“September 14th.—Again the flags half-mast! Now it is the ‘Stars and Stripes.’ Poor President McKinley succumbed to-day to his horrible wound. The surgeons wouldn’t let him die for a long while, though he asked them to. They did their best.
“March 7th, 1902.—And now for the royal visit, the principal occasion for which is the launching of the great battleship the Queen, by Queen Alexandra. Will was responsible for all matters ashore, as the admiral was for those afloat. Lady Charles and I had to be on the platform at North Road to receive Their Majesties, the only other women there being Lady Morley and the Plymouth Mayor’s daughter, bearing a bouquet for presentation. The royal train had an engine decorated in front of its funnel with an enormous gilt crown, and I was pleased, as it majestically glided into the station, to see that it is possible even in railway prose to have a little dash of poetry. The band struck up, the guard of honour presented arms with a clang. First, out sprang lacqueys carrying bags and wraps who scurried to the royal carriages waiting outside, and out sprang various admirals and diplomats in hot haste, all with rather anxious faces veneered with smiles. And then, leisurely, the ever lovely and self-possessed Queen and her kindly and kingly consort, wearing, over his full-dress admiral’s uniform, a caped overcoat. Salutes, bows, curtseys, smiles, handshakes. Will presents the great silver Key of the Citadel, which Charles II. had made for locking the Great Gate against the refractory people. Edward VII. touches it and the General Commanding returns it to the R.A. officer, who has charge of it. We all kiss the King’s hand as seeing him for the first time to speak to since his accession. The Queen withdraws her hand quickly before any officer can salute it in like manner, which looks a little ungracious. Whilst the General and Admiral are introducing their respective staffs to the King, the Queen has a little chat with me and asks after my painting and so forth. She is very fond of that water colour I did for her album at Dover of a trooper of her ‘own’ 19th Hussars at tent-pegging. Lady Charles and I did not join in the procession through the Three Towns to the dockyard, but hastened home to avoid the crowd.
“In the evening we dined with Their Majesties on board the royal yacht over part of which floating palace C. and I had been conducted in the morning. Whatever the yacht’s sailing value may be she certainly cuts out the Kaiser’s Hohenzollern in her internal splendour. When it comes to washstand tops of onyx and alabaster; and carpets of unfathomable depth of pile, and hangings in bedrooms of every shade of delicate colour, ‘toning,’ as the milliners say, with each particular set of furniture; and the most elaborately beautiful arrangements for lighting and warming electrically, and so on, and so on—one rather wonders why so much luxury was piled on luxury in this new yacht which the King, I am told, does not like on the high seas. Her lines are not as graceful as those of the old Victoria and Albert, and it is said she ‘rolls awful’!
“Well, to dinner! As we drove up to the yacht, which is moored right opposite the Port Admiral’s house and is the habitation of the King and Queen during their sojourn here, we saw her outlined against the pitch black sky by coloured electric lamps, which was pretty. Equerries, secretaries and Miss Knollys received us at the top of the gangway, and the ladies of the Queen soon filed into the ante-chamber (or cabin) where they and we, the guests, awaited Their Majesties. Full uniform was ordered for the men, and we ladies were requested to come in ‘high, thin dresses,’ as, it appears, is the etiquette on board royal yachts. There were the Admiral and Lady Charles, the Duke and Duchess of Buccleugh, Lord and Lady St. Germans, Lord Walter Kerr, Lord Mount Edgcumbe (‘the Hearl,’ as he is known to Plymothians), the Bishop of Exeter, Lady Lytton and others up to about thirty-six in number. The King, still dressed as an admiral, and the Queen in a charming black and white semi-transparent frock, with many ropes of pearls, soon came in, and, the curtseying over, we filed into the great dining saloon brilliantly lighted and splendid. The King led in his daughter, Princess Victoria. Buccleugh led in the Queen, and so on. How unlike the painfully solemn, whispered dinners of dear old Queen Victoria was this banquet. We shouted of necessity, as the band played all the time. The King and Queen seem to me to have acquired an expanded dignity since they have come to the Throne. Will and I could not do justice to the dinner as it was Friday, but that didn’t matter. After the sweets the head servant (what Goliaths in red liveries they all are!) handed the King a snuff box! I was so fascinated by the sight of the descendant of the Georges engaged in the very Georgian act of taking a pinch that my eyes were riveted on him. I love history and am always trying to revive the past in imagination. It is true that ‘a cat may look at a King,’ but then I am not a cat (at least I hope not). I only trust His Majesty didn’t mind, but he certainly saw me!
“After dinner we women went down with the Queen to her boudoir, where an Egyptian-looking servant wearing a tarboosh handed us coffee of surpassing aroma, and Her Majesty showed us her beloved little Japanese dog and some of the pretty things about the room. She then asked us to see her bedroom (which I had already seen that morning) and the little dog’s basket where he sleeps near her bed. She is still extremely beautiful. Her figure is youthful and shapely, and all her movements are queenly. The King had quite a long talk with Will about this dreadful Boer War which is causing us all so much anxiety, after we went up again. He then came over to me, and after a few commonplaces he came nearer and in a confidential tone began about Will. I think he is fond of him. What he said was kind, and I knew he wanted me to repeat his sympathetic words to my husband afterwards. He spoke of him as a ‘splendid soldier.’ I know he had in his mind the painful trial Will had gone through. It was late when Their Majesties bade us good-night.
“March 8th.—The great day of the launch of H.M.S. Queen. I wonder if the hearts of the sailors beat anxiously to-day at all! A quieter, more unemotional-looking set of men than those naval bigwigs could nowhere be seen in the world. But, first of all, there was the medal-giving at the R.N. Barracks, where Ladies Poore and Charles Scott, Mrs. Jackson and myself had to receive the King and Queen by the side of our respective husbands on a raised daïs in the centre of the huge parade ground. It was very cold, and the Queen told me she envied me my fur-lined coat. Will said I missed an opportunity of making a pendant to Sir Walter Raleigh! The function was very long, for the King had to give a medal to each one of the three hundred bluejackets and marines who passed before him in single file. At the launching place we all assembled on a great platform, and there in front of us stood the huge hull of the battleship, the ram projecting over the little table on which the Queen was to cut the ropes. That red-painted ram was garlanded with flowers, and the bottle hung from the garland, completely hidden under a covering of roses. It contained red Australian wine, a very sensible change from the French champagne of former times. Down below an immense crowd of workmen waited, some of them right under the ship, and all round, in the different stands, were dense masses of people. We were soon joined by three German naval grandees and two Japanese leprechauns, one an admiral, a toadlike-looking creature in a uniform entirely copied from ours. Our new allies are not handsome. Then came the Bishop of Exeter, in robes and cap and with a peaked beard, a living Holbein in the dress of Cranmer. How could I, a painter, not delight in that figure? I told a friend that bishop had no business to be alive, but ought to be a painting by Holbein, on panel. What does she do but whisk off straight to him and Mrs. Bishop and tell them! Our privileged group kept swelling with additions of officers in full glory and smart women in lovely frocks, and bouquets were brought in, and everything was to me perfectly charming. Monarchy calls much beauty into existence. Long may it endure!
“At last there was a stir; the monarchs came up the inclined approach and the band struck up. They took their places facing the ship’s bows, and Cranmer on panel by Holbein blessed the ship in as nearly a Catholic way as was possible, with the sign of the cross left out. A subordinate held his crozier before him. A hymn had previously been sung and a psalm, followed by the Lord’s Prayer. Then came the ‘christening’ (strange word), a picturesque Pagan ceremony. The Queen brightened up after the last ‘Amen’ and, nearing the table, reached over to the flower-decked bottle; then, stepping back, swung it from her against the monstrous ram, saying, ‘God bless this ship and all that sail in her.’ I heard a little crack, and only a few red drops trickled down. This wouldn’t do, for she immediately seized the bottle again and, stepping well back this time and holding the bottle as high over her head as the ropes would allow, flung it with such violence that it smashed all to pieces and the red wine gushed over her hands and sleeves and poured out its last drops on the table. A great cheer rang out at this, and the King laughingly seemed to say to her, ‘You did it this time with a vengeance!’ She flushed up, looking as though she enjoyed the fun. Then came the great moment of the cutting by the Queen of the little ropes that held the monster bound as by silken threads. Six good taps with the mallet, severing the six strands across a ‘turtle back’ in the centre of the table, and away flew the two ropes down amongst the cheering crowd of workmen and, automatically, down came the two last supports on either side of the yet impassive hull. Still impassive—not a hair’s breadth of movement! A painful pause. Some men below were pumping the hydraulic apparatus for all they were worth. I kept my eye on the nose of the ram, gauging it by some object behind. Firm as a rock! At last a tiny movement, no more than the starting of a snail across a cabbage leaf. ‘She’s off!’ A hurricane of cheers, and with the most admirable and dignified acceleration of speed the great ship, seeming to come into life, glided down the slips and, ploughing through the parting and surging waters, floated off far into the Hamoaze to the strains of ‘Rule Britannia.’ Queen Alexandra, in her elation, made motions with her arms as though she was shoving the ship off herself. Scarcely had the battleship Queen passed into the water than the blocks displaced by her passage were rolled back, still hot as it were from the friction, into the position they had occupied before she moved, and the King, stepping forward, turned a little electric handle at the table, and lo! the keel plate of the Edward VII. slowly moved forward and stopped in its position on the blocks as the germ of the new battleship. The King, in a loud voice, proclaimed that the keel plate of the Edward VII. was ‘well and truly laid,’ and a great cheer arose and ‘God Save the King,’ and all was over. A new battleship was born.[14] We met Their Majesties at the Port Admiral’s at tea, and Will dined with them, together with some of his staff.
“March 10th.—Saw Their Majesties off. I wonder if they were getting tired of seeing always the same set of faces and smiles? I am going to present C. at Court on the 14th, and my function twin, Lady Charles, is going there, too, so I shall feel it will be a case of ‘Here we are again,’ when I meet the royal eye that night. In the evening the news of Methuen’s defeat and capture by Delarey. To think this horror was going on the day we received the King and Queen at North Road Station!
“March 14th.—The King’s Court was much better arranged than formerly, as we had only to make two curtseys—nothing more—instead of having to run the gauntlet of a long row of princes and princesses who were abreast of Queen Victoria (or her representative), and who used to inspect one from head to foot. These were now grouped behind the monarchs, and formed a rich, subdued background to the two regal figures on their thrones. (What a blessing to the aforesaid princes and princesses to be spared the necessity of passing all those nervous women in review, and by daylight, too!) Altogether the music and the generally more festive character of the function struck one as a great and happy improvement on the old dispensation. The King and Queen didn’t exactly say, ‘How do you do again?’ as I appeared, but looked it as I met their smiling eyes. This is the first Court of the King’s reign.
“March 27th.—Cecil Rhodes died yesterday. I am glad I saw him at the Cape. One morning just at sunrise I and the children were driving to Mass during the mission and, as we passed over the railway line, we saw people riding down from ‘Grootschuur.’ The foremost horseman was Cecil Rhodes, looking very big and with a wide red face. He gave me a searching look or stare as if trying to make out who I was in the shade of the carriage hood. So I saw his face well.