THE QUEEN ALIVE ONCE MORE

“She did not struggle knowingly against principles; she did not conceive of them. She struggled solely against men who displeased her.... Queen, in good faith she defended royalty. It was her rôle. To reproach Victoria because, being on the throne, she had not enough intelligence and foresight to put the interest and future good of the nation before what she considered as the interest and immediate good of her country, of her function, of her person, would be to reproach her for not having combined heroism and genius in her soul.”--_Abel Chevalley: ‘La Reine Victoria.’_

“The hurrahs were yet ascending from our jubilating lips.”--_De Quincey: ‘Autobiographical Sketches.’_

There had already been in the winter of 1885 talk of the rejoicings which it was hoped would be made on the attainment of the fiftieth year of Victoria’s reign, and the hint of such a thing caused her pleasure, even though it occurred when Lord Salisbury was being turned out of power, and swelled into popular favour under Gladstone. There was about it a suggestion of peace and good feeling which she hailed gladly, and her sensible suggestion that it should be held on the completion of the fiftieth year was accepted by all as a proof of her strength and confidence.

She was, indeed, in better health, both of body and mind; the poisonous depression and self-absorption which had held her for twenty-five years and rendered her a nonentity in her own capital was at last being effectively conquered, and for the first time she seemed really to become aware that any unpopularity from which she had suffered had some relation to her own attitude. Thus 1886 saw the beginning of a revolution in her life, brought about in the first place by a desire to lead the fight against a measure which she opposed with every sentiment of her being.

The keenness of her feeling against Home Rule led her to look for methods of impressing her ideas upon the people, and she could think only of that “personal influence” which she had so long scorned. In realizing this she also began to see that she had deliberately thrown aside many golden opportunities. So she armed herself for the conflict, and the fight was begun by her appearance at the opening of Parliament in January 1886, and though five days later Gladstone succeeded to the Chair of State, she constantly appeared in public during the session. In February she went to a great concert at the Albert Hall; in March she laid the foundation-stone of the Medical Examination Hall on the Embankment, actually replying herself to the address presented to her. When, in 1882, she had opened the Royal Courts of Justice, the programme included a short opening speech by herself; but as the moment approached she began to look very unhappy, and, beckoning Sir William Harcourt, talked earnestly to him--every one thinking that he was getting a scolding. The fact was that she was suddenly stricken with deadly nervousness, and was telling him that she could not utter the briefest sentence, and commanding him to do it for her. In May she opened the great Colonial and Indian Exhibition (the “Colindries”) at South Kensington, the inception of which was due to the Prince of Wales. She did things now, not as a prisoner dragged to the task, but with a will; and in this instance decided upon a magnificent state ceremonial, which awoke enthusiasm in the souls of those who love a show. From Paddington to South Kensington she drove through huzzaing crowds. At the exhibition she was received with a blare of trumpets and the National Anthem, by a host of people brilliant in garb and many of them brilliant in reputation. Her throne in the amphitheatre was of hammered gold (once in the possession of the East India Company; one wonders how they got it!), and the canopy was of Indian cloth-of-gold, its hangings looped with gold chains and pendants of Delhi work.

It was all very gorgeous and inspiriting, and the Queen once more did what for twenty-five years she had refused to do except over a tomb or a statue: she gave voice to her own reply to the address. She had at last found her feet, and seemed determined henceforth to walk on them, and not to be for ever begging her people to carry her.

Later she held a review at Aldershot to do honour to her Indian and Colonial visitors, asked them to lunch at Windsor, and gave a party there to the overseas workers at the exhibition. But she forgot that all this goodwill had been made possible by the policy of past Governments who recognized the autonomous principle of Colonial government, the very principle which, when applied to Ireland, she thought would be disruptive of her empire.

A week after the opening of the exhibition she paid a long-promised and long-delayed visit to Liverpool. She stayed there three days and two nights, and though it rained intolerably all through one of those days she stuck to the programme, and drove in an open carriage through the streets. Well might she have a wonderful and glorious welcome! Returning thence to Windsor, she then took her usual holiday at Balmoral, and at the end of June was ready to open the Royal Holloway College at Egham. Think of it, a college for women! In addition to all these functions she held Drawing-rooms and State concerts in London, and ordered various other levees, balls and assemblies to take place. The whole royal family were allowed to wake up at last, the various princes and princesses being kept busy with the public events which have since become recognized as part of their duties; giving their blessings to new bridges, schools and institutions, and to various celebrations.

In August the Queen went from Osborne to Edinburgh, staying at Holyrood Palace, and visiting the Edinburgh International Exhibition, where complimentary addresses passed between the Queen and the Lords Provost of Edinburgh and Glasgow. From Holyrood to Balmoral she went, and thence in the first week of November to Windsor, where, on the 23rd of the same month, Princess Beatrice bore a son. This last occurrence necessitated Christmas being spent at Windsor--the second time since her widowhood. It was kept cheerfully, too, with all the usual Christmas accessories, and “a jolly tuck-in” for the Bluecoat School boys, though, for some reason, the aids to warmth, both internal and external, for the poor were not distributed until the New Year. On the last day of the month her Majesty flitted to Osborne, and stayed there well over the opening of Parliament.

By six months’ activity Victoria had almost slain the dragons of discontent and revolt. In 1885 it was popularly reported that Albert Edward, Prince of Wales, did not hope to be king, which was probably true; one remembers that little sentence he uttered at the close of his life: “Well, there will be one more king, in any case.” By the end of 1886, thanks to the resuscitation of energy in the Queen, he had a sporting chance. There were and are, of course, always with us those who disapprove of royalty by reason rather than by sentiment, and these, now that the danger of royal aggrandisement of power under German tutelage has disappeared, are tolerant enough.

The Queen and her eldest son were never close friends, and for long Victoria had found so much to criticize in Alexandra that by this date their affection for each other was much more equable when they were apart. It is quite understandable. Queen Victoria, in spite of Bismarck’s spiteful criticisms, was a perfect and, from the feminine point of view, admirable specimen of a German _frau_. She considered that the chief duties of a woman were to be prolific, to adore her

_Photo_ _W. & D. Downey_

KING EDWARD VII AS PRINCE OF WALES]

husband, to dress soberly, manage economically, and to forswear intellect. Alexandra never interfered in State matters, nor made a cult of intellectual pursuits, but she had that which carries a woman a long way: infinite social charm and knowledge, coupled with a self-sacrificing patience which Victoria utterly lacked; she had had a fair number of children, but the opportunity for marital adoration had seldom been given her, and there had been times when matters in the “Social Court” were distinctly strained. The great fault which the Queen found in her, however, was that, though she was the mother of adult children, she did not walk in the way of the Prince Consort’s precepts. She allowed no one to say, “That you shall not wear!” and she did not dress according to what her mother-in-law considered was a style suitable to one who might have been a grandmother. She was still the best-dressed and the most graceful woman at Court, and retained an appearance of youth which her own eldest daughter could not rival.

Another sore point had been that--in common with the Crown Princess in Prussia--she had, in conjunction with her husband, utterly turned her back upon the Stockmar-Albertian ideal of education for royal children. The Prince of Wales had always determined that his children should not suffer from the nervousness and cramped effect which his upbringing had entailed upon himself, with its consequent overpowering self-consciousness; and his boys were sent to school, while his girls led a natural home life, unfettered by a profundity of mock respect for their high-born parents. They also were allowed to observe the continental rather than the British Sabbath.

A further cause of friction between the two ladies was that the Queen shuddered at the name of Gladstone, while the Princess most undutifully liked him; a liking in which the Prince shared, whether he did or did not always agree with the Grand Old Man’s policy, which, however, was never known. Gladstone once told Lord Ronald Gower that no royalty that he had ever known--“but my experience is limited”--had such charm and tact as the Prince of Wales.

In 1883 Gladstone had been one of a party with Tennyson and Browning to go a cruise to Denmark, and had been made much of by the royal family there; a matter which drew a sharp reproof from Victoria, in that Gladstone--the locality of the cruise being unpremeditated--had not first received her permission to go near Denmark. On his side the statesman was a courtier to the finger-tips where the Princess was concerned, as, indeed, he also was to the Queen: “Nothing could be more charming than the deference he paid to the Princess, and the pleasure she always showed in his company.”

Gladstone always expressed delight over his intercourse with the Prince, whom he yearly invited to his annual Royal Birthday dinner, being much troubled over it in 1886 because the many splits in Parliament made him fear that most of the chief men would refuse the invitation, and he would be shamed before the Prince and Albert Victor, who was to be his guest for the first time; however, his old comrades showed better sense, and the dinner was a success. The Queen had an absolute abhorrence of tobacco, a dislike which Gladstone shared, but he, knowing what a victim to the nicotine fiend was Albert Edward, always gave his Royal Highness the lead by lighting a cigarette.

Victoria had in early days been most severe with her son over this habit, absolutely forbidding him to smoke in any of the royal residences; and when on one occasion the youthful prince transgressed he was sentenced to remain in his rooms for a month, a punishment rigorously enforced. Such punishments were customary in German royal families, and are still inflicted by the Kaiser on the slightest excuse upon one or other of his many relatives.

This prohibition extended to visitors at the castle, even to the dine-and-sleep-one-night visitors, and there are amusing anecdotes of noted men lying on the hearthrug to smoke up the chimney, or resorting to other sly ways of getting a luxurious whiff. _Punch_ declared in 1863 that so strictly were the rules against it carried out that the very chimneys received intimation from the Lord Chamberlain that they would be expected to consume their own smoke. And further back, in the early days of his marriage, the Prince Consort was thus interdicted, it needing many a struggle before his beloved pipe became regarded as part of his lawful possessions.

Before his marriage Prince Henry of Battenberg smoked in bed or in his bedroom; but he had not been long a Benedick before he was allowed far greater latitude than had ever been extended to his brother-in-law, or even to the deceased and beloved prince himself. But by this time the Queen had attained something in breadth of view on this subject, as on many others.

In 1886 the Battenberg question had become again acute. Alexander of Bulgaria was continuing his series of quarrels with Russia, and Queen Victoria warmly took up his side; the Blue Book on Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia recording her opinion that if he succeeded in once more grasping the reins of power with a steady hand, and again stood forth as the constitutional head of a law-abiding state, the people of England would probably be deeply moved and “would scarcely look on with indifference should an attempt be made from without to disturb this state of things”: which was something like a hint of war, as well as a promise which the people of England would scarcely have honoured.

Alexander was very handsome, and this, coupled with his misfortunes, was sufficient to capture Victoria’s heart. At one time news concerning him could not be secured, and she sent repeated anxious messages to Darmstadt, to which at last arrived an answer that the hero was suffering from typhoid, though the illness turned out to be smallpox. He recovered, and when he came to England in the early summer he was, by the Queen’s orders, received with royal honours by the garrisons and fleet; the cause of this being that Victoria was seeking to settle him matrimonially, and report had it that Princess Louise of Wales was the chosen lady, also the widowed Duchess of Albany was mentioned; but later every one knew that it was Princess Victoria of Prussia, the Queen’s granddaughter and sister to the present kaiser.

There was some indignation over Prince Louis of Battenberg at this time, as he had been made commander of the _Dreadnought_, first ship of its species, over the heads of a large number of senior officers, even though he had been judged medically unfit. In this matter Victoria had personally intervened, insisting upon his appointment, the reason being that until he had had a year’s command he could not get the rank of captain.

In the same year Henry was appointed aide-de-camp to the Queen, a position which carried with it a colonelcy in the Army and its pay, and he became colonel of the Isle of Wight (Princess Beatrice’s) battalion of Rifles. It was popularly asserted that the mantle of John Brown had fallen upon the shoulders of this favourite son-in-law, and that the fishing and shooting so long reserved for the exclusive use of the servant were now reserved for the prince.

At Osborne the Queen made a new departure in February 1887, by having the Kendal and Hare company to act before her, and she was so pleased that she gave a valuable brooch to Mrs. Kendal. Six years earlier she had seen a theatrical performance, the first of her widowhood, when at Abergeldie the Prince and Princess of Wales arranged the play of Burnand’s _The Colonel_. The Queen also commanded some of the Windsor clerics to journey to Osborne to preach before her, though it was quite easy for her to hear them when at the castle; and in January, during very cold weather, her statesmen had to make the long journey to consult with her.

At the end of February she returned to Windsor Castle for about six weeks, and arranged two Drawing-rooms for March, during which month she actually spent ten days in London--probably the first successive ten days for nearly forty years. This succeeded a visit to Birmingham, where she had been enthusiastically received.

The Drawing-rooms, though held at Buckingham Palace, were crowded, but her Majesty did not now feel equal to going through the whole ceremony, and after about eighty presentations had been made slipped away, her place being taken by the Princess of Wales. To lessen the fatigue the Queen had had arranged for her comfort a high stool, upon which she half sat, half leaned, while retaining the appearance of standing. Her fondness for her grandchildren had let her permit half a dozen of them, including Princess Beatrice’s baby in the arms of a nurse, to stand by the doorway, where the ladies’ trains were unfolded and spread before their interested eyes.

The children were the delight of the Queen’s life, and they loved her as children can love an indulgent, understanding grandmother. What a pity it is that so many parents have to grow old before they lose the red-tapism of parentage, in which they are even more tangled to-day than they were in the Queen’s youth, for babies are no longer budding individuals, but puppets in some one’s--generally Germanic--system.

In April Queen Victoria, Princess Beatrice and Prince Henry went to Cannes and Aix-les-Bains for a month, necessitating the passing to and fro of Queen’s Messengers at Easter to obtain her signature to parliamentary bills, and the consequent remaining in town for three days of ministers who might have been off for the Easter recess. By May the arrangements for the Jubilee were well advanced, and though the Queen was too busy to hold the Drawing-rooms herself, she was several times in town. Once she went to inspect the atrocious mauling of Westminster Abbey which was in progress, and followed this by attending a performance by Buffalo Bill at the Wild West Show.

She arrived at the latter place soon after five o’clock, accompanied by the Battenbergs, in a carriage and four, with outriders in scarlet; and other carriages followed her. Some of her friends went in the “Dreadnought” coach, which was driven at the gallop round the arena while Indians attacked it, and a tremendous amount of bogus firing went on; all of which affected her into a state of radiant delight, so that at the close Buffalo Bill, the Indian chief and two of the squaws with their little painted papooses were presented. How much healthier mentally she would have been had she oftener enjoyed simple things like this; and also how much more exhilarating would it have been for her that day had she seen the whole gallery of seats filled with her happy subjects, instead of being empty by her orders so that the performance might be private to herself.

On a Saturday in May her Majesty went in grand procession to open the People’s Palace in the East End, and most divergent accounts were given in the papers of her reception. On the one hand it was said that the enthusiasm was intense, on the other that she was coldly, even sullenly, received, derisive shouts being heard at some points. The cheers, it was said, came from the window-holders, and the sullenness was caused by the fact that the tradesmen had petitioned for another day, as Saturday was the most important day for their business, the response from the Secretary’s office being that “her Majesty was not pleased to signify any commands thereon.”

It was a trying journey for more than one person, for Fenianism was still to the fore, and dynamite not long discarded as a weapon; and the East End was regarded--in spite of the philanthropists--as the source of all metropolitan violence. The Queen could not be sure that all would go well, and Henry of Battenberg was, justly or unjustly, said to give open evidence of being in a blue funk.

There had been many Jubilee suggestions made. The Prince of Wales proposed the ill-fated Imperial Institute, which gained little favour from the first. Some suggested the repeal of the Royal Marriage Act; more advanced people referred to an earlier rumour and suggested that the Queen should resign in favour of her son. Others were bolder still, and openly said that Victoria herself should return thanks to God by giving something to her country. The Rev. Arthur Robins, Rector of Holy Trinity, Windsor, and familiarly known as the Soldiers’ Bishop, thought it would be a noble act if the pestilential spots of Windsor should be cleansed and healthy houses built for the poor, for no place in England was so fever-stricken as the district which lay around the royal castle. Some one suggested that all women should contribute and form a Women’s Jubilee Fund.

Of all these proposals only the first and the last were carried out, and the public languidly subscribed to both. Baroness Burdett Coutts heaped coals of fire on her sovereign’s head by presiding at a large meeting in London to start the Women’s Fund idea, for the Queen had shown a very broad back to her since her marriage. The fund being well started, Victoria nearly killed it by announcing her intention of building a new memorial to Prince Albert with it! Purses shut up with a snap at the very idea. This coming to the ears of her Majesty, as well as the want of enthusiasm about the Imperial Institute, caused her much distress. So nothing further was said about the statue, and the sum rolled up to about £80,000, of which only £3000 was used for a bronze equestrian statue to the Prince, later set up in Windsor Park. The great bulk of the gift the Queen devoted to founding an institute for training nurses as attendants on the sick poor in their homes, and some of the ladies nearly wept because her Majesty did not keep a trifle to buy herself a personal ornament in commemoration of the glad event.

The late Arthur W. à Beckett did his utmost with Cardinal Manning to get the Golden Rose for her Majesty from the Pope, but she was outside the Church, and the end of it was that the Cardinal murmured, with a smile, to his interviewer, “The dear lady has received a very beautiful mosaic from Rome. It would have been the Golden Rose had it been possible.”[27]

In return for this and for the Pope’s courtesy in sending a representative to the Jubilee, Victoria sent for the Papal Jubilee the following year a golden ewer and basin.

One of the many presents sent to Queen Victoria was a carriage rug of feathers gathered from the seabirds of Heligoland, that valuable isle which with such lavish prodigality she later thrust into the hands of her beloved grandson, the War Lord. This present reminds me of that sent ten years earlier by the Empress of Brazil of a dress made of spiders’ webs, with which the handsomest silk could not compare either in quality or beauty, and which was made from the strong threads woven by a large species of South American arachnid.

The previous year the Queen had pleased India by attaching two Indian attendants to her service, and now she added an Indian gentleman, the Munshi Abdul Karim, as Groom of the Chamber, with a special duty of teaching her Hindustani. She was doing her best to bind the empire safely round her throne; but what might she not have done had she started on this course twenty-five years earlier? And, by the way, through all these distractions and engagements where were the noted dispatch boxes which were supposed daily to take up the whole of her time? It must be hoped that with her growing sense of fitness she had banished all but the most important. This suggests the further idea of how much easier and more pleasant a time the Marquis of Salisbury had in office than had ever the G.O.M., whose Government she harassed daily, and sometimes hourly, over matters small and great. “The nation at large knew nothing of difficulties at Windsor,” says Lord Morley of Victoria’s relations with a Liberal Government.

The Indians created some confusion at times, especially when they were travelling. “Sir Henry, disquieted about Indian attendants, whose castes required three separate apartments,” noted the train superintendent; “however, only two were to be had.” This remark occurs various times in comments upon the journeys, which were occasionally touched with gleams of humour. Thus in 1892 a pungent smell of hot oil arose, but no one could find its origin; and at Forfar the train had to pull up.

“The Queen wants to know what gars this stink!” was the question of John Brown’s brother. It was found to be due to a faulty locomotive, which had to be detached. During the popularity of Sarah Grand’s work one of her Majesty’s ladies, arriving at Windsor, was greatly distressed because she had lost “the heavenly twins,” and she was sure she had had them during the night in the sleeping-saloon.

The Queen often dined at Perth, and it is curious to think of her at table in a room at the Station Hotel there dining from gold plate, brought for her use from Tynemouth Castle by her faithful subject Lord Breadalbane. It gives a touch of colour in keeping with the royal saloon, covered with blue and white silks. When G. P. Neele had taken her a hundred times to and fro, Victoria presented him with a chiming clock in recognition of his services for thirty-one years, and when he soon after retired he had an audience of her and received a valuable present.

In 1887 the Queen remained four weeks at Balmoral, trying to calm her nerves for the great ceremony before her, for she was in no very happy or confident mood. In fact, she dreaded the day of Jubilee; she feared its fatigues, for she had allowed herself a chronic belief in the delicacy of her health, and she feared assassination. This will seem impossible to some, yet she had had more pistols pointed at her than she had fingers on one hand; and though we are, in common with most nations, conscious of our own rectitude, she had some reason for her fear. How often had a storm of indignation risen around her from the ranks of her people? and what had she ever given to Ireland but her approval of harsh measures and insensate punishment for a moral illness brought on by oppression? What a target might not her glittering procession be for dynamite?

The incessant discussions over clothes, guests, gifts and arrangement left her irritable and worn, so that on her return to Windsor she was in a bad state of nervous excitement. She had to include guests whom she did not want, whose morals offended her, and she felt no peace in anything, only ardently wishing that all were over.

The day came at its appointed time, and passed; many have written about it, some with strong criticism and others with a happy faculty for universal admiration. One declared that her Majesty never looked more cheerful and it was impossible to pick a hole in any of the arrangements for this great and superb show. Yet it was not so great and superb as it might have been, for the state carriage was not used, and there were other things which made it, despite its uniqueness, only a semi-state procession.

Why? you may ask. Well, because her Majesty was a very careful and economical person, and the supreme moment of her age could not temper these qualities. Had she gone in full state the throne and the plate used would by ancient custom have become the property of the Lord Grand Chamberlain; and that was not to be thought of!

There were those who said that the Queen looked radiant, but Professor Blackie’s evidence was that “in the last carriage was the Queen herself, whether sweet or glum I could not say. Certainly she did not look radiant. But though a good woman and an excellent wife and a model mother, she never did look sublimely regal even in her best days. So I was not disappointed.”

Then, too, as to the declaration that no fault could be found, William Allingham wrote in his diary:

“Foreign kings in _covered_ carriages--long wait; soldiers march off--all over? No; here come the Indian princes--some in livery stables turnout; two hansoms--mismanagement somewhere.”

The truth about the Queen’s expression was that it differed at different stages; at first she was exceedingly nervous, and one reporter said that “at Waterloo Place her timorous agitation was pitiable, her mouth twitching.” Coming back she felt reassured, her countenance was brighter and she showed a joyful, emotional excitement.

The ten thousand people gathered in Westminster Abbey saw only the pathos and the gaiety of the memorable scene. Most of them only caught a passing view of her Majesty, but the small proportion who could look down upon the central spot of interest saw a little old woman sitting alone in a square space in an ancient chair whose historic framework had been hidden by cloth of gold; before her being a _prie-dieu_ so tall that no one under six feet high could use it.

“She sat alone, how terribly alone in the vast crowd, and with what memories of the past thronging about her, a moment that I am not at all ashamed to say made me feel disposed to weep out of sympathy and reverence. There were many people in the galleries in front and immediately right and left staring straight in her face through opera glasses. It was not a part of the Steward’s duties to stop such vulgarities, or how gladly one would have done it!”[28]

Fashions and manners had certainly changed for the worse since Victoria opened her first Parliament, and Lady Jersey raised general indignation in her own class by using opera glasses.

At some distance, facing the Queen, sat the foreign kings and princes; on her right stood the royal princes and on her left the princesses. When the service was over these defiled before her, and she kissed all but the Crown Prince of Germany and Prince Louis of Hesse; and when they had all passed she remembered that she had made a difference, and had those two called back that they also might receive the royal salute.

When the Queen returned to Buckingham Palace after the long hours of driving she received a message from the aged Duchess of Cambridge hoping she was not tired; and her answer was--

“I am too happy to be tired.”

There was a painful side to this day of rejoicing, and one which centred in the Abbey itself. To the undiscriminating the interior of that marvellous building gave no jarring shock; the brilliant uniforms and gorgeous dresses, filling every available space from the floor to the roof, hid the poor decorations and made a picture of beauty. But to those who knew and loved the Abbey, behind all the extraneous glow and colour lay the most revolting desecration, indignity and callous disregard of real beauty.

Thus when her Majesty alighted from her carriage, in place of entering the Abbey through a great open door beneath the high roof soaring above her head, instead of seeing at once before her the solemn and noble interior, one of the most splendid things the world can show, she found herself in a little dark passage some ten feet high, crushed down beneath the feet of many of her subjects. _The Times_ declared that the effect was that of a circus, the horses coming into the ring under a red baize box with a braying band in it: “That was the place of entry of the august Lady in whose reverence we had all assembled.”

The arrangements of the Abbey had been taken out of the hands of all the responsible Abbey officials, who knew the building’s capabilities, its weak spots and what it could bear, and given entirely over to a firm of respectable undertakers, “the eminently respectable and entirely unsuitable firm of Messrs. Banting.”

They had arranged three great tiers of galleries, one above the other, over the west door, through which the Queen made her entry, which necessitated the low passage and the circus-like effect. _The Times_ further tells how the galleries and the floor were covered with bath-red, which had the tint of cold blood and was incredibly mean and inartistic; the red was dotted all over with a ridiculous travesty of the Star of the Bath in white shaded with dirty grey. This carpet of cheap and nasty baize added to the circus effect, and drew from some reminiscent people a fancy picture of what the Abbey might have been treated with reverence and the floor covered with the rich rugs which were used at the coronation of George IV.

Mr. Somers Clark, in his article in _The Nineteenth Century and After_, tells some gruesome stories of the method of preparing the Abbey by Banting’s men. For instance, the Coronation Chair, the pride of two nations, was smeared over with stain and varnish, and futile upholstery was nailed into the remnants of the gessowork still adhering to the back and arms. The chair was then dragged over the wonderful Abbot Ware pavement in front of the altar, altogether irrespective of damage to the mosaic. A question being asked in the Commons about the treatment of the chair, Banting was ordered to remove the disfigurement, so the men set to work with spirit to wash off the discoloration. Somers Clark declares that he saw them, after dabbing on the spirit, rub it off with the tails of their rough cotton shirts. He must have meant the aprons, or whatever the men call their save-all garments; but even then the indignity was bad enough.

When it was all over the floor of the North Ambulatory had yielded considerably through the heavy beams; the porphyry and serpentine pavement of St. Edward’s Chapel was badly damaged; and the surface was dragged from the old grey walls in long bands of white in many places.

“Happy inspiration! Dirt from the London streets was collected, soup made of it in buckets, and this was dabbed on the wounded places with mops. This I saw done,” said Somers Clark.

One wonders by what arrangement a firm of undertakers were given this free hand to mar England’s greatest building.

Of those who rode in the Queen’s great procession that day the Crown Prince of Prussia won the most attention in his white uniform, and though he looked pale and grey, few knew that he was ill. Two queens were among the guests, the Queen of the Netherlands and the Queen of the Sandwich Islands. Of the latter Sir Lyon Playfair wrote--

“The only person who was of greater importance in England than in her own dominions was the Queen of the Sandwich Islands. She refused a guard of Hussars, and said that she would not leave her hotel unless Life Guards were sent to her as a crowned head, and she got her way. Another story went that the kings had struck and refused to offer their arms to her sable Majesty at the state balls, so the Dukes of Edinburgh and Connaught had to discharge this duty. It was surprising how this island queen maintained her royal dignity. I waited upon her Majesty one evening, and she received me and conversed through an interpreter in excellent style.”[29]

There was, however, another very important person in the procession, and that was a coachman, who was asked if he would be driving any of the imperial or royal guests then staying at Buckingham Palace, and who replied, with proper pride--

“No, sir; I am the Queen’s coachman. I don’t drive riff-raff.”

The great day drew to its close with an excited, shouting multitude thronging the streets; here was a chance of amusing themselves, and they took it without reasoning why or blessing the cause of it; but they were so heady that they might have been inverting themselves to let their blood run to their brains. Some remained cool, perhaps stayed at home, of whom one was Lord Derby, who remarked that though he had been very grateful to the Queen for much she had done, and especially for much she might have done and had not, he had not yet managed to work himself into a state of enthusiastic gratitude to her for having reigned fifty years.[30]

These were dreadful sentiments when every one was bubbling over with animal spirits and sentimentality, but the mark of a balanced mind none the less.

Aix-les-Bains, grateful for her Majesty’s recent visit, in company with other continental places, blazed its enthusiasm into the night sky, priding itself upon its magnificent _pièce de resistance_ which set forth its “Hommage à la Reine Victoria,” and in its eagerness fixed it upside down.

Bismarck, too, had cast about for a way of celebrating, and his most pointed idea was to instruct one of his creatures to write an article upon the relative merits of Queen Victoria and Queen Elizabeth, of course, as he said, “not to the advantage or the credit of the former.” But his iron will went flabby for once, or rather deeper and more sinister intrigues occupied his mind, for the article was not written. It was a good thing, for the Queen would have been hurt, as of all historical English persons she most hated Elizabeth and most loved the Stuarts, especially Mary, Queen of Scots. Yet there were many points of resemblance between her character and that of Queen Elizabeth, and it was Dean Stanley who once said, “When she faces you down with her ‘It must be!’ I don’t know whether it is Victoria or Elizabeth who is speaking.”

For weeks the retreating wheels of the Jubilee rumbled in her Majesty’s ears. She gave a great garden party at Buckingham Palace, at which, after the first appearance of the Queen, when the guests were marshalled into lanes for her to walk down, greeting those she knew, the well-bred guests literally mobbed her, opening out before her, closing when she had passed, and then rushing on in front to get another stare. (I saw the same thing done at the Quirinal a few years ago by people of all countries, but not by Italians.) The diplomatist Sir Frederick St. John, who was at the Buckingham Palace party, drew a favourable contrast to the aristocracy of Russia under the same circumstances; which should clear Russia on at least one point of the charge of barbarism.

In July the Queen paid a visit to her Prime Minister at Hatfield, and she attended a naval review in the Solent, at which, however, she lost her nerve, being very glad when it was over. All through her August visit to Osborne she received such masses of correspondence on the past event and had to give so much thought to it that it became a nightmare, for hidden in her heart, under all the pleasure in the goodwill shown, lay a terrible sorrow.

For years she had grieved over the troubles which sometimes threatened to overwhelm her eldest daughter, the Crown Princess of Germany; troubles arising from the animosity and jealousy of Bismarck. Now there was a worse calamity, in that the Crown Prince was afflicted with a serious disease. After the Jubilee he underwent a slight operation in England, the effects of which allowed him to eat and speak without pain; and then the question had to be decided as to a long absence from Berlin and from the Court over which Prince Bismarck reigned supreme, with--as his aide-de-camp--Prince William, a Hohenzollern who concentrated in himself the most salient faults of his race.