"The Prince had the greatest possible dislike for extravagance in dress, and, above all, for always following in fashion. He liked people to be well and elegantly and neatly dressed, but abhorred in men as well as in women anything loud, or fast, or startling. He would not have allowed me or any of our daughters to appear in any dress or coiffure or bonnet not becoming or proper, and he would have made us take it off. I never bought a dress or bonnet without consulting him, and his taste was always good. I remember so well, when my French coiffeur came from Paris every year, and brought over things which were tried on, the Prince has come in and said, 'Das trägst Du nicht!' [That you shall not wear!] The Queen and Princesses, he said, ought never to follow foolish and ugly fashions, only because they were new. This was entirely out of place.
"What would he say now, when every one dresses so overmuch, and thinks so much more about dress than they ever did before! He thought, and I think the same, that people ought to adopt what is really becoming, but not because it is the fashion, and especially what does not suit their face and figure."
Wise words, no doubt; but how few are they, in all ranks of life, who have the courage to be in what Falstaff calls "the rereward of the fashion," however fantastic the fashion may be, and out of harmony with their face and figure?
The Queen's passionate love for Scotland, with which her little books have made the world familiar, her delight in the prospect of going to Balmoral, her dejection at the thought of leaving it, constantly broke out in her letters to me. Thus (28th June 1867) she writes from Balmoral:—
"The Queen hopes Mr Martin will find a good place in the Life for the Prince's love and admiration for our beloved Scotland. Mr Martin remembers his memorable words spoken not three weeks before his fatal illness: 'England does not know what she owes to Scotland.' Beloved country! The Queen's whole heart yearns to it more and more, and the 14th will be a sad day when she leaves it again."
Notwithstanding my love for my own native land, I found so much of graver matter to deal with in the Prince's life that I fear I did not gratify this phase of the Queen's feelings so fully as she desired. Greatly as the Prince enjoyed his Scottish holidays, Scotland was not to him what it was to the Queen, especially after his death. She was never so well in health as there, and with health came fresh vigour of mind and cheerfulness of spirits. She rejoiced, too, in the contrast of her comparatively simple and genial life there with the life of state and courtly convention which awaited her at Windsor, where, as she has told me, even the measured tread of the sentinels under her windows was irksome to her. The very splendour of Windsor Castle, that stateliest and most richly endowed of palaces, weighed upon a spirit that yearned for the freedom of life and movement, for which monarchs have ever yearned, but must, perforce, school themselves to forego. Her Majesty's feeling on this subject finds striking expression in the following passage of a letter to me from Windsor Castle (November 8, 1869):—
"The departure from Scotland, that beloved and blessed land, 'the birthplace of valour, the country of worth,' is very painful, and the Sehnsucht [yearning] for it, and proportionate chagrin on returning to this gloomiest, saddest of places, very great.[14] It is not alone the pure air, the quiet and beautiful scenery, which makes it so delightful—it is the atmosphere of loving affection, and the hearty attachment of the people around Balmoral, which warms the heart, and does one good, and the absence of which, replaced by a cathedral church, with all its bells and clergy, a garrison town, and a very gossiping one, a Court with all its chilling formality, and the impossibility of going among the poor here, who are in villages of a very bad description, makes the change a dreadful one."
While, for the reason I have stated, Scotland took no prominent place in my Life of the Prince, I made the Queen such amends as I might by my assistance in the preparation and passing through the press of the profusely illustrated edition of the Leaves from a Journal,[15] in the details of which Her Majesty took great interest. With her accustomed courtesy the Queen acknowledged a service which was a pleasure to me from the frequency with which it brought me into communication with her, by presentation of a fine copy of the book, inscribed (January 11, 1869) by her own hand, "To Theodore Martin, Esq., with the expression of sincere gratitude for the pains he has taken with this illustrated volume." And here I may say that I have not met in life a nature more grateful than the Queen's for service done, however slight, or more courteous in the acknowledgment of it. This perfect courtesy showed itself in many ways. Thus, for example, if a letter remained without answer for a day or two, the reply was sure to open with an apology for the delay. If the delay extended to several days, then "the Queen is shocked" at her own tardiness, although it was due to the urgent demand of business of State, or to some other important claim on her attention. Again, when she has been sitting at work, surrounded by despatch-boxes, in the open air at Osborne, and I have come to make my adieu, taking off my hat as I approached, she would desire me to replace it; and when I deprecated doing so, "Put on your hat," she said with a peremptory playfulness—"put on your hat, or I will not speak to you! I know you suffer from neuralgia,"—though how she came to know it I could not imagine.
The marriage of H.R.H. the Princess Louise, for whom my wife as well as myself had a warm regard, was sure, as the Queen knew, to be a matter of deep interest to us. No sooner was it arranged than Her Majesty wrote to inform us. The announcement was followed by another letter (12th March 1871), in which she wrote, in anticipation of the official invitation to the ceremony at St George's Chapel, Windsor, on the 21st: "The Queen is anxious that Mr Martin should know that he is specially invited to Princess Louise's marriage as the Queen's personal friend." The signal honour thus done me was continued at all the subsequent marriages of the Royal children.
The period between the short Administration of Mr Disraeli in 1868 and his return to office in 1874 was one of great political agitation and unrest, both at home and abroad. Problems that had not hitherto got beyond academical discussion took a practical form under the impulse given to reform by Mr Gladstone on his accession to power. Bills, among others, were launched for the Abolition of the Irish Church, for Compulsory Education, for the Establishment of the Ballot, for the Abolition of University tests, and for Army Reform. These were all measures novel and of a wide-reaching scope, upon which public opinion was greatly divided, and on which the Queen, according to her method, had to form an independent judgment. The state of affairs abroad, also, demanded close attention. The plots and counterplots, not always favourable to England, which came to a climax in the outbreak of the Franco-German war, the attitude of America in regard to the Alabama Claims, and of Russia in denouncing the clauses of the Treaty of Paris which provided for the neutralisation of the Black Sea, all fell within the same period, and in the policy to be maintained in regard to them Her Majesty's Ministers looked for her advice and assistance.