BETROTHAL OF THE PRINCESS ROYAL--QUEEN'S SPEECH TO THE SOLDIERS
RETURNED FROM THE CRIMEA--BALMORAL.
An event of great importance to the Queen and her family was now
impending. A proposal of marriage for the Princess Royal--still only
fifteen years of age--had been made by the Prince of Prussia, the heir
of the childless king, in the name of the Prince's only son, Prince
Frederick William, a young man of four-and-twenty, nearly ten years
the Princess's senior. From the friendship which had long existed
between the Queen and the Prince and the Princess of Prussia, their
son was well-known and much liked in the English royal family, and the
youthful Princess Royal was favourably inclined to him. The proposal
was graciously received, on certain conditions. Of course the marriage
of the young Princess could not take place for some time. She had not
even been confirmed. She ought to be allowed to know her mind fully.
The couple must become better acquainted. It was agreed at first that
nothing should be said to the Princess Royal on the subject till after
her confirmation. But when the wooer arrived to pay a delightfully
private visit to the family in their Highland retreat, the last
interdict was judged too hard, and he was permitted to plead his cause
under the happiest auspices.
We have pleasant little glimpses in her Majesty's journal, and Prince
Albert's letters, of what was necessarily of the utmost moment to all
concerned; nay, as the contracting parties were of such high estate,
excited the lively sympathies of two great nations. The Prince writes
in a half tender, half humorous fashion, of the young couple to Baron
Stockmar, "The young man, 'really in love,' 'the little lady' doing
her best to please him." The critical moment came during a riding
party up the heathery hill of Craig-na-Ban and down Glen Girnock,
when, with a sprig of white heather for "luck" in his hand, like any
other trembling suitor, the lover ventured to say the decisive words,
which were not repulsed. Will the couple ever forget that spot on the
Scotch hillside, when they fill the imperial throne of Charlemagne?
They have celebrated their silver wedding-day with loud jubilees, may
their golden wedding still bring welcome memories of Craig-na-Ban and
its white heather.
The Court had travelled south to Windsor, and in the following month,
in melancholy contrast to the family circumstances in which all had
been rejoicing, her Majesty and the Prince had the sorrowful
intelligence that her brother, the Prince of Leiningen, while still
only in middle age, just over fifty, had suffered from a severe
apoplectic attack.
In November the King of Sardinia visited England. His warm welcome was
due not only to his patriotic character, which made Victor Emmanuel's
name a household word in this country, but to the fact that the
Sardinians were acting along with the French as our allies in the
Crimea. He was royally entertained at Windsor, saw Woolwich and
Portsmouth, received an address at Guildhall, and was invested with
the Order of the Garter. He left before five the next morning, when,
in spite of the early hour, the intense cold, and a snowstorm, the
Queen took a personal farewell of her guest.
In the beginning of 1896 the Queen and the Prince were again wounded
by newspaper attacks on him, in consequence of his having signed his
name, as Colonel of the Grenadier Guards, among the other officers of
the Guards, to a memorial to the Queen relating to the promotion and
retirement of the officers.
On the 31st of January her Majesty opened Parliament amidst much
enthusiasm, in a session which was to decide the grave question of
peace or war. In March the welcome news arrived that the Empress of
the French had given birth to a son.
On the 20th of March the ceremony of the confirmation of the Princess
Royal took place in the private chapel, Windsor. The Archbishop of
Canterbury and the Bishop of Oxford, Lord High Almoner, officiated,
in the presence of the Queen and the royal family, the Ministers,
Officers of State, &c. Prince Albert led in the Princess; her
Godfather, King Leopold, followed with the Queen. Bishop Wilberforce
made a note of the scene in a few words. "To Windsor Castle. The
confirmation of Princess Royal. Interesting. She devout, composed,
earnest. Younger sister much affected. The Queen and Prince also."
On the 30th of March peace was signed. London became aware of it by
the firing of the Park and the Tower guns at ten o'clock at night. The
next morning the Lord Mayor, on the balcony of the Mansion House, read
a despatch from the Secretary of State, to a large crowd assembled in
the street, who received the tidings with loud cheers. At noon his
Lordship, preceded by the civic functionaries, went on foot to the
Exchange and read the despatch there.
The Tower guns were again fired, the church-bells rang merry peals,
flags were hung out from all the public buildings. A few days
afterwards the Queen conferred on Lord Palmerston the Order of the
Garter--a frank and cordial acknowledgment of his services, which the
high-spirited statesman received with peculiar pleasure.
On the 18th of April her Majesty and Prince Albert went to Aldershot
to commemorate the completion of the camp and review the troops, when
the Queen spent her first night in camp, in the pavilion prepared for
her use. On one of the two days she wore a Field-Marshal's uniform,
with the Star and Order of the Garter, and a dark blue riding habit.
Within a week, in magnificent weather, Her Majesty and Prince Albert
inspected a great fleet at Spithead.
After Easter Lord Ellesmere, in his last appearance in the House of
Lords, moved the address to the Queen on the peace, and spoke the
feelings of the nation when he expressed in the words of a poet the
country's deep debt of gratitude to Florence Nightingale. On the 8th
of May the Lords and Commons went in procession to Buckingham Palace
to present their addresses to the Queen. The same evening she gave a
State ball--the first in the new ball-room--to celebrate the peace.
Lord Dalhousie returned in this month of May from India, where he had
been Governor-General. He was a hopeless invalid, while still only in
his forty-fifth year. The moment the Queen heard of his arrival, she
wrote to him a letter of welcome, for which her faithful servant
thanked her in simple and touching words, as for "the crowning honour
of his life." He could not tell what the end of his illness might be,
but he ventured to say that her Majesty's most gracious words would be
a balm for it all.
On the 19th of May the Queen laid the foundation of the military
hospital at Netley, which she had greatly at heart.
In June a serious accident, which might have been fatal, occurred to
the Princess Royal while her promised bridegroom was on a visit to
this country. Indeed he was much in England in those days, appearing
frequently in public along with the royal family, to the gratification
of romantic hearts that delighted to watch young royal lovers. She was
sealing a letter at a table when the sleeve of her light muslin dress
caught fire and blazed up in a moment. Happily she was not alone. The
Princess's governess, Miss Hildyard, was at the same table, and
Princess Alice was receiving a lesson from her music-mistress in the
room. By their presence of mind in wrapping the hearthrug round the
Princess Royal, who herself showed great self possession under the
shock and pain of the accident, her life was probably saved. The arm
was burnt from below the elbow to the shoulder, though not so as to be
permanently disfigured. Lady Bloomfield has a pretty story about this
accident. She has been describing the Princess as "quite charming. Her
manners were so perfectly unaffected and unconstrained, and she was
full of fun." The writer goes on to say, "When she, the Princess,
burnt her arm, she never uttered a cry; she said 'Don't frighten
mamma--send for papa first.'" She wrote afterwards to her music-
mistress, dictating the letter and signing it with her left hand, to
tell how she was, because she knew the lady, who had been present when
the accident happened, would be anxious.
King Leopold, his younger son, and his lovely young daughter, Princess
Charlotte, were among the Queen's visitors this summer, and a little
later came the Prince and Princess of Prussia to improve their
acquaintance with their future daughter-in-law.
In July the Queen and the Prince were again at Aldershott to review
the troops returned from the Crimea. But the weather, persistently
wet, spoilt what would otherwise have been a joyous as well as a
glorious scene. During a short break in the rain, the Crimean
regiments formed three sides of a square round the carriage in which
the Queen sat. The officers and four men of each of the troops that
had been under fire "stepped out," and the Queen, standing up in the
carriage, addressed them. "Officers, non-commissioned officers, and
soldiers, I wish personally to convey through you to the regiments
assembled here this day my hearty welcome on their return to England
in health and full efficiency. Say to them that I have watched
anxiously over the difficulties and hardships which they have so nobly
borne, that I have mourned with deep sorrow for the brave men who have
fallen in their country's cause, and that I have felt proud of that
valour which, with their gallant allies, they have displayed on every
field. I thank God that your dangers are over, while the glory of your
deeds remains; but I know that should your services be again required,
you will be animated with the same devotion which in the Crimea has
rendered you invincible."
When the clear, sweet voice was silent, a cry of "God save the Queen!"
sprang to every lip. Helmets, bearskins, and shakos were thrown into
the air; the dragoons waved their sabres, and a shout of loyal
acclamation, caught up from line to line, rang through the ranks.
The next day, in summer sunshine, the Queen and her City of London
welcomed home the Guards. In anticipation of a brilliant review in the
park, she saw them march past from the central balcony of Buckingham
Palace, as she had seen them depart on the chill February morning more
than two years before: another season and another scene--not
unchastened in its triumph, for many a once-familiar face was absent,
and many a yearning thought wandered to Russian hill and plain and
Turkish graveyard, where English sleepers rested till the great
awakening.
An old soldier figured before the Queen and the Prince in
circumstances which filled them with sorrow and pity. Lord Hardinge,
the Commander-in-Chief, was having an audience with the Queen, when he
was suddenly struck by paralysis. He resigned his post, to which the
Duke of Cambridge was appointed. Lord Hardinge died a few months
afterwards.
After several yachting excursions, marred by stormy weather, the Court
went north, and reached Balmoral on the 30th of August. The tower and
the offices, with the terraces and pleasure-grounds, were finished,
and every trace of the old house had disappeared. The Balmoral of to-
day, though it still lacked what has become some of its essential
features, stood before the Queen. We are fain to make it stand before
our readers as it is now.
The road to Balmoral may be said to begin with the Strath at Aberdeen.
The farther west the railway runs, the higher grow the mountains and
the narrower waxes the valley. Yet the Highlands proper are held to
commence only at Ballater, the little northern town with its gray
square, and its pleasant inn by the bridge over the rushing Dee. The
whole is set between the wooded hills of Pannanich and Craigendarroch,
the last-named from the oak wood which crowns its summit. The Prince
of Wales's house, Birkhall, stands back from the road on a green
eminence with the mountain rising behind, and in front the river Muich
running down to join the Dee.
At Ballater the railway ends, and two picturesque roads follow the
course of the river, one on each side, the first passing Crathie, the
other going through the fir and birch woods of Abergeldie on the same
side as Balmoral. Both command grand glimpses of the mountains, which
belong to the three great ranges of the district--Cairngorm,
Glengairn, and Loch-na-Gar.
Approaching on the Crathie side, the stranger is struck with the
frequent tokens of a life that was once the presiding genius of this
place, which passing away in its prime, has left the shadow of a great
grief, softened by the merciful touch of time. The haunting presence,
mild in its manliness and gentle in its strength, of a princely
benefactor common to all, has displaced the grim phantoms of old
chieftains and reigns in their stead. It hovers over the dearly loved
Highland home with its fitting touch of stateliness in the middle of
its simplicity, over the forest where a true sportsman stalked the
deer, over the streams and lochs in which he fished, and the paths he
trod by hill and glen. We are made to remember that Balmoral was the
Prince Consort's property, that he bought it for his possession, as
Osborne was the Queen's, and that it was by a bequest in his will that
it came, with all its memories, to his widow. Three different
monuments to the Prince, on as many elevations above the castle, at
once attract the eye. The highest and most enduring, seen from many
quarters and at considerable distances, is a gable-like cairn on the
summit of a hill. It is here that such of the Prince's sons as are in
the neighbourhood, and all the tenantry and dependents who can comply
with the invitation, assemble on the Prince Consort's birthday and
drink to his memory.
Lower down stands a representation of the noble figure of the Prince,
attended by his greyhound, Eos. On another spur of the same hill is an
obelisk, erected by the tenantry and servants to the master who had
their interests so deeply at heart.
The castle, like its smaller predecessor of which this pile of
building has taken the place, stands in a haugh or meadow at the foot
of a hill, within a circle of mountain-tops. The porter's ledge and
gate might belong to the hunting-seat of any gentleman of taste and
means; only the fact that, even when her Majesty is not in residence,
a constable of police is in attendance, marks the difference between
sovereign and subject.
Within the gate the surroundings are still wild and rural, in keeping
with nature free and unshackled, and have a faint flavour of German
parks where the mowing-machine is not always at work, but a sweet
math of wild flowers three or four feet high is supposed to cheat the
dweller in courtly palaces into a belief that he too is at liberty to
breathe the fresh air without thought or care, and roam where he will,
free from the fetters of form and etiquette.
Great innocent moon-daises, sprightly harebells, sturdy heather, bloom
profusely and seem much at home within these royal precincts, under
the brow of the hills and within sight and sound of the flashing Dee.
Gradually the natural birch wood shows more traces of cultivation, and
is interspersed with such trees and shrubs as suit the climate, and
the rough pasture gives place to the smooth lawn, with a knot of
bright flower-beds on one side.
The house is built of reddish granite in what is called the baronial
style, with a sprinkling of peaked gables and pepper-box turrets, and
a square tower with a clock which is said to keep the time all over
the parish. Above the principal entrance are the coats of arms,
carved, coloured, and picked out with gold. There are two bas-reliefs
serving to indicate the character of the building--a hunting-lodge
under the patronage of St. Hubert, supported by St. Andrew of Scotland
and St. George of England, the stag between whose antlers the sacred
cross sprang, forming part of the representation. The other bas-relief
shows groups of men engaged in Highland games.
Within doors many a relic of the chase appears in antlered heads
surmounting inscriptions in brass of the date of the slaying of the
stag and the name of the slayer. The engravings on the walls are
mostly of mountain landscapes and sporting scenes, in which Landseer's
hand is prominent, and of family adventures in making this ascent or
crossing that ford.
The furniture is as Scotch as may be--chairs and tables, with few
exceptions, of polished birch hangings and carpets with the tartan
check on the velvet pile, the royal "sets" in all their bewildering
variety: "royal Stewart," strong in scarlet; "Victoria," with the
check relieved on a white ground; "Albert," on a deep blue, and
"hunting Stewart," which suddenly passes into a soft vivid green,
crossed by lines of red and yellow.
Drawing-room, dining-room, billiard-room, and library are spacious
enough for royalty, while small enough for comfort when royalty is in
happy retreat in little more than a large family circle rusticating
from choice. The corridors look brown and simple, like the rest of the
house, and lack the white statuary of Osborne, and the superb vases,
cabinets, and pictures of Buckingham Palace and Windsor. By the
chimney-piece in the entrance hall rest the tattered colours once
borne through flood and field by two famous regiments, one of them
"the Cameronians."
In the drawing-room is a set of chairs with covers in needlework sewed
by a cluster of industrious ladies-in-waiting. In the library hangs a
richly wrought wreath of flowers in porcelain, an offering from
Messrs. Minton to the Queen. On the second story are the private rooms
of her Majesty and the different members of the royal family. Perhaps
the ballroom, a long hall, one story in height, running out from the
building like an afterthought, is one of the most picturesque features
of the place. The decorations consist of devices placed at intervals
on the walls. These devices are made up of Highland weapons, Highland
plaids, Highland bonnets bearing the chief's feather or the badge of
the clan. Doubtless tufts of purple heather and russet bracken, with
bunches of the coral berries of the rowan, will supplement other
adornments as the occasion calls for them; and when the lights gleam,
the pipers strike up, and the nimble dancers foot it with grace and
glee through reel [Footnote: "Yesterday we had the Gillies' Ball, at
which Arthur distinguished himself and was greatly applauded in the
Highland reels. Next to Jamie Gow, he was the 'favourite in the
room.'"--Extract from one of the Prince Consort's letters.] and sword-
dance, the effect must be excellent of its kind. For long years the
balls at Balmoral have been mostly kindly festivals to the humble
friends who look forward to the royal visits as to the galas of the
year, the greater part of which is spent in a remote solitude not
without the privations which accompany a northern winter.
The parish church of Crathie, a little, plain, white building, well
situated on a green, wooded knoll, looks across the Dee to Balmoral.
The church is notable for its wide, red-covered gallery seats, to
which the few plain pews in the area below bear a small proportion.
The Queen's arms are in front of the gallery, which contains her seat
and that of the Prince of Wales. Opposite are two stained-glass
windows, representing King David with his harp, and St. Paul with the
sword of the Spirit and the word of God, gifts of the Queen in memory
of her sister, the Princess of Hohenlohe, and of Dr. Norman Macleod.
Famous speakers and still more famous hearers have worshipped together
in this simple little country church. Macleod, Tulloch, Caird,
Macgregor--the foremost orators in the Church of Scotland--have taken
their turn with the scholarly parish minister, while in the pews,
bearing royalty company, have sat statesmen and men of letters of whom
the world has heard: Lord Derby, Mr. Gladstone, Dean Stanley, Sir
Arthur Helps, &c., &c.
The old churchyard in which John Brown, the Queen's trusty Scotch
servant, faithful as a squire of old, sleeps, lies down in the low
land near the Dee. John Brown's house, solid and unpretending like the
man himself, which he only occupied once, when his coffin lay for a
night in the dining-room, is in the neighbourhood.
The Queen has white cottages not far from the castle gate, built on
the model of the Osborne cottages, pretty and convenient homes of
keepers, keepers' widows, &c., &c., with the few artisans whose
services are necessary for the small population. There are other
cottages of the old, homely sort, containing no more than "the butt
and the benn" of stereotyped Scotch architecture, with the fire made
of "peats" or of sticks on the hearth-floor. In some of these, the
walls of the better rooms are covered with good plates and photographs
of every member of the royal family, with whose lineaments we are
familiar, from the widowed Queen to the last royal couple among her
grandchildren. These likenesses are much-valued gifts from the
originals.
As a nucleus to the cottages, there is _the_ shop or Highland
store with a wide door and a couple of counters representing two
branches of trade in the ordinarily distinct departments of groceries
and haberdashery. Probably this is the one shop in her Majesty's
domains in which, as we have evidence in her journal, [Footnote: "Life
in the Highlands"--Queen's journal. "Albert went out with Alfred for
the day, and I walked out with the two girls and Lady Churchill,
stopped at the shop and made some purchases for poor people and
others. Drove a little way, got out and walked up the hill to
_Balnacroft_, Mrs. P. Farquharson's, and she walked round with us
to some of the cottages to show me where the poor people lived, and to
tell them who I was.... I went into a small cabin of old Kitty Kear's,
who is eighty-six years old, quite erect, and who welcomed us with a
great air of dignity. She sat down and spun. I gave her, also, a warm
petticoat; she said, 'May the Lord ever attend ye and yours, here and
hereafter, and may the Lord be a guide to ye and keep ye from all
harm.' ... We went into three other cottages--to Mrs. Symons's
(daughter-in-law to the old widow living next door) who had an 'unwell
boy,' then across a little burn to another old woman's, and afterwards
peeped into Blair's, the fiddler. We drove back and got out again to
visit old Mrs. Grant (Grant's mother), who is so tidy and clean, and
to whom I gave a dress and a handkerchief; and she said, 'You're too
kind to me, you're over kind to me, ye give me more every year, and I
get older every year.' After talking some time to her, she said, 'I am
happy to see ye looking so nice.' She had tears in her eyes, and
speaking of Vicky's going said, 'I'm very sorry, and I think she is
sorry hersel'.'..."] she avails herself of the feminine privilege of
shopping. For the Queen can live the life of a private lady--can show
herself the most considerate and sympathetic of noble gentlewomen in
this primitive locality. She can walk or drive her ponies, or visit on
foot her commissioner or her minister, or look in at her school, or
call on her sick, aged, and poor, and take to them the comforts she
has provided for them, the tokens of her remembrance they prize so
much. She can enjoy their simple friendliness and native shrewdness.
She can read to them words of lofty promise and tender consolation.
She can do all as if she were not crowned Queen and ruler of a great
kingdom. In hardly any other part of her empire would such pleasant
familiar intercourse and gentle personal charities be possible for
her. The association has been deepened and strengthened by a duration
of more than thirty years. The Queen came while still a young wife to
Balmoral, and she has learnt to love and be loved by her neighbours in
the long interval which leaves her a royal widow of threescore. Her
children were fair-haired little boys and girls, making holiday here,
playing at riding and shooting, getting into scrapes like other
children, [Footnote: There is a story told of one of the little
princes having chased an old woman's hen and been soundly scolded by
her for the offence. Her neighbours remonstrated with her, and her
heart failed her when, a few days afterwards, she saw the Prince
Consort coming up the path to her house leading the small offender.
But the visit was one of courteous deprecation, in order that the
little hunter of forbidden game might personally apologise for his
delinquency.] prattling to the old women in "mutches" and "short
gowns," whose houses were so charmingly queer and convenient, with the
fires on the hearths to warm cold little toes, and the shadowy nooks
ready for hide-and-seek. These children are now older than their
mother was when she first came up Dee-side, heads of houses in their
turn, but they have not forgotten the friends of their youth.
The rustic community is pervaded in an odd and fascinating manner with
the fine flavour of a Court. It has, as it were, a touch of Arcady.
Among tales of the great storms and fragments of old legends, curious
reflections of high life and gossip of lords and ladies crop up. Not
only are noble names and distinguished personages, everyday sounds and
friendly acquaintances in this privileged region, but when the great
world follows its liege lady here, it is to live in _villiagiatura_, to
copy her example in adapting itself to the ways of the place and in
cultivating the natives. Courtiers are only courtly in being frankly at
ease with the whole human race. Ladies-in-waiting and maids of honour
lose their pride of rank and worldly ambition--if they ever had any,
stroll about, drop into this or that cottage at will, and have their
cronies there as in loftier localities. We hear of this or that
marriage, which has yet to be announced in the _Morning Post_; how a
noble duke, who was conveniently in attendance on the Prince, once
walked with a fair and gentle lady, whose father was in waiting on the
Queen, through the birch woods and by the brawling Dee, and a marriage,
only too shortlived, came of it. And we end by listening to the piteous
details of the swift fading away of the much-loved young duchess. Other
names, with which the Court Calendar has made us familiar, are
constantly coming to the surface in the conversation, generally in
association with some act of cheery good fellowship. The son of an earl
found a dog for his mother at one of these cottage hearths, and never
returned to the neighbourhood without punctually reporting himself to
tell its old mistress how well her former pet was thriving--that it had
its dinner with the family in the dining-room, and drove every day with
the countess in her carriage.
The fine old white house of Abergeldie, with its single-turreted
tower, has become the Scotch home of a genial prince and a beautiful
princess, who, we may remember, remained steadfastly settled there
during the darkening, shortening days of a gloomy autumn, in devoted
watch over her lady-in-waiting lying sick, nigh unto death with fever.
Abergeldie has another cherished memory, that of the good old Duchess
of Kent, for whom Prince Albert first rented the castle, who often
stayed in it, accompanied by her son, the Prince of Leiningen, her
daughter, the Princess of Hohenlohe, or some member of their families.
The peculiar cradle which used to be swung across the Dee here,
conveying passengers as well as parcels, has been removed in
consequence of the last disaster which befell its progress. An earlier
tragedy of a hapless bride and bridegroom who perished in making the
passage is still remembered. Remoter traditions, like that of the
burning of a witch on Craig-na-Ban, linger in the neighbourhood.
Beyond Balmoral, in the Braemar direction, stretches the fine deer-
forest--a great fir-wood on broken ground--of Ballochbuie, a remnant of
the old forest of Mar, where a pretended hunting expedition meant a
projected rebellion. It is said an earl of that name bestowed it on a
Farquaharson in exchange for so small a matter as a plaid. It is now
part of the estate of Balmoral. The hills of Craig Nortie and Meal
Alvie lie not far off, while on the opposite side rise Craig-na-Ban
and Craig Owsel.
Of all the Queen's haunts, that which she has made most her own, where
she has stayed for a day or two at a time, seeming to prefer to do so
when the hills have received their first powdering of snow, [Footnote:
"A little shower of snow had fallen, but was succeeded by brilliant
sunshine. The hills covered with snow, the golden birch-trees on the
lower brown hills, and the bright afternoon sky, were indescribably
beautiful"--Extract from the Queen's journal.] almost every year
during her residence in Aberdeenshire, is that which includes Alt-na-
Giuthasach and the Glassalt Shiel. This retreat is now reached by a
good carriage-road over a long tract of moorland among brown hills,
opening now and then in different directions to show vistas closed in
by the giant heads and shoulders--here of dark Loch-na-Gar, there of
Ben Macdhui, both of them presenting great white splashes on their
seamed and scarred sides--wide patches of winter snow on this July
day, far more than usual at the season, which will not melt now while
the year lasts. "Burns," the Girnoch and the Muich, trot by turns
along with us, singing their stories, half blythe, half plaintive.
Once or twice a lowly farmhouse has a few grass or oat-fields spread
out round it, with the solitude of the hills beyond. A cross-road to
such a house was so bad that a dog-cart brought up to it, had been
unyoked and left by the side of the main road, while its occupants
trudged to their destination on foot, leading with them the horse,
which needed rest and refreshment still more than its masters. The
blue waters of Loch Muich come in sight with bare precipitous hills
round; a little wood clothes the mouth of the pass and the loch, and
helps to shelter Alt-na-Ginthasach. The hut is now the Prince of
Wales's small shooting-lodge. The modest blue stone building, with its
brown wooden porch and its offices behind, is built on a knoll, and
commands a beautiful view of the loch and the steep rocky crags to
those who care for nature at the wildest. The only vestige of soft
green is the knoll on which the hut stands. All the rest is bleak and
brown, or purple when the heather is in bloom. The hills, torn by the
winter torrents, are glistening after a summer shower with a hundred
silver threads in the furrows of the watercourses.
There are fences and gates to the royal domicile, but there is hardly
an attempt to alter its character within, unless by a round plot of
rhododendrons offering a few late blossoms. But all nature, however
stern and savage, smiles on a July day. The purple heather-bell is in
bloom, the tiny blue milkwort and the yellow rock-rose help to make a
summer carpet which is rendered still gayer by many a pale peach-
coloured orchis and by an occasional spray of wild roses, deeper in
the rose than the same flower is in the low countries, or by a tall
white foxglove. Loch Muich may be desolation itself when the heather
and bracken are sere, when the lowering sky breathes nothing save
gloom, and chill mist-wreaths creep round its precipices; but when the
air is buoyant in its tingling sharpness, when the dappled white
clouds are reflected in water--blue, not leaden, and there is enough
sunshine to cast intermittent shadows on the hillsides and the loch,
though a transient darkness and a patter of raindrops vary the scene,
it has its day and way of blossoming.
The Queen's house or shiel of the Glassalt stands near the head of the
two miles long loch, just beyond the point where the Glassalt burn
comes leaping and dashing down the hillside. Here, too, is a small
sheltering fir and birch plantation, though not large enough to hide
the full view of the sentinel hills. A "roundel" of _Alpenrosen_,
or dwarf rhododendrons, is the only break in the growth of moss and
heather. The loch is so near the house that a stone thrown by a
child's hand from the windows of the principal rooms would fall into
the watery depths.
The interior is almost as simple and limited in accommodation as Alt-
na-Giuthasach was when the Queen described it in her journal. The
dining-room and drawing-room might, in old fashioned language, be
called "royal closets"--cosy and sweet with chintz hangings and covers
to chairs and couches, a small cottage piano, a book-tray in which
Hill Burton's "History of Scotland" and Sir Walter Scott's "Tales of a
Grandfather," find their place among Scotch poetry old and new. The
engravings on the walls tell of that fidelity to the dead which
implies truth to the living. There are likenesses of the Prince--who
died before this house was built, as in the great palaces; the Duchess
of Hesse--best known in the north as Princess Alice; the Princess of
Hohenlohe, with her handsome matronly face, full of sense and
kindness, and her young daughter, Princess Elise, who passed away in
the springtime of her life. In these rustic sitting-rooms and the
adjacent bedrooms and dressing-rooms we come again on many a portrait
of the humble friends of the family--the dogs which we seem to know so
well; the early group of little Dash and big Nero, and Hector with the
parrot Lorey; Cairnach, Islay, Deckel, &c. [Footnote: An anecdote of
the royal kennels states that when no notice has been given, the
servants shall know of her Majesty's presence in the vicinity, and
will say among themselves, "The Queen is at Frogmore" by the actions
of the dogs, the stir and excitement, the eager listening, sniffing of
the air, wagging of tails, and common desire to break bounds and
scamper away to greet their royal mistress.]
Behind the house a winding footpath leads up the hill to the rocky
cleft from which issues in a succession of white and foamy twists and
downward springs, the Falls of the Glassalt. Turning round from the
spectacle, the stranger looks down on the loch in its semicircle of
mountains. Gaining the crest of the hill and descending the edge on
the opposite side, the foot of the grim giant Loch-na-Gar is reached.
Among the visitors at Balmoral in 1858 was Florence Nightingale. The
Queen had before this presented her with a jewel in remembrance of her
services in the Crimea. The design was as follows: a field of white
enamel was charged with a St. George's cross in ruby red enamel, from
which shot rays of gold. This field was encircled by a black band
bearing the scroll "Blessed are the merciful." The shield was set in a
framework of palm-branches in green enamel tipped with gold, and
united at the bottom by a riband of blue enamel inscribed "Crimea" in
gold letters. The cypher V.R. surmounted by a crown in diamonds, was
charged upon the centre of the cross. On the back was a gold tablet
which bore an inscription from the hand of her Majesty.
While the Queen was in Scotland the marriage in Germany of one of the
daughters of the Princess of Hohenlohe took place. Princess Adelaide,
like her sister Princess Elise, possessed of many attractions, became
the wife of Prince Frederick of Schleswig Holstein Sonderberg-
Augustenberg, the brother of Prince Christian, destined to become the
husband of Princess Helena.