The Queen had sat down to sketch when the keeper returned to tell her that the watch was safe at home; but that was not all. He brought a letter from Lord Derby with a melancholy confirmation of the report of the morning. The Duke of Wellington was dead. The Queen calls the news "fatal," and with something of the fond exaggeration of a daughter, writes of the dead man as "England's—rather Britannia's—pride, her glory, her hero, the greatest man she ever had produced."
We can understand it, when we remember how closely connected he was with all her previous career, from her cradle till now. He had taken pride in her, advised her, obeyed her, with half a father's, half a servant's devotion. The King of the Belgians was hardly more her second father than the Duke of Wellington had been.
Besides, the Duke was not only a soldier; he had been a statesman, tried and true as far as his vision extended; brave here no less than in the stricken field, honest with an upright man's straightforwardness, wise with a practical man's sense of what could and could not be done, what must be yielded when the time came.
The Queen might well mourn for her grey-bearded captain, her faithful old councillor. There was one comfort, that the Duke had reached a good old age, and died after a few hours illness, without suffering. He simply fell asleep, and awoke no more in this world. His old antagonist, Marshal Soult, had pre-deceased him only by a few months.
The Queen sums up the position: "One cannot think of this country without 'the Duke,' our immortal hero."
Her Majesty hastened down on foot to the head of Loch Muich, and rode back in the rain to Alt-na-Giuthasach to write to Lord Derby and Lord Charles Wellesley, who had been with his father in his last hours. She wrote mournfully in her journal: "We shall soon stand sadly alone. Aberdeen is almost the only personal friend of that kind left to us. Melbourne, Peel, Liverpool, now the Duke, all gone!…."
Invitations were countermanded, and the Court went into mourning. The Queen was right that the sorrow was universal. The ships in the Thames and in all the English ports had their flags half-mast high, the church bells were tolled, business was done "with the great exchanges half-shuttered," garrison music was forbidden.
The Duke had left no directions with regard to his funeral, and it was fitting that it should receive the highest honour Sovereign and people could pay. But the Queen refrained from issuing an order, preferring that the country should take the initiative. It was necessary to wait till the 11th of November, when Parliament must meet. In the meantime the body of the Duke was placed under a Guard of Honour at Walmer. Viscount Hardinge was appointed Commander-in-Chief.
The Court left Balmoral on the 12th of October, about a month after the Duke of Wellington's death, and on the 11th—a day which the Queen calls in her journal "a very happy, lucky, and memorable one"—her Majesty and Prince Albert, with their family, household, tenants, servants, and poorer neighbours, ascended Craig Gowan, a hill near Balmoral, for the purpose of building a cairn, which was to commemorate the Queen and the Prince's having taken possession of their home in the north. At the "Moss House," half-way up, the Queen's piper met her, and preceded her, playing as he went. Not the least welcome among the company already collected were the children of the keepers and other retainers, with whom her Majesty was familiar in their own homes. She calls them her "little friends," and enumerates them in a motherly way, "Mary Symons, and Lizzie Stewart, the four Grants, and several others."
The Queen laid the first stone of the cairn, Prince Albert the next. Their example was followed by the Princes and Princesses, according to their ages, and by the members of the household. Finally every one present "came forward at once, each person carrying a stone and placing it on the cairn." The piper played, whiskey was handed round. The work of building went on for an hour, during which "some merry reels were danced on a flat stone opposite." All the old people danced, apparently to her Majesty's mingled gratification and diversion. Again the happy mother of seven fine children notices particularly the children and their performance. "Many of the children—Mary Symons and Lizzie Stewart especially—danced so nicely, the latter with her hair all hanging down."