leading journals, and again the Queen felt deeply +wounded--how deeply will presently appear. In the autumn of 1871 she had +a serious illness, which occasioned general alarm, and the journals +teemed with expressions of the devotion and the sympathetic interest +which lay at the heart of all Her Majesty's subjects. To this change is +due the following letter:-- + + + "BALMORAL, _Septr. 17, 1871_. + +"Long, long has the Queen wished to write to Mr Martin, but her +_very severe_ illness has prevented her from doing so. She is now, +however, going on so satisfactorily, _though very slowly_, that she +is glad to be able to thank him for his kind inquiries and letters. + +"The Queen cannot help referring to the articles in Thursday's +_Times_, and in Friday's _Daily News_, which are very gratifying, as +these go the length of expressing _remorse_ at the heartless, cruel +way in which they had attacked the Queen. Mr Martin wrote rightly, +that the words were not spoken which were needed to make the public +understand that the Queen could not do more than human strength +could bear.[5] Mr Martin will recollect the Queen's distress for +some years past, and how little she was _believed_. The unjust +attacks this year, the great worry and anxiety and hard work for ten +years, alone, unaided, with increasing age and never very strong +health, broke the Queen down, and almost drove her to despair. The +result has been the very, very serious illness--the severest, except +one (a typhoid fever in 1835), she ever had--and more suffering than +she has ever endured in her life. Now that people are frightened and +kind, the Queen will be kindly treated in future; but it is very +hard that it was necessary she should have the severe illness and +great suffering, which has left her very weak, to make people feel +for and understand her.... The sympathy in dear Scotland has been +great, and their press was the first to raise their voice in defence +of a cruelly misunderstood woman. She will never forget this." + + +After this time Her Majesty had no reason, so far as I know, to complain +that she was "cruelly misunderstood" by any section of her people. They +learned to understand and to sympathise with her, for they saw day by +day how close a watch she kept upon all public affairs, how full her +thoughts were of them and their wellbeing, and how tender were her +sympathies with all of them who were "in danger, necessity, or +tribulation." + +No one could be much in communication with the Queen without being +struck by her power of saying concisely what she had to say in the +plainest and clearest language. The swiftness of her thought was +apparent in her beautiful, firm, rapid writing. Its clearness was +equally shown in her happy choice of the simplest words. She had so much +ground to get over daily that she had no time to waste in elaborate +expression. For her the one thing important was, that no room should be +left for any misapprehension of her meaning--in short, that she should +make what was plain to her own mind as plain to the minds of others as +it was to herself. If a simple, everyday word or phrase would serve her +purpose, she preferred it to anything more ornate. In the course of +editing the _Leaves from a Journal_, Mr Helps had many struggles with +Her Majesty about what he thought her too homely style, which she +defended, because she could not bear it to be thought that what she +wrote was written "for style and effect." "It was," she wrote to me +(20th October 1868), "the simplicity of the style, and the absence of +all appearance of writing for effect, which had given her book such +immense and undeserved success. Besides, how could Mr Helps expect pains +to be taken when she wrote late at night, suffering from headache and +exhaustion, and in dreadful haste, and not for publication?" + +This artless skill in rendering a fresh, unstudied transcript of her +impressions--a power eagerly sought for, but very often unattained by +men of letters--undoubtedly gave to these jottings in Her Majesty's +Journal their special charm. But its value was apparent in all she +wrote. The habit of getting as near in words as possible to what was in +her own mind gave great vividness and graphic force upon occasion to her +style, especially where matters of importance had to be dealt with. When +an authoritative Life of Her Majesty is written, proofs of this will be +abundant. But, to speak only of what is already before the world, what +could be more happy or to the purpose than the Addresses and Messages +which she issued upon occasion to her people, and which in point merely +of style, apart from the governing thought and feeling, were always +masterly? The same characteristic was conspicuous in her conversation. +Her words were few and well chosen. You were never puzzled to know what +she meant, and she expected you, in what you said, to be equally concise +and clear--exact in the expression of opinion, and rigidly accurate as +to fact. Her aim always was to get at the truth. Herself the most +truthful of women, she resented any shortcoming in truthfulness in +others. "Oh!" she once said to me, "nobody can tell of what value it is +to me to hear the truth." + +The Queen's intolerance of affectation, verbosity, or obscurity of +language affected her judgment not only of men, but also of much of the +contemporary literature which found favour with others. She loved and +appreciated, and indeed delighted in poetry, but it must be poetry as +the vehicle of genuine feeling or wholesome and instructive thought, +clothed in the musical language which ingratiates it to the memory, +without the inversions or obscurity of phrase or the exaggerations of +metaphor or sentiment, which are so often mistaken for originality and +strength. In my experience, Her Majesty was not prone to offer critical +opinions upon books, but when she did so, her judgments were to the +point. Thus, in speaking to me about George Eliot's _Middlemarch_, she +remarked, after saying much about the subtle delineation of the various +characters, "After all, fine as it is, it is a disappointing book; all +the people are failures"--meaning not in the way they were drawn, but in +the issues of their lives, as in truth they are. + +The Queen knew, I should say, quite as much of literature, music, and +the arts as most of the people who think themselves entitled to speak +with authority upon all these topics; but she knew the limitations of +her own knowledge, and was much too sincere and too modest to affect +authority to dilate upon them. This she left to those who had made them +their special study, and was + + "Contented if she might enjoy + The things which others understand," + +or think they understand. She had no leisure for abstruse studies. She +had one great book always before her, which commanded and absorbed her +supreme attention--the book of human life, of human good and ill within +her kingdom, and of all that was going on in Europe and throughout her +vast dominions. The study of that book left little leisure for great +attainments in literature, science, or the arts. + +To music she had been devoted from her youth. She had grown up in the +love of the chief Italian composers, ancient and modern, of Mozart, +Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, Meyerbeer, and Verdi in the modern +school--in short, all the great masters of melody who wrote from and to +the heart. It was not, then, surprising that she cared comparatively +little for the writers of the latest school, Wagner, Brahms, Grieg, and +others, who write much less from the heart than from the head, building +up elaborately scientific tonic structures, the symmetry of which it is +difficult to trace, and weaving complicated harmonies that tax and +exhaust the attention, and savour more of the science than of the soul +of music. However indifferent the Queen might be to productions of this +class, she was keenly alive to every piece of pure melodic and +harmonious inspiration. + +Of Her Majesty's executive power as an artist I cannot speak, as what I +know of her work is confined to a few slight sketches, and the etchings +which she made, when Prince Albert and herself were for a time +fascinated by that attractive but difficult process. Of these I owe to +the Queen's kindness a complete series.[6] Of them it is enough to say +that the drawing is not remarkable, and that, as etchings, the +difficulties of the art have not been overcome. But I had frequent +occasion to observe that Her Majesty's studies had resulted in a power +of judging good artistic work beyond that of even the tolerably +accomplished amateur. She was in the constant habit of having engravings +made of the portraits of her family and friends, for private +circulation, and for several years I acted, by her desire, as the medium +of communication between her and the brothers Francis and William Holl, +the eminent engravers, by whom the work was done. The engravers' proofs +of these, always carefully scrutinised by the Queen, were never returned +to me without some pertinent comment, sometimes illustrated by a drawing +by the Queen upon the margin. "None but an artist could have made that +suggestion" was a not uncommon remark of the engraver. It showed him how +to correct something which he himself had not seen the way to amend. + +With so much to do and think of, Her Majesty was entitled to expect from +her Ministers that all important matters submitted for her consideration +should be explained in language at once lucid and concise. This, no +doubt, was generally done. But a very remarkable instance to the +contrary came under my notice while I was lying ill at Osborne. The +Irish Church Disestablishment question, which in 1867 had been much +agitated, took the shape, in January 1868, of a bill, the printed draft +of which, together with a letter explanatory of the measure, was sent by +Mr Gladstone to the Queen. Her Private Secretary, General Grey, must +have been absent from Osborne at the time, otherwise the Queen would +have turned to him for aid in clearing up any difficulty she found in +mastering these documents. I was therefore surprised to receive a note +from Her Majesty, sending them to me, requesting me to read and return +them with a _precis_ of their contents, as she had read and re-read Mr +Gladstone's very long letter, and found herself more and more lost in +the clouds of his explanations the more she toiled through them. My +opinion of the measure, of course, was not asked for--it never was upon +any subject where her Ministers were properly her advisers--and Her +Majesty knew she could rely on my secrecy in regard to its terms as +implicitly as if I had been sworn of her Privy Council. My task was +simply to analyse and state as clearly as I could the scope of the +measure as I might gather it from the documents sent. That the Queen +should have been lost in the fog of the long and far from lucid +sentences of her Minister, running, as they did, through upwards of a +dozen closely written quarto pages, seemed only natural. I therefore +turned from them to the draft bill, and long professional experience in +the study of similar documents made it easy for me to furnish Her +Majesty with the information desired, for which I presently received a +gracious acknowledgment, with the happy assurance that she now saw her +way clearly to deal with the measure proposed. + +This incident, long forgotten, was recalled to my mind on reading the +statement made with an air of assured knowledge,[7] that the Queen's +"prejudice" against Mr Gladstone began from her "suspecting him of +trying to overwork her." I have the best reason to know the +groundlessness of this imputation. The Queen's distrust of Mr +Gladstone--not her "prejudice" against him--was of a much earlier date +than his first Premiership. It was deeply seated, and for reasons that +grew more and more serious as the years rolled on. But this is a matter +with which the future chronicler of the Queen's Life may be left to +deal. Instead of complaining that she was overtasked by Mr Gladstone, +Her Majesty's complaint more probably was, that she was not kept fully +and timeously informed by him of important matters to which she +conceived her attention should have been called. However this may be, +the Queen was too fair-minded to allow "prejudice" to warp her judgment +as to any of her Ministers; but her intuitively searching glance, her +unfailing memory and long experience, would instinctively lead her to +make of their characters a penetrating and conscientiously careful +study. + +It seems like egotism to quote the following letter, but it shows better +than anything I could write the position in relation to Her Majesty +which, I scarcely know how, I had very early come to occupy. + + + "BALMORAL, _5th June 1869_. + +"The Queen has received Mr Martin's _most_ kind letter of the +3rd.... She really is at a loss to say how much she feels his +constant and invariable kindness to her, and how deeply grateful she +is for it. In the Queen's position, though it might sound strange, +as she has so many to serve her, she feels the assistance rendered +her by others in private matters, in which her official servants, +from one cause or another, seem to feel little interest and to be +very helpless, is of immense value; and she considers it _most +fortunate_, to say the least, to have found so kind a friend as Mr +Martin. The Queen likewise feels that in him she has found an +impartial friend, who can tell her many important things which her +own unbiassed servants cannot hear or tell her. This the Queen +mentioned to Mr Martin the other day when she saw him at Windsor, +when she alluded to the loss of Baron Stockmar." + + +It puzzled me to think what the many little, by me "unremembered acts of +kindness," could be which prompted such a recognition. It was always not +merely an honour but a delight to be serviceable in any way to a lady so +courteous, so unexacting, so full herself of thoughtful kindness. Being +in no way under the restraint which inevitably keeps official servants +in a great measure aloof from a sovereign mistress, I could speak on all +unofficial subjects on which my opinion was invited with a frank +unreserve that was impossible to them. I had nothing to fear, nothing to +gain, nothing to conceal. More deeply attached, more truly loyal to +their Royal mistress it was impossible to be than were the able and +accomplished officials by whom she was surrounded, and to whom her +wishes were a law which it was their pride to obey. Still, she was their +Royal mistress, and could not have the same feeling of unreserve with +them as with one like myself, who was wholly independent. In my +observation of Court life, I was often reminded of the words of the +Queen in Browning's _In a Balcony_, isolated as she was, although +surrounded by a loyal Court, and shut away from that frank communion +with others, without which life must drag so heavily along:-- + + "Oh, to live with a thousand beating hearts + Around you, swift eyes, serviceable hands, + Professing they've no care but for your care, + Thought but to help you, love but for yourself,-- + And you the marble statue all the time + They praise and point at!" + +And yet, no marble statue, but human to the core, and craving for the +homely sympathies of simple, healthy, human life. Such was our Queen. + +Early in my attendances upon Her Majesty, the name of Baron Stockmar was +frequently on her lips, and it was always coupled with expressions of +the deepest respect and affection. How well these were justified I soon +learned from his letters and memoranda, addressed to the Queen and +Prince, which were placed in my hands. It was obvious that they would be +of the greatest value for my Life of the Prince, and I told Her Majesty +that I intended to make copious use of them there. On this she wrote to +me:-- + + + "BALMORAL, _Sept. 30, 1869_. + +"The Queen rejoices to think that the great character of her dear +old Baron will be known now as it ought to be. Indeed, the greatest +worth is often not known.[8] No one feels this so strongly as the +Queen has done and does. What worth, what talent, what real +greatness exist, unknown and unimagined, though not by the Great +Judge of all men!" + + +I had made my selection of Stockmar's letters and memoranda for my +purpose, when a volume by his son, the Baron Ernest von Stockmar, was +published in the autumn of 1872, of _Memorabilia_ from his father's +papers, which threw not a little additional light upon the life and +character of this remarkable man.[9] As he was to form a prominent +figure in my book, and, though little known to the general public, had +been frequently misrepresented as a dangerous influence at the Queen's +Court, I made his son's book the text for a careful monograph of the +Baron for the _Quarterly Review_.[10] I was the more impelled to do so, +as the Queen, the Princess Royal (Empress Frederic), and others of the +Baron's friends thought the book had failed to do justice to the lovable +and more attractive features of the Baron's character. His wisdom and +great political sagacity spoke for themselves in the extracts from the +published documents, but the finer qualities were not brought out which +endeared him to his friends. His son had not, perhaps, had so many +opportunities as his English friends for judging the Baron, for a large +part of Stockmar's life had been spent away from his home in Coburg, +first in attendance on Prince Leopold (King of the Belgians), and +afterwards in long visits at the English Court. This might well have +been, seeing that "Stockmar," as M. Van de Weyer, who had known him long +and intimately, wrote to me, "concealed the tenderness of his heart, his +loving nature, his sweet temper, his devotion to his friends, under a +stoical appearance which deceived none of those who knew him well; and +to know him was to love him." His son had, somehow, failed to appreciate +this side of his character, and his book, therefore, left an impression +of hardness and austerity which did injustice to his father, and which +it was my endeavour to remove. + +That his influence upon the Queen and Prince was all for good, they were +the first and always most eager to acknowledge. No one knew England and +its people--what they would bear and what they would not bear in their +sovereigns--better than he. Sir Robert Peel, Lords Aberdeen, Derby, +Clarendon, John Russell, and Palmerston all deferred to his judgment as +that of the wisest and most far-seeing politician of the day. Having +very fully expressed my opinion of him from this point of view +elsewhere, it only concerns me to say here, that the Queen considered +that she owed much of the success of her reign to the sound +constitutional principles which he had impressed upon her, and to the +warnings, almost prophetic, as to how the changes of circumstance and of +opinion were to be dealt with, which his statesmanlike sagacity foresaw +were likely to arise in the epoch of transition into which England and +Europe were, in his view, rapidly advancing. + +Stockmar, who had watched the Queen from childhood, wrote of her in +1847: "The Queen improves greatly. She makes daily advances in +discernment and experience; the candour, the love of truth, the +fairness, the considerateness with which she judges men and things are +truly delightful, and the ingenuous self-knowledge with which she speaks +about herself is amiable to a degree." Of that rare quality of +ingenuousness I saw many illustrations. Thus, for example, how few would +be ready to make so frank a confession as to any portion of their past +lives as this, in a letter to me (February 18, 1869), which Her Majesty +gave as a reason why she could not send, for the purpose of the Prince's +biography, her letters during the first years after her accession:-- + + + "OSBORNE, _Feb. 18, 1869_. + +"The Queen's own letters between 1837 and 1840 are not pleasing, and +are, indeed, rather painful to herself. It was the least sensible +and satisfactory time in her whole life, and she must therefore +destroy a great many. That life of constant amusement, flattery, +excitement, and mere politics had a bad effect (as it must have upon +any one) on her naturally simple and serious nature. But all +changed in 1840 [with her marriage]." + + +The Queen's candour and love of truth, too, made her impatient at being +praised where praise was not due, especially where praise should have +been given to the Prince Consort. Thus she writes to Lord John Russell +(November 18, 1860), on reading in a Cape journal a speech of Sir George +Grey's extolling the nature of the education given to her eldest sons: +"She feels, she must say, _pained_ at such constant praise of _her_ +education of our sons, when it is _all_ due to the Prince, and when his +untiring and indefatigable exertions for our children's good is the +chief, indeed sole, cause of the success which till now has attended our +efforts.... The praise so constantly given to the Queen, and the +popularity she enjoys, she knows and feels are due, in a great measure, +to the guidance and assistance of the Prince, to be whose wife she +considers so great a privilege, and she feels it almost wrong when +praise is given to _her_ for what she knows _he_ deserves." + +Every inch a Queen as she was, and careful that the Royal authority +which she inherited should suffer no detriment in her hands, there ran +through Her Majesty's nature a vein of modest humility as to her own +knowledge and powers in things of common life, a seeking for guidance +and help, which was infinitely touching. She made no secret to herself +of her own faults and shortcomings. One does not expect queens to make +acknowledgments of these, but even these were made upon occasion. Thus +in her anxiety to throw light for me upon the Prince's character, she +sent me a copy of a letter (July 13, 1848) in which he rebuked her, +tenderly but firmly, for writing to him when he had gone from home on a +public occasion, in what she calls "a very discreditable fit of +pettishness, which she was humiliated to have to own," to the effect +that he could do without her, and did not take her miniature with him. +In her letter to me she says, that she would not have written as she +did had she not been spoilt by his never really leaving her. The +Prince's reply is too sacred to quote in full; but what wife's heart +would not leap with joy to read the concluding words? "Dein liebes Bild +trage Ich in mir; und die Miniaturen bleiben stets weit hinter diesen +zurueck; eine solche auf meinem Tisch zu stellen um mich _Deiner_ zu +_erinnern_ bedarf es nicht."[11] + + + + +CHAPTER III. + + +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. Those who read of it were often +incredulous, and stories of her agitation on these occasions have found +a place from time to time in newspapers and elsewhere. One of these, +which appeared in a respectable journal so late as November 1886, drew +from the Queen the following very suggestive remark in a letter to me: +"The Queen was _not_ overwhelmed on her accession--rather full of +courage, she may say. _She took things as they came, as she knew they +must be._" It was so with her through life. She met trial, difficulty, +or danger "with courage," and reconciled herself with a thoughtful +constant spirit, and without passionate remonstrance, to what she "knew +must be." What but this quality of mind, and her strong sense of the +claims of duty upon her as Sovereign, could have enabled her within a +few days after the loss, which for a long time took all sunshine out of +her life, to resume her active duties as Queen, and to continue them +unbrokenly through feeble health and the many domestic anxieties and +bereavements which during her long life pressed frequently and heavily +upon her? The Queen's historian will have much to tell in illustration +of her breadth of view, her prompt decision, and undaunted spirit in +times of political difficulty. At these times, the truly Royal spirit +within her answered to the call. A judgment enlightened by a vast +experience, and unwarped by prejudice, then came into play. Her sole +thought was for the good of her people, and to see that neither this, +nor the position of her Empire before the world, should be in anywise +impaired. To this end she brought into play the well-balanced judgment, +which begets and is alone entitled to the name of common-sense. + +The same quality was equally conspicuous in her judgment of the affairs +of ordinary life. Of this I might have been able to give many examples, +had I not made it my rule never to make a memorandum of any remarks on +men and things that fell from Her Majesty at any of my interviews with +her. In her letters to me, acute and characteristic remarks like the +following frequently occurred: "The wisest and best people are sadly +weak and foolish about Great Marriages. The Queen cannot comprehend it." +With her experience of the private history of the many homes of both the +noble and the rich, who so able as she to judge how little of the true +happiness of life results from the gratification of such an ambition? +"Her sagacity in reading people and their ruling motives and weaknesses" +was remarkable. This was noted by Archbishop Benson, and it often broke +into remarks touched more with kindliness and humour than with sarcasm. +The Archbishop also remarks, truly, that the Queen "was shrewder and +fuller of knowledge than most men." "She had not much patience with +their follies and the pettiness of their desires." One recognises as +very characteristic a remark of hers which the Archbishop quotes: "I +cannot understand the world--cannot comprehend the frivolities and +littlenesses. It seems to me as if they were all a little mad."[12] + +Here, too, may be noted the gentleness of her judgments, even in cases +where not to condemn would have been impossible. One was often reminded +that the axiom, _Tout comprendre c'est tout pardonner_, was habitually +present to her mind. If a kind construction could be put upon an action +rather than a severe one, she was prompt to seize it. But at the same +time her condemnation of falsehood, cant, party intrigue, egotistical +ambition, or proved unworthiness was swift and stern. + +The time had been when Mr Disraeli's attacks on her friend Sir Robert +Peel had prepossessed her greatly against him. In one of my letters on +the subject of the Prince's _Life_, I must have had occasion to refer to +these attacks. This was her reply (7th of June 1870):-- + +"The Queen quite agrees with what Mr Martin says about Mr Disraeli's +conduct to Sir R. Peel. It was and is a great blot, and it is to her the +more extraordinary, as he seems a very kindhearted and courteous man. +But he was at that time very young, bitterly disappointed, not thought +much of, and probably urged on by others." + +As the years went on Mr Disraeli won for himself a very high place in +Her Majesty's regard. In him she recognised the patriotic statesman, +free from all mean ambition, superior to the prejudices of party, +looking with keen sagacity beyond "the ignorant present," his every +thought directed to the weal, the safety, the expansion of the Empire. +She also found in him a man of generous instincts, on whom she could +depend for consideration and sympathy. Among the other qualities for +which she admired him were the constancy of his devotion to Lady +Beaconsfield, and the honour which he paid to her memory upon her death. +"How touching," she writes to me (December 26, 1872), "is the account of +Lady Beaconsfield's funeral! _He_ is a _very fine_ example to set before +us in these days of _want_ of affection and devotion, and of belief in +what is true, unselfish, and chivalrous." + +When in 1870 the land was deafened by the outcry about "Woman's Rights," +which has not yet wholly subsided, the Queen writes to me (29th May):-- + +"The Queen is most anxious to enlist every one who can speak or write to +join in checking this mad, wicked folly of 'Woman's Rights,' with all +its attendant horrors, on which her poor feeble sex is bent, forgetting +every sense of womanly feeling and propriety. Lady ---- ought to get a +_good whipping_. + +"It is a subject which makes the Queen so furious that she cannot +contain herself. God created men and women different--then let them +remain each in their own position. Tennyson has some beautiful lines on +the difference of men and women in _The Princess_.[13] Woman would +become the most hateful, heartless, and disgusting of human beings were +she allowed to unsex herself; and where would be the protection which +man was intended to give the weaker sex? The Queen is sure that Mrs +Martin agrees with her." + +In regard to the prevailing extravagance and want of individuality in +dress, also, the Queen held strong opinions. Thus she writes to me +(January 14, 1875):-- + +"The Prince had the greatest possible dislike for extravagance in dress, +and, above all, for always _following_ in fashion. He liked people to be +_well_ and elegantly and neatly dressed, but abhorred in men as well as +in women anything loud, or fast, or startling. He would not have allowed +me or any of our daughters to appear in any dress or coiffure or bonnet +not becoming or proper, and he would have made us take it off. I never +bought a dress or bonnet without consulting him, and his taste was +always good. I remember so well, when my French coiffeur came from Paris +every year, and brought over things which were tried on, the Prince has +come in and said, '_Das traegst Du nicht!_' [That you shall not wear!] +The Queen and Princesses, he said, ought never to _follow_ foolish and +ugly fashions, only because they were new. This was entirely out of +place. + +"What would he say now, when every one dresses so overmuch, and thinks +so much more about dress than they ever did before! He thought, and I +think the same, that people ought to adopt what is really becoming, but +not because it is the fashion, and especially what does not suit their +face and figure." + +Wise words, no doubt; but how few are they, in all ranks of life, who +have the courage to be in what Falstaff calls "the rereward of the +fashion," however fantastic the fashion may be, and out of harmony with +their face and figure? + +The Queen's passionate love for Scotland, with which her little books +have made the world familiar, her delight in the prospect of going to +Balmoral, her dejection at the thought of leaving it, constantly broke +out in her letters to me. Thus (28th June 1867) she writes from +Balmoral:-- + +"The Queen hopes Mr Martin will find a good place in the _Life_ for the +Prince's love and admiration for our beloved Scotland. Mr Martin +remembers his memorable words spoken not three weeks before his fatal +illness: 'England does not know what she owes to Scotland.' Beloved +country! The Queen's whole heart yearns to it more and more, and the +14th will be a sad day when she leaves it again." + +Notwithstanding my love for my own native land, I found so much of +graver matter to deal with in the Prince's life that I fear I did not +gratify this phase of the Queen's feelings so fully as she desired. +Greatly as the Prince enjoyed his Scottish holidays, Scotland was not to +him what it was to the Queen, especially after his death. She was never +so well in health as there, and with health came fresh vigour of mind +and cheerfulness of spirits. She rejoiced, too, in the contrast of her +comparatively simple and genial life there with the life of state and +courtly convention which awaited her at Windsor, where, as she has told +me, even the measured tread of the sentinels under her windows was +irksome to her. The very splendour of Windsor Castle, that stateliest +and most richly endowed of palaces, weighed upon a spirit that yearned +for the freedom of life and movement, for which monarchs have ever +yearned, but must, perforce, school themselves to forego. Her Majesty's +feeling on this subject finds striking expression in the following +passage of a letter to me from Windsor Castle (November 8, 1869):-- + +"The departure from Scotland, that beloved and blessed land, 'the +birthplace of valour, the country of worth,' is very painful, and the +_Sehnsucht_ [yearning] for it, and proportionate chagrin on returning to +this gloomiest, saddest of places, very great.[14] It is not alone the +pure air, the quiet and beautiful scenery, which makes it so +delightful--it is the atmosphere of loving affection, and the hearty +attachment of the people around Balmoral, which warms the heart, and +does one good, and the absence of which, replaced by a cathedral church, +with all its bells and clergy, a garrison town, and a very gossiping +one, a Court with all its chilling formality, and the impossibility of +going among the poor here, who are in villages of a very bad +description, makes the change a dreadful one." + +While, for the reason I have stated, Scotland took no prominent place in +my _Life_ of the Prince, I made the Queen such amends as I might by my +assistance in the preparation and passing through the press of the +profusely illustrated edition of the _Leaves from a Journal_,[15] in the +details of which Her Majesty took great interest. With her accustomed +courtesy the Queen acknowledged a service which was a pleasure to me +from the frequency with which it brought me into communication with her, +by presentation of a fine copy of the book, inscribed (January 11, 1869) +by her own hand, "To Theodore Martin, Esq., with the expression of +sincere gratitude for the pains he has taken with this illustrated +volume." And here I may say that I have not met in life a nature more +grateful than the Queen's for service done, however slight, or more +courteous in the acknowledgment of it. This perfect courtesy showed +itself in many ways. Thus, for example, if a letter remained without +answer for a day or two, the reply was sure to open with an apology for +the delay. If the delay extended to several days, then "the Queen is +shocked" at her own tardiness, although it was due to the urgent demand +of business of State, or to some other important claim on her attention. +Again, when she has been sitting at work, surrounded by despatch-boxes, +in the open air at Osborne, and I have come to make my adieu, taking off +my hat as I approached, she would desire me to replace it; and when I +deprecated doing so, "Put on your hat," she said with a peremptory +playfulness--"put on your hat, or I will not speak to you! I know you +suffer from neuralgia,"--though how she came to know it I could not +imagine. + +The marriage of H.R.H. the Princess Louise, for whom my wife as well as +myself had a warm regard, was sure, as the Queen knew, to be a matter of +deep interest to us. No sooner was it arranged than Her Majesty wrote to +inform us. The announcement was followed by another letter (12th March +1871), in which she wrote, in anticipation of the official invitation to +the ceremony at St George's Chapel, Windsor, on the 21st: "The Queen is +anxious that Mr Martin should know that he is specially invited to +Princess Louise's marriage as _the Queen's personal friend_." The signal +honour thus done me was continued at all the subsequent marriages of the +Royal children. + +The period between the short Administration of Mr Disraeli in 1868 and +his return to office in 1874 was one of great political agitation and +unrest, both at home and abroad. Problems that had not hitherto got +beyond academical discussion took a practical form under the impulse +given to reform by Mr Gladstone on his accession to power. Bills, among +others, were launched for the Abolition of the Irish Church, for +Compulsory Education, for the Establishment of the Ballot, for the +Abolition of University tests, and for Army Reform. These were all +measures novel and of a wide-reaching scope, upon which public opinion +was greatly divided, and on which the Queen, according to her method, +had to form an independent judgment. The state of affairs abroad, also, +demanded close attention. The plots and counterplots, not always +favourable to England, which came to a climax in the outbreak of the +Franco-German war, the attitude of America in regard to the Alabama +Claims, and of Russia in denouncing the clauses of the Treaty of Paris +which provided for the neutralisation of the Black Sea, all fell within +the same period, and in the policy to be maintained in regard to them +Her Majesty's Ministers looked for her advice and assistance. + +Early in 1870 an extra pressure of work was thrown upon the Queen by the +death of General Grey, formerly secretary to Prince Albert, and +afterwards her own Private Secretary, on whose vigorous judgment and +political sagacity she had long been accustomed to rely. A passage in a +letter to me (29th March), the day before he died, shows how deeply she +felt his loss: "Alas! poor General Grey will hardly live through the +day! This is very, very sad, for in many, many ways he was most valuable +to the Queen, and a very devoted, zealous, and very able adviser and +friend.... It is too dreadful to think of his poor wife and children, +whom he quite doted on, and who are remarkably fine children. The poor +dear Duchess of St Albans, too, who was confined in the same house, and +very near the father she adored, was struck down. It is too, too sad!" + +The double tragedy was indeed sad, and these words express what was felt +by all who knew General Grey and his beautiful daughter, and the great +love by which they were united. + +Apart from all considerations of personal feeling, the loss of a friend +so long and intimately associated with the daily work of the Queen as +Sovereign must have been serious indeed.[16] The strain upon her mind, +great enough before, became inevitably greater, and it is not +surprising that in the course of 1871 her health, as she says in the +letter of 17th September of that year, above cited (p. 40), broke down. +I saw much of her, in connection with my work, at this time, and on one +occasion she said: "I wonder what my ladies think of my want of +courtesy. Sometimes I drive out with them for a couple of hours, and all +the time do not exchange a word with them. I am so taken up with +thinking what answers to make to the despatches and letters of the day." + +The position of a sovereign in regard to foreign policy must often be +rendered embarrassing by the ties of relationship or personal +friendship. The Queen must have felt this on the outbreak of the +Franco-German war. With Germany she had the closest family ties, and she +saw with satisfaction that, with the progress of the war, German unity, +which she knew had been the cherished dream of the Prince Consort, and +which she herself felt would tend in the long-run to the peace of +Europe, became a fact. On the other hand, she had formed a warm +personal regard for Napoleon III., and also for his Empress, +remembering how much they both loved our country, and how loyally he +had, on several occasions, behaved to England when his support was of +importance. While, therefore, maintaining politically an attitude of +perfect neutrality, the Queen's kind heart gave to the fallen sovereigns +a sympathetic welcome when they came to England. On the 3rd of December +1870 she wrote to me from Windsor Castle:-- + +"The Queen has seen the poor Empress, who shows great dignity and great +gentleness.... The Queen is pleased to say she was cheered at the +station on arriving. There is a great and kind feeling here for those +who are in misfortune and sorrow, especially among the working people, +and that is not the case in many other countries." + +Again, when the Emperor came to Windsor Castle in the following March, +the Queen wrote (31st March):-- + +"The visit of the Emperor Napoleon--his _first_ return to Windsor since +his triumphal visit here in 1855--was very trying. He was very much +moved, but he behaved beautifully and with all the peculiar charm of +simple, unaffected graciousness which he possesses in a wonderful +degree. He spoke readily of the present and the past...." + +The Queen's interest in the Emperor did not diminish during the brief +span of life which was left to him. On the 8th of January 1873 she +writes: "We are all so grieved for the poor Emperor Napoleon, whose +state, the Queen fears, is very critical. She is sure the country is +full of sympathy." Again, on the 15th, she writes: "The Queen is much +pleased with Mr Martin's observations on the poor Emperor Napoleon, +whose sudden death she truly grieves at, and she is proud to see the +sympathy and feeling shown by the nation.... Did Mr Martin go to the +lying-in-state at Chiselhurst yesterday?" + +This I was unable to do, and I expressed my regret to the Queen, and +mentioned that I should go down for the funeral. This was Her Majesty's +answer:-- + + + "OSBORNE, _22nd January 1873_. + +"The Queen sends Mr Martin the copies of two letters that will +interest him.[17] The Empress Augusta's especially is very generous +and kind. The Queen thanks Mr Martin for his last letters, and is +very sorry he could not have the last look, which she so very deeply +regrets not having had herself. As soon as she returns to Windsor, +she will go to the poor Empress...." + + +I had written to the Queen a full account of the funeral. To this she +refers: "The reception on Thursday must have been most affecting. The +dear boy is said to behave so well. The Queen sends on the copy of a +letter which gives a touching trait of him. The Dean of Westminster +[Stanley] the other day said it would be such a good thing, if the poor +Emperor's great charm of manner, great amiability and kindness, and +wonderful power of attracting people--in short, _fascination_--which the +Queen herself felt very strongly, could be generally known; but he did +not exactly know _how_. The Queen said she thought it might be possible +to do it in Mr Martin's _Life of the Prince_; for the visits to Boulogne +of the Prince _alone_ in 1854, of the Emperor and Empress to Windsor in +1855, and of ourselves to Paris in the same year are full of the +greatest interest, and the Queen has a very full account of them in her +Journal, which she thinks of having extracted, and she feels Mr Martin +would be pleased to pay a tribute to one whose reverse of fortune and +great misfortunes were borne with such dignity and patience, and without +any bitterness towards others." + +The Queen placed in my hands a manuscript copy of her Journal of these +visits. The attractive qualities of the Emperor were so fully +illustrated by the copious extracts of which I made use in the Prince's +_Life_, that it required no commentary or eulogium of mine to show them +in relief. The complete Journal of these visits was printed for the +Queen in 1881. It is a historical document, which will be of permanent +interest. In sending me a copy on the 10th of October of that year, the +Queen writes:-- + +"The little account of the two French visits in 1855 has delighted those +of the Queen's children and friends--only two of the latter, as yet--to +whom she has given it. But she finds a great omission on her part, and +that is, of _all_ the names of all those who accompanied us to Paris. +She here sends the list, and would ask how it could be added, and sends +one of the copies for him to look at and see how it could best be +done,--whether as a leaf at the end of the book, or as a note like the +dinner-list at Windsor, and include the Emperor and Empress's suite who +came with them to Windsor." + +The reply was to send a printed slip with the list of the names to be +inserted at the end of the volume. With the exception of Lady Ponsonby, +then Miss Bulteel (Maid of Honour), not one of the numerous persons +named in the list is now alive. She is, therefore, the sole survivor of +the Queen's suite who was present on the occasion of the Queen's +reception at the Opera House in Paris, of which the very graphic +description is given in the _Quarterly Review_ article of April last, +already referred to.[18] It is a very welcome addition to the Queen's +own very modest account of what must have been a remarkably brilliant +and memorable scene, but of which the most she records is, that her +"reception was very hearty," that _God save the Queen_ was sung +splendidly, and that "there could not have been more enthusiasm in +England." + +In the midst of the public cares and perplexities of the time, the Queen +had to face, at the end of 1871, a deeper anxiety than all other in the +dangerous illness of the Prince of Wales. To place herself by his +bedside, to cheer and to encourage, and never to surrender hope, however +dread the symptoms, was characteristic of her strong, loving nature and +brave spirit. Her conduct at that trying time drew her people nearer to +her, and their sympathy bound her to them by a very tender tie. Through +her kindness I was kept informed by telegram of the progress of the +Prince through the extremes of danger to convalescence. Among the +letters which the Queen wrote to me from Osborne after her return there +with the Prince from Sandringham, the following passage occurs:-- + + + "OSBORNE, _Feb. 13, 1872_. + +"Two new sad and shocking events have overclouded the joyful return +of the dear Prince of Wales: the one which, contrasting as it did +with the Queen's own case, made her feel it most keenly--viz., the +death of her dear niece[19] from scarlet fever, a terrible blow to +her dear sister, who is so delicate herself; the other, the horrible +assassination of poor Lord Mayo, a noble and most loyal subject, and +most admirable Viceroy, which has shocked the Queen dreadfully! It +is awful, and _how_ could it happen? Some dreadful neglect, surely. + +"The dear Prince of Wales, though quite himself, bears great traces +of his fearful 'death-illness.' He seems like new-born, pleased at +every tree and flower, ... and gazing on them with a sort of +'Wehmuth' which is quite touching...." + + +Fortunately for the recovery of the Prince of Wales, the treatment of +typhus was now better understood than it had been but a few years +before. "Ah!" the Queen said to me soon after this time, "had _my_ +Prince had the same treatment as the Prince of Wales, he might not have +died!"--one of those sad, vain imaginings of "what might have been," +common to us all, but on which the Queen was too wise to allow her mind +to dwell. + +The Queen had long ceased to have reason to complain of want of +appreciation on the part of the people. On the contrary, it was +enthusiastically shown whenever she was seen in public, and most +impressively when she went in January 1872 to the thanksgiving service +in St Paul's for the recovery of the Prince of Wales. Her letters are +full of expressions of satisfaction at these demonstrations of public +feeling. Thus she writes, for example, to me on the 10th of April 1872: +"There never was a greater success or a greater exhibition of +spontaneous loyalty than the Queen's visit to the East End the other +day;" and a few days later (23rd April) she calls my attention to a +similar display "at two very pretty military events which took place at +Parkhurst last Thursday, and here [Osborne] yesterday, on the occasion +of giving new colours to the 79th Cameron Highlanders," and of her +acceptance from them of the old colours. "Their former chaplain," she +adds, with her usual love of detail, "who has been fourteen years with +them, and in Lucknow, came on purpose to bless the colours, which he did +extremely well and touchingly. It is a splendid regiment." + +The great change in the public mind, which resulted in the fall of Mr +Gladstone's Ministry at the beginning of 1874, took the Queen somewhat +by surprise. "The result of the elections," she writes to me (10th +February 1874), "is astounding. What an important turn the elections +have taken! It shows that the country is not _Radical_. What a triumph, +too, Mr Disraeli has obtained, and what a good sign this large +Conservative majority is of the state of the country, which really +required (as formerly) a strong Conservative party!" + +Amid the turmoil of the elections which led to this important result a +domestic incident took place--the Confirmation of the Princess Beatrice, +which was communicated to me in the following letter (January 13, +1874):-- + +"The Queen cannot resist sending the lines which Mlle. Norele wrote on +her sweet Beatrice at her Confirmation. She did so look like a lily, so +very young, so gentle and good. The Queen can only pray God that this +flower of the flock, which she really is (for the Queen may truly say +she has never given the Queen one moment's cause of displeasure), may +never leave her, but be the prop, comfort, and companion of her widowed +mother to old age! She is the Queen's Benjamin." + +The prayer, we know, was granted. Mlle. Norele's graceful lines form a +worthy pendant to the charming picture presented in this letter. I give +them with my own translation, as it pleased the Queen at the time:-- + + "Seule, au pied de l'autel, | "Alone, at the Altar's foot, + Nous l'avons contemplee, | Thus was she seen, + Au bonheur immortel, | Humbly adoring, mute, + Comme un ange, appelee. | With looks serene. + | + De son front la candeur | Awe touch'd us, and we felt + Imprimait le respect, | How pure that sight, + Et toute sa blancheur | Fair lily! as she knelt, + Du lis avait l'aspect. | Robed all in white. + | + Son ame calme et pure | Within that holy spot, + Semblait en ce saint lieu | Her soul did seem + Oublier la nature, | To soar, all earth forgot, + Et monter vers son Dieu. | To the Supreme. + | + Seigneur, benis sa foi, | Bless, Lord, the vow she pays, + Garde-lui ton amour, | Make her Thy care, + Que sa vie sous ta loi | So blest be all her days, + Ressemble a ce beau jour!" | Like this, and fair!" + +In the spring of 1874 the Queen suffered a great loss in the death of +her devoted and most trusted friend, M. Silvain van de Weyer. + +On the 24th of April she writes:-- + +"The Queen has felt much regret at poor Livingstone's fate, and we are +now very anxious, alas! again about dear M. Van de Weyer.[20] She +herself is very much overdone and overworked, and her nerves +overstrained. Never did so many things come together as this winter and +spring. On the 18th of May she hopes, _D.V._, to get off to the North +for a month, and then really to get rest." + +Among the many deaths of relatives and friends which the Queen had to +mourn within the last few years, no one was more deeply felt than that +of her half-sister on 23rd September 1872. "Divided in age by eleven +years, and separated by long and unavoidable absences, yet the +affection of the Queen for the companion of her early childhood never +failed, and the connection of the Princess as sister and aunt of the +Royal Family of England was maintained with a fidelity which was never +interrupted, either on the part of the Princess herself or of her +illustrious relatives." A memorial volume of the Princess's Letters to +the Queen was printed in 1874 by Her Majesty, of which I had the honour +to receive an early copy. A more beautiful picture of sisterly devotion +it would be hard to find than is presented in this volume. From the +brief introduction, in which the hand of Dean Stanley may be recognised, +I have taken the words above cited. The letters themselves give the +impression of a highly refined, intellectual, and sympathetic nature, +which must have made the Princess very dear to those who knew her. The +opinion of the volume which I expressed in thanking Her Majesty for the +gift was acknowledged in the following letter, the closing words of +which are especially noteworthy:-- + + + "BALMORAL, _Nov. 19, 1874_. + +"The Queen is greatly gratified by Mr Martin's opinion of the +letters of her darling sister. _She_ felt proud of them, but +still she could not know what others might feel, but all who +have seen them admire them much! No one who did not know her +intimately _could_ know what she was, for she was so modest and +unobtrusive--not outwardly expansive, and she did not easily take to +people whom she did not find sympathetic. But she was a remarkable, +noble-minded, kind, good, and single-minded person, whose loss to +the Queen, though we lived so much apart, is daily more keenly felt. +The Prince had the greatest respect and admiration for her, and said +she would have been worthy of a crown. But, oh! _how unenviable is +that!_" + + +How the Princess loved and was beloved by the Queen may be seen from a +passage, quoted at the end of the volume above referred to, in a letter +found among the papers of the Princess, and marked to be given to the +Queen after her death:-- + + +"I can never thank you enough for all you have done for me, for your +great love and tender affection. These feelings cannot die; they +must and will live on with my soul--till we meet again, never more +to be separated,--and now you will not forget + + "Your only own loving sister, + + "FEODORA." + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +It was the autumn of 1874, nearly seven years after I had undertaken to +write the _Life_ of the Prince Consort, before I found myself able to +prepare the first volume for the press. Although I had from the first +foreseen that the work would involve a greater amount of labour than was +contemplated by the Queen, it soon became obvious that I had myself +under-estimated it. As I advanced in my preparations the materials that +came into my hands grew greater and greater, and I saw that, to give a +true picture of the Prince, my book must be in effect a history of the +Queen's reign from the time of his marriage till his death, while it +would at the same time be a biography not of him only, but in a great +measure of Her Majesty also. I had made considerable progress in the +collection of my materials when I became aware of a body of information, +valuable beyond all others, which had been accumulated by the Prince +himself, and which had been shut away and seen by no one since his +death. As if to assure himself that an authentic record of this period +of the reign should not be wanting, every document, letter, despatch, +private as well as public, which had passed under the eyes and hands of +the Queen and himself in reference to affairs of State, to +communications with foreign Courts, or to public events in which they +had taken a part, had been classified and preserved in an immense mass +of folio volumes, to which the Queen afforded me free access. + +These in a measure enabled me to live through the crowded years of the +Prince's life. But the study of them, the bulk of the most important +documents being in manuscript, and not a few of them in the cramped +German _current Schrift_, was a severe strain upon both patience and +eyesight. Months were spent in the perusal and selection of what might +be used, especially as the contents of these volumes were often so +confidential that they had to be read, transcribed, and translated +solely by myself. + +I had stipulated that I should not be expected to write of the Prince +until I had followed his life to its close, and every step I made in my +researches confirmed me in this resolution. It was a disappointment to +the Queen that I could not show the fruits of my labour so early as she +wished, naturally eager as she was that full justice should be done, and +done quickly, to the Prince's memory. But when I was able to explain, in +the numerous conferences which passed upon the subject, how elaborate +were the preparations I was making, how important and voluminous the +records to which I was trusting as the basis of what I had to write, Her +Majesty became content to wait, and took a deep interest in the +development of the narrative, which not infrequently recalled +interesting incidents and discussions which had for a time, but for a +time only, escaped her marvellous memory. + +Every chapter, as I wrote it, was submitted to the Queen, and most +carefully read and noted by her. No slip in a date or name escaped her +notice, and her fine tact never failed to call attention to any +expression that could be modified with advantage. But from first to last +I was left to the free development of narrative and the expression of my +own opinions. The independence for which I had stipulated at the outset +was most loyally respected; and I reflect with satisfaction on the fact, +that at no point throughout the five volumes to which the _Life_ +extended did any conflict of opinion arise between Her Majesty and +myself. An incident will serve to show how anxious the Queen herself was +that my entire independence should be maintained. When I came in 1876 to +write the story of the Crimean war I felt myself in a difficulty. The +second son of Her Majesty had married the daughter of the reigning Czar +in 1874. It was impossible to say what I had to say of Russia without +giving expression to views that could not be otherwise than +unacceptable at the Russian Court. How was I to act, as my work of +necessity must have the sanction of the Queen? I therefore sought an +interview with Her Majesty and explained my difficulty. What was her +instant answer? "Do not let the fact of my son's marriage into the +Russian family weigh with you for a moment! Whatever conclusions you +come to upon the facts and documents before you, express them as if no +such marriage existed!" Here, as always, truth I found was the paramount +consideration with the Queen. + +It may be conceived how my responsibility was lightened and my labour +cheered by the perfect freedom allowed to me as well as by the warm +encouragement I received from the Queen, and her growing interest in the +work as it advanced. Her heart was set upon the completion of an +adequate and true memorial of the Prince, and, with all the information +of every kind placed at my disposal, he became to me as if I had lived +through the years with him. + +Until they had seen the first volume of my book some of the Queen's +children were rather adverse to the idea of any _Life_ of the Prince +being published so soon. They had a natural fear that it would not do +justice to the father whose memory was so tenderly dear to them, and the +incidents of whose life were in a measure sacred in their eyes. One of +these was the Princess Alice, and in order to remove her impression the +Queen wrote to her (24th June 1874) as follows, and sent me a copy of +the letter:-- + +"I do not think, that as so many memoirs of statesmen and people of the +same time have been published, that it is too soon to publish a discreet +Life of beloved Papa; indeed, much that has appeared without permission, +or, I must think, reflection, in the dear old Baron's _Life_, rendered +it necessary not to delay in putting things before the world, with all +the sides to them, that did not appear in that _Life_. It will be of +much use to posterity and to Princes to see what an unselfish, +self-sacrificing, and in many ways hard and unenviable life beloved +Papa's was." + +After the first volume was published the doubts of the Princess Alice +disappeared, and the Queen, with her habitual consideration, sent me a +letter to read, which she received from the Princess, expressing her +warm commendation of what I had done. The Princess wrote to me herself +in the same strain, and from every member of the family I received the +most warm congratulations on my work. This seemed to give great +satisfaction to the Queen, for it was her desire that the biographical +memorial should be as welcome to them as to herself. + +As each subsequent volume appeared, I received assurances from Her +Majesty of her gratitude for the spirit in which I had carried out her +wishes, and from all her children came the warmest acknowledgments of +the success of my endeavour to do justice to their father's memory. +When, in January 1880, I wrote to the Queen with the concluding chapter +of the last volume of the _Life_, and mentioned, in doing so, with what +emotion it was written, this was the answer I received:-- + + + "OSBORNE, _January 27, 1880_. + +"The Queen thanks Mr Martin most warmly for his touching letter +accompanying the _last_ chapter of her beloved Husband's _Life_. She +thanks him from her heart for the pains and trouble he has taken in +the execution of this difficult and arduous undertaking, in which he +has so admirably succeeded, and at the same time congratulates him +on having completed it. She can well understand the tears that must +have been shed in doing so, though Mr Martin did not know the dear +Prince personally. + +"In the meantime, before she can in a more public manner express her +high sense of his services, the Queen asks Mr Martin to accept the +accompanying bronze statuette reduced from Marochetti's monument in +the Mausoleum.[21] The Queen would wish also to thank Mr Martin for +the kind and feeling manner in which he has performed his difficult +task." + + +The Queen's kindness did not stop here. I was ill, overtasked with very +heavy professional work, at the same time that I was writing the last +chapters of my book. For months I had been engaged along with the late +Mr Edmund Smith in negotiating, and successfully negotiating, for Lord +Beaconsfield's Government, the purchase of the undertakings of all the +London Water Companies, and preparing the Bill for vesting them in a +public trust. The measure was defeated on Mr Gladstone's return to +office in April 1880, and for this defeat it may safely be said the +community of London has ever since had to suffer severely. Rest and +change were essential for my recovery, and I at once determined to seek +them in Venice and the north of Italy. Two days before I started I was +commanded to dine with Her Majesty at Windsor, and on my arrival I was +knighted and invested by her own hands with the Collar and Star of a +Knight Commander of the Bath, the act being accompanied by words of +commendation far more precious to me than any title of honour. The +Queen had chosen for the ceremony the Prince Consort's working room, +where all my conferences with her on the subject of the _Life_ had taken +place. Her Majesty, I subsequently found, had some difficulty in getting +the Star and Collar of the Bath ready in so short a time: I could not, +therefore, but recognise in the promptitude of her action the kind +thought, that the honour, which would come upon me by surprise, might +help to cheer me in the search for health on which I was going abroad. + +Some years before this time I had occasion to see how keenly the Queen +suffered on the death of a friend. On the 7th of March 1875 Sir Arthur +Helps, who held a very warm place in her regard, died, after a few days' +illness, from a cold caught at the Prince of Wales' levee. I was +summoned to Buckingham Palace and found the Queen in tears, and moved to +a degree that was distressing to witness. She had lost in him not only a +valuable official, but a friend to whom she had for years trusted for +counsel in times of personal distress or difficulty. Her first thought +was for his family, and what could be done to lighten the embarrassment +of the position in which his sudden death had placed them, and +arrangements with this view were at once resolved upon and carried into +effect. But, seeing what on this occasion I saw Her Majesty suffer, I +could not but think how much sorrows of this kind, coming as they did +with unusual frequency, and leaving impressions which in her case were +far from transitory, must have added to the exhausting effects of the +Queen's busy life. + +It must have been about this time that the Queen one day, in speaking of +her portraits, asked me which of them all I thought the best. "Your +Majesty," I answered, "will smile at what I am going to say. None of +them speak to me so strongly as well as pleasingly, or bring your +Majesty so vividly to my mind, as the bust by Behnes, when you were +between eight and nine years old." I then told her that I had studied it +for years, being so fortunate as to possess the original cast in clay +from which the marble bust in the Windsor great corridor was modelled +by the sculptor. "Not only," I added, "is the bust beautiful as a work +of art, but in it, if I might be so bold as say so, I saw not only the +lineaments, but the latent character which years had developed." The +Queen, I could see, while somewhat surprised, was also pleased. My +criticism must have produced a favourable impression, for the next time +I was at Windsor Castle I found that the bust had been removed from a +comparatively dark corner to a most conspicuous position near the main +entrance to the corridor, where it was shown to the best advantage, and +continued thenceforth to remain. Passing along the corridor one evening +I called Lord Beaconsfield's attention to it, and he quite concurred in +my opinion as to its suggestiveness and peculiar charm.[22] + +I recall another conversation about this period that led to the grant, +which gave great public satisfaction at the time, of a pension of L50 +a-year to Edward, the Banff shoemaker and Naturalist. I had thrown into +my despatch-box a copy of Dr Smiles's _Life of Edward_, just published, +which reached me as I was leaving home to wait upon Her Majesty at +Windsor. The box contained papers as to which I had to consult the +Queen. On opening it in her presence, her quick eye took notice of the +volume, and she asked me what it was. It contained a fine etched +portrait of Edward by Rajon, and this, I knew, would interest the Queen. +She admired it greatly, and asked, "Who is this Edward?" I told her +briefly his story. "Is this not a case," she said, "for a pension from +the Bounty Fund?" Some of the most eminent naturalists, I was able to +answer, were anxious that he should have one, and a Memorial to Her +Majesty praying for it was being extensively signed. "Go on with the +Memorial," Her Majesty said. "That is essential; but leave the book with +me. I will write to-day to Lord Beaconsfield, and I have no doubt the +pension will be at once granted." The next day (20th December 1876), in +a letter from the Queen, she wrote: "Lord Beaconsfield had already heard +of the book, which with this letter the Queen return, and is most ready +to recommend Edward for a pension of L50. He was most amiable about it." +Thus some days before the formal Memorial was presented to the Queen its +prayer had been granted, and the remarkable old man was made comfortable +for life.[23] + +The following letter, while it shows on what friendly relations the +Queen stood with Lord Beaconsfield, also shows with how gracious a +welcome Her Majesty received a gift from one of her subjects:-- + + + "_Dec. 25, 1876, Christmas Day._ + +"The Queen returns Mr Martin her sincerest thanks for his two kind +letters, and for the splendid copy of his translation of +_Faust_.[24] She had seen it, and sent it as a Christmas offering to +Lord Beaconsfield; but she did not possess one, and therefore is +much pleased to receive it at _his hands_. The Queen hopes Mr Martin +will accept the book with photographs of the Albert Chapel, which +will reach him to-morrow.[25] Most sincerely does she wish Mr and +Mrs Martin every possible blessing for the season, which is +unusually gloomy and dark.... + +"She has just received a most kind and graceful acknowledgment from +Lord Beaconsfield, which she will later send Mr Martin to read." + + +1877 and 1878 were years of great anxiety in regard to foreign affairs, +and from Her Majesty's letters to myself it is apparent how constantly +she had to struggle against the severe headaches and weaknesses brought +on by overwork. Thus on 14th February 1878 she writes: "The Queen is +quite incapable of writing, having so much to do and think of, and +suffers from headaches and an over-tired head. But she sees no chance of +rest." Again, on the 8th of March: "The Queen has to apologise very much +for not having answered Mr Martin's letter of the 1st. Could he come on +Monday 11, before 6, and stay till the next day?... Her time is terribly +taken up." + +The Queen was now never long without some great sorrow, and in the late +autumn of this year it came in the form of serious illness and death in +the home of her beloved daughter the Princess Alice. On the 20th of +November 1878 she writes:-- + +"Mr Martin will excuse her for not answering upon ----'s long letter +yet. But her state of anxiety and anguish about all her dear ones at +Darmstadt has been such--and they are still great--that what with +letters and telegrams, she has been quite incapable of attending to any +other things. Her poor child's grief and anxiety are only equalled by +her resignation and marvellous courage. But the darling that was taken +was one of the sweetest, cleverest, and most engaging little children +possible--4-1/2--the only one of her 31 grandchildren born to her who +was born on the Queen's birthday." + +Five years before (June 29, 1873) the Princess Alice had lost another +favourite child, who fell out of the window of the room from which she +had gone out for a few seconds, and was killed before her eyes. The +misery which this loss had caused the Princess might be read in the +settled sadness of expression which thenceforth marked her beautiful +face, and seemed to foreshadow the early death which Heaven so often +gives its favourites. Now, in nursing all her numerous children through +a virulent attack of diphtheria, she showed the noble, unselfish courage +for which she had always been distinguished. One of them, the Princess +May, died, as mentioned in the Queen's letter, and very soon (14th +December) the Princess herself succumbed to the same dreadful epidemic. +The other children recovered. It is well to recall what the then Prince +of Wales wrote of his beloved sister to Lord Granville, in a letter read +by his lordship to the House of Lords: "So good, so kind, so clever! We +had gone through so much together--my father's illness, then my own; and +she has succumbed to the pernicious malady which laid low her husband +and children, whom she watched and nursed with unceasing care and +attention. The Queen bears up bravely, but her grief is deep beyond +words." Overwhelmed by it though she was, Her Majesty's instant care was +to settle how she might fill a mother's place in looking after the young +children that were left behind. And that she did fill it is well known, +and she was requited by seeing them all before she died settled in life +suitably to their rank, and the youngest called to share the Imperial +throne of the Czar of Russia. + +In her natural anxiety to see a spot which had so many tender +associations for her, the Queen visited Darmstadt in the spring of +1884, and in a letter to me (May 12) from Windsor Castle, after her +return, she makes the following interesting allusion to her visit:-- + +"The Queen has been living in the dear Grand Duchess's rooms at the Neue +Palais at Darmstadt, where everything remains precisely as it used to +be. The Queen's sitting-room was hers, and the Queen only placed a small +writing-table in the room for her own use, leaving everything else +untouched. This opens into the dear Grand Duchess's bedroom, where she +died, and out of one of the windows of which poor little 'Frittie'[26] +fell, where there is now a fine painted glass window, with the following +words, 'Of such are the kingdom of heaven,' 'Not lost, but gone before.' +It is a charming house.... The light air of the Continent is certainly +very different from England, and more like Scotland. The country was +brilliant, and lovely in its spring attire of most vivid green; the +birch woods are quite beautiful. + +"It seemed almost an irony of fate to see nature so bright and +beautiful, when the heart was so sad, and could feel no pleasure." + +When my _Life_ of the Prince Consort was completed I should not have +been surprised if the Queen, with all her manifold, fatiguing, and +ever-increasing engagements, had no longer continued the intimate +correspondence with which I had hitherto been honoured. But in this +respect no change took place. The number of letters grew less as the +necessity diminished for constant reference to Her Majesty on the +subjects dealt with in the Prince's _Life_; but I was as frequent a +guest as ever at Windsor Castle, and treated with the same frankness and +confidence as before. When I could be of use to Her Majesty my services, +she knew, were always cheerfully at her command, and they were +invariably acknowledged with the exquisite courtesy and thankfulness of +which I have already given some examples. I had thus constant +opportunities of verifying the justice of the estimate of the personal +qualities of Her Majesty which I very early formed, and to which I have +in previous pages tried to give expression. + +In 1883 the Queen had found distraction in preparing further extracts +from her Diary of her life in the Highlands. When it was well advanced +towards publication my assistance in revising the final proofs was +asked. She had no longer her friend Sir Arthur Helps to advise with, who +had edited her first _Leaves from a Journal_. A great deal of +correspondence in regard to the book, I find, took place, and I must, I +suppose, have been somewhat severe in my criticisms, for in sending me +her final sketch of the Preface and Epilogue to the volume, the Queen +writes that she stood "somewhat in awe of me"--a compliment to my +independence which, while it amused me, could not be otherwise than +gratifying. The warm reception given to the volume gave the Queen great +pleasure. Thus on the 14th of February 1884 she writes: "The Queen is +really startled at the success of so humble a production," and again on +the 29th, "The Queen must say, she believes few sovereigns, and fewer +people, have been so kindly spoken of as herself." In a paper written in +1883, now before me, the Queen speaks of the importance to herself of +anything which "has a cheering and invigorating effect on one so +depressed, and so often disheartened as I am." It was therefore very +pleasant to see that she had found this temporary solace in the public +feeling, which had been vivified by her little book. + +To add to the Queen's depression, a lameness due to a sprain of the knee +robbed her of the freedom of movement in which she had always delighted. +Of this she speaks in a letter (May 29, 1883):-- + +"Many things unite in rendering the Queen's remaining years terribly +hard and desolate. Her lameness does not improve much. She can walk very +little indeed (and that is great labour) out of doors, and never without +two sticks indoors, and is carried, which the newspaper reporters with +singular ignorance consider a proof of her great 'delicacy of health,' +complaining also of the public _not_ being admitted everywhere, as if +it would be pleasant for any lady to be carried in and out of a carriage +before crowds of people! But the people are very kind and anxious, +though very unreasoning in thinking a sprain can be cured in a few days, +especially when she is no longer young." + +In the autumn of 1881 the Queen held a review in the Queen's Park, +Edinburgh, of the Scottish Volunteers, considerably over 40,000 of whom +passed before her. The march past occupied more than three hours, during +which the rain descended in torrents. The Queen was in an open carriage, +and however much they might have been disappointed, none of her +volunteers would have murmured had Her Majesty withdrawn at an early +stage of the review. But, true soldier's daughter as she was, she paid +no heed to the weather, thinking only of her duty to let herself be seen +by those who had come from all parts of the country in the hope of +seeing and being seen by their Queen. She did not leave the Park until +the last man had passed. By this time the carriage was full of water, +and pools of it, I have been told, dropped from the dresses of herself +and ladies when they returned to Holyrood. + +In a like determination never, if she could, to cause disappointment to +her people, when she visited Liverpool about four years later, the Queen +drove slowly through more than three miles of streets under a drenching +rain which lasted throughout the whole route. The open-air drives in the +Highlands had, no doubt, accustomed Her Majesty to bear exposure so +trying without injury to her health. The stimulus, too, given by the +heartiness of the greeting, which her courage and gracious courtesy +evoked, may have helped to keep all evil consequences at bay. In writing +to me, May 17, 1886, the drenching rain was not mentioned. "The +Liverpool visit," she only said, "was a perfectly triumphal ovation, so +warm and hearty ... from a million and a half of people. The feeling +against Home Rule is on the increase." + +It was well that the Queen, in all her sorrows, could find solace in the +sympathetic and ever-increasing loyalty of her people. Another heavy +blow was soon to fall upon her in the death of Prince Leopold (March 28, +1884). Only two years before, his marriage had been solemnised in St +George's Chapel at Windsor under circumstances of unusual splendour, in +which Her Majesty had taken a prominent part. Who that witnessed it +could ever forget the figure of the Queen as she passed up the aisle to +the altar. In the bridal train and the general assemblage many of the +most beautiful women in England, arrayed in the costliest robes and +adorned with an infinite wealth of jewels, preceded Her Majesty. +Whatever high blood and bearing, whatever wealth and beauty could give +to delight the eye, was there. But all was eclipsed by the unpretending +figure in black, moving onwards with the simple unstudied grace, +unconscious of its own charm, but insensibly by its perfect composure +filling you with the impression that in her the Majesty of England was +represented. _Vera incessu patuit Regina._ No doubt the memory of that +moment came back to many as it did to me, when the body of Prince +Leopold was borne by the Seaforth Highlanders up the same aisle for the +funeral benediction only two short years after, and the Queen was seen +looking down from the Royal pew upon the group of mourners gathered +round the bier. I had known the Prince well for years, and I believe was +a favourite with him. My letter of condolence to Her Majesty after the +funeral brought me the following reply:-- + + + "WINDSOR CASTLE, _Apl. 10, 1884_. + +"The Queen thanks Sir Theodore Martin for his kind letter, as well +as for the previous ones, and for all the kind sympathy, but that is +indeed universal. It has always been thus for her, and each loss +intensifies it.... The accounts of the sad and impressive ceremony +of last Friday and Saturday are excellent, and all in such a +reverent tone--and the _Times_ articles (3) so good. The +_Standard_[27] is admirable, and the Queen thanks Sir Theodore for +it.... The Queen is not ill, but greatly shaken, and this new shock +has been overwhelming.... + +"The Queen feels the loss of that dear clever child of so many cares +and anxieties more and more, and knows that again a great help and +support has been taken from her in her declining years. She never +felt easy when he was away, and his foreign trips never did him any +good. _Now he is safe._ + +"The Queen has been urged to have some complete rest and change of +air, and is therefore going for a fortnight to Darmstadt on the +15th."[28] + + +In 1886 the idea became general of a great celebration of the Queen's +Jubilee in the following year. The subject gave rise to a great display +of loyal feeling, and much eloquent writing in praise of Her Majesty in +the journals. I seem to have sent Her Majesty some of these which I +thought would give her pleasure, for on June 28 she writes to me thus:-- + +"The Queen hastens to thank Sir T. Martin for his kind letters and +enclosures. She was touched and gratified by the articles, as it is +rewarding to find _Anerkennung_, as the Germans say, of a long and hard +life of anxiety, that is not flattery, which the Queen hates.... + +"For the Queen all the loyalty shown and the celebration to take place +(if she lives, _D. V._) next year are very trying, and much mingled with +deep sadness; for to be alone, bereft of her husband, to whom she and +the country owe so much, of two dear children, and many, and especially +_some_, dear friends, is very painful and trying." + +In the Jubilee year it was understood that presents might be offered to +Her Majesty upon her birthday. Very many, no doubt, availed themselves +of the privilege, Lady Martin and myself among the number. We had both +so frequently received memorial gifts from the Queen, that it was an +especial pleasure to us to have an opportunity of offering our slight +tribute of loyal respect, and we selected for the purpose an object of +which it was not likely that a duplicate could be given. A telegram of +warm acknowledgment from Balmoral the day it was received was followed +next day (25th May) by this letter:-- + +"The Queen thanks Sir Theodore and Lady Martin for their lovely gift, +which she will ever value as coming from them, and on her birthday in +this year. The loyalty and affection so universally exhibited by all +classes and from all parts are very gratifying to her, and are an +encouragement for the few remaining years of her arduous life, as they +show that her efforts for the good of her country and people are +appreciated." + +No need to say how this loyalty and affection culminated within a month +in the Jubilee demonstration on the 21st of June. In Westminster Abbey I +had a position from which I could observe the emotions as they passed +over the face of the Queen throughout the whole of the impressive +ceremonial of that memorable day; and it seemed to me, familiar as I was +with the feelings with which Her Majesty had looked forward to this +event, that I could divine some of the thoughts which under that +serenely dignified demeanour were passing through Her Majesty's heart +and mind. Deep and manifold I felt they must be, as she looked back to +the day when she had last sat there in the Coronation Chair, through the +vista of years of happiness and trial, of anxiety and bereavement, of +national struggle and peril and triumph, all culminating in an +unparalleled demonstration of her people's love. At such a time would +not memory recur to the words written to her on her Accession by Prince +Albert fifty years before (26th June 1837)?--"Now you are Queen of the +mightiest land of Europe. In your hand lies the happiness of millions. +May Heaven assist you and strengthen you with its strength in that high +but difficult task! I hope that your reign may be long, happy, and +glorious, and that your efforts may be rewarded by the thankfulness and +love of your subjects!" Full of the feeling I have expressed, on my +return home it shaped itself without effort of mine into the words of +the following sonnet. Some weeks elapsed before I had the courage to +send it to the Queen; but it at once found such favour with Her Majesty +that, in a letter to me next day (11th August), she wrote: "The Queen +thanks Sir T. Martin for his kind letter, and for the very beautiful +lines which he has written.... The Queen hopes he will print and even +publish them." They were accordingly published next month in +_Blackwood's Magazine_:-- + + IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. + + _21st June 1887._ + + Again within these walls, again alone! + A long, long tract of fateful years between + The day I knelt, to rise a crowned queen, + Vowed thenceforth to be all my people's own, + And this, when, with an empire wider grown, + Again I kneel, before high Heaven to lay + My thanks for all, which since that earlier day + Has blessed my goings, and upheld my throne. + God! in this hour I think of him, who made + My young life sweet, who lightened every care, + In sorest straits my judgment rightly swayed, + Lived, thought for me, all times and everywhere; + For him I thank Thee chief, who by his aid + Nerved me the burden of a crown to bear! + +Every Christmas had for years brought with it a letter from the Queen +with her good wishes for Lady Martin and myself, accompanied by a +beautifully painted card for Lady Martin, and some valuable book for my +library enriched by a gracious inscription. In her letter of this year +were the words, "_The Queen is loth to part with the year in which she +has met with so much affection and kindness_," and they suggested to me +the following sonnet. It was my custom to send to the Queen a Christmas +and New Year greeting, generally in verse, and I made the sonnet my +greeting for the year 1888. The Queen in her reply requested that it +might be published, and this was done:-- + + OSBORNE. + + _Before Midnight, 31st December 1887._ + + One hour, and 'twill be numbered with the past, + My year of Jubilee, that to my heart + Has tribute brought from cot and hall and mart + Of loyalty and love;--a treasure vast, + There to be nursed and cherished to the last, + And with that one dear memory held apart, + Still sweetening through the years its bitter smart + With love in kingly story unsurpassed! + Go, then, bright year, go with a fond good-bye, + For all thy days with loving-kindness fraught! + And may all blessings from the God on high + Light on my people for their loving thought, + Keeping them worthy of the days gone by, + And the great name by their forefathers wrought! + + + + +CHAPTER V. + + +In the magnificent procession which attended the Queen to and from +Westminster Abbey, no figure attracted more attention, or excited +greater admiration, than that of the Crown Prince of Germany, in his +white Cuirassier's uniform, and rivetting all eyes by his noble head and +majestic bearing. Little was it then dreamed that within a year he was +to succeed his father as Emperor of the Germans, when himself stricken +by the cruel malady under which he sank within a few months after his +accession. The tragic circumstances of his death awakened a very +profound feeling throughout this country, and men's thoughts turned to +the uncrowned Empress whom he left behind, and also to the Queen, who +thus saw the fair hopes blighted, with which she and the Prince Consort +had resigned their first and highly gifted child to the man of her +heart, by whose side they might expect in time to see her throned as +sovereign over a mighty kingdom. + +The Emperor Frederic died on the 15th of June 1888. As soon as her +health permitted, the widowed Empress decided to come to England for a +time; and the Queen wrote to me suggesting that some special expression +of public sympathy should meet her daughter on her arrival. That this +sympathy would be generally and warmly expressed through the usual +channels could not be doubted. But I ventured to think, that the +expression of it might not unfitly be concentrated in the compacter form +of verse. With this view I wrote the following sonnet, which appeared in +the _Standard_ two days before the Empress reached England:-- + + TO THE EMPRESS FREDERIC. + + _On her arriving in England, 17th November 1888._ + + When England sent thee forth, a joyous bride, + A prayer went through the land, that on thy head + Might all best blessings bounteously be shed, + And his, the lover-husband by thy side; + And England marked with ever-growing pride, + As onwards still the years full-freighted sped, + How wrought in both the grace of worth inbred, + To noblest acts and purposes allied. + + With eyes of longing, not undimmed by tears, + England now greets thee, desolate and lone, + Heart-stricken, widowed of the twofold crown + Of love and empire; and the grief endears, + Remembering all the cherished hopes o'erthrown, + When at their height thy heart's lord was struck down. + +I also wrote this other sonnet, which appeared in the _Morning Post_ on +the day of the Empress's arrival:-- + + TO THE EMPRESS FREDERIC. + + _19th November 1888._ + + Oh lady, how our hearts were pang'd,[29] when he, + Whom late we saw, in England's festal hour, + Ride through our streets in manhood's stateliest power, + Hail'd by all eyes a star of chivalry, + Through long sad months of sorest agony, + Faced martyr-like the doom, that hour by hour + He saw still near and ever nearer lour, + To tear him from his country and from thee; + Thee of the childlike heart and manlike brain, + Fit in all ways to share a monarch's throne, + Who made his people's good his chiefest care! + Oh noble heart, all England shares thy pain, + And in thy grief thou wilt feel less alone, + 'Midst all the love that waits to greet thee there! + +The 9th line of this sonnet was prompted by an incident on the last +occasion that I met the Crown Prince and Princess together at Windsor +Castle. "Do you know," he said to me, "what her father said of her?" +"Oh, Fritz," the Princess broke in, anticipating what he was going to +tell me, "you should not speak of such a thing." "I will speak of it," +he continued, looking at her with eyes of affectionate pride. "Why +should I not? It is only the truth. The Prince Consort said, 'She has +the heart of a child, the brain of a man!'" That her father so thought +of her I had seen many proofs in the private correspondence which was +placed in my hands while I was writing his life. + +I sent these Sonnets to the Queen, and on November 13 she wrote: "The +Queen thanks Sir T. Martin for his two kind letters, and the two +exquisite little Sonnets. They should certainly be published, and a +special copy be prepared for her poor dear persecuted daughter." A few +days afterwards (November 20) the Queen again wrote: "The Queen encloses +a letter from her dear daughter the Empress, which she is sure he will +be pleased to receive." This was a letter thanking me in very gratifying +terms for my Sonnets. "She thanks him again," the Queen continued, "for +her two kind letters and the lovely poems.... The dear Empress is very +sad. The arrival upset her terribly, but she struggles bravely with the +dreadful misfortune, and takes an interest in other things. But it is a +misfortune which one cannot understand, and which is a great trial to +one's faith. One can but say, as one of her Indian attendants (who are +all Mohammedans), an excellent, very refined, and gentle young man, +said, 'God ordered it!'..." + +A few days afterwards I had a long and most interesting interview with +the Empress at Windsor Castle, and was told of things which explained +what was meant by the Queen in speaking of her as her "poor dear +persecuted daughter." They have now happily sunk into oblivion. + +Early in the 'Seventies the Queen intimated to me her great desire to +visit North Wales, if a house could be found there suitable for her +stay. On looking round the counties of Denbigh and Merioneth, where the +Queen wished especially to go, so as to be within reach of some of the +best Welsh scenery and also to be seen by the large bodies of workers in +coal and other mines and industries, to which the county chiefly owes +its prosperity, the mansion of my friend the late Henry Robertson, C.E., +at Pale on the Dee, between Corwen and Bala, seemed the most eligible in +itself, besides having the advantage of being close to the Llanderfel +station on the railway from Ruabon to Dolgelly and Festiniog. It was at +once placed by Mr Robertson at Her Majesty's disposal; but the projected +visit fell through, owing to the pressure of various engagements which +compelled the Queen to abandon it for the time. + +The project was again mentioned to me by Her Majesty in the following +letter, November 4, 1889;-- + +"The Queen thanks Sir Theodore for the newspaper, and his article on +Wales, which interests her _very_ much. This brings her to the subject +of the visit, once contemplated, to Wales. Would that be possible? by +the loan of a house like the one mentioned at that time by Sir Theodore? +She believes a short visit of four or five days there would do good. She +can no longer ride up hills, but she can drive, and go to some places +where her presence might be useful." + +Mr Robertson was dead, but his son and successor in the Pale estate, Mr, +now Sir Henry Beyer Robertson, was delighted to have the opportunity of +fulfilling his father's intention. On being made aware of this, the +Queen decided to make the visit in the summer of the following year on +her way to Balmoral. When this decision became known, the people of the +principality, who are as a rule most loyal, looked forward with +enthusiasm to the prospect of seeing among them the Queen, who had +hitherto been to them only a revered name. Everything was done which +loyalty could devise to show how highly the royal presence among them +was valued. The only cloud on the general satisfaction was the knowledge +that the visit could only be for a very few days--from the 23rd to the +28th of August, one of which was a Sunday. + +The Queen arrived at Pale on the 23rd at 7 A.M., and had not been many +hours there before she received a deputation of the farm tenants of the +adjoining district, who had prepared a walking-stick of their native +wood for Her Majesty's acceptance. They were surprised, and more than +delighted, by the royal acceptance of it being made in Welsh, the Queen +having immediately on her arrival taken pains to learn so much of that +far from easy language as served her for this and other similar +occasions. In no other way could Her Majesty have so thoroughly touched +the hearts of her Welsh subjects. The incident, of which the tidings +spread over Wales within a few hours, heightened the enthusiasm with +which she was everywhere received. Two days afterwards this was markedly +shown in her public visit to Wrexham, the centre of the mining and other +industries of Denbighshire, where a reception in Aston Park, the +property of Sir Robert Cunliffe, admirably arranged by the Mayor and +Corporation of Wrexham, awaited Her Majesty. All the leading people of +the adjoining counties were present, and many hundred thousands of the +working population assembled both there and on the five miles of road +along which the Queen drove from Ruabon, to which the royal train had +come from Pale. A choir of 600 singers gave the Queen her first idea of +the choral singing for which Wales is famous. The demeanour of the +working men, rough in exterior, and not always on ordinary occasions +gentle in manners, produced a most favourable impression on Her Majesty. +"They all behaved like gentlemen," she said to me when, two days +afterwards, accompanied by the Prince and Princess Henry of Battenberg +and the Princess Alix of Hesse (now the Czarina), she honoured Lady +Martin and myself by a visit to our villa near Llangollen. It had not +occurred to us why the Queen had chosen that day, the 26th of August, +for the visit. But the reason flashed upon us, when, turning to Lady +Martin as she inscribed her name with the date on a sheet of paper +prepared for the purpose, she looked up and said, "The dear Prince's +birthday!" Then we saw that as the Prince's _Life_ had been written in +my study there, Her Majesty had chosen that day for her visit--surely a +very delicately imagined tribute to the author. + +Several Welsh airs were sung for the Queen on this visit by a selected +number of the Llangollen choir, chiefly young ladies. When they had +finished, Her Majesty asked me to what class the singers belonged, as +she had observed greater refinement in their execution than in any of +the other choirs she had heard in Wales. She was also struck by the +admirable way they had sustained the pitch from beginning to end of all +the choral pieces sung without the drop of half a tone. Only an ear +finely trained to a subtle appreciation of musical execution could have +noticed these points. + +It had been greatly desired that the Queen should visit Festiniog, both +for the beauty of the scenery and to satisfy the loyal feelings of the +large and intelligent slate-making population of that district. This was +found to be impracticable, but a hope was held out that the omission +might be remedied by another visit to North Wales. A few days after her +arrival at Balmoral the Queen wrote: "The Queen and her children have +brought with them the pleasantest recollections of Wales, its beauty, +and the kindness and loyalty of its people. The Queen was greatly +pleased to have been able to see Sir Theodore and Lady Martin's charming +home." + +Again in the following year (September 3, 1891) Her Majesty wrote:-- + +"The Queen thanks Sir T. Martin for his letter of the 26th, on which +dear day last year we made that charming expedition to Llangollen and +visited Sir Theodore and Lady Martin at their delightful little Welsh +home at Bryntysilio. The recollection of the Queen's visit to Wales is a +most pleasing one, to which she often looks back, and hopes to repeat +some day. She would wish to go again to Pale, to which most pleasant and +comfortable house Sir H. Robertson has again and again invited her to +return. The Queen could visit Harlech Castle and Llanberis, &c., from +Pale, returning at night, could she not? The Queen uses the Welsh stick, +so kindly given her by the farmers and people at Pale, very often, and +always when she travels and wants a good strong one." + +Greatly to the disappointment of the good people of Wales, Her Majesty +never found it possible to fulfil this contemplated second visit. + +In the correspondence which continued at intervals during the ensuing +years there is nothing that is available for the object of this +monograph. But in November 1896 Her Majesty gave me an opportunity of +expressing briefly my views of what an authentic Life of herself should +be, of which I was not sorry to avail myself. On the 10th of that month +she wrote to me:-- + +"The Queen is glad that Sir Theodore approves the idea of a short Life +of her husband being set in hand and published. + +"She so much wishes that something should be done about her own Life, as +so many people have published and are publishing her Life, with the best +intentions, full of extraordinary fabrications and untruths." + +Some further communications on the subject took place, and on the 22nd +of that month I wrote as follows:-- + +"Sir Theodore Martin, with his humble duty, has the honour to +acknowledge the receipt of Her Majesty's gracious letter of the 20th. + +"Sir Theodore is much impressed by what the Queen says as to the +desirableness of a Life of Her Majesty, which might put a stop to the +gossiping fabrications which have of late become so current. The subject +has long been present to his mind. While the Queen lives, he fears the +inventors of these fictions must have their way. But that the story of +Her Majesty's Life should be truthfully and sympathetically told for +posterity is a matter of the highest importance. In a great measure the +work must be historical, and will demand the skill of some one capable +of dealing with the events of Her Majesty's reign, and of the political +history of the civilized world, from the date of the Prince Consort's +death onwards. It would be most desirable to lay the foundation of such +a work with Her Majesty's direct assistance, could a biographer with the +necessary qualifications be found. There will be the difficulty; but, +until he can be found, would it be possible for Her Majesty to suggest +the lines on which the Life should be written, and to furnish to some +trusted person the facts and incidents of which Her Majesty would wish a +record to be made? + +"The materials must be abundant in Her Majesty's diaries and +correspondence, and they would form the basis of a work of infinite +value and instruction to future times. So much that is false and +misleading is sure to be written in these days of reckless and +unscrupulous writing, that every loyal subject of Her Majesty must wish +that it should in Her Majesty's case be crushed at the outset. Nothing +would do this so effectually as the knowledge that the true story would +be told, based upon authentic information as to the private as well as +public life of the Queen. + +"Sir Theodore makes the above suggestion with all deference to Her +Majesty's better judgment. His excuse must be his ardent desire that the +story of a life, which he most deeply honours and reveres, should be +fitly told for the days to come." + +The Queen, I believe, in so far concurred with my suggestion, that she +endeavoured to persuade at least one writer of distinction as a +historian to agree to become her biographer. He came to the conclusion +that the task of dealing with a subject so vast, and also with a +character so complex as that of Her Majesty, was one with which he could +not grapple consistently with the duties of a high position which he had +already undertaken. Whether any further attempt was made in the same +direction I am not aware. + +And so the years went on, bringing us from time to time assurances of +the Queen's continued interest in Lady Martin and myself. In 1896, when +the new Victorian Order was established, I was among the first on whom +the Commandership of the Order was conferred. The Insignia of the Order +reached me with the following letter:-- + + + "BALMORAL CASTLE, _Sept. 14, 1896_. + +"The Queen has heard that Sir Theodore Martin will celebrate his +80th birthday on the 16th, which seems to her hardly possible from +his appearance. She wishes him to accept her warmest and most +heartfelt good wishes for his happiness and welfare for many a year. +The Queen wishes on this occasion to mark her sense of Sir +Theodore's valuable services, and sends him the decoration of Knight +Commander of her new personal 'Victoria Order.' + +"She hopes Lady Martin has recovered from her last indisposition, +and that no anxiety on her account may mar the happiness of this +day." + + +On every Christmas morning the Queen sent greetings and good wishes to +my wife with an inscribed Christmas card, and to myself, with some +framed work of art, or valuable book. In 1897, when all the world was +alive with congratulations on the memorable celebration of Her Majesty's +Diamond Jubilee, the words which appeared in two of her perfect +Addresses to her people inspired me to express, as before, what I +conceived was in her heart in writing these Addresses. I give them here, +because they were stamped with Her Majesty's approval. "The Queen," she +wrote, "thanks Sir Theodore Martin very much for his most kind letter, +and the Sonnets enclosed, which it has touched her much that he should +write. Of course they may be published in the _Times_;" and they were +published there accordingly. + + THE QUEEN AT ST PAUL'S. + + _June 22, 1897._ + + ["From my heart I thank my beloved people. May God bless them!"] + + Not unto me, O Lord, not unto me + The praise be given, that my beloved land + This day in all men's eyes from strand to strand + Shines first in honour and in majesty; + That borne from every clime, o'er every sea, + Around me clustering close on every hand, + Liegemen from far I see, a noble band, + Type of a nobler Empire yet to be! + Oh, my beloved people, yours the praise, + Yours, who have kept the faith, that made your sires + Free, fearless, faithful, through the nights and days, + True to the zeal for right, that never tires; + May God's best blessing rest on you always, + And keep you blameless in your heart's desires! + + THE QUEEN AT KENSINGTON. + + _June 28, 1897._ + + ["I gladly renew my association with a place which, as the scene of + my birth and my summons to the Throne, has had, and ever will have + with me, tender and solemn recollections."] + + Again the dear old home, the towering trees, + The lawns, the garden-plots, the lake, that were + My childhood's fairyland,--the dear ones there, + Who tended me so lovingly,--the ease + Of heart when, sporting at my mother's knees, + I dreamed not of a crown, nor knew a care, + The call at early morn that crown to wear! + Ah me, the host of tender memories, + Tender and solemn, that around me throng, + Of all that then I was, and since have been, + The many loved and lost, the One so long + Missed from my side, and I, a lonely Queen! + Yet in the love my people bear me, strong + To front an Empire's cares with brow serene. + +Yet once again I had the honour of being permitted to express Her +Majesty's sentiments in verse. It had long been my earnest hope that +peace should reign in Her Majesty's realms while she lived. But this was +not to be; and the South African war, with all the loss of life and +waste of treasure which it involved, threw many a dark shadow over the +last year of the Queen's life. But the shadows were not without breaks +of brilliant sunshine. She was proud of the way in which her subjects +rose to the difficulties of the time; she was proud of the response of +the army and navy, which she loved, to the call upon their valour and +endurance. She was proud, too, of the common feeling that bound the +colonies to the mother-country, as but for this war they might not for +years have been bound, and that they had sent their sons to share its +perils and glories--a first step to the consolidation of her Empire. +This was a suggestive theme, to glance at which I thought might please +the Queen. I had for years been in the habit of writing a letter of +congratulation to Her Majesty upon her birthday. Little weening that it +was to be her last, I sent the following sonnet with my letter. It so +pleased the Queen, that she gave her sanction to its being published in +the _Times_, where accordingly it appeared. + + A BIRTHDAY MEDITATION. + + _Balmoral, 24th May 1900._ + + Am I not blest? I cry, as I retrace, + Through gathering mists of not unwelcome tears, + All I have seen and known through the long years + Vouchsafed to me by Heaven's abounding grace; + How evermore I have found strength to face + Their cares, their griefs, their overshadowing fears, + Nerved by the loving loyalty that cheers + My heart in all its lonely pride of place. + Oh, my dear land, whose sons, where'er they came, + Of freedom and of right have sown the seed, + Behold, _their_ sons in serried thousands claim + A place beside thee, in thine hour of need, + Thy peril theirs, thy fortune theirs, thy fame! + Thinking of this, am I not blest indeed? + +As it happens, I write the concluding pages of this humble tribute to +the memory of my beloved Queen in my study at Bryntysilio, on the +anniversary of the day when the noble woman passed from earth, who was +for more than fifty years the crown and comfort of my life. It is a day +intimately associated with my thoughts of Her Majesty, for late in the +evening of this day, after the constant inquiries of many weeks, a +telegram asking for information came from the Queen only a few hours +before my wife fell asleep. Its words were the last she read. She tried +to reply to the Queen with her own hand, but had to give up the attempt. +To the Queen the first news of my loss was sent, and it was answered by +a message right from the heart in a few of those incisive words, for +which the Queen had a special gift, that speak directly home to the +heart. Nor did her sympathy end here. She so arranged that on the +morning of the funeral in London a letter in her own hand from Balmoral +should reach me with words of encouragement such as those from which she +had herself so often had to seek courage in her own hours of desolation +and bereavement.[30] Nor was this all. Next morning, between eight and +nine, I received a telegram from Her Majesty, inquiring how I had borne +the ordeal of the previous day. Can more be said to show the tender, +thoughtful, womanly nature, which won the gratitude and reverence of +those who knew her best, and which also operated to create a feeling of +affectionate regard in all her subjects, and indeed throughout the +world? + +One more instance of Her Majesty's never-failing kindness to myself! The +Christmas morning of 1900 brought me its wonted offering from her in the +shape of a beautifully framed copy of Angeli's last portrait. As I +looked at it my heart was full of sadness, for I read in the familiar +face, as there depicted, the manifest indications of physical weakness, +and of the probably early fulfilment of an apprehension, which had for +some time possessed me, that the end of this "great woman" was near. +What pathos to me in the thought, that in a time of so much weakness and +preoccupation the Queen had taken care that I should not be without the +accustomed Christmas memorial from her. There are memories that "lie too +deep for tears." This is one of them. + +Yet a few words more! I have lived too long not to have learned +forbearance in my judgments of character in man or woman, even when its +qualities seem to lie very much upon the surface. I have also learned to +revere the memories of all who have earned honourable distinction by +act or word. Experience has taught me how little we can know of the true +nature even of those with whom life has made us familiar, how infinitely +less of those whom we have never known, or who have followed pursuits in +which we have never shared, or lived in a sphere remote from our own. + +Much, therefore, as I saw of the Queen as a woman, much as I had +occasion to know of the remarkable powers of mind which she brought to +bear upon the performance of her functions as a sovereign, I should not +venture to form, much less to publish, an appreciation of these powers, +without those full materials for a judgment which are not at present +before the world, but which may in due season be expected to see the +light. Enough, however, came under my observation to show me how great +the Queen could be, when occasion called for the exercise of her higher +powers. I know how richly endowed she was with the "instincts of the +heart, that teach the head,"--intuitions which prompted her to say the +right word and do the right thing without fail, whenever a grave or +great purpose was to be served. Perched as she was, to use her own words +now lying before me, "on a dreary, sad pinnacle of solitary grandeur," I +know with what constancy and courage she bore the isolation. I know how +simple, how humbly-minded she was, how truthful, how full of +loving-kindness, how generous, how constant in her friendships. I know +how she leant for consolation and support upon the love of her people, +how earnestly she sought to gain it by sympathy with their interests and +their sorrows, by constant watchfulness for the wellbeing of all +throughout the world who owned her sway. I know, too, how resolute she +was to uphold justice, and honour, and right, wherever her voice could +be heard. + +Others may find pleasure, when they write of Queen Victoria, in speaking +slightingly of the qualities of mind and heart which went to form a +truly noble character, of which personally they can know nothing. To +such I answer, Who in the history of monarchies has lived a life so +exemplary, so pure, so absolutely devoted to the service of the +State,--who of all we read of so won the affection of their people, the +admiration of the world, as she has done? I think of the mighty task she +was called upon to fulfil, and how admirably she fulfilled it, under +trials and drawbacks of which the outside world can form no estimate. I +think of her, borne to her tomb along the London streets, through +threefold ranks of her people, all pale, silent, and with heads +reverently bowed, as though in mourning for one they loved. I see her +bier borne to the altar in St George's Chapel, followed by men who +represented all the Rulers of all the Nations--a gorgeous throng that +crowded the central aisle of the great chapel from the western door up +to the altar steps. Was ever such tribute paid in the world throughout +all the ages past? Is such tribute ever likely to be paid again? + +It is of this marvellous tribute, and how it was won, that we should +think,--not of this or that foible or shortcoming, for who is without +them? Above all, we should think of the heavy, unceasing burden that +lay upon brain and heart through a long life, and with how brave and +constant yet how meek a spirit it was borne. Then, remembering all this, +let us, while we live, cherish in our hearts the name of our departed +Queen, and pass it on to those who shall succeed us, as + + + Victoria the Great and Good. + + + PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS. + + + + +FOOTNOTES: + +[1] He died in May 1874. "Dear M. V. de Weyer's death," Her Majesty +wrote to me on the 30th of that month, "is a terrible loss to the Queen, +and she has been deeply grieved by it." + +[2] A translation of Oehlenschlaeger's drama of that name. + +[3] General Grey's book. + +[4] A ruby and diamond bracelet. + +[5] I must have expressed in some letter at this time regret that none +of Her Majesty's Ministers had taken the opportunity of explaining the +circumstances which had hurt Her Majesty's health, and compelled her to +avoid the fatigues of the public appearances which were called for, and +which were undoubtedly desirable, if the Queen's health had admitted of +their being made. + +[6] They came with the following note:-- + + "OSBORNE, _May 3, 1869_. + +"The Queen sends Mr Martin to-day a volume of the beloved Prince's and +her own etchings, which she has had purposely bound for him, and which +she hopes he will place in his library, as a trifling recollection of +his kindness in carrying out so many of her wishes." + +[7] _Quarterly Review_ for April 1901: article "Queen Victoria," p. 305. + +[8] It is of such that Sir Henry Taylor writes in his _Philip van +Artevelde_, Act I. Sc. v.:-- + + "He was one + Of that small tally, of the singular few, + Who, gifted with predominating powers, + Bear yet a temperate will, and keep the peace. + The world knows nothing of its greatest men." + +[9] _Denkwuerdigkeiten aus den Papieren des Freiherr's Christian +Friedrich v. Stockmar._ Braunschweig, 1872. + +[10] _Quarterly Review_ for April 1872, p. 386 _et seq._ + +[11] "Thy dear image I bear within me, and what miniature can come up to +that? No need to place one on my table to _remind_ me of _you_." + +[12] Life of Archbishop Benson, vol. ii. pp. 2 and 561. + +[13] The allusion is to the lines in the fine passage in the seventh +section of that poem, beginning, "Blame not thyself too much":-- + + "Let woman make herself her own + To give or keep, to live and learn, and be + All that not harms distinctive womanhood. + For woman is not undevelopt man, + But diverse; could we make her as the man, + Sweet love were slain; his dearest bond is this, + Not like to like, but like in difference." + +[14] I had occasion to record in the Prince's _Life_ (vol. iii. p. 248) +a somewhat similar impression on Napoleon III. and his Empress with +regard to the Tuileries, in the following extract from the Queen's +Diary: "Speaking of the want of liberty attaching to our position, he +(the Emperor) said the Empress felt this greatly, and called the +Tuileries _une belle prison_." + +[15] Published, London, 1868, by Smith, Elder, & Co. + +[16] General Grey's duties were immediately taken up by Colonel, +afterwards General, Sir Henry Ponsonby, who discharged them with +conspicuous zeal and ability till he was struck down by fatal illness in +January 1895. + +[17] These letters were from Royal personages on the subject of the +Emperor's death. + +[18] See p. 51, _ante_. + +[19] Feodore Victoire, Duchess of Saxe-Meiningen, who died on the 12th +of February 1872. Her mother, the Queen's half-sister, Feodora, Princess +of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, survived her only a few months, dying on the +23rd of September 1872. + +[20] He died on the 23rd of May 1874. The Queen came from Windsor to +visit him at his house in London, when he was near his end. A few days +before his death I took my leave of him. He was in great pain, but his +bright sparkling spirit remained. He touched my heart by saying how +sorry he was he had only known me within the last few years. On my +expressing a hope that we might meet again in the Hereafter, "Ah! let us +hope so!" he replied, adding, like the bibliophile of bibliophiles that +he was, "and that you will find me in an _editio nova et emendatior_." + +[21] In my library in London there happened to be a niche, as if made to +receive this beautiful replica of the Mausoleum monument, where it has +ever since remained. + +[22] I had given to the Queen a fine proof before letters of her +portrait, as a girl, by Fowler, and she wrote to say that "the bust by +Behnes, from which Fowler took his picture, was done in 1827, when the +Queen was eight years and a half." + +[23] The Sovereign _nominally_ is the dispenser of these pensions, but +the Queen delegated this function to the First Lord of the Treasury. +This was why the concurrence of Lord Beaconsfield was necessary. With +him the Queen's wish in such matters was paramount. + +[24] A volume published in Germany in imperial folio, with a series of +very spirited illustrations, and remarkable for the beauty and +originality of the binding. + +[25] A magnificent volume, including, among other illustrations, +photographs of all Baron Triqueti's designs in inlaid marble. + +[26] The pet name substituted for Friedrich. + +[27] This refers to an obituary notice of the Prince by myself. + +[28] As to this visit, see _ante_, p. 114. + +[29] It seems a pity that this word should have fallen into disuse. +Shakespeare employs it with great effect in the fine scene (_Cymbeline_, +Act III. sc. iv.) where Imogen says-- + + "I grieve myself to think, + When thou shalt be disedged by her + That now thou tirest on, how thy memory + Wilt then be _panged_ by me." + +[30] A representative of Her Majesty attended Lady Martin's funeral and +placed on her bier a beautiful wreath, inscribed by the Queen, and also +a rich floral cross, inscribed by the Princess Beatrice. + + + + +TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES: + + + Text in italics is surrounded with underscores: _italics_. + + Obvious typographical errors have been corrected as follows: + Footnote 9: Braunscheig changed to Braunschweig + + The original text appears to be missing words on page 54. The + original is printed "... it was impossible to be than were the able + and accomplished officials...". + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Queen Victoria As I Knew Her, by +Sir Theodore Martin + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK QUEEN VICTORIA AS I KNEW HER *** + +***** This file should be named 38627.txt or 38627.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/3/8/6/2/38627/ + +Produced by Charlene Taylor, David E. 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