On the day after the Queen and Prince Albert's arrival in the
Highlands, he received the news of the death of his uncle, brother to
the late Duke of Coburg and to the Duchess of Kent, Duke Ferdinand of
Saxe-Coburg.
There is little to record of the happy sojourn in the North this year, with its deer-stalking, riding and driving, except that Hallam, the historian, and Baron Liebig, the famous chemist, visited Sir James Clark, the Queen's physician, at Birkhall, which he occupied, and were among the guests at Balmoral.
It had been arranged that the Queen and the Prince should visit Liverpool and Manchester on their way south, in order to give the great cities of Lancashire the opportunity of greeting and welcoming their Sovereign. It was the 8th of October before the royal party set out on their homeward journey, ending the first of the shortening days at Holyrood.
On the following day the strangers went on to the ancient dull little town of Lancaster, and drove to the castle, where the keys were presented, and an address read under John O'Gaunt's gateway. The tower stairs were mounted for the view over Morcambe Bay and the English lake country on the one hand, and away across level lands to the sea on the other. Every native of the town "wore a red rose or a red rosette, as emblems of the House of Lancaster."
The Queen and the Prince then proceeded to Prescot, where they left the railway, driving through Lord Derby's fine park at Knowsley, to be the guests of the Earl of Sefton at Croxteth. Next morning, when Liverpool was to be visited, a contretemps occurred. The weather was hopelessly wet; the whole party had to go as far as possible in closed carriages; afterwards the downpour was so irresistible that the Prince's large cloak had to be spread over the Queen and her children to keep them dry. But her Majesty's commiseration is almost entirely for the crowd on foot, "the poor people so wet and dirty." They spoil her pleasure in her enthusiastic reception and the fine buildings she passes.
The royal party drove along the docks, and in spite of the rain got out at the appointed place of embarkation, went on board the Fairy, accompanied by the Mayor and other officials, and sailed along the quays round the mouth of the Mersey, surveying the grand mass of shipping from the pavilion on deck as well as the dank mist would permit. On landing, the Town Hall and St. George's Hall were visited in succession. In the first the Queen received an address and knighted the Mayor. She admired both buildings—particularly St. George's, which she called "worthy of ancient Athens," and said it delighted Prince Albert. At both halls she presented herself on balconies in order to gratify the multitudes below.
The Queen left Liverpool by railway, going as far as Patricroft, where she was received by Lady Ellesmere and a party from Worsley, including the Duke of Wellington, Lord and Lady Westminster, and Lord and Lady Wilton. Her Majesty was to try a mode of travelling new to her. She had arrived at the Bridgewater Canal, one of the greatest feats of engineering in the last century, constructed by the public-spirited, eccentric Duke of Bridgewater, and Brindley the engineer. The Queen went on board a covered barge drawn by four horses. She describes the motion as gliding along "in a most noiseless and dream-like manner, amidst the cheers of the people who lined the sides of the canal." Thus she passed under the "beautifully decorated bridges" belonging to Lord Ellesmere's colliery villages.
Only at the hall-door of Worsley were Lord Ellesmere, lame with gout, and Lord Brackley, his son, "terribly delicate" from an accident in the hunting-field, the husband of one of the beautiful Cawdor Campbells, able to meet their illustrious guests. Henry Greville says her Majesty brought with her four children, two ladies-in-waiting, two equerries, a physician, a tutor, and a governess. Men of mechanical science seem to belong to Worsley, so that it sounds natural for the Queen and the Prince to have met there, during the evening, Nasmyth, the inventor of the steam-hammer, and to have examined his maps of his investigations in the moon, and his landscape-drawings, worthy of his father's son. The Queen and Prince Albert derived great pleasure from their passing intercourse with a man of varied gifts, whose sterling qualities they could well appreciate.
The next morning, the 10th of October, the weather was all that could be wished, but another and even more unfortunate complication threatened the success of the arrangements, on which the comfort of a few and the gratification of many thousands of persons depended. Prince Albert, never strong, was always liable to trying attacks of sleeplessness and sickness. In the course of the night he had been "very unwell, very sick and wretched for several hours." "I was terrified for our Manchester visit" wrote the Queen in her journal. "Thank God! by eight o'clock he felt much better, and was able to get up" indefatigable as ever.
At ten the party started to drive the seven miles to Manchester, escorted by Yeomanry and a regiment of Lancers, Lord Cathcart and his staff riding near the Queen's carriage through an ever-increasing crowd. The Queen was greatly interested in the rows of mill-workers between whom she passed, "dressed in their best, ranged along the streets, with white rosettes in their button-holes"—that patient, easily pleased crowd, which has an aspect half comical, half pathetic. Her Majesty admired the intelligent expression of both men and women, but was painfully struck with their puniness and paleness. In the Peel Park the visitors were greeted by a great demonstration, which her Majesty calls "extraordinary and unprecedented," of no less than eighty-two thousand school children, of every denomination, Jews as well as Christians. The Queen received and replied to an address, from her carriage, and the immense body of children sang "God save the Queen."