If we look back to the Court Journal of that day, we shall find that the six carriages, in the last of which, drawn by four white horses, were the King and Queen, entered the village of Hampstead a little after 4 p.m. The parochial authorities had met them at the boundary of the parish; charity children were drawn up in ranks and had saluted them; and the spectators all along the line of road from Tottenham Court Road to Chalk Farm had made the air resonant with hearty cheers, which were caught up and continued all the way to Caen Wood.
A royal salute notified their Majesties’ arrival at Hampstead. A moment after hurrying avant-couriers appear on the edge of the Heath. The band of the 1st Life Guards struck up the National Hymn, the tiers of elegantly-dressed women rose on either side of the triumphal arch, at the entrance of which the royal carriage stopped, the steps were let down, and Colonel Bosanquet and a deputation of the committee approached. The Colonel, bowing profoundly, laid a white-gloved hand on the carriage door, and, apologizing for arresting their Majesties’ progress, read the address of the loyal inhabitants of Hampstead. Whereupon the King answered that he received with pleasure on the part of himself and the Queen the loyal expressions of the inhabitants of all classes of the parish and ‘beautiful village of Hampstead.’ Let that phrase be remembered as an unpremeditated pearl of praise from the lips of Majesty, in sight of the loveliness of views expanding on both sides of him, an echo intensified, as it were, of Constable’s ‘sweet Hampstead.’
Thence to Caen Wood, as we have said, the route was a popular ovation, the way lined with spectators and carriages that were filled with them. At Mansfield House—so we find it called at this date, their Majesties were received at the north entrance by Lord and Lady Mansfield, the Ladies Murray, and Lord Stormont, then a boy of seven years of age; while a brilliant company (700 in number) gathered in the grounds, where tents and marquees shone white upon the lawns. Small boats, decked with flags, floated on the water or glided to and fro, giving colour and animation to its surface. The woods echoed to the notes of the Styrian Hunters[221] and the Coldstream band; and subsequent to the banquet, when the twilight deepened into dusk, and the lake, boats and bridge appeared outlined with coloured lights, and many of the trees entwined with them, the whole resembled fairyland. Their Majesties remained till past ten o’clock, and departed amidst the same enthusiastic crowds of loyal people and the same manifestations of popular regard, every house in the ‘beautiful village’ along the line of road vying with its neighbour in illuminated devices, ciphers, etc.
At Caen Wood the ‘pleasures of the place,’ the dance music of Weippert’s band, the delicious strains of the Coldstreams, and various other devices of delight, kept the company enthralled till
‘Some stars the tranquil brow of heaven still crowned;
The birds upon the trees sang one by one.
Dark night had flown, bright day was not yet come.’
This was the first and last semi-state visit of royalty to Hampstead. The drive along the Broad Walk and by Caen Wood and Fitzroy Farm is said to have been a favourite one with Queen Victoria in her early days, on which a strict privacy was observed. But on philanthropical occasions, when the Divine gift of charity is supposed to be largely moved by the honour of presenting purses to royal receivers of them, kind-hearted Princes and Princesses have never been wanting; and once, on the occasion of a benevolent and unforgotten function by those who witnessed it, the opening of Vane House as an asylum for soldiers’ daughters, the Prince Consort himself inaugurated it, and was right loyally received.
But of late years neither the ‘beautiful village’ of Hampstead nor the sylvan beauty of Caen Wood had power to lure the third Lord Mansfield, who was High Constable of Scone, from his Northern palace for more than three months in the year. In the absence of the proprietor, this charming demesne—one of the brightest jewels, as it were, in the coronet of his ancestral honours—has been left to solitude and comparative neglect.
The late Lord Mansfield died at his Castle of Scone, August 2, 1898. He was born February 20, 1806. Caen Wood House is now in the hands of his grandson, Lord Stormont having died during his father’s lifetime.