The Empress of Austria's Visits
In this context it should be noted that Princess Beatrice's Birthday Book, illustrated by Walter Crane, Caldecott and Kate Greenaway, is commended by Punch at the close of the year.
The Kaiser's marriage forms the theme of some jocular and negligible lines: too little then was known of his character and temperament to expect any illuminating comment on the event. But a good deal of space is devoted to the Empress of Austria's hunting visits to Ireland and England—a vivid contrast to the dreary experiences chronicled in the Court Journal quoted above. Hunting in Meath had been boycotted in the winter of 1881, and the Empress returned to her quarters at Combermere Abbey in Cheshire. Punch appeals to the Irish to wipe out the stain and revert to the chivalry of the Irish Brigade, while he welcomed the Empress to England.
In the following year the attempt on the Queen's life by a lunatic, and the intervention of the Eton boy who punched the lunatic's head, are duly chronicled. In one of the worst of his ceremonial cartoons Punch is seen on bended knee presenting a letter of congratulation from her loving People to the Queen and Princess Beatrice. Even the great Tenniel could not always give dignified expression to a genuine and general sentiment. No criticism, however, can be offered on Punch's approval of the Queen's courage in appearing in public, shortly after this incident, to open Epping Forest. The verses on the marriage of the Duke of Albany in 1882 alluded to him as "the latest, youngest, not least wise" of Royal Princes, and the worthy inheritor of the Prince Consort's studious tastes. The accompanying cartoon shows the Duke with the Duchess behind him on a pillion, riding to Claremont. In the autumn of the same year his delicate health aroused public uneasiness, and Punch contrasts the formidable technical account of his symptoms in the Lancet with the reassuring statements of the Morning Post.
On the relations of Royalty to sport, Punch had always been extremely sensitive. The bitterest things he ever said of the Prince Consort were directed against his stag-shooting exploits and pheasant battues in the 'forties. Much in the same spirit is the vehement protest which he uttered early in 1878 against the cruelty to an eagle which was trapped at Windsor after Prince Christian and several keepers had vainly tried to shoot it. The wretched eagle, according to The Times, tore itself out of the trap, leaving one of its toes behind, and Punch is indignantly sarcastic at this treatment of the royal bird. He was mildly satirical in 1876 when the Balmoral Curling Club was broken up owing to the tendency of the game "to encourage a love for whisky." On the other hand, and unlike other critics, he was always ready to acknowledge when Royalties acted on the maxim noblesse oblige. The Princess of Wales's efforts to get pigeon shooting abolished at Hurlingham in 1883 prompted the picture of the Triumph of Sir Pigeon in the Lists with the Princess as Queen of Beauty in the Tournament of Doves. Unluckily Punch's jubilation was premature. Mr. Anderson's Bill, supported by W. E. Forster, and opposed by Sir Walter Barttelot, was "turned down" by the House, to the disgust of Punch, who asked why could not the Home Secretary, Sir William Harcourt, follow the example of Holland and forbid pigeon shooting. Still, two minor victories are scored to the credit of the Princess of Wales this year. "She has banished the crinolette, in spite of Paris. She has retained the small bonnet, still in spite of Paris," and Punch chronicles the triumph in pleasantly whimsical rhymes.
John Brown
The critic re-emerges in a long and sarcastic account of the public sale by auction of portraits and furniture—down to kitchen chairs—belonging to the Duke and Duchess of Teck, which Punch considered as undignified and improper, though he found the catalogue a feeding-ground for laughter and a stimulant to satire. In the same year the Queen's trusted attendant, John Brown, died. It is hard for the present generation to realize the mixed feelings which the Queen's reliance on this royal factotum excited in the minds of the public at a time when the popularity of the Court was impaired by her long seclusion. His very name is now forgotten, though in the 'seventies and early 'eighties it was on every lip—often as an incentive to slighting or indecorous comment. Punch's tribute is somewhat ponderous in style, but he makes a good point in distinguishing this faithful if somewhat angular Scotsman from the minions and freaks of other Courts:—
Service of Kings not always in earth's story
Has been a badge of honour: gilded glory
Of silken favourite dulls down to dust;