Mr Robertson was dead, but his son and successor in the Palè estate, Mr, now Sir Henry Beyer Robertson, was delighted to have the opportunity of fulfilling his father's intention. On being made aware of this, the Queen decided to make the visit in the summer of the following year on her way to Balmoral. When this decision became known, the people of the principality, who are as a rule most loyal, looked forward with enthusiasm to the prospect of seeing among them the Queen, who had hitherto been to them only a revered name. Everything was done which loyalty could devise to show how highly the royal presence among them was valued. The only cloud on the general satisfaction was the knowledge that the visit could only be for a very few days—from the 23rd to the 28th of August, one of which was a Sunday.
The Queen arrived at Palè on the 23rd at 7 A.M., and had not been many hours there before she received a deputation of the farm tenants of the adjoining district, who had prepared a walking-stick of their native wood for Her Majesty's acceptance. They were surprised, and more than delighted, by the royal acceptance of it being made in Welsh, the Queen having immediately on her arrival taken pains to learn so much of that far from easy language as served her for this and other similar occasions. In no other way could Her Majesty have so thoroughly touched the hearts of her Welsh subjects. The incident, of which the tidings spread over Wales within a few hours, heightened the enthusiasm with which she was everywhere received. Two days afterwards this was markedly shown in her public visit to Wrexham, the centre of the mining and other industries of Denbighshire, where a reception in Aston Park, the property of Sir Robert Cunliffe, admirably arranged by the Mayor and Corporation of Wrexham, awaited Her Majesty. All the leading people of the adjoining counties were present, and many hundred thousands of the working population assembled both there and on the five miles of road along which the Queen drove from Ruabon, to which the royal train had come from Palè. A choir of 600 singers gave the Queen her first idea of the choral singing for which Wales is famous. The demeanour of the working men, rough in exterior, and not always on ordinary occasions gentle in manners, produced a most favourable impression on Her Majesty. "They all behaved like gentlemen," she said to me when, two days afterwards, accompanied by the Prince and Princess Henry of Battenberg and the Princess Alix of Hesse (now the Czarina), she honoured Lady Martin and myself by a visit to our villa near Llangollen. It had not occurred to us why the Queen had chosen that day, the 26th of August, for the visit. But the reason flashed upon us, when, turning to Lady Martin as she inscribed her name with the date on a sheet of paper prepared for the purpose, she looked up and said, "The dear Prince's birthday!" Then we saw that as the Prince's Life had been written in my study there, Her Majesty had chosen that day for her visit—surely a very delicately imagined tribute to the author.
Several Welsh airs were sung for the Queen on this visit by a selected number of the Llangollen choir, chiefly young ladies. When they had finished, Her Majesty asked me to what class the singers belonged, as she had observed greater refinement in their execution than in any of the other choirs she had heard in Wales. She was also struck by the admirable way they had sustained the pitch from beginning to end of all the choral pieces sung without the drop of half a tone. Only an ear finely trained to a subtle appreciation of musical execution could have noticed these points.
It had been greatly desired that the Queen should visit Festiniog, both for the beauty of the scenery and to satisfy the loyal feelings of the large and intelligent slate-making population of that district. This was found to be impracticable, but a hope was held out that the omission might be remedied by another visit to North Wales. A few days after her arrival at Balmoral the Queen wrote: "The Queen and her children have brought with them the pleasantest recollections of Wales, its beauty, and the kindness and loyalty of its people. The Queen was greatly pleased to have been able to see Sir Theodore and Lady Martin's charming home."
Again in the following year (September 3, 1891) Her Majesty wrote:—
"The Queen thanks Sir T. Martin for his letter of the 26th, on which dear day last year we made that charming expedition to Llangollen and visited Sir Theodore and Lady Martin at their delightful little Welsh home at Bryntysilio. The recollection of the Queen's visit to Wales is a most pleasing one, to which she often looks back, and hopes to repeat some day. She would wish to go again to Palè, to which most pleasant and comfortable house Sir H. Robertson has again and again invited her to return. The Queen could visit Harlech Castle and Llanberis, &c., from Palè, returning at night, could she not? The Queen uses the Welsh stick, so kindly given her by the farmers and people at Palè, very often, and always when she travels and wants a good strong one."
Greatly to the disappointment of the good people of Wales, Her Majesty never found it possible to fulfil this contemplated second visit.
In the correspondence which continued at intervals during the ensuing years there is nothing that is available for the object of this monograph. But in November 1896 Her Majesty gave me an opportunity of expressing briefly my views of what an authentic Life of herself should be, of which I was not sorry to avail myself. On the 10th of that month she wrote to me:—
"The Queen is glad that Sir Theodore approves the idea of a short Life of her husband being set in hand and published.
"She so much wishes that something should be done about her own Life, as so many people have published and are publishing her Life, with the best intentions, full of extraordinary fabrications and untruths."