(From a Photograph by G. W. Wilson and Co., Aberdeen.)
vital consequence to her health and strength. Old servants, when possessed of Brown’s sterling qualities of manhood, in process of time gradually pass into the category of old friends. Their lives become intertwined in many ways with the life of the family to which they are attached. Their death leaves behind it in the hearts of their masters and mistresses the sting of a personal bereavement. This was, in a special sense, the case with the Queen, whose fate it has been to see the circle of old familiar faces round her contracting every year. Her expressions of sorrow over Brown’s grave, though they provoked rude criticism, merely gave expression to a sentiment of melancholy which was the natural outgrowth of her life of “lonely splendour.”[188]
From the 18th of April to the 8th of May the Court was at Osborne, and the state of the Queen’s health was such as to cause her medical advisers some concern. The dynamite scare, a slight accident that had happened to her through slipping on the stairs at Windsor Castle, the deaths of her friend Mrs. Stonor[189] and her attendant, Brown—all contributed to produce an attack of nervous debility that could only be remedied by repose.
In the third week of April the Queen created quite a panic among the sheep farmers and the fashionable purveyors of the large towns. She had read many gloomy articles in the papers, lamenting the decrease in the number of English sheep. Instead of anticipating, by a few days, the appearance of Easter lamb at the Royal table, as did Napoleon I. on one occasion, her Majesty notified that no lamb would be consumed in her Household. The effect of the notice was magical. The price of lamb went down in a few hours to 4d. a pound, and farmers, who had at enormous expense bred and fed large stocks of lamb for the Easter market, saw bankruptcy staring them in the face. The economic fallacy was obvious. The Queen forgot that the slaughter of lambs which were bred for the butcher, and which but for the Easter market would not be bred at all, was not the cause of the scarcity of sheep. In a few weeks the notice was withdrawn.
Though the Queen was still unable to walk, yet on the 8th of May she was so much benefited by her holiday at Osborne, that she was able, under the care of the Princess Beatrice, to return to Windsor. On the 26th of May, though still in feeble health, she went to Balmoral. Extraordinary precautions were taken to prevent the time-table of the Royal train on this occasion from being published, and her Majesty sent orders from Windsor that spectators must be excluded from the stations at which she stopped. Railway directors were not even allowed to be present when her Majesty arrived at Ferryhill station, Aberdeen, from whence she drove to Balmoral by the road on the south side of the Dee—a road she had never taken before. Life at Balmoral was gloomy, for all the old festivities had been stopped, and everybody was in deep mourning for John Brown. The Queen hardly ever left her own grounds, and the Court gladly returned to Windsor on the 23rd of June. On the 3rd of July a shocking accident occurred near Glasgow, which deeply impressed the mind of the Queen. As a new steamer, the Daphne, was being launched from Messrs. Stephen’s Yard she heeled over and sank. A hundred and fifty lives were lost, and the Queen not only sent a message of sympathy to the survivors, but a subscription of £200 to a fund raised for their relief. The Court removed to Osborne on the 24th of July, where a few days later the Queen received M. Waddington, the new French Ambassador. On the 24th of August her Majesty left Osborne for Balmoral, which she reached on the following day. She conferred the Order of the Garter on her grandson, Prince Albert Victor of Wales, on the 4th of September. It was thought strange that this distinction should be granted to the Prince whilst he was still a minor: George IV., for example, was not admitted to the Order till long after he had come of age. What was stranger still was that the investiture should have been a private function, conducted in the drawing-room at Balmoral, and not a public ceremonial in St. George’s Chapel. The exceptional character of the distinction was a proof of the high favour in which her Majesty held her grandson. Excursions to Braemar, Glassalt Shiel, Glen Cluny, and the neighbourhood were made during September. The Duke and Duchess of Connaught visited her Majesty in October on the eve of their departure for India, and the ex-Empress Eugénie, who was at Abergeldie, came to her almost every day, and long excursions in the bleak scenery of the Aberdeenshire mountains were organised for the Royal party. It was not till the 21st of November that the Court came back to Windsor—the same day on which the Duke and Duchess of Connaught landed at Bombay. After her return the Queen seems to have been engrossed with business to an unusual extent—much of it relating to troublesome private matters, and it was stated that her Majesty and Sir Henry Ponsonby during the first week had to work together for five and six hours at a stretch, ere they could overtake their task. Every day, however, the Queen drove in the Park, and every evening she gave a dinner-party, to which not more than fifteen guests were invited. On the 12th of December her Majesty received the Siamese Envoys, and it was intimated that she intended to raise the poet Laureate to the Peerage. On the 18th of December the Court removed to Osborne, where Christmas-tide was spent.
Politically and socially the Recess of 1883 was full of interest. Just as Parliament was prorogued Mr. Gladstone and Lord Granville brought an irritating controversy with France to a close. In the spring, Admiral Pierre had been sent with a squadron to enforce French claims of sovereignty over a portion of the north-west of Madagascar. In the course of operations at Tamatave the Admiral had behaved rudely to the British Consul. He had insulted the commander of H.M.S. Dryad, and he had illegally arrested and imprisoned Mr. Shaw, an English missionary. Mr. Gladstone had alluded gravely, but in terms of studied moderation and courtesy, to these events in the House of Commons. The Opposition, however, harried him with attacks; and all over the land Conservative writers and speakers denounced the Government for its cowardly subservience to France. The only effect which these indiscreet criticisms could have was obviously to convince France that she ran no risk in refusing reparation to the Englishmen whom her agents had injured. Fortunately the Government of the French Republic had a keen sense of justice. It did not misunderstand the firm but temperate tone of the English Foreign Office; and the French Government accordingly offered an apology and compensation to Mr. Shaw. It turned out that Admiral Pierre, who died in France soon after his recall, had been suffering from an exhausting disease at the time he had offended Captain Johnstone of the Dryad. There was no disposition on either side, therefore, to exaggerate the personal aspect of the question, and the dispute ended in a manner highly creditable to the diplomacy of both nations.
In Ireland the National League, which had been founded in 1882 as a continuation of the old Land League, was extending its organisation. Mr. Healy’s electoral victory in Monaghan suggested that an attack should be made on the last stronghold of the Unionist Party in Ireland. League meetings were therefore held in Ulster; but the Orangemen, terrified by this invasion of Home Rulers into their loyal territory, attempted to repel it by force. They organised rival meetings, and planned armed attacks on the Leaguers. Occasionally Mr. Trevelyan had to suppress the demonstrations of both “Orange” and “Green” by proclamation. In England the Recess was one of stormy political agitation. The Liberal Party felt that it was necessary to submit some measure to Parliament in 1884, on which, if need be, they might risk an appeal to the constituencies. Hence, at Leeds, their provincial leaders and delegates resolved to press a measure of Parliamentary Reform on the country. A small minority, who urged that the reform of the Municipality of London and of County and Local Government should have the first place, were overruled by those who raised the famous cry of “Franchise first.” The Tory leaders, when they spoke on the subject, merely suggested that the problem of Parliamentary Reform was encumbered with difficulties. For some time the Liberal leaders rarely spoke save to contradict each other either as to the order of legislation in the coming Session, or as to whether, if Household Suffrage were extended to the counties, the Redistribution of Seats would be dealt with by a separate Bill. During the Recess, Sir Stafford Northcote roused the Conservatism of North Wales and Ulster. Lord Salisbury attempted to thrill his party with terror by an article in the Quarterly Review, bewailing the “disintegration” of English society under Mr. Gladstone’s malefic influence; and in another periodical—the National Review—he appealed strongly for popular support by a strong semi-Socialistic paper advocating the better housing of the poor. In fact, the end of 1883 and the beginning of 1884 will be long remembered for an outbreak of dilletante Socialism among the upper classes. The powerful pen of a gifted novelist had revealed, as by flashes of lightning, the unexplored regions of the East End of London. In fact, Mr. Walter Besant’s vivid pictures of its dull grey life of toil, varied only by hunger, and ending only in death, had seared the conscience, if they had not touched the heart, of a brilliant society of pleasure. Beneath the bright wit and mocking humour of the satirist,
THE PARISH CHURCH, CRATHIE. BRAEMAR CASTLE.