THE QUEEN AT THE CAMP AT CHOBHAM.
with the wheelers in the river. Yet such was the strength which terror imparted to them, that they dragged not only the gun but the wheelers also, close to the bank before they succumbed.
On the 28th of June Prince Albert, who had been “roughing it” with the Guards in camp, returned to town complaining of a slight cold. The Prince of Wales had measles at the time, and, to the surprise of everybody, Prince Albert, the Queen, all the Royal children except the two youngest, the Crown Prince of Hanover, the Duke and Duchess of Coburg, were smitten,[128] Prince Albert suffering more severely than any of the others. This illness prevented the Queen and her husband from visiting the camp till the 6th of August. On the 28th it broke up.
RUNNYMEDE.
Two of the Czar’s daughters had come over on a visit to the Queen, with an autograph letter from their father recommending them to her Majesty’s protection. Care was of course taken to make them acquainted with the intense anti-Russian feeling which pervaded England, and they seem to have been utterly amazed to find that hardly any body put the slightest faith in their father’s word. They were invited to accompany the Queen to see the great naval review at Spithead, which took place on the 11th of August—a superb demonstration of the strength of England on the high seas. Twenty-five stately ships of war—six steam-ships of the line, three sailing-ships, and sixteen steam-frigates and sloops—composed the squadron that took part in this magnificent spectacle. The fleet carried 1,076 guns, 10,000 men, and was moved by steam equivalent to the power nominally of 9,680 horses, but really of double that amount—in other words, by more horse-power than the cavalry of the British army could muster at the time. The smallest of its guns was as large as the largest carried by Nelson’s ships at Trafalgar, whilst the largest threw a solid shot of 104 lbs. The review was an event that stirred to its inmost depths the pride of England, because, for the first time, a mighty fleet propelled by steam was manœuvred under the eye of the Sovereign, as if it were engaged in actual battle. The occasion was rendered unique by the presence at the review of the House of Commons—in fact, the House, on the day of the review, could not form a quorum till half-past eleven o’clock at night.[129]
About 10 o’clock in the morning, the Queen, her husband, her family, and her Russian and German guests, bore down in the Royal yacht on Admiral Cochrane’s flagship, the Duke of Wellington. Having remained on board her for some little time, they returned to the yacht, and then, led by the Queen in the Victoria and Albert, this invincible Armada put out to sea in two divisions. The weather was exceptionally fine, and most majestic was the progress of the fleet as it steamed, at the rate of eleven miles an hour, down to the Nab, where it formed line with an ease and precision of movement that astonished all beholders. Then “the enemy,” under Admiral Fanshawe, were sighted, and a memorable sham fight began amidst cyclopean thunders of artillery. When it was over, each ship made for port at racing speed, the winner being the Agamemnon. The effect of it all, not only on the Queen’s guests but on the country, was duly reported by Prince Albert to Stockmar, who replied, “I am well pleased that the ladies (the Russian princesses) should have been present at the manœuvres of the fleet. For what the eyes see that does the heart believe, and with what that is full of the mouth will overflow in letters to St. Petersburg.”[130] At this time the political barometer at Court was pointing to “fair,” and the Queen and Prince Albert were congratulating each other that the acceptance of the Vienna Note by Russia, would settle honourably the Russo-Turkish dispute. Though the evacuation of the Principalities was not insisted on in that Note as it ought to have been, the Queen and her husband alike regarded it as a sine quâ non, and never doubted that Russia would withdraw her army of occupation.[131]