Books: Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1.

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When the worst was over without harm done, "We felt as if a load had been
taken off our hearts," wrote the Prince, "and we thanked the Almighty for
having preserved us a second time from so great a danger." The Prince
added, "Uncle Mensdorff [Footnote: The Duchess of Kent's eldest sister
married a private gentleman, originally a French _emigre_, afterwards
a distinguished officer in the Austrian service. His sons were Prince
Albert's early companions and intimate friends.] and mamma were driving
close behind us. The Duchess Bernhard of Weimar was on horseback--not
sixty paces from us."

It was said that when the Queen arrived at the Palace and met the Duchess
of Kent, whom Count Mensdorff had conducted thither, the poor mother was
deeply affected and fell upon her daughter's neck with a flood of tears,
"while the Queen endeavoured to reassure her with cheerful words and
affectionate caresses." Indeed the Queen was greatly relieved, and in the
reaction she recovered her spirits. She wrote to the King of the Belgians
the day afterwards, "I was really not at all frightened, and feel very
proud at dear Uncle Mensdorff calling me 'very courageous,' which I shall
ever remember with peculiar pride, coming from so distinguished an officer
as he is." We may mention that the general impression made on the public
by the Queen's bearing under these treacherous attacks was that of her
utter fearlessness and strength of nerve; a corresponding idea, which we
think quite mistaken, was that the Prince showed himself the more nervous
of the two.

A great crowd assembled to cheer the Queen when she drove out on the
following day. "One long shout of hurrahs," with waving of hats and
handkerchiefs, greeted her. She bowed and smiled and appeared calm and
collected, though somewhat flushed; but when she came back from what is
described as like a triumphal progress, it was observed that, in spite of
her gratification, she looked pale and not so well as she had done on the
day preceding the attack. The bravest heart in a woman's breast could not
surmount unmoved such an ordeal; she was at the Italian Opera the same
evening, however, and heard the national anthem interrupted at every line
by bursts of cheering.

In this case, as in the other, the offender was a mere lad, little over
twenty, named John Francis. He was the son of a stage-carpenter, and had
himself been a young carpenter who had led an irregular life, and been
guilty of dishonesty. He behaved at first with much coolness and
indifference, jeering at the magistrates. Francis was tried in the month
of June for high treason, and sentenced to death, when his bluster ceased,
and he fell back in a fainting fit in the arms of the turnkey.

The Queen was exceedingly anxious that the sentence should not be
executed, though "fully conscious of the encouragement to similar
attempts--which might follow from such leniency," and the sentence of
death was commuted to banishment for life.

On the very day after the commutation of the sentence had been announced,
Sunday, the 3rd of July, the Queen was again fired at as she sat by the
side of her uncle, King Leopold, on her way to the Chapel Royal, St.
James's. The pistol missed fire, and the man who presented it, a
hunchback, was seized by a boy of sixteen called Dasset. So ridiculous did
the group seem, that the very policemen pushed away both captor and
captive as actors in a bad practical joke. Then the boy Dasset, who
retained the pistol, was in danger of being taken up as the real culprit,
trying to throw the blame upon another. At last several witnesses proved
the true state of the case. The pistol was discovered to contain only
powder, paper, and some bits of a tobacco-pipe rammed together. On
examination it was found that the hunchback, another miserable lad named
Bean, was a chemist's assistant, who had written a letter to his father
declaring that he "would never see him again, as he intended doing
something which was not dishonest, but desperate."

The Queen was not aware of Bean's attempt till she came back from St.
James's, "when she betrayed no alarm, but said she had expected a
repetition of the attempts on her life, so long as the law remained
unaltered by which they could be dealt with only as acts of high treason."

"Sir Robert Peel hurried up from Cambridge on hearing what had occurred,
to consult with the Prince as to the steps to be taken. During this
interview her Majesty entered the room, when the Minister, in public so
cold and self-controlled, in reality so full of genuine feeling, out of
his very manliness, was unable to control his emotion, and burst into
tears;" [Footnote: "Life of the Prince Consort"] an honourable sequel to
the difficulties and misunderstanding which had heralded the Premier's
entrance on office.

It was, indeed, high time that a suitable provision should be made to meet
what seemed likely to be a new and base abuse of Royal clemency.

In the meantime, Prince Albert's fair and fearless treatment of the whole
matter was very remarkable. He wrote that he could imagine the
circumstance of Bean's attempt being made the day after Francis received
his pardon would excite much surprise in Germany. But the Prince was
satisfied that Bean's letter making known his intention had been written
days before. Prince Albert was convinced that, as the law then stood,
Francis's execution, notwithstanding the verdict of the jury, would have
been nothing less than a judicial murder, as it was essential that the act
should be committed with intent to kill or wound, and in Francis's case
this, to all appearance, was not the fact; at least it was open to grave
doubt. There was no proof that Francis's pistol was loaded. "In this calm
and wise way," observes Mr. Justin M'Carthy, "did the husband of the
Queen, who had always shared with her whatever of danger there might be in
the attempts, argue as to the manner in which they ought to be dealt
with." The historian adds, "The ambition which moved most or all the
miscreants who thus disturbed the Queen and the country, was that of the
mountebank rather than the assassin." It merited contempt no less than
severity. A bill was brought forward on the 12th of July, and passed on
the 16th, making such attacks punishable, as high misdemeanours, by
transportation for seven years, or imprisonment with or without hard
labour for a term not exceeding three years; the culprit to be publicly or
privately whipped as often and in such manner and form as the court shall
direct, not exceeding thrice. Bean was tried by this law on the 25th of
August, and sentenced to eighteen months' imprisonment.

One of the attractions of the season was the reappearance of Rachel,
ravishing all hearts by her acting of Camille in _Les Horaces_, and
winning ovations of every kind up to roses dropped from the Queen's
bouquet.

Mendelssohn was also in London, and went to Buckingham Palace. He has left
a charming account of one of his visits in a letter to his mother. "I must
tell you," he writes, "all the details of my last visit to Buckingham
Palace.... It is, as G. says, the one really pleasant and thoroughly
comfortable English house where one feels _a son aise_. Of course I
do know a few others, but yet on the whole I agree with him. Joking apart,
Prince Albert had asked me to go to him on Saturday at two o'clock, so
that I might try his organ before I left England; I found him alone, and
as we were talking away, the Queen came in, also alone, in a simple
morning-dress. She said she was obliged to leave for Claremont in an hour,
and then, suddenly interrupting herself, exclaimed, 'But, goodness, what a
confusion!' for the wind had littered the whole room, and even the pedals
of the organ (which, by the way, made a very pretty picture in the room),
with leaves of music from a large portfolio that lay open. As she spoke
she knelt down, and began picking up the music; Prince Albert helped, and
I too was not idle. Then Prince Albert proceeded to explain the stops to
me, and she said that she would meanwhile put things straight.

"I begged that the Prince would first play me something, so that, as I
said, I might boast about it in Germany. He played a chorale by heart,
with the pedals, so charmingly, and clearly, and correctly, that it would
have done credit to any professional; and the Queen, having finished her
work, came and sat by him and listened, and looked pleased. Then it was
my turn, and I began my chorus from _St. Paul_, "How lovely are the
messengers." Before I got to the end of the first verse they both joined
in the chorus, and all the time Prince Albert managed the stops for me so
cleverly--first a flute, at the _forte_ the great organ, at the D
major part the whole register, then he made a lovely _diminuendo_
with the stops, and so on to the end of the piece, and all by heart--that
I was really quite enchanted. Then the young Prince of Gotha came in, and
there was more chatting; and the Queen asked if I had written any new
songs, and said she was very fond of singing my published ones. 'You
should sing one to him,' said Prince Albert, and after a little begging
she said she would try the 'Fruhlingslied' in B flat. 'If it is still
here,' she added, 'for all my music is packed up for Claremont.' Prince
Albert went to look for it, but came back saying it was already packed.
'But one might, perhaps, unpack it,' said I. 'We must send for Lady
----,' she said (I did not catch the name). So the bell was rung, and the
servants were sent after it, but without success; and at last the Queen
went herself, and while she was gone, Prince Albert said to me, 'She begs
you will accept this present as a remembrance,' and gave me a little case
with a beautiful ring, on which is engraved 'V. R., 1842.'

"Then the Queen came back and said, ' Lady ---- is gone, and has taken all
my things with her. It really is most annoying.' You can't think how that
amused me. I then begged that I might not be made to suffer for the
accident, and hoped she would sing another song. After some consultation
with her husband, he said, 'She will sing you something of Gluck's.'
Meantime, the Princess of Gotha had come in, and we five proceeded through
various corridors and rooms to the Queen's sitting-room. The Duchess of
Kent came in too, and while they were all talking, I rummaged about
amongst the music, and soon discovered my first set of songs; so, of
course, I begged her rather to sing one of those than the Gluck, to which
she very kindly consented; and which did she choose? '_Schoner und
schoner schmuck sich_,' sang it quite charmingly, in strict time and
tune, and with very good execution. Only in the line '_Der Prosa Lasten
und muh_,' where it goes down to D, and then comes up again by
semi-tones, she sang D sharp each time, and as I gave her the note the two
first times, the last time she sang D, where it ought to have been D
sharp. But with the exception of this little mistake it was really
charming, and the last long G I have never heard better, or purer, or more
natural, from any amateur. Then I was obliged to confess that Fanny had
written the song (which I found very hard; but pride must have a fall),
and to beg her to sing one of my own also. 'If I would give her plenty of
help she would gladly try,' she said, and then she sang
'_Pilgerspruch_,' '_Lass dich nur_,' really quite faultlessly,
and with charming feeling and expression. I thought to myself, one must
not pay too many compliments on such an occasion, so I merely thanked her
a great many times, upon which she said. 'Oh, if only I had not been so
frightened! generally I have such long breath.' Then I praised her
heartily, and with the best conscience in the world; for just that part
with the long C at the close, she had done so well, taking it and the
three notes next to it all in the same breath, as one seldom hears it
done, and therefore it amused me doubly that she herself should have begun
about it.'

"After this Prince Albert sang the '_Arndle-lied_,' '_Es ist ein
schnitter_,' and then he said I must play him something before I went,
and gave me as themes the chorale which he had played on the organ, and
the song he had just sung. If everything had gone as usual I ought to have
improvised dreadfully badly, for it is almost always so with me when I
want it to go well, and then I should have gone away vexed with the whole
morning. But just as if I were to keep nothing but the pleasantest, most
charming recollection of it, I never improvised better; I was in the best
mood for it, and played a long time, and enjoyed it myself so much that,
besides the two themes, I brought in the songs that the Queen had sung
quite naturally; and it all went off so easily, that I would gladly not
have stopped; and they followed me with so much intelligence and
attention, that I felt more at my ease than I ever did in improvising to
an audience. The Queen said several times she hoped I would soon come to
England again, and pay them a visit, and then I took leave; and down below
I saw the beautiful carriages waiting, with their scarlet outriders, and
in a quarter of an hour the flag was lowered, and the _Court
Circular_ announced, 'Her Majesty left the palace at twenty minutes
past three.'"

The Queen and the Prince were enjoying the company of Prince Albert's
brother, Prince Ernest, the hereditary Prince of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, and
his newly-wedded wife, who were both with the Court during its short stay
at _Claremont_. There the news reached her Majesty of the sad and
sudden death of the Duc d'Orleans, the eldest son of Louis Philippe, and
the favourite brother of the Queen of the Belgians. The Duc d'Orleans had
been with the King and Queen of France at Neuilly, from which he was
returning in order to join the Duchesse d'Orleans at Plombieres, when the
horses in his carriage started off near the Porte Maillot. Fearing that he
should be overturned the Prince rashly leaped out, when his spurs and his
sword caught in his cloak and helped to throw him to the ground with great
violence. The result was concussion of the brain, from which he died
within three hours, never recovering consciousness. The Duc d'Orleans was
a young man of great promise, and his death was not only a source of deep
distress to all connected with him, it was in the end, so far as men can
judge, fatal to the political interests of his family. Many of us can
recollect still something of the agonised prayer of the poor mother by the
dying Prince, "My God, take me, but save my child!" and the cry of the
bereaved father, the first time he addressed the Chamber afterwards, when
he broke down and could utter nothing save the passionate lamentation of
David of old, "My son, my son!" The Queen and Prince Albert were doubly
and trebly allied to the Orleans family by the marriages of the Queen of
the Belgians, the Duc de Nemours, and later of Princess Clementine, to
three members of the Coburg family--the uncle and two of the cousins of
Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. They felt much for the unhappy family in
their terrible bereavement. The Queen grieved especially for her
particular friend, Queen Louise, and for the young widow, a cultured,
intellectual German Princess, with her health already broken. "My poor
dearest Louise, how my heart bleeds for her. I know how she loved poor
Chartres, [Footnote: The Duc de Chartres was the earlier title of the Duc
d'Orleans, which he bore when his father was still Duc d'Orleans, before
he became King of France as "Louis Philippe." Apparently the son continued
"Chartres" to his intimate friends.] and deservedly, for he was so noble
and good. All our anxiety now is to hear how poor dear frail Helene (the
Duchesse d'Orleans) has borne this too dreadful loss. She loved him so,
and he was so devoted to her."

During the night of the 27th of July this year, London was visited by the
most violent thunderstorm which had been experienced for many summers. It
lasted for several hours. The fine spire of the church of St.
Martin-in-the-Fields was struck by the lightning and practically
destroyed.

On the 9th of August the Queen prorogued Parliament, when the Prince and
Princess of Saxe-Coburg Gotha witnessed the interesting ceremony,
occupying chairs near the chair of State, kept vacant for the Prince of
Wales to the right of the Queen, while Prince Albert sat in the chair to
her left.

The Prince of Wales was still at a considerable distance from the
occupancy of that chair. Even as we see him here, in a copy of Mrs.
Thornycroft's graceful statue, he is in the character of a shepherd lad,
like David of old, and not in that of the heir-apparent to the throne.

At the close of this season, the Queen's old friend and servant Baroness
Lehzen withdrew from Court service and retired to Germany to end her days
in her native country, in the company of a sister. Lady Bloomfield saw the
Baroness Lehzen in her home at Buckeburg, within a day's journey of
Hanover, a few years subsequently. "She resided with her sister in a
comfortable small house, where she seemed perfectly contented and happy.
She was as much devoted to the Queen as ever, and her rooms were filled
with pictures and prints of her Majesty." The Prince and Princess of
Buckeburg were very kind to her, and she had as much society as she liked
or desired. What a change from the great monarchy of England to the tiny
princedom of Buckeburg! But the Baroness was a German, and could reconcile
the two ideas in her mind. She was also an ageing woman, to whom the rest
and freedom of domestic life were sweet and the return to the customs of
her youth not unacceptable..

CHAPTER XIV.
THE QUEEN'S FIRST VISIT TO SCOTLAND.

The Queen had never been abroad. It was still well-nigh an
unconstitutional step for a sovereign of England to claim the privilege,
enjoyed by so many English subjects, of a foreign tour, let it be ever so
short. However, this year the proposal of a visit to her uncle King
Leopold at Brussels, where several members of Louis Philippe's family were
to have met her, was made. But the lamentable death of the Duc d'Orleans
put an end for the present to the project. Neither were affairs at home in
so flourishing a condition as to encourage any great departure from
ordinary rule and precedent. The manufacturing districts were in a most
unsettled state. The perpetually recurring riots--so long as the corn laws
stood in the way of a sure and abundant supply of grain, which meant cheap
bread, and as the people believed prosperous trade--had broken out afresh
in Lancashire, Yorkshire, and the Midland counties. The aspect of
Manchester alone became so threatening, that all the soldiers who could be
spared from London, including a regiment of the Guards, were dispatched to
the North of England. Happily, the disturbances were quelled, though not
without bloodshed; and it was resolved, notwithstanding the fact that
similar rioting had taken place in Lanarkshire, the Queen and the Prince
should pay their first visit to Scotland, a country within her dominions,
but different in physical features and history from the land in which she
had been born and bred. How much the royal visitors were gratified, has
been amply shown; but to realise what the Queen's visit was to the Scotch
people, it is necessary to go back to the nation's loyalty and to the
circumstance that since the exile of the Stewarts, nay, since the days
when James VI. left his ancient capital to assume the crown of England,
the monarchs had shown their faces rarely in the north; while in the cases
of Charles I. and Charles II. there had been so much of self-interest and
compulsion in their presence as to rob it of its grace. George IV. had
come and gone certainly, but though he was duly welcomed, it was difficult
even for his most zealous supporters to be enthusiastic about him. At the
proposed arrival of the young Queen, who was well worthy of the most
ardent devotion, the "leal" heart of Scotland swelled with glad
anticipation. The country had its troubles like the rest of the world. In
addition to vexed questions between perplexed mill-masters, shipbuilders,
and mine-owners on the one side, and on the other, penniless mechanics and
pitmen, the crisis which more than all others rent the Covenanting church,
so dear to the descendants of the old Whigs, was close at hand. All was
forgotten for the hour in the strange resemblance which exists between one
strain of the character of the staid Scotch, and a vein in the nature of
the impulsive French, two nations that used to be trusty allies. There is,
indeed, a bond to unite "Caledonia stern and wild" and "the sunny land of
France;" a weft of passionate poetry crosses alike the woof of the simple
cunning of the Highlander and the slow canniness of the Lowlander.
Scotland as well as France has been

The chosen home of chivalry, the garden of romance.

The news that the Queen and the Prince were coming, travelled with the
rapidity of the ancient clansmen's fiery cross from the wan waters of the
south to the stormy friths of the north, and kindled into a blaze the
latent fire in every soul. The fields, the pastures, the quarries, the
shootings, were all very well, and the Kirk was still better; but the
Queen was at the door--the Queen who represented alike Queen Mary, King
Jamie--all the King Jamies,--King William, the good friend of religious
liberty, and of "Cardinal Carstairs," "Bonnie Prince Charlie," at once
pitied and condemned, and King George, "honest man!" not unfair or
unmerciful, whatever his minister Walpole might advise. The Queen was,
above all, herself the flower of her race. Who would not hurry to meet and
greet her, to give her the warmest reception?

All the traditions, all the instincts of the people thrilled and impelled
them. Multitudes formed of broadly and picturesquely contrasting elements
flocked to Edinburgh to hail her Majesty's landing. Manifold preparations
were made for her entrance into the capital, the one regret being that she
was not to dwell in her own beautiful palace of Holyrood--unoccupied by
royal tenants since the last French exiles, Charles X., the Dauphin and
the Dauphiness (the Daughter of the Temple), and the Duchesse de Berri,
with her two children, the young Duc de Bourdeaux and his sister, found a
brief refuge within its walls. The Queen, like her uncle George IV., was
to be in the first place the guest of the Duke of Buccleugh at Dalkeith
Palace.

Her Majesty and the Prince left Windsor at five o'clock on the morning of
the 29th August, 1842, and after journeying to London and Woolwich,
embarked on board the _Royal George_ yacht under a heavy shower of
rain. The yacht was attended by a squadron of nine vessels, the Trinity
House steamer, and a packet, besides being followed for some distance, in
spite of the unpropitious weather, by innumerable little pleasure-boats.
The squadron was both for safety and convenience; certain vessels conveyed
the ladies and gentlemen of the suite, and one took the two dogs, the
chosen companions of their master and mistress, "Eos," and another
four-footed favourite, "Cairnach." [Footnote: Sir Edwin Landseer painted
these two dogs for the Queen, "Eos" with the Princess Royal in 1841, "Eos"
alone, a sketch for a large picture in 1842, "Cairnach" in 1841. In 1838,
the great animal painter had painted for her Majesty "little Dash" along
with two other dogs, and "Lorey," a pet parrot belonging to the Duchess of
Kent.]

The voyage was both tedious and trying, the sea was rough, and the royal
voyagers were ill. On the morning of the 31st they were only coasting
Northumberland, when the Queen saw the Fern Islands, where Grace Darling's
lighthouse and her heroic story were still things of yesterday. Before her
Majesty's return to England, she heard what she had not known at the time,
that the brave girl had died within twenty-four hours of the royal yacht's
passing the lighthouse station.

The Queens first remark on the Scotch coast, though it happened to be the
comparatively tame east coast, was "very beautiful--so dark, rocky, bold,
and wild--totally unlike our coast." All her observations had the naive
freshness and sympathetic willingness to be pleased, of an unexhausted,
unvitiated mind. She noticed everything, and was gratified by details
which would have signified nothing to a sated, jaded nature, or, if they
had made an impression, would only have called forth more weariness,
varied by contemptuous criticism. The longer light in the north, that dear
summer gloaming which is neither night nor day, but borrows something from
both--from the silence and solemn mystery of the latter, and from the
clear serenity of the former--a leisure time which is associated from
youth to age with a host of happy, tender associations; the pipes playing
in one of the fishing-boats; the reel danced on board an attendant
steamer; the bonfires on the coast--nothing was too trivial to escape the
interested watcher, or was lost upon her, Queen though she was.

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