MORE RECOLLECTIONS OF AN EQUERRY
In 1906 I came in for a most interesting cruise in the Royal Yacht,
which took me further afield than I had been for many a long year, for
early in April the King and Queen and Princess Victoria joined the
Royal Yacht at Marseilles for a cruise in Eastern waters.
The voyage cannot be said to have commenced auspiciously, as the
yacht was compelled to remain for four days at Marseilles, whilst
weatherbound by an atrocious gale. However, nothing lasts for ever,
and eventually the gale came to an end, so by the 8th of the month the
yacht was on her way to Messina, at which port she arrived early next
day. Taormina, the beautiful, being within easy reach, had, of course,
to be visited. It was always a pleasure to me to see it again; but I
knew the place well, having been there in the old _Surprise_ days, and
later, in the course of a winter trip to Sicily.
From Messina it was only a short journey to Corfu, and there the Royal
Yacht was to spend some days not only in very beautiful, but also
amongst very interesting surroundings. To commence with, the King of
the Hellenes was there with a number of his family on board his yacht
the _Amphitrite_; the Prince and Princess of Wales, on their way home
from India, were on board the _Renown_; and, finally, the Mediterranean
Fleet was at anchor in the bay under the command of the late Lord
Beresford, flying his flag from the masthead of H.M.S. _Bulwark_.
Various entertainments were given on board the flagship in the shape
of dinners, and we were also shown a good deal of what was then the
new Navy, for even as late as 1906 the Fleet in the Mediterranean was
our most up-to-date Naval asset, and its command was still looked
upon as the most important in the Navy. Except for the great beauty
of the island itself, there is nothing very remarkable in the way of
sight-seeing to be done at Corfu, so in default of any other short
excursion, the Achilleion was frequently visited; the house itself
consists of a sort of rather tawdry villa, built in what is evidently
meant to be a Pompeian style, the whole edifice being extremely ugly
and characteristically German in taste. But there criticism ends, for
as regards situation, and the view from the garden, it is absolutely
beautiful. From where the statue of Achilles stands, from which the
villa takes its name, one can see right over the little town of Corfu,
with its charming old Venetian fort, and Ulysses' Island, enshrined in
a most beautiful bay, the whole view being rounded off by a background,
consisting of the mountains of Albania.
In fact, Corfu is a very charming place, and I always wonder that more
people do not winter there; it has a delightful climate, the scenery
is superb, the roads we made during our long occupation of the island,
although sadly neglected by their present owners, make excursions in
all directions still feasible. On the other hand, islands are always
troublesome to arrive at, and get away from, and there is no such
thing as a Casino there, though were it to become a fashionable winter
resort, that necessity (?) would doubtless be soon provided by some
enterprising Greek syndicate.
After four or five pleasant days at Corfu, the _Victoria and Albert_
proceeded to the Piræus, and on her arrival there, the King and Queen
and Princess Victoria and the suite left Piræus for Athens, and took up
their temporary residence at the palace.
Shortly after our King's arrival, the Olympic games, that were intended
to be a sort of International Sporting Tournament, to be held in turn
in various Capitals, were inaugurated in the new Stadium that had been
built for the occasion. The Stadium, in another thousand years or so,
when the white marble of which it is built has become coloured and
patinaed with age, may become beautiful; but to my mind, nothing is
so hideous as the staring white, of brand-new marble, and the Stadium
at Athens was no exception. It was of huge size, and being new, could
look like nothing in the world but a wedding cake. Personally, I am
not fond of looking on at what are called "sports," especially when
they consist largely in teams of extremely well-drilled and well-set-up
athletes doing, what used to be called in the Navy "physical drill,"
and a large part of the competition seemed made up of these exercises,
which are, I fancy, very popular in Germany and among the Northern
races generally. But one very interesting competition I did see, that
took place outside the Stadium in a garden in the vicinity; for there
the English team of épéeists (if there is such a word!) encountered the
German representatives, and to our great joy soundly trounced them. Our
team was headed by Lord Desborough, and eventually fought its way into
the final, in which they were defeated, after a very close contest, I
think, by the Belgians. The particular bout that delighted me, was one
between Lord Desborough, and a remarkably corpulent German expert, who
received such a prodding from his powerful and active antagonist that,
in spite of the plastron and the button on the épée, I fully expected
to see daylight let into the Teutonic "corpulency"!
Towards the end of the month, the Royal Yacht was once more under
weigh, anchoring for a night at Katakolo to enable a visit to be paid
to Olympia. I had been several times to Athens before, but never had
managed to get to Olympia, which is really very difficult of access.
To get there in any comfort a yacht is required, supplemented by a
short railway journey and a long drive, and as the hotel--or rather the
village inn--is quite remarkably bad, the whole expedition has to be
compressed into the inside of a day. With a yacht at one's disposal,
there is no great difficulty, and indeed the actual journey by sea from
Athens to the anchorage in Katakolo Bay is a very pleasant one, and
wonderfully lovely as to scenery. Athens itself is more beautiful when
seen from the sea than from any other aspect, and, after going through
the Corinth Canal, the Gulf of Corinth, which is never more than about
thirty miles across at its broadest portion, provides a succession of
views whose beauty, both as to colour and to outline, are difficult
to over-estimate. Olympia itself is wonderfully interesting. When the
original town was at the height of its fame, with its wealth of temples
and shrines, to say nothing of the most important feature of all,--the
Stadium for the Olympic games,--it must have been one of the wonders of
the world. Much has been done in the way of excavation, so, from the
summit of Kronos Hill, just to the north of the town, which lies in a
sort of natural amphitheatre, it is possible to form some sort of idea
of what its appearance must have been, when Olympia was in its glory.
But, to my mind, far more beautiful than anything else there, and alone
worth any length of journey to see, is the Hermes of Praxiteles that
is safely lodged in the little museum. This statue was, I believe,
found some twenty or thirty years ago by an excavating party, and was
lying at the bottom of the little stream which is still dignified
with the name of the River Alphios. It is exquisitely beautiful. The
slight turn of the head that enables the Hermes to glance at the lovely
little Bacchus perched on his shoulder, the beauty of every detail, and
the wonderful patina, perhaps produced by the many hundreds of years
immersion, make up altogether what is, in my poor judgment, far the
most attractive, if not the finest, statue in the world. I remember
how difficult it was to tear oneself away from this wonderful group,
and how almost disagreeable it was to look at anything else in the
museum, though, as a matter of fact, not far from it stands the Niké
of Paconios, which is extremely fine, and there are also a quantity of
interesting fragments; but the Hermes is so compellingly wonderful,
that everything else under the same roof seems to be second-class.
Altogether the trip to Olympia was an immense delight, and even the
names on the signposts were attractive. There was something very
pleasant in driving, (even in a shandrydan of a Greek fly), down the
road to Arcadia!
From Katakolo the Royal Yacht proceeded to Naples, at which port the
King disembarked for Paris and London, the Queen and Princess Victoria
remaining on board for a further cruise on the Italian coast.
Later in the year I was present at Buckingham Palace at a rather
mournful little ceremony. Under the new Army Organisation Scheme,
it had been decided to disband the 3rd Battalion of the Scots
Guards. Naturally, the officers and men of the battalion were much
distressed at their disappearance from the Army List, and, as some
sort of consolation, the King took the opportunity of parading them
at Buckingham Palace, so as to take leave of them, accepting, at the
same time, the custody of their colours. This fine battalion paraded
under the command of Colonel Lawrence Drummond, their Colonel. After
the parade, the colours were handed over by the colour party to the
two Equerries-in-Waiting, and by them were duly placed in the private
chapel of the palace, where I have no doubt they remained until the
late war, when a third battalion was reformed.
Early in 1907 I was once more in Paris in attendance on the King and
Queen, who took the opportunity of paying a week's visit to that
Capital. With the exception of a luncheon with the President, there
were no official functions, and for once in a way it was a real holiday
for their Majesties. The King and Queen occupied the Embassy during the
whole of their visit, the Ambassador and Ambassadress (then the late
Sir Francis and Lady Feodorovna Bertie) taking up their residence for
the time at the Hôtel Bristol.
The British Embassy in Paris is worthy of a few words of description,
both on account of its historical interest and its magnificence as a
residence. I question whether many of my countrymen realise what a
bargain was made by the nation, when it was purchased for something
under £30,000, its value before the late war being estimated at about
a quarter of a million sterling. It was bought on the advice of the
Duke of Wellington during the occupation of Paris by the Allies after
Waterloo, and was at the time the Paris home of the Prince and Princess
Borghese, the Princess being the beautiful Pauline, a sister of the
great Napoleon.
It is most conveniently situated for an official residence, standing
as it does, to use the French expression, "entre cour et jardin," with
its entrance on the Rue du Faubourg St. Honoré, only a very few hundred
yards from the Palace of the Élysée, the official residence of the
President of the French Republic. The garden is unusually large for
a Paris house, extending its border almost to the Avenue des Champs
Élysées.
The interior of the "hotel" (to again use the French term) is very
magnificent, decorated profusely in the approved style of the period
of its occupation by Pauline Borghese, and consequently filled with
fine specimens of Empire furniture, decoration, and bibelots, extending
even to a fine dinner-service of gold plate. The proportions of the
great reception and dining-rooms on the ground floor are very imposing,
and they contain some remarkably good specimens of mantelpieces and
_garnitures de cheminées_ of bronze and ormolu.
Just at the top of the great staircase is the small dining-room that
was used by the King and Queen for private luncheons and dinners.
This little room is hung with some early seventeenth-century Gobelin
tapestries, which were sent over in the late Lord Bertie's time by our
Foreign Office for cleaning and restoration; at his request they were,
after their treatment, allowed to remain there, and are the principal
ornament of the small dining-room to this day. The State bed-rooms
were, of course, occupied by the King and Queen during their visit;
the larger of the two is absolutely untouched, and remains exactly as
it was in Pauline Borghese's time. The bed is a splendid specimen of
Empire work, and so are the toilette tables with their hand-chased
bronze medallions. The candelabra on the mantelpiece are especially
beautiful, and there are interesting medallion portraits of Pauline and
her husband on either side of the fire-place.
The drawing-rooms on the first floor were hung with pale amber-yellow
damask, and also contained all their original Empire furniture, with
beautiful candelabra and chimney-pieces. The smaller of the two in
those days was used by the Ambassadress as her sitting-room, and
amongst other interesting pictures there was a portrait of herself and
her sister, Lady Hardwicke, as girls, (they were the daughters of the
Lord Cowley who was a long time Ambassador in Paris, and I fancy that
one, if not both, of the sisters was actually born at the Embassy);
there was also another portrait of Lady Feodorovna Wellesley (as she
was then) dressed as a bridesmaid to Princess Alexandra of Denmark, on
her marriage with the Prince of Wales in 1863.
To proceed with the King and Queen's stay in Paris:--Amongst the
several theatres visited was the Théâtre Sarah Bernhardt, where that
wonderful artist, Madame Bernhardt, was playing in a very pretty little
poetical piece called _Les Bouffons_, and apropos of Madame Bernhardt
and _Les Bouffons_, the conjunction of the two resulted in an extremely
pleasant half-hour for me. I was sent round to see the illustrious
artist in question, on the morning of the performance, to ask her
to put off the hour fixed for the entertainment, to enable their
Majesties, who had a dinner party, to be in time for the beginning.
I had known the great Sarah in England, but very slightly, and on
this occasion when I called at her house, though she evidently had
risen straight from her bed to receive me, she kept me long after our
business had been disposed of, gossiping, and relating all the amusing
cabotinage of Paris, for, besides being a transcendent artist, she was
one of the most agreeable of women.
There was a constant succession of luncheons given in honour of the
distinguished visitors, but the one that remains in my memory was at
the apartment of the late Sir Reginald Lister, then, as Reggie Lister,
the first Secretary of the Embassy. It was quite a small party, but
amongst the guests were Monsieur and Madame Jean de Reszke. Madame
Jean, though nominally only an amateur, was practically a great artist,
and after luncheon was over, she sang as she only could sing. She
possessed one of the most lovely and sympathetic voices I have ever
heard, and was, moreover, a perfectly trained musician; indeed, Jean
always averred that she was a better singer than he, and I can still
remember the enormous pleasure it was to listen to her. I had heard
her before, at one or two of those delightful musical parties that
the late Lady Ripon used so constantly to give at Coombe,--parties,
the like of which I can remember in no other house, and I can never
expect to experience anything comparable to them in the future. For
there all the greatest artists in the world used to sing as they sang
nowhere else, knowing, as they did, that in their hostess alone, to
say nothing of her guests, they had the most sympathetic of audiences,
and, moreover, in her, a kind and constant friend. At so many concerts
where great singers give us of their art, though they cannot help
singing well, there is always a feeling that they are faithfully
performing a contract for which they are paid, and the contract being
completed, are very pleased to have earned their money and to go home
to bed. At Coombe, on the contrary, they sometimes almost fought as to
who was to get to the piano, and the accompanist first. There never
was such a thing as a programme; but they simply sang whatever came
into their heads, or whatever they were asked for, for the popularity
of that very gifted and beautiful lady in musical circles was simply
boundless. I remember once seeing such artists as Destinn, Caruso, and
Scotti, with Signor Ricordi at the piano, with only one book between
the four of them, trying through, what was then, an unheard-of opera in
London,--_Madame Butterfly_. Alas! that those days have gone for ever,
through the untimely death of one of the kindest of my friends, and the
most interesting hostess of my time.
The Paris visit being concluded, the rest of 1907, as far as my duties
were concerned, was spent to a great extent on board the Royal Yacht,
for in July the Royal Family once more embarked on board her at
Holyhead for a visit to Ireland and Wales. After spending the night on
board at Holyhead, Bangor was visited to enable the King to lay the
foundation-stone of the new buildings of the University College of
Wales.
Two days afterwards the _Victoria and Albert_ was at Kingstown, from
which port the King and Queen and Princess Victoria drove to Dublin
for the purpose of visiting the Dublin Exhibition, the Marquis of
Aberdeen being, at that time, Viceroy. To use the usual form of
the Court Circular, during all the driving that was done on this
occasion, and on a subsequent visit to Leopardstown for the races, "the
Equerries-in-Waiting were in attendance on horseback."
I have ridden many miles in my time on these sorts of occasions,
and any one with any sense of humour can get a good deal of fun out
of them, by studying the attitude of the mobs that one has to pass
through; but nothing is half so amusing as an Irish crowd. The Irish
people are always supposed to be the very reverse of loyal, but none
the less they love a show of any kind, and whenever I have been riding
in attendance in Ireland, though passing only an arm's length off the
packed masses of humanity that line the streets, I have never heard a
word, or seen a gesture, of anything that was not at any rate friendly.
The following day the Royal party went by road to the Leopardstown
races. Racing is always good sport in Ireland, even when one is
dressed in an Equerry's riding-kit, which includes a cocked hat,
and when feeling very hot and dusty after having ridden in front of
the escort for several miles on the hard high road. That particular
meeting at Leopardstown produced even more amusement than usual. The
King gave a cup for the winner of an officers' race, for which there
were some thirty starters. There were some fairly decent animals
entered, the property of officers, and ridden by their owners or some
brother officer; but amongst the whole lot there was only one serious
race-horse. This horse had been given by a large race-horse owner to
a departmental officer so short a time before the race, as to call
forth serious comment. Good odds were laid on this animal to win, but
curious things happen in racing, and especially in Ireland. Some of the
young officers who were riding in the race with no particular chance
of winning, but more for the sake of taking part in a very amusing
contest than anything else, had evidently made up their minds, rightly
or wrongly, that the gift was not a very genuine one, and that whatever
won, they would take care that this particular horse did not. And he
did not! At the start, a sort of zareba of horses was formed round him,
and after the flag was dropped, curiously enough, whenever he seemed
to have a chance of getting through his horses, and taking his place,
he was invariably unlucky in being knocked into, and eventually came
in with the ruck. An Irish crowd loves and understands racing, and is
endowed with the keenest sense of humour, and the shouts of laughter
that went up to heaven during this contest did one good to hear.
After leaving Kingstown, the Royal Yacht steamed up the Bristol Channel
on her way to Cardiff. It was a lovely morning and full of interest
to me, as I could recognise many of my old haunts when passing; such
as Hartland, Lundy Island, beautiful Clovelly,--where, from boyhood
onwards, I have spent some of the happiest days of my life,--and the
outline of Exmoor, where I had so often hunted in my boyhood and youth.
The function at Cardiff consisted in the formal opening of the new
Alexandra Docks, and, later on, after lunching with Lord and Lady Bute
at their great house, which is literally within the town of Cardiff,
a special non-stop train ran the Royal party up to London in time
for dinner. I am afraid to say at what pace the train must have been
running. I only know that the permanent way of the Great Western is so
well laid that there was no shaking; we might have been pottering along
at thirty miles an hour instead of at considerably over double that
speed.
In August the Royal Yacht was again in full commission for Cowes, and
the opportunity was taken of paying a visit to the then brand-new
_Dreadnought_, and going outside the island in her, to see the
target-practice of the then, also new, 12-inch guns. To me, of course,
it was very interesting, and the visitors on board (there was quite
a large party, amongst which were a great number of ladies, who
came by the invitation of their Majesties) were, I think, agreeably
disappointed in the noise made by the firing, which was nothing like so
ferocious as had been generally expected.
And so ended the year 1907 as far as Court duties were concerned.