Having taken Loch Gair House for the season, went there by Greenock on August 2nd. I paid about twelve guineas a week. [Loch Gair—wrote Mrs. Reeve—is a tiny, land-locked bay on the west shore of Loch Fyne. Park-like grounds, with a pretty burn rushing down, skirt this loch. There is a small kitchen garden, and a dairy of six cows. The best fishing is in Loch Clasken, about a mile and a half west. There is a boat on the loch. The house is a square structure, three stories high, and with underground larders, dairy, &c. and attics for servants, so that there is ample accommodation. I think Henry will enjoy the serene beauty of the place, the balmy air and fragrant odours, and idleness, delicious because earned by hard work.]
The Penders being at Minard, we had the benefit of their society and his yacht. Roland Richardson, Frank Hawkins, Mr. Dempster, the Worsleys, Edmund Wallace, Fairfax Taylor, Sir A. Grant, the Colebrookes, came to stay with us; and Colvile. The Derbys and Sir W. Thomson, [Footnote: Now Lord Kelvin.] Rawlinson, Massey, C. Villiers and the Lowes, staying at Minard.
[Of this time Mrs. Reeve wrote:—The sun is again ruling the day and the moon the night, to the very great glory of Loch Gair. On Sunday (August 18th) the whole Minard party, seventeen in number, came over to tea, much to the amusement of Mr. Dempster, to whom we talked of seclusion, and who did not expect a cabinet minister, a very 'swell' admiral, and sundry fine ladies. Mr. Dempster's was but a short visit, to our regret; and on Monday I took him in the dog-cart to meet the 'Iona' at Ardrishaig.]
October 2nd.—Left Loch Gair. Visit to Orde's at Kilmory; then to Invergarry (E. Ellice's) by the Caledonian Canal. Deer shooting. 11th, to Keir; 16th, to Ormiston; then to Abington—shooting there. To town on October 26th.
Miss Handley died in October. She left me the Winkfield portion of the Bracknell estate, which was afterwards confirmed by a decree of the Master of the Rolls.
November 13th.—Dined at Sandbach's with the Queen of Holland, Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar, Lady Eastlake, and Bishop Wilberforce. A few other dinners.
Monday, 25th.—I have been down to the Van de Weyers at New Lodge, Windsor Forest, from Saturday till Monday, a thing I have frequently done of late. Van de Weyer is almost the last survivor of the brilliant London society of thirty or forty years ago, and to his great literary and social experience he unites an unequalled knowledge of the politics of Europe. During the whole of his reign King Leopold was his own foreign minister; and he succeeded, by his connexion with the Queen of England, and with Louis-Philippe, and with Germany, in creating a most influential position in the world, which he did not impart to his Belgian ministers. But Van de Weyer was the exception. He was the constant channel of communication with the Court of England. The King wrote to him two or three times a week, and he to the King. Their correspondence must be a complete history of the times. Baron Stockmar was to an equal degree in his King's confidence; but Stockmar never had the political position of Van de Weyer, nor do I think he was so able a man. I had hinted, in my review of Stockmar's Life, [Footnote: Edinburgh Review, October 1872.] that his oracular powers had been somewhat exaggerated, and that he was rather more attached to the interests of the House of Coburg than to those of England; for which I do not blame him. However, Van de Weyer and some others of Stockmar's friends (including the Queen) dispute this, and probably think I have not done him justice.
For instance, Van de Weyer asserts that when the marriage of the Queen of Spain was on the tapis, Leopold and Queen Victoria had it in their power to bring about the Coburg marriage, but that they deliberately refused to do so from respect to their engagements with France. And they acted in this with the full concurrence of Stockmar. The Queen of Spain had established, by private means, a correspondence with Queen Victoria. The letters passed through the hands of Mr. Huth, the merchant, and from him to Van de Weyer, who delivered them. Isabella complained in these letters of her desperate and forlorn condition; said she was bullied and threatened by the French, and expressed her abhorrence of the marriage Bresson was urging upon her. She declared that if Leopold and Queen Victoria would sanction the Coburg marriage, she would throw the French over, and marry Prince Leopold the next day.
The King and our Queen held a solemn conference and deliberation on the subject. Palmerston was informed of the transaction; but the ministers seem to have had no great voice in the matter, for the Queen considered the engagement she had entered into at Eu as a personal promise, and England had consistently declared that 'she had no candidate.' To put forward Leopold at the last hour would have been to forfeit this pledge, which, on the contrary, was most strictly and honourably maintained.
It was the knowledge of this, and the consciousness that a less conscientious policy might have rescued the Queen of Spain from a dreadful fate, that rendered the Queen of England and Stockmar so indignant when it turned out that the French Government had been far less scrupulous, and had not only forced on the marriage of the Queen to a man she detested, but had also married the other Infanta to Montpensier.