The beneficial effects of these journeys were great. Loyalty is to a large extent a personal matter, and is necessarily deepened when the representative of the state not only possesses moral dignity of character but comes frequently into contact with the people. It is also of use to the crown that its wearer should know, from actual observation, the conditions of life in the country. It is in the light of this mutual action of acquaintance between prince and people that we estimate the value of that knowledge which the Prince of Wales, his brothers, and his sons have gained of so many parts of the empire. The Prince Consort felt keenly the use of these influences. "How important and beneficent," he once said, "is the part given to the royal family of England to act in the development of those distant and rising countries, who recognize in the British crown and their allegiance to it, their supreme bond of union with the mother country and to each other!"
During each year of their married life the queen and Prince Consort went on some interesting tour. In England, Oxford and Cambridge, Birmingham, Leeds, Liverpool, Manchester, received royal visits, while such historical houses as Chatsworth, Hatfield, Stowe, and Strathfieldsay were honored by their presence. Ireland was thrice visited. Wales more than once. The first visit to Scotland was made in 1842, another in 1844, and from 1847 only one year passed without a long residence in the north—first at Ardverachie, on Loch Laggan, and then at what was to be their Highland home on Deeside. Repeated visits were also made to the Continent, sometimes in state and sometimes in as much privacy as could be commanded.
It is when we come to this bright time, so full of fresh interest and of a delightful freedom, that we have the advantage of the queen's own "Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands." Her visit to Edinburgh in 1842, and the drive by Birnam and Aberfeldy to Taymouth, and the splendor of the reception, when, amid the cheers of a thousand Highlanders and the wild notes of the bagpipes, she was welcomed by Lord Breadalbane, evidently stirred every feeling of romance. "It seemed," she wrote, "as if a great chieftain of olden feudal times was receiving his sovereign." It appeared like a new world, when, throwing off for a time the restrictions of state, she found herself at Blair two years afterward, climbing the great hills of Atholl, and from the top of Tulloch looking forth on the panorama of mountain and glen. "It was quite romantic; here we were with only this Highlander behind us holding the ponies, not a house, not a creature near us but the pretty Highland sheep, with their horns and black faces. It was the most delightful, most romantic, ride and walk I ever had." These early visits to Scotland inspired her with her love for the Highlands and the Highlanders. She found there quite a world of poetry. The majestic scenery, the fresh, bracing air, the picturesqueness of the kilted gillies, the piping and the dancing, and the long days among the heather, recalled scenes which Sir Walter Scott has glorified for all time, and which are especially identified with the fortunes of the unhappy Stuarts, of whom she is now the nearest representative.
It was in 1848 that the court proceeded for the first time to Balmoral, then a picturesque but small castle. The air of Deeside had been recommended by Sir James Clark, the queen's physician, and his anticipation of the benefits to be derived from residence there was so completely realized that although four years passed before the property was actually purchased, yet preparations were made for establishing there a royal home. Plans for the future castle and for laying out the grounds were gone into by the prince with keen delight. "All has become my dear Albert's own creation, own work, own building, own laying out, as at Osborne; and his great taste and the impress of his dear hand have been stamped everywhere."
It was here that the queen and the Prince Consort enjoyed for more than twelve years a delightful freedom, mingling with their people, devising the wisest methods for insuring their well-being, going with them to worship in their plain (very plain!) parish church, and being to each and all unaffectedly sincere friends. Every spot around soon became consecrated by some sweet association. Every great family event had its commemoration amid the scenery around the castle; though many a cairn, once raised in joy, is now, alas! a monument of sorrow. The life at Balmoral was in every sense beneficial. There never has been there the kind of relaxation that comes from idleness. Systematic work has been always maintained at Balmoral as at Windsor. Early hours in the fresh morning and a regular arrangement of time during the day have given room for the constant business of the crown; but every now and then there were glorious "outings," whether for sport or for some far-reaching expedition, which gave fresh zest to happy and united toil.
There is more than one characteristic of the queen which may recall to Scotchmen the history of their own Stuarts, and among these is her enjoyment of expeditions incognita. The Prince Consort, with his simple German heart, entered fully into the "fun" of such journeys, as, starting off on long rides across mountain-passes and through swollen burns and streams, lunching on heights from which they could gaze far and wide over mountain and strath, they would reach some little roadside inn, and there, assuming a feigned name, had the delight of feeling themselves "private people," while the simple fare and the ridiculous contretemps which frequently occurred were enjoyed the more keenly because of their contrast to accustomed state. And during all these years their domestic life was unbroken by any great family sorrow. It was not till a year before her great bereavement that the queen lost her mother, the Duchess of Kent. Few can read the account of that sorrowful parting without being drawn nearer to the sovereign by the tie of a common humanity, so deep and tender is the affection that is revealed.
But till 1861 the queen was surrounded by all those who were dearest to her, and she and the prince shared the sweet task of superintending their children's education. Few parents more anxiously considered the best methods for securing a sound moral and religious training. "The greatest maxim of all," writes the queen, "is that the children shall be brought up as simply and in as domestic a way as possible, that (without interfering with their lessons) they should be as much as possible with their parents, and learn to place their greatest confidence in them in all things." As to religious training, the queen's conviction was that it is best when given to a child "day by day at his mother's knee." It was only the great pressure of public duty which rendered it impossible for her to fulfil her part so completely as she desired. "It is a hard case for me," her majesty writes, in reference to the princess royal, "that my occupations prevent me being with her when she says her prayers."
The religious convictions of the queen and the Prince Consort were deep. They both cared little for those mere accidents and conventionalities of religion which so many magnify into essentials. The prince, eminently devout, insisted on the realities of religion. "We want not what is safe, but true," was his commentary on the exaggerated outcry against "Essays and Reviews." "The Gospel, and the unfettered right to its use," was his claim for Protestantism. For his own spirit, like that of the queen, was truly religious. The quiet evenings spent together before communion, and the directness and reverence with which both served God were combined with an utter abhorrence of all intolerance. Such qualities are generally misunderstood by the narrow-minded, who have only their own "shibboleths" to test all faith, and the one Church—whatever it may be—that they regard as "true." The queen and the prince rose above such distinctions; they shared the Catholicism of St. Paul, "Grace be with all who love the Lord Jesus Christ in sincerity."
But these bright and happy years were doomed to a sudden ending. It is only when we have realized all that her husband was to her that we can measure how fearful was the blow to her loving heart when he who was her pride and her constant companion was laid low. We may well feel what a shattering it brought to all that hitherto had enriched her life, and how very desolate her position became when she was left in loneliness on the throne, a widow separated by her queendom from many of those supports which others find near them, but from which she was deprived by her position. "Fourteen happy and blessed years have passed," she wrote, in 1854, "and I confidently trust many more will pass, and find us in old age as we now are, happily and devotedly united. Trials we must have, but what are they if we are together?" In God's wisdom that hope was not to be realized, and in 1861 the stroke fell, and it fell with crushing power.
It is not for us to lift the curtain of sorrow that fell like a funeral pall over the first years of her widowhood. For many a day it seemed as if the grief was more than she could bear, and although she was sustained through it all by God's grace, and supported by the sympathy of the nation, yet it was naturally a long-continued and absorbing sorrow. Other blows have fallen since then. The tender and wise Princess Alice, and the thoughtful and cultured Duke of Albany, have also been gathered to their rest; and the queen has had to mourn over one after another of her most faithful servants taken from her. But the hallowing hand of time, the soothing remembrance of unspeakable mercies, and the call to noble duty, have done much to restore the strength, if not the joy, of former days. Her people rejoice, and the influence of the Crown is enormously strengthened, when in these later years the queen has been able once more to mingle with the nation.