Lady Georgie, as her friends always called her, was a real personality. She combined great physical energy and strength (she was a most fearless rider to hounds, and no day in Leicestershire was too long for her) with the brains and driving-power of the Churchills. She threw herself into the work of running the Yeomanry Hospital that was started during the South African War with the same boundless energy that always characterised her. Principally owing to her exertions it was most successfully conducted, and though she was really in failing health at the time, nothing would induce her to give up her work, and she died shortly after the Peace was signed. No more gallant spirit ever existed.
Early in March 1893, the late Rear-Admiral Stephenson, who has been mentioned before in these Recollections, hoisted his flag as Commander-in-Chief of the Pacific Station at Portsmouth, the Royal Arthur, then a brand-new cruiser, being his flagship. Somewhere about the end of the month, I received a message from Prince Louis of Battenberg, who was then Naval Adviser to the Inspector-General of Fortifications, informing me that the Prince of Wales desired me to go to Portsmouth in attendance, as His Royal Highness was losing his regular Naval Equerry in the person of Admiral Stephenson. The occasion was the inspection of the Royal Arthur, before that ship sailed for the Pacific. I duly got myself into uniform and met the Prince at Victoria Station. Prince Louis of Battenberg also went down. He had been Second in Command to the Admiral when the latter commanded the old Dreadnought, so it was quite in the fitness of things that he should travel to Portsmouth with the Prince to wish his old Captain good-bye. After the inspection, just before getting into the train to return to London, Prince Louis told me, to my intense surprise, that His Royal Highness had deputed him to tell me that he wished me to join his Staff as one of his Equerries-in-Waiting. So complete was my ignorance of anything connected with Court appointments that I told Prince Louis that, while being greatly honoured, I felt obliged to decline as I was compelled to go on steadily at my profession, being too poor to leave the Service and live permanently in England. I then learned, what I had no notion of until that time, that the post of Equerry carried a salary with it, which, in addition to my half-pay, would be quite equal to anything I could earn as Commander in the Navy, and that the Prince was quite content that I should remain in the Navy, and if necessary serve again in order to keep my name on the active list. Naturally, having learnt this, my only cause for hesitation vanished into thin air, so, to my great delight, I was duly appointed as Equerry-in-Waiting, and left the Admiralty, where I had served for about two years.
For the next seventeen years, until the day of his death—to me the saddest day I have ever known—I remained on his Staff as Equerry, and took my regular turn in waiting; and was thus a personal servant to the kindest and most considerate of masters that ever a man was fortunate enough to serve. From the late King and his family, during all those years, and in the years that have passed since, I received, and indeed still continue to receive, such unfailing kindness that I do not propose even to dwell on it; it would be hard to write on the subject without expressing a gratitude that, on paper, might almost appear fulsome.
[CHAPTER VIII]
EQUERRY TO THE PRINCE OF WALES
I came into waiting on the Prince of Wales for the first time in May 1893, and one of the interesting minor events which happened during that month was the début of the famous cutter yacht, Britannia, who sailed her maiden race with her illustrious owner on board. It was not very easy for the Prince, with all his multifarious engagements, to find two spare days in the middle of the London Season, and indeed he was very seldom able to be on board his yacht except during the Cowes week, and in the early spring when visiting the Riviera. But the Britannia’s début at the Royal Thames Regatta was really something of an occasion, for at that time very great public interest was taken in yacht racing, and for three or four consecutive seasons the number of big racing cutters was abnormally large. Additional importance was attached to her behaviour in her first race, owing to the fact that the Britannia was known to be almost on the same lines as the Valkyrie, which later in the year was to race on the other side of the Atlantic for the America Cup. We had two good days’ racing on the Thames, and after very close finishes the Britannia beat the Valkyrie two days running. These two yachts encountered each other on many occasions; it was a near thing between them, but on the whole the Britannia was very slightly the better boat of the two.
