Queen’s Messengers.
The Queen’s foreign-service Messengers are fifteen in number. The first three for service are obliged to be in attendance at the Foreign-office. Formerly there was no distinction between them and the home-service messengers; they were all under the Lord Chamberlain, and their connexion with his office is said to be the origin of the silver greyhound pendent from their badge. At a later period they were transferred to the Secretaries of State, and took journeys abroad indifferently in their turn, but in 1824 there was a separation into home and foreign service. Lord Malmesbury reduced the number of foreign-service messengers from eighteen to fifteen; and these are found quite sufficient, owing to the greater speed with which journeys are now performed, and the introduction of the electric telegraph rendering many journeys unnecessary. The Queen’s messengers formerly had very small salaries, only 60l. a year, but made large profits by mileage and other allowances when employed. The situation was worth 800l. or 900l. a year; it has been altered to a salary of 525l. and the travelling expenses. This was considered by the messengers too great a reduction of their income. Earl Russell has introduced a new plan, giving them salaries of 400l. a year and 1l. a day for their personal expenses while employed abroad, besides their travelling expenses. Queen’s messengers are treated with great kindness and consideration abroad; they are usually invited to the Minister’s table. They are examined on appointment by the Civil Service Commissioners: the qualifications required are an age between twenty-five and thirty-five, some knowledge of French, German, or Italian, and ability to ride on horseback. The home-service messengers occupy a very inferior position.
Presents and Letters to the Queen.
The resolution of the Royal Family to decline all presents was conveyed, in 1847, to a gentleman at Sheffield, in the following official letter from Sir Denis Le Marchant:—“Whitehall, Oct. 5, 1847: In the absence of Secretary Sir George Grey, I have to acknowledge the receipt of a small box, containing a gold bijou, sent by you to the Queen, as a present for his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales; but, in consequence of the very great number of presents of this nature which have been offered to her Majesty, it has been found absolutely necessary, to avoid the possibility of giving individual offence, that her Majesty should decline presents generally, and the box is therefore declined.” [This rule is not, however, invariably observed.]
Again, it is contrary to established rule for the Lord Chamberlain to receive any letter addressed to Her Majesty, if the same be sealed.
Sir C. B. Phipps explains in a letter the absence of her Majesty’s name from the subscription-list for the widow of the late Captain Harrison, of the Great Eastern. He states: “It is contrary to established rule for her Majesty the Queen, or the Prince Consort, to join a subscription for a private individual.”
The Prince of Waterloo.
It will be recollected that, in 1815, the Duke of Wellington received the grant of Prince of Waterloo, which was understood to have been given to his Grace and to his direct descendants. After the death of the Duke in 1852, the question of succession to the title was discussed in the Belgian House of Representatives, when, in reply to a request for information upon the subject, M. Frère-Oban stated that, upon inquiry, he had learned that the direct line of the Duke of Wellington was not extinct; for although the rights claimed by his son were contested, because at the time of his birth the system of registration was imperfect or irregular, yet it had subsequently been proved by other means, and particularly by an inscription in a family Bible, that the present Duke was the legitimate offspring of the first Prince of Waterloo, and as such was entitled to be recognised as one of the direct lineal descendants who were included in the original grant.
The See of London.
It may not be generally known that the See of London was archiepiscopal in the time of the ancient Britons, before the mission of Augustine. In the thousand years which intervened between his era and that of the Reformation, the See of London numbered no less than eighty prelates, the most distinguished of whom were St. Dunstan, Warham, Courtenay, and Bonner, the last of whom was deprived by King Edward VI., and again, after his temporary restoration under Queen Mary, by Elizabeth. The reformed list commences with Bishop Ridley, who was burnt at Oxford under Queen Mary; and from whom the present occupant of the See, Dr. Tait, is twenty-eighth in descent. Among those prelates occur the names of Grindal, Bancroft, Abbott, Laud, Juxon, and Sheldon, all of whom were eventually promoted to archbishoprics—Grindal to York, and the rest to Canterbury. One prelate before the Reformation, Bishop Tonstal, and one since that time, Bishop Montaigne, were translated from London to the wealthier See of Durham; but from Dr. Sheldon, who held the See after the Restoration, down to Dr. Howley, the immediate predecessor of Bishop Blomfield, not a single instance occurs either of a translation from the See of London, or of a direct appointment to the bishopric, except by translation from another see. The Diocese of London, until the last few years, comprised the counties of Essex and Middlesex. By a recent enactment, however, the former county has been transferred to the diocese of Rochester, in exchange for the parishes of Charlton, Woolwich, Deptford, Greenwich, and other suburban districts in the county of Kent. To these at the next avoidance of the See of Winchester will be added the whole of Southwark, Lambeth, Clapham, Wandsworth, Tooting, and Battersea, together with one or two adjoining districts in the county of Surrey.