The Royal Exchange, at the end of the Poultry, with the Mansion House on the right and the Bank of England on the left, has been twice burnt. Sir Thomas Gresham's Exchange, which was built after an Antwerp model, while it bore the Greshams' grasshopper crest conspicuous on the front, was opened by good Queen Bess, and perished in the Great Fire of London. This building's successor was burnt down in 1838, one of the bells which rang tunes pealing forth, in the middle of the fire, the only too appropriate melody, "There's nae luck about the house." In the large cloistered court of the present Royal Exchange, the stage of this day's festivities, stands a statue of Queen Victoria. There is an allegorical figure of Commerce on the front of the building. The inscription on the pedestal, selected by Dean Milman, is due to a suggestion of Prince Albert's to the sculptor, Westmacott, that there should be the recognition of a superior Power. The well-chosen words declare "The earth is the Lord's and the fullness thereof."
At the Royal Exchange the body of the procession went in by the northern entrance, only to hurry to the western door to receive the Queen. She entered the building leaning on the arm of Prince Albert, and the royal standard was immediately hoisted. The procession was again formed. She set forth "in slow State" to make her circuit of the roofless quadrangle, round the corridor and through the inner court, all in the open air. At the foot of the campanile the bells chimed for the first time "God save the Queen." Her Majesty went upstairs and passed through the second banqueting-room to show herself, then walked on to the throne-room, hung with crimson velvet and cloth, and furnished with a throne of crimson velvet. The Queen took her seat, Prince Albert standing on her right and the Duchess of Kent and the Duke of Cambridge on her left, Sir Robert Peel and Sir James Graham being near. The Lord Mayor and the rest of the Corporation formed a semicircle facing the Queen. The Recorder read the loyal and congratulatory address welcoming his sovereign, and recalling Queen Elizabeth's visit to open the first Exchange. Did anybody remember the picture of the Virgin Queen with the outshone goddesses fleeing abashed before her virtues, with which the child-princess reared at Kensington must have been familiar?
The speaker concluded by asking her Majesty's "favourable regard and sanction for the work which her loyal citizens of London had now completed." The Queen returned a gracious reply, gave the Lord Mayor her hand to kiss, and doubtless consoled him for any misadventure by announcing her intention to create him a baronet in remembrance of the day.
In the great room of the underwriters, ninety-eight feet long by forty wide, a dejeuner was served, at which the Queen, the Prince, the Duchess of Kent, and the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, with other persons of rank, including the foreign ambassadors and their wives, sat on the dais at the cross-table. At the long table beneath the dais, among the Cabinet ministers and their wives, members of Parliament, judges, the Court of Aldermen, and many other distinguished and privileged persons, sat Sir Robert and Lady Sale, in another scene than any they had known among the defiles and forts of Afghanistan. The Bishop of London said grace. The usual toasts, "Her gracious Majesty, Queen Victoria"—no longer the young girl who bore her part so well at the Guildhall dinner, but the woman in her flower, endowed with all which makes life precious—"Prince Albert, the Prince of Wales, and the rest of the royal family," were drunk, and replied to by the comprehensive wish, "Prosperity to the City of London."
At twenty minutes after two the Queen and the Prince went downstairs again to the quadrangle, in the centre of which her Majesty stopped, while the Ministers and the Corporation formed a circle round her. The heralds made proclamation and commanded silence; the Queen, after receiving a slip of paper from Sir James Graham, announced in clear, distinct tones, "It is my royal will and pleasure that this building be hereafter called "The Royal Exchange." This ceremony concluded the day's programme, and her Majesty left shortly afterwards. Great festivities in the City wound up the gala. The Lord Mayor entertained at the Mansion House, the Lady Mayoress gave a ball, the Livery Companies dined in their respective halls.
A little adventure occurred at the Opera in November, 1844. The Queen went, not in State, or even semi-state, but privately, to hear Auber's opera of "The Siren," when Mr. Bunn, the lessee, was found to have made known without authority her Majesty's intention. The result was a great house, but some inconvenience to the first lady in the land. The Queen was called for, but declined to come forward, and for ten minutes there was a commotion, the audience refusing to let the opera go on. At last the National Anthem was played, the Queen showed herself, and this section of her subjects was appeased and passed from clamorous discontent to equally clamorous satisfaction.
During the winter Sir Robert and Lady Sale paid the Queen a visit at Windsor, while Miss Liddell was maid-of-honour in waiting. The lively narrator of the events of these days describes Lady Sale, as tall, thin, and rather plain, but with a good countenance, while Sir Robert was stout. Lady Sale told these wondering listeners, in a palace that she started from Cabul in a cloth habit, which got wet the first day, and became like a sheet of ice, while it was nine days before she could take it off. She was wounded in the arm on the second day's march, the ball passing first below the elbow and coming out at the wrist, while there were other balls which passed through her habit; Mrs. Sturt's fatherless child, Lady Sales's grand-daughter, was born in a small room without light and almost without air. The captive ladies often slept in the open air on the snow, with the help of sheepskins, half of which were under and half over the sleepers. They washed their clothes by dipping them in the rivers and patting the garments till they became dry. Sometimes the prisoners were twenty-four hours without food, and when served it consisted of dishes of rice with sheeps' tails in the middle, and melted fat like tallow poured over them. The captivity lasted ten weary months, while the captives were dragged from place to place, over fearful roads, amidst the snows of the Caucasus. Lady Sale was told she was kept by Akbar Khan as a hold on her "devil of a husband."