On the 9th of August the Queen prorogued Parliament, when the Prince and Princess of Saxe-Coburg Gotha witnessed the interesting ceremony, occupying chairs near the chair of State, kept vacant for the Prince of Wales to the right of the Queen, while Prince Albert sat in the chair to her left.
The Prince of Wales was still at a considerable distance from the occupancy of that chair. Even as we see him here, in a copy of Mrs. Thornycroft's graceful statue, he is in the character of a shepherd lad, like David of old, and not in that of the heir-apparent to the throne.
At the close of this season, the Queen's old friend and servant Baroness Lehzen withdrew from Court service and retired to Germany to end her days in her native country, in the company of a sister. Lady Bloomfield saw the Baroness Lehzen in her home at Buckeburg, within a day's journey of Hanover, a few years subsequently. "She resided with her sister in a comfortable small house, where she seemed perfectly contented and happy. She was as much devoted to the Queen as ever, and her rooms were filled with pictures and prints of her Majesty." The Prince and Princess of Buckeburg were very kind to her, and she had as much society as she liked or desired. What a change from the great monarchy of England to the tiny princedom of Buckeburg! But the Baroness was a German, and could reconcile the two ideas in her mind. She was also an ageing woman, to whom the rest and freedom of domestic life were sweet and the return to the customs of her youth not unacceptable..
CHAPTER XIV. THE QUEEN'S FIRST VISIT TO SCOTLAND.
The Queen had never been abroad. It was still well-nigh an unconstitutional step for a sovereign of England to claim the privilege, enjoyed by so many English subjects, of a foreign tour, let it be ever so short. However, this year the proposal of a visit to her uncle King Leopold at Brussels, where several members of Louis Philippe's family were to have met her, was made. But the lamentable death of the Duc d'Orleans put an end for the present to the project. Neither were affairs at home in so flourishing a condition as to encourage any great departure from ordinary rule and precedent. The manufacturing districts were in a most unsettled state. The perpetually recurring riots—so long as the corn laws stood in the way of a sure and abundant supply of grain, which meant cheap bread, and as the people believed prosperous trade—had broken out afresh in Lancashire, Yorkshire, and the Midland counties. The aspect of Manchester alone became so threatening, that all the soldiers who could be spared from London, including a regiment of the Guards, were dispatched to the North of England. Happily, the disturbances were quelled, though not without bloodshed; and it was resolved, notwithstanding the fact that similar rioting had taken place in Lanarkshire, the Queen and the Prince should pay their first visit to Scotland, a country within her dominions, but different in physical features and history from the land in which she had been born and bred. How much the royal visitors were gratified, has been amply shown; but to realise what the Queen's visit was to the Scotch people, it is necessary to go back to the nation's loyalty and to the circumstance that since the exile of the Stewarts, nay, since the days when James VI. left his ancient capital to assume the crown of England, the monarchs had shown their faces rarely in the north; while in the cases of Charles I. and Charles II. there had been so much of self-interest and compulsion in their presence as to rob it of its grace. George IV. had come and gone certainly, but though he was duly welcomed, it was difficult even for his most zealous supporters to be enthusiastic about him. At the proposed arrival of the young Queen, who was well worthy of the most ardent devotion, the "leal" heart of Scotland swelled with glad anticipation. The country had its troubles like the rest of the world. In addition to vexed questions between perplexed mill-masters, shipbuilders, and mine-owners on the one side, and on the other, penniless mechanics and pitmen, the crisis which more than all others rent the Covenanting church, so dear to the descendants of the old Whigs, was close at hand. All was forgotten for the hour in the strange resemblance which exists between one strain of the character of the staid Scotch, and a vein in the nature of the impulsive French, two nations that used to be trusty allies. There is, indeed, a bond to unite "Caledonia stern and wild" and "the sunny land of France;" a weft of passionate poetry crosses alike the woof of the simple cunning of the Highlander and the slow canniness of the Lowlander. Scotland as well as France has been
The chosen home of chivalry, the garden of romance.
The news that the Queen and the Prince were coming, travelled with the rapidity of the ancient clansmen's fiery cross from the wan waters of the south to the stormy friths of the north, and kindled into a blaze the latent fire in every soul. The fields, the pastures, the quarries, the shootings, were all very well, and the Kirk was still better; but the Queen was at the door—the Queen who represented alike Queen Mary, King Jamie—all the King Jamies,—King William, the good friend of religious liberty, and of "Cardinal Carstairs," "Bonnie Prince Charlie," at once pitied and condemned, and King George, "honest man!" not unfair or unmerciful, whatever his minister Walpole might advise. The Queen was, above all, herself the flower of her race. Who would not hurry to meet and greet her, to give her the warmest reception?
All the traditions, all the instincts of the people thrilled and impelled them. Multitudes formed of broadly and picturesquely contrasting elements flocked to Edinburgh to hail her Majesty's landing. Manifold preparations were made for her entrance into the capital, the one regret being that she was not to dwell in her own beautiful palace of Holyrood—unoccupied by royal tenants since the last French exiles, Charles X., the Dauphin and the Dauphiness (the Daughter of the Temple), and the Duchesse de Berri, with her two children, the young Duc de Bourdeaux and his sister, found a brief refuge within its walls. The Queen, like her uncle George IV., was to be in the first place the guest of the Duke of Buccleugh at Dalkeith Palace.
Her Majesty and the Prince left Windsor at five o'clock on the morning of the 29th August, 1842, and after journeying to London and Woolwich, embarked on board the Royal George yacht under a heavy shower of rain. The yacht was attended by a squadron of nine vessels, the Trinity House steamer, and a packet, besides being followed for some distance, in spite of the unpropitious weather, by innumerable little pleasure-boats. The squadron was both for safety and convenience; certain vessels conveyed the ladies and gentlemen of the suite, and one took the two dogs, the chosen companions of their master and mistress, "Eos," and another four-footed favourite, "Cairnach." [Footnote: Sir Edwin Landseer painted these two dogs for the Queen, "Eos" with the Princess Royal in 1841, "Eos" alone, a sketch for a large picture in 1842, "Cairnach" in 1841. In 1838, the great animal painter had painted for her Majesty "little Dash" along with two other dogs, and "Lorey," a pet parrot belonging to the Duchess of Kent.]
The voyage was both tedious and trying, the sea was rough, and the royal voyagers were ill. On the morning of the 31st they were only coasting Northumberland, when the Queen saw the Fern Islands, where Grace Darling's lighthouse and her heroic story were still things of yesterday. Before her Majesty's return to England, she heard what she had not known at the time, that the brave girl had died within twenty-four hours of the royal yacht's passing the lighthouse station.