JiS I KJ^EW he 71 
 
 SiJl TheoDoJ{e :MA^TiJi, K.C.K 
 
3tl}ata, 5fem ^ork 
 
 BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE 
 
 SAGE ENDOWMENT FUND 
 
 THE GIFT OF 
 
 HENRY W. SAGE 
 
 1891 
 
Cornell University Library 
 
 DA 533.M38 1901 
 
 Queen Victoria as i l<new her / 
 
 3 1924 028 024 812 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
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 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
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aUEEN VICTORIA 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA 
 
 AS I KNEW HER 
 
 SIR THEODORE MARTIN 
 
 K.C.B., K.C.V.O.' 
 
 §«x (prtoa(( CixcutaHon 
 
 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS 
 
 EDINBURGH AND LONDON 
 
 MCMI 
 
 ■!, 
 
 V 
 
 A// Riirhf^ vf^pi^iiifi 
 
QTIFLE the throbbing of this haunting pain. 
 And dash this tearful sorrow from the eyes ! 
 She is not dead ! Though suinmoned to the skies, 
 
 Still in our hearts she lives, and there will reign ; 
 
 Still the dear memory will the power retain 
 To teach us where our foremost duty lies, 
 Truth, justice, honour, simple worth to prize. 
 
 And what our best have been to be again. 
 
 She hath gone hence, to tneet the great, the good. 
 The loved ones, yearn' d for through long toilsome 
 years. 
 
 To share with them the blest beatitude. 
 
 Where care is not, nor strife, nor wasting fears. 
 
 Nor cureless ills, nor wrongs to be withstood ; 
 
 Shall thought of this not dry our blinding tears ? 
 
 Published in the ' Nineteenth Century,' February 1901. 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA 
 
 AS I KNEW HER. 
 
 CHAPTER I. 
 
 My personal introduction to Queen Victoria was 
 due to tlie circumstance of my being chosen by 
 Her Majesty to be the biographer of the Prince 
 Consort. The obvious difficulties of that task, 
 to which I looked forward with grave appre- 
 hension, could not have been successfully over- 
 come but for the personal confidence early 
 reposed in me by the Queen, which led not 
 only to her placing unreservedly at my dis- 
 posal the very complete collections made by 
 the Prince Consort of confidential State and 
 other papers connected with Her Majesty's 
 
2 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 reign, but also to the frank communication of 
 such personal details as, while they illustrated 
 the character of the Prince, threw the strongest 
 light upon that of the Queen herself 
 
 After my book was completed, the same con- 
 fidential relations continued. This gave me such 
 unusual opportunity of observing Her Majesty's 
 qualities of mind and heart, that I am tempted 
 to place on record so much of what I saw as 
 may without impropriety be told. What she 
 was as a Sovereign will be for historians to 
 tell ; it is only of the woman as she became 
 revealed to me that I would speak, using, where 
 I may, her own words, as I find them in looking 
 back upon the very voluminous correspondence 
 with which I was honoured through many 
 years. The endearing qualities of the Queen 
 have been acknowledged by all who knew her. 
 They secured for her what might be truly 
 called the affectionate devotion of the men and 
 women of her Court. I belonged to the outer 
 world, but by no one were these qualities more 
 warmly felt than by myself; for to the end, 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 3 
 
 when the work which first brought me into con- 
 tact with Her Majesty had long been completed, 
 her gracious kindness and trust were vouchsafed 
 to me with a constancy that knew no shade 
 of change. 
 
 " How came you to be chosen to write the 
 Life of the Prince Consort ? " is a question I 
 have often been asked. It is a question which, 
 in the early days, I often asked myself, for the 
 selection came upon me as a great surprise. I 
 did not know the Prince Consort, but I had 
 heard much of him through my friend Mr 
 (afterwards Sir Arthur) Helps, Clerk of Her 
 Majesty's Council, and had been consulted 
 by him in his preparation of the Collection of 
 the Prince's Speeches and Addresses, and of 
 the admirable monograph with which he in- 
 troduced them, in the volume published by 
 Murray in 1862. He must have laid more 
 stress on my assistance than it merited. The 
 Queen, to whom I was an entire stranger, 
 presented me with an inscribed copy of the 
 
4 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 book dated 20th December 1862. It came with 
 a letter from Lady Augusta Bruce (afterwards 
 Stanley), one of the Queen's ladies, in which 
 she says she had been commanded to forward 
 it to me, " in remembrance of my co-operation 
 in the work of giving these precious memorials 
 to our country and to the world, and as a token 
 of Her Majesty's true appreciation of the spirit 
 in which that co-operation was afforded." Lady 
 Augusta was an old and valued friend of my 
 wife, and she, as well as Sir Arthur Helps, 
 may have spoken of me to the Queen ; but I 
 was quite unprepared for such a recognition of 
 suggestions which in no way merited, to my 
 thinking, the name of co-operation. From this 
 time onwards I heard much both of the Queen 
 and Prince from my friend Helps, and my 
 opinion was often asked in connection with 
 Her Majesty's Leaves from a Journal, which 
 he was engaged in carrying through the press. 
 It had been intended that General Charles 
 Grey, the Queen's Private Secretary, should 
 write the Prince's Life, and a first volume was 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 5 
 
 in course of being prepared, which dealt with 
 the early years and marriage of the Prince. The 
 General soon found that he had neither the 
 leisure nor the strength to carry out the work, 
 and I was aware that the question how this 
 was to be done had closely occupied Her 
 Majesty's thoughts. I was, however, taken 
 greatly by surprise when a letter from Helps 
 reached me in my holiday retreat in North 
 Wales, in which he told me that the Queen 
 had approved of a suggestion he had made, 
 that I should be asked to undertake the task. 
 With his letter he sent for my perusal, through 
 Miss Alice Helps, who was then staying with 
 us, a memorandum giving an outline of his 
 ideas how the work should be carried out. 
 
 " It will be a very great thing to do," the 
 memorandum said, "covering many of the most 
 secret transactions of the reign. General Grey's 
 book is merely the life of the Prince as a child, 
 and up to his marriage. It now becomes part 
 of the history of England, and also of foreign 
 States. A special duty will be to judge what 
 
6 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 documents shall be published, taking it for 
 granted that such a work cannot long be kept 
 secret. . . . The more I see of the Prince's 
 doings and sayings, the more I am struck with 
 their largeness and extent." The memorandum 
 goes on to offer assistance (which, as it turned 
 out, I never used) in looking up and selecting 
 materials and in furnishing political information, 
 ending with the assurance, that "after seeing 
 me, Her Majesty would be most confidential, 
 and would trust everything to me. H. M. would 
 much like Mr Martin to undertake the work, 
 and he would find no difficulty in getting 
 her to assent to any of his wishes in regard 
 to it." 
 
 Reflection satisfied me that, as the event 
 proved, Mr Helps had not fully appreciated 
 either the greatness of the scale on which a 
 biography, that would in fact be a history, 
 must be constructed, or the amount of time 
 and labour which it would demand. Much 
 honoured as I felt by the proposal, I shrank 
 from the task ; and in the full sense of my 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 7 
 
 own unfitness for it, and in the hope that it 
 would not be further pressed upon me, I 
 repHed to Mr Helps as follows : — 
 
 "2'lth August 1866. 
 
 " My dear Helps, — Alice has read to me 
 your memorandum as to the proposed Life of 
 the Prince Consort, and I have given the subject 
 very anxious consideration. The work I con- 
 ceive to be one which, while full of the greatest 
 interest, is surrounded with the grravest re- 
 sponsibility. You do not very clearly indicate 
 what precise shape the Life is intended to take. 
 It is natural and proper that a Life of the Prince 
 should be prepared, and given to the world, 
 probably at no distant date, in which the real 
 greatness of his character, public and private, 
 and the breadth of his views should be de- 
 veloped, and developed by letting himself speak 
 through the memoranda and other documents 
 under his own hand, which, I presume, exist in 
 abundance, wherever these can with propriety 
 be used. But it is, of course, obvious that the 
 matters to be dealt with involve so much that 
 
8 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 is delicate in their bearing both upon individual 
 and public affairs, that to decide what should 
 and what should not be given will involve most 
 anxious consideration at every step ; while it is 
 scarcely less certain that much must either be 
 altogether withheld, or set apart for a volume 
 of pieces justificatives, to be compiled for pos- 
 sible publication at some more remote period. 
 
 " The selection and classification of these 
 materials will occupy much time and thought 
 before a line of the Biography can be written.' 
 At least such is my present opinion, for I do 
 not think that the life of any man of mark, 
 much more a man so pre - eminent as the 
 Prince, can be written until the whole scope 
 and purpose of his life, as seen in his actions 
 and habits of thought down to its close, have 
 been, as far as may be, ascertained — until, in 
 Shakespeare's words, the ' idea of his mind 
 and life ' has crept into the biographer's ' study 
 of imagination.' Then, and then only, can 
 he hope to paint his portrait with the freedom 
 and warmth of pencil which can alone be 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 9 
 
 derived from a full mastery of his materials 
 and thorough sympathy with his theme. Add 
 to this, that much will have to be read and 
 considered of what has already been said and 
 done in public matters during the Prince's 
 life. 
 
 " Holding these views of the task, I naturally 
 pause very gravely before making up my mind 
 whether or not to accept a duty so honour- 
 able, but, at the same time, so onerous. You 
 know how fully my time is engaged in my 
 profession. This will in itself make anything 
 like frequent absence from London impossible, 
 and indeed I would undertake nothing which 
 took me frequently from home, where, as you 
 know, all my happiness is centred. While, 
 therefore, I might upon occasion be able to 
 attend Her Majesty for instructions or the 
 discussion of such points as required explan- 
 ation, I could only do so upon occasion, and 
 I could, for the meantime at least, only pledge 
 myself to give such time to the work as my 
 profession and my health (which, you know, 
 
lo QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 is far from strong) would admit. Now, it 
 may not be compatible with the views of Her 
 Majesty to accept my service under such con- 
 ditions. But, in any case, it is indispensable 
 that she should be fully aware of them. If, 
 with the full knowledge of them, Her Majesty 
 should still be pleased to consider that I can 
 be useful in carrying out Her Majesty's views, 
 I should then feel less difficulty in undertaking 
 the task, always understanding that I am to 
 be assisted, as you propose, in the selection 
 and arrangement of documents, &c." 
 
 Mr Helps received my letter at Balmoral, 
 where, as Clerk of the Council, he was in 
 attendance upon the Queen. " Nothing," he 
 wrote, " can be better than your letter, which 
 I received yesterday evening, and have just 
 sent in to the Queen. She has named a time 
 for seeing me to-day, and, if I have time after- 
 wards, I will tell you what she says." His 
 letter concludes with an account, that is not 
 unamusing, of one of the household balls by 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. ii 
 
 which the routine of the life at Balmoral was 
 occasionally broken : — 
 
 " The ball went off admirably last night ; 
 even Her Majesty remained many hours 
 watching it. In how many points one's edu- 
 cation has been neglected ! I could not dance 
 any of these Scotch dances. However, I en- 
 joyed the fun as a spectator. All ranks 
 danced together, and one of the best hits I 
 saw made was when the Prince's coachman, a 
 dapper little fellow, cut out H.R.H. very neatly 
 in what they call a 'perpetual jig.' 
 
 "There was a little 'tiger' who greatly dis- 
 tinguished himself, and contrived, which is a 
 matter of skill, to get the Princess [of Wales] 
 for a partner for a short time. Then, perhaps, 
 the little imp was himself cut out by a duke. 
 The people behaved, as they generally do in 
 such cases, admirably — free, graceful, and com- 
 paratively at their ease — and yet never 
 forward." 
 
 As I heard no more on the subject of the 
 Life for several days, I had begun to hope 
 
12 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 that the subject would drop, so far as I was 
 concerned, when, on the nth of September, 
 Mr Helps sent me a letter to himself from 
 the Queen, in which Her Majesty wrote : " She 
 thinks it most important that the services of 
 Mr Martin should be engaged in this all- 
 important work, which she feels should be as 
 faithful a representation of the greatest and 
 best of men, her dearly loved and honoured 
 husband, as it possibly can be. The copying 
 and sifting of papers, and the responsibility 
 for what should be put in or omitted, would 
 rest with the Queen, General Grey, and Mr 
 Helps, and this, she hopes, will remove Mr 
 Martin's objection to the task. It will give 
 the Queen much satisfaction to make Mr 
 Martin's acquaintance." 
 
 On reading this letter, I waited on Mr 
 Helps, when he gave me full details of what 
 had passed in his interview with Her Majesty 
 after she had read my letter. Among other 
 things, I remember, he informed me that she 
 laid great stress upon the fact that through 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 13 
 
 life I had never taken a side in party 
 politics ; that I was thoroughly versed in the 
 German language, in which a large proportion 
 of the documents which I should have to 
 consider was written ; that I had gone through 
 a full legal training, and had in my profession 
 come in contact with many men engaged in 
 undertakings of great importance. After so 
 gracious an expression of Her Majesty's con- 
 fidence, I felt that only one course was open 
 to me, and accordingly I wrote to Mr Helps : 
 " Her Majesty having been graciously pleased 
 to accept such aid as I can give towards the 
 great object which Her Majesty has so deeply 
 at heart, I feel that I can no longer hesitate 
 to place my best services at her disposal. 
 You will understand best how to make this 
 known to Her Majesty, whose commands I 
 shall hold myself in readiness to fulfil." 
 
 The Queen soon afterwards returned from 
 Balmoral to Windsor Castle, and it was ar- 
 ranged that I was to be introduced there by 
 Mr Helps on the 14th of November 1866. 
 
14 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 The night before was memorable for the mar- 
 vellous transit of shooting-stars (the Leonids) 
 across the heavens, the recurrence of which in 
 subsequent years has been looked for eagerly 
 but in vain. I remember well wondering to 
 myself, as after midnight I gazed upon that 
 magnificent spectacle, how I, utter stranger as 
 I was to the ways and etiquette of courts, 
 should pass through the ordeal that awaited 
 me. I had been rather disconcerted that 
 evening by hearing that Mr Helps, whose 
 presence would have somewhat lightened the 
 embarrassment of a first interview with the 
 Queen, was so unwell that he could not ac- 
 company me to Windsor. Thither, therefore, 
 I had to go alone, and at the appointed hour 
 was ushered into a room the walls of which 
 were enriched by part of Her Majesty's great 
 collection of miniatures. Here I found the 
 Princess Helena awaiting me. I had met her 
 more than once before, and her presence 
 served to place me more at ease than I should 
 otherwise have been before Her Majesty ap- 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 15 
 
 peared. Still, my heart beat quicker when, 
 very soon, I found myself in the presence of 
 the Queen. In her face I read at a glance 
 marked traces of the great sorrow she had 
 undergone. Serene and full of quiet dignity 
 as it was, I seemed to perceive in the Queen's 
 bearing something of that nervousness, almost 
 amounting to shyness, which, as I came to 
 know afterwards. Her Majesty always seemed 
 to feel in first meeting a stranger — a shyness 
 so little to be expected in a Sovereign who 
 had gone through so many exciting scenes, and 
 had known nearly all the most distinguished 
 men in Europe. To show no signs of em- 
 barrassment, but to be simple and self-pos- 
 sessed, I saw at once was my true policy. 
 The consequence was that Her Majesty herself 
 quickly became at ease, and by her frank, 
 gracious manner made me feel as it were at 
 home in the long conversation that ensued, 
 and in which, for the first time, I felt the 
 charm that never failed of her exquisite smile 
 and of her silver-toned voice. 
 
1 6 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 The details of that conversation I cannot, 
 after so long an interval of years, recall. An 
 opportunity was given to me of explaining my 
 views as to the lines upon which the Life 
 of the Prince should be written, and the infor- 
 mation with which I desired more immediately 
 to be furnished. The Queen promised to send 
 me such extracts from her own and the Prince's 
 diaries, and copies of such documents in her 
 possession, as she considered might be useful. 
 Before she withdrew, Her Majesty turned the 
 conversation to general topics, and, to my sur- 
 prise, I found that she somehow knew much 
 of my home ties, and of my tastes and pursuits 
 in literature and the arts, in regard to which 
 she encouraged me to give the frank expression 
 of my opinions. I left her presence deeply im- 
 pressed by the simplicity of bearing under which 
 the dignity of the Queen was unostentatiously 
 present but subtly felt, and by a singular charm 
 of manner, which grew and grew upon me the 
 more I came under its influence in the years of 
 frequent intercourse that followed. 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 17 
 
 The absence of Mr Helps upon this occasion 
 was, in a sense, fortunate, as it gave me the 
 opportunity of learning, in the Queen's own 
 words, the impression Her Majesty had formed 
 of me in this first interview. On the same day 
 she wrote to Mr Helps. He was a great purist 
 in regard to style, which will explain the first 
 paragraph of her letter : — 
 
 "Windsor Castle, Nov. 14, 1866. 
 
 " The Queen is so grieved (perhaps Mr Helps 
 will scold her for that so /) to hear of Mr Helps 
 feeling so ill to-day, but she thinks he will be 
 relieved to hear that the first interview with 
 Mr Martin passed off extremely well, and that 
 the Queen is very much pleased with him, and 
 feels sure that she can be at her ease with him. 
 He is clever, kind, and sympathetic, and it will 
 be a great interest to her to work with him and 
 Mr Helps." 
 
 Words so kind naturally dispelled some of the 
 misgivings with which I was haunted in looking 
 
 B 
 
i8 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 forward to what would be expected from the 
 biographer of the Prince Consort, — expected both 
 by her, who knew what she herself and her king- 
 dom had lost in him, and by the public, who only 
 too late had surmised the extent of that loss. 
 No time was lost in getting together materials 
 for the story of the early part of the Prince's 
 life. These were supplied to me by the Queen 
 from her journals, from family correspondence, 
 and, in short, from everything which could 
 throw light upon the youth and character of the 
 Prince. Much information was also furnished 
 in interviews with Her Majesty at Windsor 
 Castle, to which I was frequently summoned. 
 I gathered much, also, from some of the gentle- 
 men of the household who had known the 
 Prince, and with whom I became acquainted 
 during my visits to the Castle, where they were 
 at pains to show me that I was not an un- 
 welcome CTuest. Most of all I learned from 
 General Charles Grey, the Queen's Private 
 Secretary, a man of strong character and con- 
 spicuous ability, whose personal friendship and 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 19 
 
 confidence in me I must ever remember with 
 the warmest gratitude. 
 
 On one of my early visits to the Castle 
 he put to me a question which I was glad to 
 have an opportunity of answering, and to which, 
 in the interests of the Queen, he was entitled 
 to a reply. "To what," he said, "do you 
 look forward in return for executing the onerous 
 task you are undertaking?" "My compensa- 
 tion," I replied, "will be ample, if I can make 
 people understand the Prince, how great he 
 was, how devoted to the welfare of our country, 
 how great the debt which the country owed 
 him. It must," I added, " be understood that 
 my work is to be without fee or reward of any 
 kind. My private means are ample for all my 
 wants, and I can therefore afford full time for 
 doing the work thoroughly. All I stipulate is 
 that I am to have a free hand both as to 
 the time and manner in which it is to be done. 
 I foresee that it will be the work of years, and 
 that it can only be well done if I am allowed 
 entire independence in forming and expressing 
 
20 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 my estimate of the Prince, and of his influence 
 in matters of pubHc or poHtical importance." 
 
 General Grey expressed his satisfaction with 
 what I said, and, no doubt, lost no time in in- 
 forming the Queen of its import. However 
 this might be, from that moment I was treated 
 with unreserved confidence, and the conditions 
 for which I had stipulated were fully and frankly 
 kept throughout all my labours. In General 
 Grey I found a cordial friend. He paid me 
 the compliment of asking my assistance in finally 
 seeing through the press the work, The Early 
 Years of the Prince Consort, on which he was 
 then engaged, and which was soon afterwards 
 published. It had been originally intended that 
 my work should begin where his left off. But 
 as I went on with my studies I found that, to 
 make my biography coherent and complete, I 
 must go over the ground General Grey had 
 already gone over, and treat its incidents in my 
 own way, and with a view to my plan for the 
 further narrative of the Prince's life. 
 
 As I look back on my correspondence with 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 21 
 
 the Queen, it gratifies me to see how early Her 
 Majesty's letters had passed from formal reserve 
 into a strain of confidential friendliness. Thus 
 in a letter of December 18, 1867, she writes, 
 " The Queen thanks Mr Martin for his two 
 kind letters," and invites him to Osborne for 
 two or three days, where he will meet M. 
 Silvain van de Weyer, "a great and intimate 
 friend of the dear Prince, a man of great culti- 
 vation of mind and of the kindest heart, and 
 who will give Mr Martin many useful hints 
 about the Prince's character." This meeting 
 led to an unbroken friendship with the singu- 
 larly gifted man so well described by Her 
 Majesty. From him I learned much that was 
 of service to my immediate purpose in depict- 
 ing the early part of the Prince's life. He had 
 been so completely behind the scenes also in 
 all the political movements of the time, that I 
 hoped to have the benefit of his knowledge in 
 dealing with the subsequent years as well. But 
 this was not to be. To my infinite regret, he 
 died before the first volume of the Life was 
 
22 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 published ; ^ but he read the proof-sheets of the 
 greater part of it, and I was greatly encouraged 
 by the warmth of his approval. In the same 
 letter the Queen goes on to say : " The Queen 
 is reading Mr Martin's Correggio^ of which she 
 used to hear her governess, the Baroness Lehzen, 
 so often speak. Would he let her have a copy 
 to send to the Baroness ? " 
 
 " This day," the letter adds, " has been 
 splendid — a cloudless blue sky, and equally 
 blue sea, with the purest air. But when the 
 Queen awoke this morning her heart felt sick, 
 as she knew how her darling husband would 
 have enjoyed such a day In his beloved Os- 
 borne, and she yearned for one hour of former 
 happiness." 
 
 I was again summoned to Osborne in the 
 first week of January 1868. A day or two 
 after my arrival (loth of January) I had a bad 
 
 ' He died in May 1874. "Dear M. V. de Vi^eyer's death," Her 
 Majesty wrote to me on the 30th of that month, " is a terrible loss 
 to the Queen, and she has been deeply grieved by it." 
 
 ^ A translation of Oehlenschlager's drama of that name. 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 23 
 
 accident on the skating-pond, — so bad that I 
 had to be carried to the Palace, where the 
 Hmb was promptly placed in splints by Dr 
 Hofmeister, the Queen's resident surgeon. The 
 injury was serious, and the pain extreme. On 
 the Queen's return from her afternoon drive 
 she heard of the accident, and immediately sent 
 the late Duchess of Roxburghe, her Lady - in - 
 Waiting, to me. She had been commanded to 
 express Her Majesty's regret that she could not 
 come at once to see me, as she had so many 
 despatches awaiting her which required imme- 
 diate attention. She also added that I was to 
 write to my wife to come to Osborne : the 
 Royal yacht would be ordered to Portsmouth 
 to wait her arrival and to bring her over. Be- 
 fore nine o'clock next morning I was surprised 
 by the appearance of Her Majesty in my room, 
 where she expressed her warm sympathy with 
 my suffering, and gave orders for my having 
 the constant attendance of one of her principal 
 servants. The Queen had scarcely left my 
 room when two unusually large pillows were 
 
24 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 brought to me. The Queen, I was told, thought 
 the pillows I had were too small, and had 
 ordered these larger ones to replace them. 
 This thoughtful kindness was but the begin- 
 ning of a care for my recovery on the part of 
 Her Majesty which left nothing undone that 
 could minister to my comfort. On the 12th 
 my wife arrived, and was met by the Duchess 
 of Roxburghe. Soon after, the Queen came 
 to her room, and her Diary records : " H. M. 
 gave me her hand, and welcomed me most 
 kindly. I am desired to ask for everything 
 as if I were at home ; " and everything was 
 done to make her feel at home, by Her 
 Majesty, by the Royal children, — the Prin- 
 cesses Helena, Louise, and Beatrice, and the 
 Duke of Connaught and Prince Leopold, — 
 and by all the ladies and gentlemen of the 
 household. What the impression was which 
 she produced upon the Queen we subsequently 
 learned by a letter from Mr Helps, in which 
 he quoted Her Majesty's words from a letter 
 he had received : — 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 25 
 
 " 11 th January 1868. 
 
 " We are selfishly glad that Mr Martin is 
 kept here, and think Mrs Martin most pleasing, 
 clever, and distinguished — really very charming." 
 
 Almost daily during the three following weeks 
 we had the honour of lengthened visits in our 
 rooms from Her Majesty, in which there was 
 a frank interchange of views, not only in re- 
 gard to the subject on which I was specially 
 engaged, but also upon the events of the day 
 and other topics of general interest. It so 
 happened that just at this time the Leaves 
 from a Jottrnal were published. Her Majesty's 
 estimate of that little volume was most humble ; 
 and as, possibly from a feeling of shyness, she 
 shrank from writing with this first literary 
 effort to the Poet Laureate, she honoured me 
 by requesting me to do so on her behalf The 
 Queen reverenced genius ; greatness in birth 
 and station she regarded as but an accident. 
 To the genius which makes its own position 
 by commanding the love and admiration of the 
 
26 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 world she bowed with genuine humility. How 
 well this was shown in her visit to Abbotsford ! 
 " In the study," she writes, " we saw Sir Walter's 
 Journal, in which Mr Hope Scott asked me to 
 write my name, which I felt it •wotild be pre- 
 sumption to do." Surely a beautiful appre- 
 ciation of genius, as distinguished from the 
 accident of position. 
 
 The Leaves book was inscribed by the Queen's 
 own hand, and this was the acknowledgment 
 which reached me from Mr Tennyson : — 
 
 " Farringford, Freshwater, 2irf January 1868. 
 
 " Dear Mr Martin, — We are very sorry to 
 hear of your accident, and fear, from what you 
 say, that it may have caused you much pain. 
 We are sure that with the Queen, if anywhere, 
 you will have been made to forget it. 
 
 " I need not say that I am very much 
 honoured by Her Majesty's gift — you know that ; 
 and I know that I may trust to you to make 
 my thanks acceptable for a book not only of so 
 much interest in its own day, but trebly valuable 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 27 
 
 to the historian of that future when we shall 
 all of us have gone to join Tullus and Ancus. 
 "Will you remember us most kindly to Mrs 
 Martin ? and with a hope that you will soon be 
 well, I am, yours very sincerely, 
 
 " A. Tennyson." 
 
 I must have written to the Queen in warm 
 terms of satisfaction at the burst of enthusiastic 
 and affectionate loyalty with which her little 
 volume was hailed, knowing, as I did, how this 
 feeling contrasted with much of a very different 
 tenor to which Her Majesty's close retirement 
 after the Prince's death had given rise, and 
 which had caused her extreme pain, for on the 
 1 6th of January the following note was sent to 
 my room : — 
 
 " The Queen was moved to tears on reading 
 Mr Martin's beautiful and too kind letter. In- 
 deed it is not possible for her to say how 
 touched she is by the kindness of every one. 
 People are far too kind. What has she done 
 to be so loved and liked ? She did suffer acutely 
 
28 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 last year, she will not deny, and it made her 
 ill ; but the sore feeling has vanished entirely, 
 and the very thought of it has lost its sting. . . . 
 Mr Martin must keep very quiet to-night, and be 
 very good, and do what Mrs Martin and the 
 doctor tell him." 
 
 Three days later the Queen wrote to me 
 again on the same subject. Her Majesty had 
 the special virtue of dating all her letters and 
 notes, however slight — a grace her subjects too 
 little cultivate. 
 
 "Osborne, Jan. 19, 1868. 
 
 " The Queen would have liked to go to Mr 
 Martin, but ever since she came in, at a quarter 
 past five, she has done nothing but read the reviews 
 in the newspapers. She is very much moved 
 — deeply so — but not uplifted or ' puffed up ' 
 by so much kindness, so much praise. She 
 sends one [review] that is very gratifying, which 
 Mr Martin has probably not seen. Pray, let 
 the Queen have it back after dinner. 
 
 " Two things there are in some of the re- 
 views which the Queen wishes Mr Martin 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 29 
 
 could find means to get rectified and ex- 
 plained : I. That the Queen wrote The Early 
 Years} Pray, have that contradicted. 2. That 
 it is the Queen's sorrow that keeps her secluded 
 to a certain extent. Now, it is her overwhelm- 
 ing zvork and her health, which is greatly shaken 
 by her sorrow, and the totally overwhelming 
 amount of work and responsibility — work which 
 she feels really wears her out. Alice Helps 
 was wonder-struck at the Queen's room ; and 
 if Mrs Martin will look at it, she can tell Mr 
 Martin what surrounds her. From the hour 
 she gets out of bed till she gets into it again 
 there is work, work, work — letter - boxes, 
 questions, &c., which are dreadfully exhaust- 
 ing — and if she had not comparative rest 
 and quiet in the evening, she would most 
 likely not be alive. Her brain is constantly 
 overtaxed. Could this truth not be openly 
 put before people ? So much has been told 
 them, they should know this very important 
 fact, for some day she may quite break down." 
 
 1 General Grey's book. 
 
30 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 It was not till a subsequent visit that I had an 
 opportunity of seeing, in Her Majesty's working- 
 room, the huge piles of despatch-boxes arriving 
 daily from every department of the Government, 
 by which she was surrounded. But Mrs Martin 
 saw them during this visit, and this is what 
 she wrote of them to a friend : " Her Majesty 
 took me into her own room one morning to 
 show me the piles of despatch - boxes, all of 
 them full of work for her, and all requiring 
 immediate attention ; and this goes on from 
 day to day. It is the Queen's great aim to 
 follow the Prince's plan, which was to sign 
 nothing until he had read and made notes 
 upon what he signed. You may imagine how 
 such conscientiousness swallows up the Royal 
 leisure." 
 
 We were still at Osborne when a gfloom was 
 cast over the Palace by the sudden and very 
 alarming illness of Prince Leopold. Only the 
 day before he had been in our room full of 
 life and spirit, and when we were told of his 
 illness we were also told that the very worst 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 31 
 
 was feared. The prevailing grief showed in 
 a very touching way how much he was be- 
 loved. The Queen was deeply moved ; but 
 she bore up with the courage and hopefulness 
 which was a part of her character, and which, 
 it is well known, upon occasion put courage and 
 hope into the hearts of her Ministers, when 
 these were wanted, at times of crisis in either 
 home or foreign affairs. She had seen crises 
 as bad, or worse, and remembered their details, 
 and she could remind them how these had been 
 successfully grappled with and got over. Just 
 so, she had previously seen Prince Leopold in 
 danger quite as great, and he had recovered. 
 While, then, those around him were almost in 
 despair, she never lost heart and hope. The 
 first tidings of a decided change for the better 
 came to us in a little note from the Queen 
 sent to my room on the evening of the 31st 
 of January, saying, " Our dear child is going 
 on very satisfactorily, thank God ! " 
 
 When we left Osborne three days afterwards, 
 the Prince was out of danger, and we started 
 
32 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 for London with a liofhter heart than we should 
 otherwise have done. We had been permitted 
 to share in the anxiety of the Royal family, and 
 their joy at its removal was a joy to us also. 
 
 The Queen pressed us hard to delay our 
 journey, but the quiet of home was absolutely 
 necessary for my complete recovery. We had 
 made our formal adieus to Her Majesty the 
 previous evening. She had not returned from 
 her morning drive when we left Osborne. But 
 the following letter overtook us by special mess- 
 enger at Southampton : — 
 
 ''Feb. 3, 1868. 
 
 " The Queen was much vexed to find, on 
 coming home, that Mr and Mrs Martin had 
 already left, as she was anxious to wish them 
 good-bye, and give Mrs Martin the accompany- 
 ing souvenir of her stay here.^ The Queen 
 thought they would hardly venture across to- 
 day with this high wind and in the public 
 boat. She trusts, however, the journey will 
 be performed with comparatively little suffer- 
 1 A ruby and diamond bracelet. 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 33 
 
 ing, and that Mr Martin will not be the 
 worse. Prince Leopold is going on as well 
 as possible." 
 
 On reaching London we wrote to the Queen, 
 and our letters brought the following reply : — 
 
 " The Queen thanks Mr and Mrs Martin both 
 very much for their kind letters. She rejoices 
 so much to hear of Mr Martin not having 
 suffered, and hopes he and Mrs Martin may 
 frequently revisit Osborne under more pleasant 
 circumstances." 
 
 The circumstances of our long visit to Os- 
 borne on this occasion might have been in a 
 sense more " pleasant," had they not been 
 dashed, as they were, by the brief but alarm- 
 ing illness of Prince Leopold, and by the very 
 painful accident to myself. But more auspici- 
 ous they could not have been for my purpose 
 as biographer of the Prince Consort, or my 
 relations to Her Majesty and the Royal 
 Family. Their kind natures were drawn to 
 me by sympathy, as, but for my accident, they 
 
 c 
 
34 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 might not have been, and one and all vied in 
 making both my wife and myself feel thor- 
 oughly at home. With regard to the Queen 
 herself, frequent personal interviews did what 
 no amount of correspondence could have 
 done. They served to confirm the confidence 
 with which I had been previously regarded, a 
 confidence essential to the successful execution 
 of my task. Insincerity, selfishness, obsequi- 
 ousness could not live before her, and when 
 her trust was given, her own sincere, sensitive, 
 womanly nature was stirred, and it revealed 
 itself with a frankness, a considerateness, and 
 a courtesy that ircre irresistibly fascinating, and 
 raised loyalty to chivalrous devotion. 
 
3S 
 
 CHAPTER II. 
 
 The letters above quoted show how deeply the 
 Queen felt hurt by the severe remarks of many 
 of the journals as to her seclusion and disap- 
 pearance from the ceremonials of public life for 
 some years after the death of the Prince Con- 
 sort. Her Majesty must also have been aware 
 that comments to the same effect were current 
 in general society, where the accustomed gaieties 
 of the Court remained at a standstill. Indeed 
 one sometimes hears them still urged in re- 
 proach to her otherwise faultless life as a 
 Sovereign, as though her duty to the State 
 had been sacrificed to a morbid indulgence in 
 the sorrows of her personal bereavement. At 
 one time there might have been some excuse 
 for such an impression, but there is none now. 
 
36 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 People did not then know, as they know now, 
 how heavy a weight of labour and anxiety had 
 been thrown upon the Queen by the death of 
 the Prince. During his life her labours as 
 Sovereign had been lightened by the constant 
 presence at her side of a counsellor to whom 
 the welfare of the Empire was as dear as to 
 herself, whose life was merged in hers, on 
 whose strong brain and constant devotion she 
 had, for over twenty years, been accustomed to 
 lean for support and guidance. While he lived, 
 the cares of Royalty pressed comparatively 
 lightly upon the Queen. But when he died 
 the full burden of them fell upon her ; and 
 from that moment she became the most lonely 
 of women — for who is so lonely as the sur- 
 vivor of two beings whose mutual devotion 
 has been so all - sufficing that they have 
 never looked elsewhere for mental companion- 
 ship or support ? How much more so if the 
 survivor be a woman ! 
 
 With no one to whom she could turn for the 
 same sympathy and guidance, the Queen had 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 37 
 
 henceforth to look solely to her own resources 
 for fulfilling the duties and responsibilities of 
 the great position which, with the Prince's as- 
 sistance, she had built up for herself before 
 the world. Together it had been their rule 
 to keep themselves advised from day to day 
 of every detail of public affairs by the officials 
 of every department, and to make themselves 
 a living chronicle of everything that passed in 
 the administration of the Empire. This tra- 
 dition the Queen had now to carry on by 
 herself. But for her great powers of work, 
 her quick perception, and a memory of singular 
 tenacity, this would have been impossible ; and 
 it requires no effort of imagination to under- 
 stand how great to her must have been the 
 resulting exhaustion of both body and mind, 
 and how natural the occasional fear, to use 
 her own words, that some day "she might 
 quite break down." She was not singular in 
 this fear, for it was shared by those who knew 
 her best, and especially by her uncle, the King 
 of the Belgians — and no one knew her better 
 
38 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 than he, both in her strength and in her weak- 
 ness. When spoken to about her seclusion and 
 the prevaiHng desire that she could come more 
 into pubHc Hfe, his advice was to leave her 
 alone. " Pauvre Victoire," M. Van de Weyer 
 told me were his words, " ne la tourmentez 
 pas ! 
 
 The outside world, of course, did not then 
 know how great was the additional burden that 
 had been thrown upon Her Majesty. Only the 
 Queen herself could enlighten her subjects upon 
 this point, unless some of Her Majesty's 
 Ministers had taken occasion to do so, which 
 they might well have done, but none of them 
 did. This I had to explain to the Queen 
 when she asked me, by her note, above cited, 
 of the 19th of January 1868, and again person- 
 ally at Osborne, to take means to let the 
 public know the truth. At the same time, I 
 ventured to offer my opinion, that it was 
 neither necessary nor desirable to make any 
 public declaration on the subject. Whatever 
 might be said by some, her people, I was 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 39 
 
 sure, had entire trust in her doing what was 
 best, and that she would appear in public when- 
 ever the necessity for doing so arose. My views 
 prevailed, and the enthusiastic reception given 
 within the next few days to the Leaves from 
 a yournal, and the warm expressions of loyal 
 devotion stimulated by the insight there given 
 into the Queen's character, came, happily, to 
 confirm my opinion. It was still further con- 
 firmed by the reception given to the Queen on 
 her visiting the City to open the new Blackfriars 
 Bridge and the Holborn Bridge and Viaduct on 
 the 6th of November 1869, of which she wrote 
 to me (nth November): "Nothing could be 
 more successful than the progress and ceremony 
 of Saturday. The greatest enthusiasm pre- 
 vailed, and the reception by countless thou- 
 sands of all classes, especially in the City, was 
 most loyal and gratifying — not a word, not a 
 cry, that could offend any one." The subject 
 of a public statement was not again mooted. 
 Her Majesty was content to wait until the 
 story I should have to tell in the Prince's Life 
 
40 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 should fully open the eyes of her people to 
 the truth. 
 
 Complaints ceased for a time, but during the 
 year 1870 they were renewed in some of the 
 leading journals, and again the Queen felt 
 deeply wounded — how deeply will presently 
 appear. In the autumn of 1871 she had a 
 serious illness, which occasioned general alarm, 
 and the journals teemed with expressions of the 
 devotion and the sympathetic interest which lay 
 at the heart of all Her Majesty's subjects. To 
 this change is due the following letter : — 
 
 "Balmoral, Septr. 17, 1871. 
 
 " Long, long has the Queen wished to write 
 to Mr Martin, but her very severe illness has 
 prevented her from doing so. She is now, 
 however, going on so satisfactorily, though veiy 
 slowly, that she is glad to be able to thank him 
 for his kind inquiries and letters. 
 
 " The Queen cannot help referring to the 
 articles in Thursday's Times, and in Friday's 
 Daily News, which are very gratifying, as these 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 41 
 
 go the length of expressing remorse at the 
 heartless, cruel way in which they had attacked 
 the Queen. Mr Martin wrote rightly, that the 
 words were not spoken which were needed to 
 make the public understand that the Queen 
 could not do more than human strength could 
 bear.^ Mr Martin will recollect the Queen's 
 distress for some years past, and how little she 
 was believed. The unjust attacks this year, the 
 great worry and anxiety and hard work for ten 
 years, alone, unaided, with increasing age and 
 never very strong health, broke the Queen 
 down, and almost drove her to despair. The 
 result has been the very, very serious illness 
 — the severest, except one (a typhoid fever in 
 1835), she ever had — and more suffering than 
 she has ever endured in her life. Now that 
 people are frightened and kind, the Queen will 
 
 ^ I must have expressed in some letter at this time regret that 
 none of Her Majesty's Ministers had talcen the opportunity of ex- 
 plaining the circumstances which had hurt Her Majesty's health, 
 and compelled her to avoid the fatigues of the public appearances 
 which were called for, and which were undoubtedly desirable, if 
 the Queen's health had admitted of their being made. 
 
42 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 be kindly treated in future ; but it is very hard 
 that it was necessary she should have the severe 
 illness and great suffering, which has left her 
 very weak, to make people feel for and under- 
 stand her. . . . The sympathy in dear Scotland 
 has been great, and their press was the first to 
 raise their voice in defence of a cruelly mis- 
 understood woman. She will never forget 
 this." 
 
 After this time Her Majesty had no reason, 
 so far as I know, to complain that she was 
 "cruelly misunderstood" by any section of her 
 people. They learned to understand and to 
 sympathise with her, for they saw day by day 
 how close a watch she kept upon all public 
 affairs, how full her thoughts were of them and 
 their wellbeing, and how tender were her sym- 
 pathies with all of them who were " in danger, 
 necessity, or tribulation." 
 
 No one could be much in corrimunication 
 with the Queen without being struck by her 
 power of saying concisely what she had to say 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 43 
 
 in the plainest and clearest language. The 
 swiftness of her thought was apparent in her 
 beautiful, firm, rapid writing. Its clearness was 
 equally shown in her happy choice of the 
 simplest words. She had so much ground to 
 get over daily that she' had no time to waste 
 in elaborate expression. For her the one thing 
 important was, that no room should be left for 
 any misapprehension of her meaning — in short, 
 that she should make what was plain to her 
 own mind as plain to the minds of others as 
 it was to herself If a simple, everyday word 
 or phrase would serve her purpose, she pre- 
 ferred it to anything more ornate. In the 
 course of editing the Leaves from a Journal, 
 Mr Helps had many struggles with Her Majesty 
 about what he thought her too homely style, 
 which she defended, because she could not bear 
 it to be thouo-ht that what she wrote was 
 written " for style and effect." " It was," she 
 wrote to me (20th October 1868), "the sim- 
 plicity of the style, and the absence of all 
 appearance of writing for effect, which had 
 
44 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 given her book such immense and undeserved 
 success. Besides, how could Mr Helps expect 
 pains to be taken when she wrote late at 
 night, suffering from headache and exhaustion, 
 and in dreadful haste, and not for publication ? " 
 This artless skill in rendering a fresh, un- 
 studied transcript of her impressions — a power 
 eagerly sought for, but very often unattained 
 by men of letters — undoubtedly gave to these 
 jottings in Her Majesty's Journal their special 
 charm. But its value was apparent in all she 
 wrote. The habit of getting as near in words 
 as possible to what was in her own mind gave 
 great vividness and graphic force upon occa- 
 sion to her style, especially where matters of 
 importance had to be dealt with. When an 
 authoritative Life of Her Majesty is written, 
 proofs of this will be abundant. But, to speak 
 only of what is already before the world, what 
 could be more happy or to the purpose than 
 the Addresses and Messages which she issued 
 upon occasion to her people, and which in 
 point merely of style, apart from the governing 
 thought and feeling, were always masterly ? 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 45 
 
 The same characteristic was conspicuous in her 
 conversation. Her words were few and well 
 chosen. You were never puzzled to know what 
 she meant, and she expected you, in what you 
 said, to be equally concise and clear — exact 
 in the expression of opinion, and rigidly accu- 
 rate as to fact. Her aim always was to get 
 at the truth. Herself the most truthful of 
 women, she resented any shortcoming in truth- 
 fulness in others. " Oh ! " she once said to me, 
 " nobody can tell of what value it is to me to 
 hear the truth." 
 
 The Queen's intolerance of affectation, ver- 
 bosity, or obscurity of language affected her 
 judgment not only of men, but also of much 
 of the contemporary literature which found 
 favour with others. She loved and appreci- 
 ated, and indeed delighted in poetry, but it 
 must be poetry as the vehicle of genuine feel- 
 ing or wholesome and instructive thought, 
 clothed in the musical language which ingra- 
 tiates it to the memory, without the inversions 
 or obscurity of phrase or the exaggerations 
 of metaphor or sentiment, which are so often 
 
46 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 mistaken for originality and strength. In my 
 experience, Her Majesty was not prone to 
 offer critical opinions upon books, but when 
 she did so, her judgments were to the point. 
 Thus, in speaking to me about George Eliot's 
 Middlemarch, she remarked, after saying much 
 about the subtle delineation of the various 
 characters, " After all, fine as it is, it is a 
 disappointing book ; all the people are failures " 
 — meaning not in the way they were drawn, 
 but in the issues of their lives, as in truth 
 they are. 
 
 The Queen knew, I should say, quite as 
 much of literature, music, and the arts as most 
 of the people who think themselves entitled to 
 speak with authority upon all these topics ; 
 but she knew the limitations of her own 
 knowledge, and was much too sincere and too 
 modest to affect authority to dilate upon them. 
 This she left to those who had made them 
 their special study, and was 
 
 " Contented if she might enjoy 
 The things which others understand," 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. in 
 
 or think they understand. She had no leisure 
 for abstruse studies. She had one great book 
 always before her, which commanded and ab- 
 sorbed her supreme attention — the book of 
 human life, of human good and ill within her 
 kingdom, and of all that was going on in 
 Europe and throughout her vast dominions. 
 The study of that book left little leisure for 
 great attainments in literature, science, or the 
 arts. 
 
 To music she had been devoted from her 
 youth. She had grown up in the love of the 
 chief Italian composers, ancient and modern, 
 of Mozart, Beethoven, Schubert, Mendelssohn, 
 Meyerbeer, and Verdi in the modern school — 
 in short, all the great masters of melody who 
 wrote from and to the heart. It was not, then, 
 surprising that she cared comparatively little 
 for the writers of the latest school, Wagner, 
 Brahms, Grieg, and others, who write much less 
 from the heart than from the head, building up 
 elaborately scientific tonic structures, the sym- 
 metry of which it is difficult to trace, and 
 
48 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 weaving complicated harmonies that tax and 
 exhaust the attention, and savour more of the 
 science than of the soul of music. However 
 indifferent the Queen might be to productions of 
 this class, she was keenly alive to every piece 
 of pure melodic and harmonious inspiration. 
 
 Of Her Majesty's executive power as an 
 artist I cannot speak, as what I know of her 
 work is confined to a few slight sketches, and 
 the etchings which she made, when Prince 
 Albert and herself were for a time fascinated 
 by that attractive but difficult process. Of 
 these I owe to the Queen's kindness a com- 
 plete series.^ Of them it is enough to say 
 that the drawing is not remarkable, and that, 
 as etchings, the difficulties of the art have not 
 been overcome. But I had frequent occasion 
 
 ^ They came with the following note : — 
 
 " Osborne, May 3, 1869. 
 
 " The Queen sends Mr Martin to-day a volume of the beloved 
 Prince's and her own etchings, which she has had purposely 
 bound for him, and which she hopes he will place in his library, 
 as a trifling recollection of his kindness in carrying out so many 
 of her wishes." 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 49 
 
 to observe that Her Majesty's studies had 
 resulted in a power of judging good artistic 
 work beyond that of even the tolerably accom- 
 plished amateur. She was in the constant habit 
 of having engravings made of the portraits of 
 her family and friends, for private circulation, 
 and for several years I acted, by her desire, as 
 the medium of communication between her and 
 the brothers Francis and William Holl, the 
 eminent engravers, by whom the work was done. 
 The engravers' proofs of these, always carefully 
 scrutinised by the Queen, were never returned to 
 me without some pertinent comment, sometimes 
 illustrated by a drawing by the Queen upon 
 the margin. " None but an artist could have 
 made that suggestion " was a not uncommon 
 remark of the engraver. It showed him how 
 to correct something which he himself had not 
 seen the way to amend. 
 
 With so much to do and think of. Her 
 Majesty was entitled to expect from her Minis- 
 ters that all important matters submitted for her 
 consideration should be explained in language 
 
50 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 at once lucid and concise. This, no doubt, 
 was generally done. But a very remarkable 
 instance to the contrary came under my notice 
 while I was lying ill at Osborne. The Irish 
 Church Disestablishment question, which in 1867 
 had been much agitated, took the shape, in 
 January 1868, of a bill, the printed draft of 
 which, together with a letter explanatory of 
 the measure, was sent by Mr Gladstone to 
 the Queen. Her Private Secretary, General 
 Grey, must have been absent from Osborne 
 at the time, otherwise the Queen would have 
 turned to him for aid in clearing up any diffi- 
 culty she found in mastering these documents. 
 I was therefore surprised to receive a note 
 from Her Majesty, sending them to me, re- 
 questing me to read and return them with a 
 precis of their contents, as she had read and 
 re-read Mr Gladstone's very long letter, and 
 found herself more and more lost in the clouds 
 of his explanations the more she toiled through 
 them. My opinion of the measure, of course, 
 was not asked for — it never was upon any 
 
QUEEA VICTORIA. 51 
 
 subject where, her Ministers were properly 
 her advisers — and Her Majesty knew she could 
 rely on my secrecy in regard to its terms as 
 implicitly as if I had been sworn of her Privy 
 Council. My task was simply to analyse and 
 state as clearly as I could the scope of the 
 measure as I miwht gather it from the docu- 
 ments sent. That the Queen should have been 
 lost in the fog of the long and far from lucid ^ 
 sentences of her Minister, running, as they did, 
 through upwards of a dozen closely written 
 quarto pages, seemed only natural. I therefore 
 turned from them to the draft bill, and long- 
 professional experience in the study of similar 
 documents made it easy for me to furnish Her 
 Majesty with the information desired, for which 
 I presently received a gracious acknowledgment, 
 with the happy assurance that she now saw her 
 way clearly to deal with the measure proposed. 
 
 This incident, long forgotten, was recalled to 
 my mind on reading the statement made with 
 an air of assured knowledge,^ that the Queen's 
 
 1 Quarterly Review for April 1901 : article " Queen Victoria," p. 305. 
 
52 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 " prejudice " against Mr Gladstone began from 
 her "suspecting him of trying to overwork 
 her." I have the best reason to know the 
 groundlessness of this imputation. The Queen's 
 distrust of Mr Gladstone — not her "prejudice" 
 against him — was of a much earlier date than his 
 first Premiership. It was deeply seated, and 
 for reasons that grew more and more serious 
 as the years rolled on. But this is a matter with 
 which the future chronicler of the Queen's Life 
 may be left to deal. Instead of complaining 
 that she was overtasked by Mr Gladstone, Her 
 Majesty's complaint more probably was, that 
 she was not kept fully and timeously informed 
 by him of important matters to which she con- 
 ceived her attention should have been called. 
 However this may be, the Queen was too fair- 
 minded to allow "prejudice" to warp her 
 judgment as to any of her Ministers ; but her 
 intuitively searching glance, her unfailing mem- 
 ory and long experience, would instinctively 
 lead her to make of their characters a pene- 
 trating and conscientiously careful study. 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 53 
 
 It seems like egotism to quote the following 
 letter, but it shows better than anything I could 
 write the position in relation to Her Majesty 
 which, I scarcely know how, I had very early 
 come to occupy. 
 
 "Balmoral, ^th June 1S69. 
 
 "The Queen has received Mr Martin's most 
 kind letter of the 3rd. . . . She really is at a 
 loss to say how much she feels his constant 
 and invariable kindness to her, and how deeply 
 grateful she is for it. In the Queen's position, 
 though it might sound strange, as she has so 
 many to serve her, she feels the assistance 
 rendered her by others in private matters, in 
 which her official servants, from one cause or 
 another, seem to feel little interest and to be 
 very helpless, is of immense value ; and she 
 considers it most fortunate, to say the least, 
 to have found so kind a friend as Mr Martin. 
 The Queen likewise feels that in him she has 
 found an impartial friend, who can tell her 
 many important things which her own unbiassed 
 servants cannot hear or tell her. This the Queen 
 
54 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 mentioned to Mr Martin the other day when 
 she saw him at Windsor, when she alluded to 
 the loss of Baron Stockmar." 
 
 It puzzled me to think what the many little, 
 by me " unremembered acts of kindness," could 
 be which prompted such a recognition. It was 
 always not merely an honour but a delight to 
 be serviceable in any way to a lady so courteous, 
 so unexacting, so full herself of thoughtful kind- 
 ness. Being in no way under the restraint which 
 inevitably keeps official servants in a great 
 measure aloof from a sovereign mistress, I 
 could speak on all unofficial subjects on which 
 my opinion was invited with a frank unreserve 
 that was impossible to them. I had nothing to 
 fear, nothing to gain, nothing to conceal. More 
 deeply attached, more truly loyal to their Royal 
 mistress it was impossible to be than were the 
 able and accomplished officials by whom she was 
 surrounded, and to whom her wishes were a law 
 which it was their pride to obey. Still, she was 
 their Royal mistress, and could not have the 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 55 
 
 same feeling of unreserve with them as with 
 one Hke myself, who was wholly independent. 
 In my observation of Court life, I was often re- 
 minded of the words of the Queen in Browning's 
 In a Balcony, isolated as she was, although 
 surrounded by a loyal Court, and shut away 
 from that frank communion with others, with- 
 out which life must drag so heavily along : — 
 
 " Oh, to live with a thousand beating hearts 
 Around you, swift eyes, serviceable hands. 
 Professing they've no care but for your care, 
 Thought but to help you, love but for yourself, — 
 And you the marble statue all the time 
 They praise and point at ! " 
 
 And yet, no marble statue, but human to the 
 core, and craving for the homely sympathies 
 of simple, healthy, human life. Such was our 
 Queen. 
 
 Early in my attendances upon Her Majesty, 
 the name of Baron Stockmar was frequently 
 on her lips, and it was always coupled with 
 expressions of the deepest respect and affec- 
 tion. How well these were justified I soon 
 
56 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 learned from his letters and memoranda, ad- 
 dressed to the Queen and Prince, which were 
 placed in my hands. It was obvious that they 
 would be of the greatest value for my Life 
 of the Prince, and I told Her Majesty that I 
 intended to make copious use of them there. 
 On this she wrote to me : — 
 
 "Balmoral, Sept. 30, 1869. 
 " The Queen rejoices to think that the great 
 character of her dear old Baron will be known 
 now as it ought to be. Indeed, the greatest 
 worth is often not known. ^ No one feels this 
 so strongly as the Queen has done and does. 
 What worth, what talent, what real greatness 
 exist, unknown and unimagined, though not by 
 the Great Judge of all men ! " 
 
 I had made my selection of Stockmar's letters 
 
 1 It is of such that Sir Henry Taylor writes in his Philip van 
 Artevelde, Act I. Sc. v. : — 
 
 " He was one 
 Of that small tally, of the singular few, 
 Who, gifted with predominating powers, 
 Bear yet a temperate will, and keep the peace. 
 The world knows nothing of its greatest men." 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 57 
 
 and memoranda for my purpose, when a volume 
 by his son, the Baron Ernest von Stockmar, 
 was published in the autumn of 1872, of Mem- 
 orabilia from his father's papers, which threw 
 not a little additional light upon the life and 
 character of this remarkable man.^ As he was 
 to form a prominent figure in my book, and, 
 though little known to the general public, had 
 been frequently misrepresented as a dangerous 
 influence at the Queen's Court, I made his 
 son's book the text for a careful monograph 
 of the Baron for the Quarterly Review? I 
 was the more impelled to do so, as the Queen, 
 the Princess Royal (Empress Frederic), and 
 others of the Baron's friends thought the book 
 had failed to do justice to the lovable and 
 more attractive features of the Baron's char- 
 acter. His wisdom and great political sagacity 
 spoke for themselves in the extracts from the 
 published documents, but the finer qualities 
 
 1 Denkwiirdigkeiten aus den Papieren des Freiherr's Christian 
 Friedrich v. Stockmar. Braunscheig, 1872. 
 
 2 Quarterly Review for April 1872, p. 386 et seq. 
 
S8 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 were not brought out which endeared him to 
 his friends. His son had not, perhaps, had so 
 many opportunities as his EngHsh friends for 
 judging the Baron, for a large part of Stock- 
 mar's life had been spent away from his home 
 in Coburg, first in attendance on Prince Leo- 
 pold (King of the Belgians), and afterwards 
 in long visits at the English Court. This might 
 well have been, seeing that "Stockmar," as M. 
 Van de Weyer, who had known him long and 
 intimately, wrote to me, " concealed the tender- 
 ness of his heart, his loving nature, his sweet 
 temper, his devotion to his friends, under a 
 stoical appearance which deceived none of those 
 who knew him well ; and to know him was to 
 love him." His son had, somehow, failed to 
 appreciate this side of his character, and his 
 book, therefore, left an impression of hardness 
 and austerity which did injustice to his father, 
 and which it was my endeavour to remove. 
 
 That his influence upon the Queen and 
 Prince was all for good, they were the first 
 and always most eager to acknowledge. No 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 59 
 
 one knew England and its people — what they 
 would bear and what they would not bear in 
 their sovereigns — better than he. Sir Robert 
 Peel, Lords Aberdeen, Derby, Clarendon, John 
 Russell, and Palmerston all deferred to his 
 judgment as that of the wisest and most far- 
 seeing politician of the day. Having very fully 
 expressed my opinion of him from this point 
 of view elsewhere, it only concerns me to say 
 here, that the Queen considered that she owed 
 much of the success of her reigfn to the sound 
 constitutional principles which he had impressed 
 upon her, and to the warnings, almost pro- 
 phetic, as to how the changes of circumstance 
 and of opinion were to be dealt with, which 
 his statesmanlike sagacity foresaw were likely 
 to arise in the epoch of transition into which 
 England and Europe were, in his view, rapidly 
 advancing. 
 
 Stockmar, who had watched the Queen from 
 childhood, wrote of her in 1847: "The Queen 
 improves greatly. She makes daily advances 
 in discernment and experience ; the candour. 
 
6o QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 the love of truth, the fairness, the consider- 
 ateness with which she judges men and things 
 are truly delightful, and the ingenuous self- 
 knowledge with which she speaks about herself 
 is amiable to a degree." Of that rare quality 
 of ingenuousness I saw many illustrations. 
 Thus, for example, how few would be ready 
 to make so frank a confession as to any por- 
 tion of their past lives as this, in a letter to 
 me (February i8, 1869), which Her Majesty 
 gave as a reason why she could not send, for 
 the purpose of the Prince's biography, her 
 letters during the first years after her 
 accession : — 
 
 "Osborne, Feb. 18, 1869. 
 "The Queen's own letters between 1837 and 
 1840 are not pleasing, and are, indeed, rather 
 painful to herself. It was the least sensible 
 and satisfactory time in her whole life, and she 
 must therefore destroy a great many. That 
 life of constant amusement, flattery, excitement, 
 and mere politics had a bad effect (as it must 
 have upon any one) on her naturally simple 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 6i 
 
 and serious nature. But all changed in 1840 
 [with her marriage]." 
 
 The Queen's candour and love of truth, too, 
 made her impatient at being praised where 
 praise was not due, especially where praise 
 should have been given to the Prince Consort. 
 Thus she writes to Lord John Russell (Nov- 
 ember 18, i860), on reading in a Cape journal 
 a speech of Sir George Grey's extolling the 
 nature of the education given to her eldest 
 sons : " She feels, she must say, pained at such 
 constant praise of her education of our sons, 
 when it is all due to the Prince, and when 
 his untiring and indefatigable exertions for our 
 children's good is the chief, indeed sole, cause 
 of the success which till now has attended our 
 efforts. . . . The praise so constantly given to 
 the Queen, and the popularity she enjoys, she 
 knows and feels are due, in a great measure, 
 to the guidance and assistance of the Prince, 
 to be whose wife she considers so great a 
 privilege, and she feels it almost wrong when 
 
62 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 praise is given to her for what she knows he 
 deserves." 
 
 Every inch a Queen as she was, and careful 
 that the Royal authority which she inherited 
 should suffer no detriment in her hands, there 
 ran through Her Majesty's nature a vein of 
 modest humility as to her own knowledge and 
 powers in things of common life, a seeking for 
 guidance and help, which was infinitely touching. 
 She made no secret to herself of her own faults 
 and shortcomings. One does not expect queens 
 to make acknowledgments of these, but even 
 these were made upon occasion. Thus in her 
 anxiety to throw light for me upon the Prince's 
 character, she sent me a copy of a letter (July 
 13, 1848) in which he rebuked her, tenderly 
 but firmly, for writing to him when he had 
 gone from home on a public occasion, in what 
 she calls " a very discreditable fit of pettishness, 
 which she was humiliated to have to own," to 
 the eifect that he could do without her, and did 
 not take her miniature with him. In her letter 
 to me she says, that she would not have written 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 63 
 
 as she did had she not been spoilt by his 
 never really leaving her. The Prince's reply 
 is too sacred to quote in full ; but what wife's 
 heart would not leap with joy to read the con- 
 cluding words ? " Dein liebes Bild trage Ich 
 in mir ; und die Miniaturen bleiben stets weit 
 hinter diesen zuriick ; eine solche auf meinem 
 Tisch zu stellen um mich Deiner zu erinnern 
 bedarf es nicht." ^ 
 
 ' " Thy dear image I bear within me, and what miniature can 
 come up to that? No need to place one on my table to remind 
 me oiyou." 
 
64 
 
 CHAPTER III. 
 
 The dominant quality in the Queen's character, 
 it seemed to me, was her strong common-sense. 
 It enabled her to see things in their just pro- 
 portion, to avoid extremes, as a rule, in her 
 estimate of persons, of opinions, and events ; to 
 accept the inevitable without futile murmur or 
 resistance. Very early this quality must have 
 been developed, and it will account for that per- 
 fect self-possession on the announcement of her 
 accession and at her first Privy Council, which 
 created surprise and admiration in all who wit- 
 nessed it. Those who read of it were often in- 
 credulous, and stories of her agitation on these 
 occasions have found a place from time to time 
 in newspapers and elsewhere. One of these, 
 which appeared in a respectable journal so late 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 65 
 
 as November 1886, drew from the Queen the 
 following very suggestive remark in a letter to 
 me : " The Queen was not overwhelmed on her 
 accession — rather full of courage, she may say. 
 She took things as they came, as she knew they 
 must be." It was so with her through life. She 
 met trial, difficulty, or danger "with courage," 
 and reconciled herself with a thoughtful constant 
 spirit, and without passionate remonstrance, to 
 what she "knew must be." What but this 
 quality of mind, and her strong sense of the 
 claims of duty upon her as Sovereign, could 
 have enabled her within a few days after the 
 loss, which for a long time took all sunshine out 
 of her life, to resume her active duties as Queen, 
 and to continue them unbrokenly through feeble 
 health and the many domestic anxieties and 
 bereavements which during her long life pressed 
 frequently and heavily upon her ? The Queen's 
 historian will have much to tell in illustration 
 of her breadth of view, her prompt decision, and 
 undaunted spirit in times of political difficulty. 
 At these times, the truly Royal spirit within her 
 
 E 
 
66 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 answered to the call. A judgment enlightened 
 by a vast experience, and unwarped by prejudice, 
 then came into play. Her sole thought was for 
 the good of her people, and to see that neither 
 this, nor the position of her Empire before the 
 world, should be in anywise impaired. To this 
 end she brought into play the well - balanced 
 judgment, which begets and is alone entitled to 
 the name of common-sense. 
 
 The same quality was equally conspicuous in 
 her judgment of the affairs of ordinary life. Of 
 this I might have been able to give many 
 examples, had I not made it my rule never to 
 make a memorandum of any remarks on men 
 and things that fell from Her Majesty at any 
 of my interviews with her. In her letters to 
 me, acute and characteristic remarks like the 
 following frequently occurred : "The wisest and 
 best people are sadly weak and foolish about 
 Great Marriages. The Queen cannot com- 
 prehend it." With her experience of the private 
 history of the many homes of both the noble 
 and the rich, who so able as she to judge how 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 67 
 
 little of the true happiness of Hfe results from 
 the gratification of such an ambition ? "Her 
 sagacity in reading people and their ruling 
 motives and weaknesses " was remarkable. This 
 was noted by Archbishop Benson, and it often 
 broke into remarks touched more with kindliness 
 and humour than with sarcasm. The Arch- 
 bishop also remarks, truly, that the Queen "was 
 shrewder and fuller of knowledge than most 
 men." "She had not much patience with their 
 follies and the pettiness of their desires." One 
 recognises as very characteristic a remark of 
 hers which the Archbishop quotes : "I cannot 
 understand the world — cannot comprehend the 
 frivolities and littlenesses. It seems to me as 
 if they were all a little mad." ^ 
 
 Here, too, may be noted the gentleness of her 
 judgments, even in cases where not to condemn 
 would have been impossible. One was often 
 reminded that the axiom, Tout comprendre c'est 
 tout pardonner, was habitually present to her 
 mind. If a kind construction could be put upon 
 
 ' Life of Archbishop Benson, vol. ii. pp. 2 and 561. 
 
68 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 an action rather than a severe one, she was 
 prompt to seize it. But at the same time her 
 condemnation of falsehood, cant, party intrigue, 
 egotistical ambition, or proved unworthiness was 
 swift and stern. 
 
 The time had been when Mr Disraeli's attacks 
 on her friend Sir Robert Peel had prepossessed 
 her greatly against him. In one of my letters 
 on the subject of the Prince's Life, I must have 
 had occasion to refer to these attacks. This 
 was her reply (7th of June 1870) : — 
 
 " The Queen quite agrees with what Mr 
 Martin says about Mr Disraeli's conduct to Sir 
 R. Peel. It was and is a great blot, and it is to 
 her the more extraordinary, as he seems a very 
 kindhearted and courteous man. But he was at 
 that time very young, bitterly disappointed, not 
 thought much of, and probably urged on by 
 others." 
 
 As the years went on Mr Disraeli won for 
 himself a very high place in Her Majesty's 
 regard. In him she recognised the patriotic 
 statesman, free from all mean ambition, superior 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 6g 
 
 to the prejudices of party, looking with keen 
 sagacity beyond " the ignorant present," his 
 every thought directed to the weal, the safety, 
 the expansion of the Empire. She also found 
 in him a man of generous instincts, on whom 
 she could depend for consideration and sym- 
 pathy. Among the other qualities for which 
 she admired him were the constancy of his 
 devotion to Lady Beaconsfield, and the honour 
 which he paid to her memory upon her death. 
 " How touching," she writes to me (December 
 26, 1872), "is the account of Lady Beaconsfield's 
 funeral ! He is a very fine example to set before 
 us in these days of want of affection and devo- 
 tion, and of belief in what is true, unselfish, and 
 chivalrous." 
 
 When in 1870 the land was deafened by the 
 outcry about " Woman's Rights," which has not 
 yet wholly subsided, the Queen writes to me 
 (29th May):— 
 
 " The Queen is most anxious to enlist every 
 one who can speak or write to join in checking 
 this mad, wicked folly of ' Woman's Rights,' with 
 
70 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 all its attendant horrors, on which her poor feeble 
 sex is bent, forgetting every sense of womanly 
 
 feeling and propriety. Lady ought to get 
 
 a good whipping. 
 
 " It is a subject which makes the Queen so 
 furious that she cannot contain herself God 
 created men and women different — then let 
 them remain each in their own position. Tenny- 
 son has some beautiful lines on the difference of 
 men and women in The Princess} Woman 
 would become the most hateful, heartless, and 
 disgusting of human beings were she allowed to 
 unsex herself; and where would be the pro- 
 tection which man was intended to give the 
 weaker sex } The Queen is sure that Mrs 
 Martin agrees with her." 
 
 In regard to the prevailing extravagance and 
 
 ^ The allusion is to the lines in the fine passage in the seventh 
 section of that poem, beginning, " Blame not thyself too much ": — 
 
 " Let woman make herself her own 
 To give or keep, to hve and learn, and be 
 All that not harms distinctive womanhood. 
 For woman is not undevelopt man, 
 But diverse ; could we make her as the man, 
 Sweet love were slain ; his dearest bond is this, 
 Not like to like, but like in difference." 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 71 
 
 want of individuality in dress, also, the Queen 
 held strong opinions. Thus she writes to me 
 (January 14, 1875):— 
 
 " 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 any- 
 thing 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 trdgst 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 
 
72 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 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 : ' Eng- 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 73 
 
 land 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 
 
74 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 monarchs have ever yearned, but must, perforce, 
 school themselves to forego. Her Majesty's feel- 
 ing 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. ^ 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 
 
 ' I had occasion to record in the Prince's Life (vol. iii. p. 248) 
 a somewhat similar impression on Napoleon III. and his Empress 
 with regard to the Tuileries, in the following extract from the 
 Queen's Diary : " Speaking of the want of liberty attaching to our 
 position, he (the Emperor) said the Empress felt this greatly, and 
 called the Tuileries une belle prison" 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 75 
 
 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} 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 com- 
 munication 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 serv- 
 ice done, however slight, or more courteous in 
 
 1 Published, London, 1868, by Smith, Elder, & Co. 
 
76 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 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 de- 
 mand of business of State, or to some other im- 
 portant 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. 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 77 
 
 The announcement was followed by another letter 
 (i2th March 1871), in which she wrote, in antici- 
 pation 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 im- 
 pulse 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. 
 
78 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 upon which pubHc 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. 
 Early in 1870 an extra pressure of work was 
 thrown upon the Queen by the death of General 
 Grey, formerly secretary to Prince Albert, and 
 afterwards her own Private Secretary, on whose 
 vigorous judgment and political sagacity she had 
 long been accustomed to rely. A passage in a 
 letter to me (29th March), the day before he 
 died, shows how deeply she felt his loss : " Alas ! 
 poor General Grey will hardly live through the 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 79 
 
 day ! This is very, very sad, for in many, many 
 ways he was most valuable to the Queen, and a 
 very devoted, zealous, and very able adviser and 
 friend. ... It is too dreadful to think of his 
 poor wife and children, whom he quite doted on, 
 and who are remarkably fine children. The poor 
 dear Duchess of St Albans, too, who was confined 
 in the same house, and very near the father she 
 adored, was struck down. It is too, too sad ! " 
 
 The double tragedy was indeed sad, and these 
 words express what was felt by all who knew 
 General Grey and his beautiful daughter, and the 
 great love by which they were united. 
 
 Apart from all considerations of personal feel- 
 ing, the loss of a friend so long and intimately 
 associated with the daily work of the Queen as 
 Sovereign must have been serious indeed.^ The 
 strain upon her mind, great enough before, 
 became inevitably greater, and it is not surprising 
 
 1 General Grey's duties were immediately taken up by Colonel, 
 afterwards General, Sir Henry Ponsonby, who discharged them 
 with conspicuous zeal and ability till he was struck down by fatal 
 illness in January 1895. 
 
So QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 that in the course of 1871 her health, as she says 
 in the letter of 17th September of that year, 
 above cited (p. 40), broke down. I saw much 
 of her, in connection with my work, at this time, 
 and on one occasion she said : " I wonder what 
 my ladies think of my want of courtesy. Some- 
 times I drive out with them for a couple of hours, 
 and all the time do not exchange a word with 
 them. I am so taken up with thinking what 
 answers to make to the despatches and letters of 
 the day." 
 
 The position of a sovereign in regard to 
 foreign policy must often be rendered embar- 
 rassing by the ties of relationship or personal 
 friendship. The Queen must have felt this on 
 the outbreak of the Franco-German war. With 
 Germany she had the closest family ties, and she 
 saw with satisfaction that, with the progress of 
 the war, German unity, which she knew had been 
 the cherished dream of the Prince Consort, and 
 which she herself felt would tend in the long-run 
 to the peace of Europe, became a fact. On the 
 other hand, she had formed a warm personal 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 8i 
 
 regard for Napoleon III., and also for his Em- 
 press, remembering how much they both loved 
 our country, and how loyally he had, on several 
 occasions, behaved to England when his support 
 was of importance. While, therefore, maintaining 
 politically an attitude of perfect neutrality, the 
 Queen's kind heart gave to the fallen sovereigns 
 a sympathetic welcome when they came to 
 England. On the 3rd of December 1870 she 
 wrote to me from Windsor Castle : — 
 
 " The Queen has seen the poor Empress, who 
 shows great dignity and great gentleness. . . . 
 The Queen is pleased to say she was cheered at 
 the station on arriving. There is a great and 
 kind feeling here for those who are in misfortune 
 and sorrow, especially among the working people, 
 and that is not the case in many other countries." 
 
 Again, when the Emperor came to Windsor 
 Castle in the following March, the Queen wrote 
 (31st March) : — 
 
 " The visit of the Emperor Napoleon — his 
 first return to Windsor since his triumphal visit 
 here in 1855 — was very trying. He was very 
 
 F 
 
83 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 much moved, but he behaved beautifully and 
 with all the peculiar charm of simple, unaffected 
 graciousness which he possesses in a wonderful 
 degree. He spoke readily of the present and 
 the past. ..." 
 
 The Queen's interest in the Emperor did not 
 diminish during the brief span of life which was 
 left to him. On the 8th of January 1873 she 
 writes : " We are all so grieved for the poor 
 Emperor Napoleon, whose state, the Queen 
 fears, is very critical. She is sure the country 
 is full of sympathy." Again, on the 15th, 
 she writes : " The Queen is much pleased with 
 Mr Martin's observations on the poor Emperor 
 Napoleon, whose sudden death she truly grieves 
 at, and she is proud to see the sympathy and 
 feeling shown by the nation. . . . Did Mr 
 Martin go to the lying -in -state at Chiselhurst 
 yesterday ? " 
 
 This I was unable to do, and I expressed my 
 regret to the Queen, and mentioned that I should 
 go down for the funeral. This was Her Majesty's 
 answer : — 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 83 
 
 "Osborne, 22wrfya«z^ary 1873. 
 
 " The Queen sends Mr Martin the copies of 
 two letters that will interest him.^ The Empress 
 Augusta's especially is very generous and kind. 
 The Queen thanks Mr Martin for his last letters, 
 and is very sorry he could not have the last look, 
 which she so very deeply regrets not having had 
 herself. As soon as she returns to Windsor, she 
 will go to the poor Empress. . . ." 
 
 I had written to the Queen a full account of 
 the funeral. To this she refers : " The reception 
 on Thursday must have been most affecting. The 
 dear boy is said to behave so well. The Queen 
 sends on the copy of a letter which gives a 
 touching trait of him. The Dean of Westminster 
 [Stanley] the other day said it would be such a 
 good thing, if the poor Emperor's great charm 
 of manner, great amiability and kindness, and 
 wonderful power of attracting people — in short, 
 fascination — which the Queen herself felt very 
 strongly, could be generally known ; but he did 
 
 1 These letters were from Royal personages on the subject of 
 the Emperor's death. 
 
84 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 not exactly know how. The Queen said she 
 thought it might be possible to do it in Mr 
 Martin's Life of the Prince ; for the visits to 
 Boulogne of the Prince alone in 1854, of the 
 Emperor and Empress to Windsor in 1855, and 
 of ourselves to Paris in the same year are full of 
 the greatest interest, and the Queen has a very 
 full account of them in her Journal, which she 
 thinks of having extracted, and she feels Mr 
 Martin would be pleased to pay a tribute to 
 one whose reverse of fortune and great mis- 
 fortunes were borne with such dignity and 
 patience, and without any bitterness towards 
 others." 
 
 The Queen placed in my hands a manuscript 
 copy of her Journal of these visits. The attrac- 
 tive qualities of the Emperor were so fully illus- 
 trated by the copious extracts of which I made 
 use in the Prince's Life, that it required no 
 commentary or eulogium of mine to show them 
 in relief. The complete Journal of these visits 
 was printed for the Queen in 1881. It is a 
 historical document, which will be of permanent 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 85 
 
 interest. In sending me a copy on the loth of 
 October of that year, the Queen writes : — 
 
 " The little account of the two French visits 
 in 1855 has delighted those of the Queen's 
 children and friends — only two of the latter, as 
 yet — to whom she has given it. But she finds 
 a great omission on her part, and that is, of all 
 the names of all those who accompanied us to 
 Paris. She here sends the list, and would ask 
 how it could be added, and sends one of the 
 copies for him to look at and see how it could 
 best be done, — whether as a leaf at the end of the 
 book, or as a note like the dinner-list at Windsor, 
 and include the Emperor and Empress's suite 
 who came with them to Windsor." 
 
 The reply was to send a printed slip with the 
 list of the names to be inserted at the end of 
 the volume. With the exception of Lady Pon- 
 sonby, then Miss Bulteel (Maid of Honour), not 
 one of the numerous persons named in the list 
 is now alive. She is, therefore, the sole sur- 
 vivor of the Queen's suite who was present on 
 the occasion of the Queen's reception at the 
 
86 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 Opera House in Paris, of which the very graphic 
 description is given in the Quarterly Review 
 article of April last, already referred to.^ It is 
 a very welcome addition to the Queen's own 
 very modest account of what must have been a 
 remarkably brilliant and memorable scene, but of 
 which the most she records is, that her " recep- 
 tion was very hearty," that God save the Queen 
 was sung splendidly, and that " there could not 
 have been more enthusiasm in England." 
 
 In the midst of the public cares and perplexi- 
 ties of the time, the Queen had to face, at the 
 end of 1 87 1, a deeper anxiety than all other 
 in the dangerous illness of the Prince of Wales. 
 To place herself by his bedside, to cheer and 
 to encourage, and never to surrender hope, how- 
 ever dread the symptoms, was characteristic of 
 her strong, loving nature and brave spirit. Her 
 conduct at that trying time drew her people 
 nearer to her, and their sympathy bound her to 
 them by a very tender tie. Through her kind- 
 ness I was kept informed by telegram of the 
 
 ^ See p. 51, ante. 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 87 
 
 progress of the Prince through the extremes of 
 danger to convalescence. Among the letters 
 which the Queen wrote to me from Osborne 
 after her return there with the Prince from 
 Sandringham, the following passage occurs : — 
 
 "Osborne, Feb. 13, 1872. 
 
 " Two new sad and shocking events have 
 overclouded the joyful return of the dear Prince 
 of Wales : the one which, contrasting as it did 
 with the Queen's own case, made her feel it 
 most keenly — viz., the death of her dear niece^ 
 from scarlet fever, a terrible blow to her dear 
 sister, who is so delicate herself; the other, the 
 horrible assassination of poor Lord Mayo, a 
 noble and most loyal subject, and most admir- 
 able Viceroy, which has shocked the Queen 
 dreadfully ! It is awful, and how could it 
 happen ? Some dreadful neglect, surely. 
 
 " The dear Prince of Wales, though quite him- 
 
 ' Fdodore Victoire, Duchess of Saxe-Meiningen, who died on 
 the I2th of February 1872. Her mother, the Queen's half-sister, 
 Feodora, Princess of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, survived her only 
 a few months, dying on the 23rd of September 1872. 
 
88 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 self, bears great traces of his fearful ' death - ill - 
 ness.' He seems like new-born, pleased at every 
 tree and flower, . . . and gazing on them with a 
 sort of ' Wehmuth ' which is quite touching. . . ." 
 
 Fortunately for the recovery of the Prince of 
 Wales, the treatment of typhus was now better 
 understood than it had been but a few years 
 before. " Ah ! " the Queen said to me soon 
 after this time, " had my Prince had the same 
 treatment as the Prince of Wales, he might not 
 have died ! " — one of those sad, vain imagin- 
 ings of " what might have been," common to 
 us all, but on which the Queen was too wise to 
 allow her mind to dwell. 
 
 The Queen had long ceased to have reason to 
 complain of want of appreciation on the part of 
 the people. On the contrary, it was enthusi- 
 astically shown whenever she was seen in public, 
 and most impressively when she went in January 
 1872 to the thanksgiving service in St Paul's 
 for the recovery of the Prince of Wales. Her 
 letters are full of expressions of satisfaction at 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 89 
 
 these demonstrations of public feeling. Thus 
 she writes, for example, to me on the loth of 
 April 1872 : " There never was a greater suc- 
 cess or a greater exhibition of spontaneous 
 loyalty than the Queen's visit to the East End 
 the other day;" and a few days later (23rd 
 April) she calls my attention to a similar dis- 
 play " at two very pretty military events 
 which took place at Parkhurst last Thursday, 
 and here [Osborne] yesterday, on the occasion 
 of giving new colours to the 79th Cameron 
 Highlanders," and of her acceptance from them 
 of the old colours. " Their former chaplain," she 
 adds, with her usual love of detail, " who has 
 been fourteen years with them, and in Lucknow, 
 came on purpose to bless the colours, which he 
 did extremely well and touch ingly. It is a 
 splendid regiment." 
 
 The great change in the public mind, which 
 resulted in the fall of Mr Gladstone's Ministry 
 at the beginning of 1874, took the Queen some- 
 what by surprise. " The result of the elections," 
 she writes to me (loth February 1874), "is as- 
 
90 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 tounding. What an important turn the elec- 
 tions have taken ! It shows that the country is 
 not Radical. What a triumph, too, Mr Disraeli 
 has obtained, and what a good sign this large 
 Conservative majority is of the state of the 
 country, which really required (as formerly) a 
 strong Conservative party ! " 
 
 Amid the turmoil of the elections which led 
 to this important result a domestic incident took 
 place — the Confirmation of the Princess Beatrice, 
 which was communicated to me in the following 
 letter (January 13, 1874): — 
 
 " The Queen cannot resist sending the lines 
 which Mile. Norele wrote on her sweet Beatrice 
 at her Confirmation. She did so look like a 
 lily, so very young, so gentle and good. The 
 Queen can only pray God that this flower of 
 the flock, which she really is (for the Queen 
 may truly say she has never given the Queen 
 one moment's cause of displeasure), may never 
 leave her, but be the prop, comfort, and com- 
 panion of her widowed mother to old age ! She 
 is the Queen's Benjamin." 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 91 
 
 The prayer, we know, was granted. Mile. 
 Norele's graceful lines form a worthy pendant 
 to the charming picture presented in this letter. 
 I give them with my own translation, as it 
 pleased the Queen at the time : — 
 
 " Seule, au pied de I'autel, 
 Nous I'avons contempl^e, 
 
 Au bonheur immorte!, 
 Comme un ange, appelee. 
 
 De son front la candeur 
 Imprimait le respect, 
 
 Et toute sa blancheur 
 Du lis avait Vaspect. 
 
 Son ame calme et pure 
 Semblait en ce saint lieu 
 
 Oublier la nature, 
 
 Et monter vers son Dieu. 
 
 Seigneur, benis sa foi, 
 Garde-lui ton amour, 
 
 Que sa vie sous ta loi 
 Ressemble k ce beau jour ! ' 
 
 " Alone, at the Altar's foot, 
 
 Thus was she seen. 
 Humbly adoring, mute. 
 
 With looks serene. 
 
 Awe touch'd us, and we felt 
 How pure that sight. 
 
 Fair lily ! as she knelt, 
 Robed all in white. 
 
 Within that holy spot. 
 
 Her soul did seem 
 To soar, all earth forgot, 
 
 To the Supreme. 
 
 Bless, Lord, the vow she pays, 
 
 Make her Thy care. 
 So blest be all her days, 
 
 Like this, and fair !" 
 
 In the spring of 1874 the Queen suffered a 
 great loss in the death of her devoted and most 
 trusted friend, M. Silvain van de Weyer. 
 
92 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 On the 24th of April she writes : — 
 " The Queen has felt much regret at poor 
 Livingstone's fate, and we are now very anxious, 
 alas ! again about dear M. Van de Weyer.^ She 
 herself is very much overdone and overworked, 
 and her nerves overstrained. Never did so 
 many things come together as this winter and 
 spring. On the i8th of May she hopes, D.V., 
 to get off to the North for a month, and then 
 really to get rest." 
 
 Among the many deaths of relatives and 
 friends which the Queen had to mourn within 
 the last few years, no one was more deeply felt 
 than that of her half-sister on 23rd September 
 1872. "Divided in age by eleven years, and 
 
 1 He died on the 23rd of May 1874. The Queen came 
 from Windsor to visit him at his bouse in London, when he 
 was near his end. A few days before his death I took my 
 leave of him. He was in great pain, but his bright sparkling 
 spirit remained. He touched my heart by saying how sorry 
 he was he had only known me within the last few years. On 
 my expressing a hope that we might meet again in the Here- 
 after, "Ah! let us hope so!" he replied, adding, like the 
 bibliophile of bibliophiles that he was, "and that you will find 
 me in an editio nova et emendatior!' 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 93 
 
 separated by long and unavoidable absences, 
 yet the affection of the Queen for the com- 
 panion of her early childhood never failed, and 
 the connection of the Princess as sister and 
 aunt of the Royal Family of England was 
 maintained with a fidelity which was never in- 
 terrupted, either on the part of the Princess 
 herself or of her illustrious relatives." A 
 memorial volume of the Princess's Letters to 
 the Queen was printed in 1874 by Her Majesty, 
 of which I had the honour to receive an early 
 copy. A more beautiful picture of sisterly 
 devotion it would be hard to find than is 
 presented in this volume. From the brief 
 introduction, in which the hand of Dean 
 Stanley may be recognised, I have taken the 
 words above cited. The letters themselves 
 give the impression of a highly refined, intel- 
 lectual, and sympathetic nature, which must 
 have made the Princess very dear to those 
 who knew her. The opinion of the volume 
 which I expressed in thanking Her Majesty 
 for the gift was acknowledged in the following 
 
94 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 letter, the closing words of which are especially 
 noteworthy : — 
 
 "Balmoral, Nov. 19, 1874. 
 
 " The Queen is greatly gratified by Mr 
 Martin's opinion of the letters of her darling 
 sister. She felt proud of them, but still she 
 could not know what others might feel, but all 
 who have seen them admire them much ! No 
 one who did not know her intimately could 
 know what she was, for she was so modest 
 and unobtrusive — not outwardly expansive, and 
 she did not easily take to people whom she 
 did not find sympathetic. But she was a re- 
 markable, noble-minded, kind, good, and single- 
 minded person, whose loss to the Queen, though 
 we lived so much apart, is daily more keenly 
 felt. The Prince had the greatest respect and 
 admiration for her, and said she would have 
 been worthy of a crown. But, oh ! how unen- 
 viable is that I " 
 
 How the Princess loved and was beloved by 
 the Queen may be seen from a passage, quoted 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 95 
 
 at the end of the volume above referred to, 
 in a letter found among the papers of the 
 Princess, and marked to be given to the Queen 
 after her death : — 
 
 " I can never thank you enough for all you 
 have done for me, for your great love and 
 tender affection. These feelings cannot die ; 
 they must and will live on with my soul — till 
 we meet again, never more to be separated, — 
 and now you will not forget 
 
 " Your only own loving sister, 
 
 " Feodora." 
 
96 
 
 CHAPTER IV. 
 
 It was the autumn of 1874, nearly seven years 
 after I had undertaken to write the Life of the 
 Prince Consort, before I found myself able to 
 prepare the first volume for the press. Although 
 I had from the first foreseen that the work would 
 involve a greater amount of labour than was 
 contemplated by the Queen, it soon became obvi- 
 ous that I had myself under-estimated it. As I 
 advanced in my preparations the materials that 
 came into my hands grew greater and greater, 
 and I saw that, to give a true picture of the 
 Prince, my' book must be in effect a history of 
 the Queen's reign from the time of his marriage 
 till his death, while it would at the same time 
 be a biography not of him only, but in a great 
 measure of Her Majesty also. I had made 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 97 
 
 considerable progress in the collection of my 
 materials when I became aware of a body of 
 information, valuable beyond all others, which 
 had been accumulated by the Prince himself, 
 and which had been shut away and seen by 
 no one since his death. As if to assure him- 
 self that an authentic record of this period of 
 the reign should not be wanting, every docu- 
 ment, letter, despatch, private as well as public, 
 which had passed under the eyes and hands of 
 the Queen and himself in reference to affairs of 
 State, to communications with foreign Courts, or 
 to public events in which they had taken a part, 
 had been classified and preserved in an immense 
 mass of folio volumes, to which the Queen 
 afforded me free access. 
 
 These in a measure enabled me to live 
 through the crowded years of the Prince's life. 
 But the study of them, the bulk of the most 
 important documents being in manuscript, and 
 not a few of them in the cramped German 
 current Schrift, was a severe strain upon both 
 patience and eyesight. Months were spent 
 
 G 
 
98 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 in the perusal and selection of what might 
 be used, especially as the contents of these 
 volumes were often so confidential that they 
 had to be read, transcribed, and translated 
 solely by myself 
 
 I had stipulated that I should not be ex- 
 pected to write of the Prince until I had 
 followed his life to its close, and every step I 
 made in my researches confirmed me in this 
 resolution. It was a disappointment to the 
 Queen that I could not show the fruits of my 
 labour so early as she wished, naturally eager 
 as she was that full justice should be done, and 
 done quickly, to the Prince's memory. But 
 when I was able to explain, in the numerous 
 conferences which passed upon the subject, how 
 elaborate were the preparations I was making, 
 how important and voluminous the records to 
 which I was trusting as the basis of what I 
 had to write. Her Majesty became content to 
 wait, and took a deep interest in the develop- 
 ment of the narrative, which not infrequently 
 recalled interesting incidents and discussions 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 99 
 
 which had for a time, but for a time only, 
 escaped her marvellous memory. 
 
 Every chapter, as I wrote it, was submitted to 
 the Queen, and most carefully read and noted by 
 her. No slip in a date or name escaped her 
 notice, and her fine tact never failed to call 
 attention to any expression that could be modified 
 with advantage. But from first to last I was left 
 to the free development of narrative and the ex- 
 pression of my own opinions. The independence 
 for which I had stipulated at the outset was most 
 loyally respected ; and I reflect with satisfaction 
 on the fact, that at no point throughout the five 
 volumes to which the Life extended did any 
 conflict of opinion arise between Her Majesty 
 and myself. An incident will serve to show how 
 anxious the Queen herself was that my entire 
 independence should be maintained. When I 
 came in 1876 to write the story of the Crimean 
 war I felt myself in a difficulty. The second son 
 of Her Majesty had married the daughter of the 
 reigning Czar in 1874. It was impossible to say 
 what I had to say of Russia without giving ex- 
 
loo QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 pression to views that could not be otherwise 
 than unacceptable at the Russian Court. How 
 was I to act, as my work of necessity must have 
 the sanction of the Queen ? I therefore sought 
 an interview with Her Majesty and explained my 
 difficulty. What was her instant answer ? " Do 
 not let the fact of my son's marriage into the 
 Russian family weigh with you for a moment ! 
 Whatever conclusions you come to upon the facts 
 and documents before you, express them as if no 
 such marriage existed ! " Here, as always, truth 
 I found was the paramount consideration with 
 the Queen. 
 
 It may be conceived how my responsibility was 
 lightened and my labour cheered by the perfect 
 freedom allowed to me as well as by the warm 
 encouragement I received from the Queen, and 
 her growing interest in the work as it advanced. 
 Her heart was set upon the completion of an 
 adequate and true memorial of the Prince, and, 
 with all the information of every kind placed at 
 my disposal, he became to me as if I had lived 
 through the years with him. 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. loi 
 
 Until they had seen the first volume of my book 
 some of the Queen's children were rather adverse 
 to the idea of any Life of the Prince being pub- 
 lished so soon. They had a natural fear that it 
 would not do justice to the father whose memory 
 was so tenderly dear to them, and the incidents of 
 whose life were in a measure sacred in their eyes. 
 One of these was the Princess Alice, and in order 
 to remove her impression the Queen wrote to her 
 (24th June 1874) as follows, and sent me a copy of 
 the letter : — 
 
 " I do not think, that as so many memoirs of 
 statesmen and people of the same time have been 
 published, that it is too soon to publish a discreet 
 Life of beloved Papa ; indeed, much that has 
 appeared without permission, or, I must think, 
 reflection, in the dear old Baron's Life, rendered 
 it necessary not to delay in putting things before 
 the world, with all the sides to them, that did not 
 appear in that Life. It will be of much use to 
 posterity and to Princes to see what an unselfish, 
 self - sacrificing, and in many ways hard and 
 unenviable life beloved Papa's was." 
 
102 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 After the first volume was published the 
 doubts of the Princess Alice disappeared, and 
 the Queen, with her habitual consideration, sent 
 me a letter to read, which she received from 
 the Princess, expressing her warm commenda- 
 tion of what I had done. The Princess wrote 
 to me herself in the same strain, and from every 
 member of the family I received the most warm 
 congratulations on my work. This seemed to 
 give great satisfaction to the Queen, for it was 
 her desire that the biographical memorial should 
 be as welcome to them as to herself. 
 
 As each subsequent volume appeared, I re- 
 ceived assurances from Her Majesty of her 
 gratitude for the spirit in which I had carried 
 out her wishes, and from all her children came 
 the warmest acknowledgments of the success 
 of my endeavour to do justice to their father's 
 memory. When, in January 1880, I wrote to 
 the Queen with the concluding chapter of the 
 last volume of the Life, and mentioned, in doing 
 so, with what emotion it was written, this was 
 the answer I received : — 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 103 
 
 "Osborne, January 27, 1880. 
 
 " The Queen thanks Mr Martin most warmly 
 for his touching letter accompanying the last 
 chapter of her beloved Husband's Life. She 
 thanks him from her heart for the pains and 
 trouble he has taken in the execution of this 
 difficult and arduous undertaking, in which he 
 has so admirably succeeded, and at the same 
 time congratulates him on having completed it. 
 She can well understand the tears that must 
 have been shed in doing so, though Mr Martin 
 did not know the dear Prince personally. 
 
 "In the meantime, before she can in a more 
 public manner express her high sense of his 
 services, the Queen asks Mr Martin to accept 
 the accompanying bronze statuette reduced from 
 Marochetti's monument in the Mausoleum.^ 
 The Queen would wish also to thank Mr 
 Martin for the kind and feeling manner in 
 which he has performed his difficult task." 
 
 ' In my library in London there happened to be a niche, as if 
 made to receive this beautiful replica of the Mausoleum monu- 
 ment, where it has ever since remained. 
 
I04 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 The Queen's kindness did not stop here. I 
 was ill, overtasked with very heavy professional 
 work, at the same time that I was writing the 
 last chapters of my book. For months I had 
 been engaged along with the late Mr Edmund 
 Smith in negotiating, and successfully negotiating, 
 for Lord Beaconsfield's Government, the purchase 
 of the undertakings of all the London Water 
 Companies, and preparing the Bill for vesting 
 them in a public trust. The measure was de- 
 feated on Mr Gladstone's return to office in April 
 1880, and for this defeat it may safely be said 
 the community of London has ever since had 
 to suffer severely. Rest and change were 
 essential for my recovery, and I at once 
 determined to seek them in Venice and the 
 north of Italy. Two days before I started I 
 was commanded to dine with Her Majesty at 
 Windsor, and on my arrival I was knighted 
 and invested by her own hands with the 
 Collar and Star of a Knight Commander of 
 the Bath, the act being accompanied by words 
 of commendation far more precious to me than 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 105 
 
 any title of honour. The Queen had chosen 
 for the ceremony the Prince Consort's working 
 room, where all my conferences with her on 
 the subject of the Life had taken place. Her 
 Majesty, I subsequently found, had some diffi- 
 culty in getting the Star and Collar of the 
 Bath ready in so short a time : I could not, 
 therefore, but recognise in the promptitude of 
 her action the kind thought, that the honour, 
 which would come upon me by surprise, might 
 help to cheer me in the search for health on 
 which I was going abroad. 
 
 Some years before this time I had occasion 
 to see how keenly the Queen suffered on the 
 death of a friend. On the 7th of March 1875 
 Sir Arthur Helps, who held a very warm place 
 in her regard, died, after a few days' illness, from 
 a cold caught at the Prince of Wales' levee. I 
 was summoned to Buckingham Palace and found 
 the Queen in tears, and moved to a degree that 
 was distressing to witness. She had lost in him 
 not only a valuable official, but a friend to whom 
 she had for years trusted for counsel in times of 
 
io6 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 personal distress or difficulty. Her first thought 
 was for his family, and what could be done to 
 lighten the embarrassment of the position in 
 which his sudden death had placed them, and 
 arrangements with this view were at once re- 
 solved upon and carried into effect. But, seeing 
 what on this occasion I saw Her Majesty suffer, 
 I could not but think how much sorrows of this 
 kind, coming as they did with unusual frequency, 
 and leaving impressions which in her case were 
 far from transitory, must have added to the 
 exhausting effects of the Queen's busy life. 
 
 It must have been about this time that the 
 Queen one day, in speaking of her portraits, 
 asked me which of them all I thought the best. 
 " Your Majesty," I answered, "will smile at what 
 I am going to say. None of them speak to me 
 so strongly as well as pleasingly, or bring your 
 Majesty so vividly to my mind, as the bust by 
 Behnes, when you were between eight and nine 
 years old." I then told her that I had studied 
 it for years, being so fortunate as to possess the 
 original cast in clay from which the marble bust 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 107 
 
 in the Windsor great corridor was modelled by 
 the sculptor. "Not only," I added, " is the bust 
 beautiful as a work of art, but in it, if I might be 
 so bold as say so, I saw not only the lineaments, 
 but the latent character which years had de- 
 veloped." The Queen, I could see, while some- 
 what surprised, was also pleased. My criticism 
 must have produced a favourable impression, for 
 the next time I was at Windsor Castle I found 
 that the bust had been removed from a com- 
 paratively dark corner to a most conspicuous 
 position near the main entrance to the corridor, 
 where it was shown to the best advantage, and 
 continued thenceforth to remain. Passing along 
 the corridor one evening I called Lord Beacons- 
 field's attention to it, and he quite concurred 
 in my opinion as to its suggestiveness and 
 peculiar charm. ^ 
 
 I recall another conversation about this period 
 that led to the grant, which gave great public 
 
 ' I had given to the Queen a fine proof before letters of her 
 portrait, as a girl, by Fowler, and she wrote to say that "the 
 bust by Behnes, from which Fowler took his picture, was done in 
 1827, when the Queen was eight years and a half." 
 
io8 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 satisfaction at the time, of a pension of ^50 
 a-year to Edward, the Banff shoemaker and 
 Naturalist. I had thrown into my despatch-box 
 a copy of Dr Smiles's Life of Edward, just 
 published, which reached me as I was leaving 
 home to wait upon Her Majesty at Windsor. 
 The box contained papers as to which I had 
 to consult the Queen. On opening it in her 
 presence, her quick eye took notice of the 
 volume, and she asked me what it was. It 
 contained a fine etched portrait of Edward by 
 Rajon, and this, I knew, would interest the 
 Queen. She admired it greatly, and asked, 
 " Who is this Edward ? " I told her briefly 
 his story. "Is this not a case," she said, "for 
 a pension from the Bounty Fund ? " Some of 
 the most eminent naturalists, I was able to 
 answer, were anxious that he should have one, 
 and a Memorial to Her Majesty praying for it 
 was being extensively signed. " Go on with 
 the Memorial," Her Majesty said. " That is 
 essential ; but leave the book with me. I will 
 write to-day to Lord Beaconsfield, and I have 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 109 
 
 no doubt the pension will be at once granted." 
 The next day (20th December 1876), in a 
 letter from the Queen, she wrote : " Lord 
 Beaconsfield had already heard of the book, 
 which with this letter the Queen return, and 
 is most ready to recommend Edward for a 
 pension of ^^50. He was most amiable about 
 it." Thus some days before the formal Memo- 
 rial was presented to the Queen its prayer had 
 been granted, and the remarkable old man was 
 made comfortable for life.^ 
 
 The following letter, while it shows on what 
 friendly relations the Queen stood with Lord 
 Beaconsfield, also shows with how gracious a 
 welcome Her Majesty received a gift from one 
 of her subjects : — 
 
 "Dec. 25, 1876, Christmas Day. 
 
 "The Queen returns Mr Martin her sincerest 
 thanks for his two kind letters, and for the 
 
 1 The Sovereign nominally is the dispenser of these pensions, 
 but the Queen delegated this function to the First Lord of the 
 Treasury. This was why the concurrence of Lord Beaconsfield 
 was necessary. With him the Queen's wish in such matters 
 was paramount. 
 
no QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 splendid copy of his translation of Faust} She 
 had seen it, and sent it as a Christmas offering 
 to Lord Beaconsfield ; but she did not possess 
 one, and therefore is much pleased to receive 
 it at his hands. The Queen hopes Mr Martin 
 will accept the book with photographs of the 
 Albert Chapel, which will reach him to-morrow.^ 
 Most sincerely does she wish Mr and Mrs 
 Martin every possible blessing for the season, 
 which is unusually gloomy and dark. . . . 
 
 " She has just received a most kind and grace- 
 ful acknowledgment from Lord Beaconsfield, 
 which she will later send Mr Martin to read." 
 
 1877 and 1878 were years of great anxiety 
 in regard to foreign affairs, and from Her 
 Majesty's letters to myself it is apparent how 
 constantly she had to struggle against the severe 
 headaches and weaknesses brought on by over- 
 
 1 A volume published in Germany in imperial folio, with a series 
 of very spirited illustrations, and remarkable for the beauty and 
 originality of the binding. 
 
 2 A magnificent volume, including, among other illustrations, 
 photographs of all Baron Triqueti's designs in inlaid marble. 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. iii 
 
 work. Thus on 14th February 1878 she writes: 
 " The Queen is quite incapable of writing, 
 having so much to do and think of, and suffers 
 from headaches and an over - tired head. But 
 she sees no chance of rest." Again, on the 
 8th of March : "The Queen has to apologise 
 very much for not having answered Mr Martin's 
 letter of the ist. Could he come on Monday 
 II, before 6, and stay till the next day? . . . 
 Her time is terribly taken up." 
 
 The Queen was now never long without some 
 great sorrow, and in the late autumn of this 
 year it came in the form of serious illness and 
 death in the home of her beloved daughter the 
 Princess Alice. On the 20th of November 
 1878 she writes : — 
 
 "Mr Martin will excuse her for not answer- 
 ing upon 's long letter yet. But her 
 
 state of anxiety and anguish about all her dear 
 ones at Darmstadt has been such — and they 
 are still great — that what with letters and tele- 
 grams, she has been quite incapable of attend- 
 ing to any other things. Her poor child's grief 
 
 ^ 
 
112 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 and anxiety are only equalled by her resignation 
 and marvellous courage. But the darling that 
 was taken was one of the sweetest, cleverest, 
 and most engaging little children possible — 4^ 
 — the only one of her 31 grandchildren born to 
 her who was born on the Queen's birthday." 
 
 Five years before (June 29, 1873) the Princess 
 Alice had lost another favourite child, who fell 
 out of the window of the room from which she 
 had gone out for a few seconds, and was killed 
 before her eyes. The misery which this loss 
 had caused the Princess might be read in the 
 settled sadness of expression which thenceforth 
 marked her beautiful face, and seemed to fore- 
 shadow the early death which Heaven so often 
 gives its favourites. Now, in nursing all her 
 numerous children through a virulent attack of 
 diphtheria, she showed the noble, unselfish 
 courage for which she had always been distin- 
 guished. One of them, the Princess May, 
 died, as mentioned in the Queen's letter, and 
 very soon (14th December) the Princess her- 
 self succumbed to the same dreadful epidemic. 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 113 
 
 The other children recovered. It is well to 
 recall what the then Prince of Wales wrote of 
 his beloved sister to Lord Granville, in a letter 
 read by his lordship to the House of Lords : 
 " So good, so kind, so clever ! We had gone 
 through so much together — my father's ill- 
 ness, then my own ; and she has succumbed 
 to the pernicious malady which laid low her 
 husband and children, whom she watched 
 and nursed with unceasing care and attention. 
 The Queen bears up bravely, but her grief 
 is deep beyond words." Overwhelmed by it 
 though she was. Her Majesty's instant care 
 was to settle how she might fill a mother's 
 place in looking after the young children that 
 were left behind. And that she did fill it is 
 well known, and she was requited by seeing 
 them all before she died settled in life suit- 
 ably to their rank, and the youngest called 
 to share the Imperial throne of the Czar of 
 Russia. 
 
 In her natural anxiety to see a spot which 
 had so many tender associations for her, the 
 
 H 
 
114 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 Queen visited Darmstadt in the spring of 1884, 
 and in a letter to me (May 12) from Windsor 
 Castle, after her return, she makes the following 
 interesting allusion to her visit : — 
 
 " The Queen has been living in the dear Grand 
 Duchess's rooms at the Neue Palais at Darm- 
 stadt, where everything remains precisely as it 
 used to be. The Queen's sitting-room was hers, 
 and the Queen only placed a small writing-table 
 in the room for her own use, leaving everything 
 else untouched. This opens into the dear Grand 
 Duchess's bedroom, where she died, and out of 
 one of the windows of which poor little ' Frittie ' ^ 
 fell, where there is now a fine painted glass 
 window, with the following words, ' Of such are 
 the kingdom of heaven,' ' Not lost, but gone 
 before.' It is a charming house. . . . The light 
 air of the Continent is certainly very different 
 from England, and more like Scotland. The 
 country was brilliant, and lovely in its spring 
 attire of most vivid green ; the birch woods are 
 quite beautiful. 
 
 ^ The pet name substituted for Friedrich. 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 115 
 
 "It seemed almost an irony of fate to see 
 nature so bright and beautiful, when the heart 
 was so sad, and could feel no pleasure." 
 
 When my Life of the Prince Consort was 
 completed I should not have been surprised if 
 the Queen, with all her manifold, fatiguing, and 
 ever - increasing engagements, had no longer 
 continued the intimate correspondence with which 
 I had hitherto been honoured. But in this 
 respect no change took place. The number of 
 letters grew less as the necessity diminished for 
 constant reference to Her Majesty on the sub- 
 jects dealt with in the Prince's Life ; but I was 
 as frequent a guest as ever at Windsor Castle, 
 and treated with the same frankness and con- 
 fidence as before. When I could be of use to 
 Her Majesty my services, she knew, were always 
 cheerfully at her command, and they were in- 
 variably acknowledged with the exquisite courtesy 
 and thankfulness of which I have already given 
 some examples. I had thus constant opportuni- 
 ties of verifying the justice of the estimate of the 
 personal qualities of Her Majesty which I very 
 
ii6 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 early formed, and to which I have in previous 
 pages tried to give expression. 
 
 In 1883 the Queen had found distraction in 
 preparing further extracts from her Diary of 
 her life in the Highlands. When it was well 
 advanced towards publication my assistance in 
 revising the final proofs was asked. She had no 
 longer her friend Sir Arthur Helps to advise 
 with, who had edited her first Leaves from a 
 Journal. A great deal of correspondence in 
 regard to the book, I find, took place, and I 
 must, I suppose, have been somewhat severe in 
 my criticisms, for in sending me her final sketch 
 of the Preface and Epilogue to the volume, 
 the Queen writes that she stood "somewhat in 
 awe of me " — a compliment to my independence 
 which, while it amused me, could not be other- 
 wise than gratifying. The warm reception given 
 to the volume gave the Queen great pleasure. 
 Thus on the 14th of February 1884 she writes : 
 " The Queen is really startled at the success of 
 so humble a production," and again on the 
 29th, " The Queen must say, she believes few 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 117 
 
 sovereigns, and fewer people, have been so 
 kindly spoken of as herself." In a paper writ- 
 ten in 1883, now before me, the Queen speaks 
 of the importance to herself of anything which 
 "has a cheering and invigorating effect on one so 
 depressed, and so often disheartened as I am." 
 It was therefore very pleasant to see that she had 
 found this temporary solace in the public feeling, 
 which had been vivified by her little book. 
 
 To add to the Queen's depression, a lame- 
 ness due to a sprain of the knee robbed her 
 of the freedom of movement in which she had 
 always delighted. Of this she speaks in a 
 letter (May 29, 1883):— 
 
 " Many things unite in rendering the Queen's 
 remaining years terribly hard and desolate. 
 Her lameness does not improve much. She 
 can walk very little indeed (and that is great 
 labour) out of doors, and never without two 
 sticks indoors, and is carried, which the news- 
 paper reporters with singular ignorance consider 
 a proof of her great 'delicacy of health,' com- 
 plaining also of the public not being admitted 
 
ii8 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 everywhere, as if it would be pleasant for any 
 lady to be carried in and out of a carriage 
 before crowds of people ! But the people are 
 very kind and anxious, though very unreason- 
 ing in thinking a sprain can be cured in a few 
 days, especially when she is no longer young." 
 In the autumn of 1881 the Queen held a 
 review in the Queen's Park, Edinburgh, of the 
 Scottish Volunteers, considerably over 40,000 of 
 whom passed before her. The march past oc- 
 cupied more than three hours, during which the 
 rain descended in torrents. The Queen was in 
 an open carriage, and however much they might 
 have been disappointed, none of her volunteers 
 would have murmured had Her Majesty with- 
 drawn at an early stage of the review. But, 
 true soldier's daughter as she was, she paid no 
 heed to the weather, thinking only of her duty 
 to let herself be seen by those who had come 
 from all parts of the country in the hope of 
 seeing and being seen by their Queen. She 
 did not leave the Park until the last man had 
 passed. By this time the carriage was full of 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 119 
 
 water, and pools of it, I have been told, 
 dropped from the dresses of herself and ladies 
 when they returned to Holyrood. 
 
 In a like determination never, if she could, to 
 cause disappointment to her people, when she 
 visited Liverpool about four years later, the 
 Queen drove slowly through more than three 
 miles of streets under a drenching rain which 
 lasted throughout the whole route. The open- 
 air drives in the Highlands had, no doubt, 
 accustomed Her Majesty to bear exposure so 
 trying without injury to her health. The stimu- 
 lus, too, given by the heartiness of the greeting, 
 which her courage and gracious courtesy evoked, 
 may have helped to keep all evil consequences at 
 bay. In writing to me, May 17, 1886, the drench- 
 ing rain was not mentioned. " The Liverpool 
 visit," she only said, "was a perfectly triumphal 
 ovation, so warm and hearty . . . from a million 
 and a half of people. The feeling against Home 
 Rule is on the increase." 
 
 It was well that the Queen, in all her sorrows, 
 could find solace in the sympathetic and ever- 
 
I20 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 increasing loyalty of her people. Another heavy 
 blow was soon to fall upon her in the death of 
 Prince Leopold (March 28, 1884). Only two 
 years before, his marriage had been solemnised 
 in St George's Chapel at Windsor under circum- 
 stances of unusual splendour, in which Her 
 Majesty had taken a prominent part. Who that 
 witnessed it could ever forget the figure of the 
 Queen as she passed up the aisle to the altar. 
 In the bridal train and the general assemblage 
 many of the most beautiful women in England, 
 arrayed in the costliest robes and adorned with 
 an infinite wealth of jewels, preceded Her 
 Majesty. Whatever high blood and bearing, 
 whatever wealth and beauty could give to de- 
 light the eye, was there. But all was eclipsed 
 by the unpretending figure in black, moving 
 onwards with the simple unstudied grace, un- 
 conscious of its own charm, but insensibly by its 
 perfect composure filling you with the impression 
 that in her the Majesty of England was repre- 
 sented. Vera incessu patuit Regina. No doubt 
 the memory of that moment came back to many 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 121 
 
 as it did to me, when the body of Prince Leopold 
 was borne by the Seaforth Highlanders up the 
 same aisle for the funeral benediction only two 
 short years after, and the Queen was seen look- 
 ing down from the Royal pew upon the group 
 of mourners gathered round the bier. I had 
 known the Prince well for years, and I believe 
 was a favourite with him. My letter of con- 
 dolence to Her Majesty after the funeral brought 
 me the following reply : — 
 
 "Windsor Castle, Apl. 10, 1884. 
 " The Queen thanks Sir Theodore Martin for 
 his kind letter, as well as for the previous ones, 
 and for all the kind sympathy, but that is indeed 
 universal. It has always been thus for her, and 
 each loss intensifies it. . . . The accounts of the 
 sad and impressive ceremony of last Friday and 
 Saturday are excellent, and all in such a reverent 
 tone — and the Times articles (3) so good. The 
 Standard^ is admirable, and the Queen thanks Sir 
 Theodore for it. . . . The Queen is not ill, but 
 
 1 This refers to an obituary notice of the Prince by myself 
 
122 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 greatly shaken, and this new shock has been 
 overwhelming. . . . 
 
 " The Queen feels the loss of that dear clever 
 child of so many cares and anxieties more and 
 more, and knows that again a great help and 
 support has been taken from her in her declining 
 years. She never felt easy when he was away, 
 and his foreign trips never did him any good. 
 Now he is safe. 
 
 " The Queen has been urged to have some 
 complete rest and change of air, and is therefore 
 going for a fortnight to Darmstadt on the T5th." ^ 
 
 In 1886 the idea became general of a great 
 celebration of the Queen's Jubilee in the following 
 year. The subject gave rise to a great display of 
 loyal feeling, and much eloquent writing in praise 
 of Her Majesty in the journals. I seem to have 
 sent Her Majesty some of these which I thought 
 would give her pleasure, for on June 28 she 
 writes to me thus : — 
 
 " The Queen hastens to thank Sir T. Martin 
 
 ^ As to this visit, see afiie, p. 114. 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 123 
 
 for his kind letters and enclosures. She was 
 touched and gratified by the articles, as it is 
 rewarding to find Anerkennung, as the Germans 
 say, of a long and hard life of anxiety, that is 
 not flattery, which the Queen hates. . . . 
 
 " For the Queen all the loyalty shown and the 
 celebration to take place (if she lives, D. V.) next 
 year are very trying, and much mingled with deep 
 sadness ; for to be alone, bereft of her husband, 
 to whom she and the country owe so much, of two 
 dear children, and many, and especially some, dear 
 friends, is very painful and trying." 
 
 In the Jubilee year it was understood that 
 presents might be offered to Her Majesty upon 
 her birthday. Very many, no doubt, availed 
 themselves of the privilege. Lady Martin and 
 myself among the number. We had both so 
 frequently received memorial gifts from the 
 Queen, that it was an especial pleasure to us to 
 have an opportunity of offering our slight tribute 
 of loyal respect, and we selected for the purpose 
 an object of which it was not likely that a dupli- 
 cate could be given. A telegram of warm 
 
124 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 acknowledgment from Balmoral the day it was 
 received was followed next day (25th May) by 
 this letter : — 
 
 " The Queen thanks Sir Theodore and Lady 
 Martin for their lovely gift, which she will ever 
 value as coming from them, and on her birthday 
 in this year. The loyalty and affection so uni- 
 versally exhibited by all classes and from all parts 
 are very gratifying to her, and are an encourage- 
 ment for the few remaining years of her arduous 
 life, as they show that her efforts for the good 
 of her country and people are appreciated." 
 
 No need to say how this loyalty and affec- 
 tion culminated within a month in the Jubilee 
 demonstration on the 21st of June. In West- 
 minster Abbey I had a position from which I 
 could observe the emotions as they passed over 
 the face of the Queen throughout the whole of 
 the impressive ceremonial of that memorable 
 day ; and it seemed to me, familiar as I was 
 with the feelings with which Her Majesty had 
 looked forward to this event, that I could 
 divine some of the thoughts which under 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 125 
 
 that serenely dignified demeanour were passing 
 through Her Majesty's heart and mind. Deep 
 and manifold I felt they must be, as she 
 looked back to the day when she had last sat 
 there in the Coronation Chair, through the vista 
 of years of happiness and trial, of anxiety and 
 bereavement, of national struggle and peril and 
 triumph, all culminating in an unparalleled 
 demonstration of her people's love. At such 
 a time would not memory recur to the words 
 written to her on her Accession by Prince 
 Albert fifty years before (26th June 1837)? — ■ 
 " Now you are Queen of the mightiest land of 
 Europe. In your hand lies the happiness of mil- 
 lions. May Heaven assist you and strengthen 
 you with its strength in that high but difficult 
 task ! I hope that your reign may be long, 
 happy, and glorious, and that your efforts may 
 be rewarded by the thankfulness and love of 
 your subjects ! " Full of the feeling I have 
 expressed, on my return home it shaped itself 
 without effort of mine into the words of the 
 following sonnet. Some weeks elapsed before 
 
126 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 I had the courage to send it to the Queen ; 
 but it at once found such favour with Her 
 Majesty that, in a letter to me next day (nth 
 August), she wrote : " The Queen thanks Sir 
 T. Martin for his kind letter, and for the very 
 beautiful lines which he has written. . . . The 
 Queen hopes he will print and even publish 
 them." They were accordingly published next 
 month in Blackwood's Magazine : — 
 
 IN WESTMINSTER ABBEY. 
 i\st June 1887. 
 
 Again within these walls, again alone ! 
 
 A long, long tract of fateful years between 
 
 The day I knelt, to rise a crowned queen. 
 Vowed thenceforth to be all my people's own, 
 And this, when, with an empire wider grown, 
 
 Again I kneel, before high Heaven to lay 
 
 My thanks for all, which since that earlier day 
 Has blessed my goings, and upheld my throne. 
 God ! in this hour I think of him, who made 
 
 My young life sweet, who lightened every care. 
 In sorest straits my judgment rightly swayed. 
 
 Lived, thought for me, all times and everywhere ; 
 For him I thank Thee chief, who by his aid 
 
 Nerved me the burden of a crown to bear ! 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 127 
 
 Every Christmas had for years brought with 
 it a letter from the Queen with her good wishes 
 for Lady Martin and myself, accompanied by a 
 beautifully painted card for Lady Martin, and 
 some valuable book for my library enriched by 
 a gracious inscription. In her letter of this 
 year were the words, " The Qtieen is loth to 
 part with the year in which she has met with 
 so fnuch affection and kindness" and they sug- 
 gested to me the following sonnet. It was 
 my custom to send to the Queen a Christmas 
 and New Year greeting, generally in verse, and 
 I made the sonnet my greeting for the year 
 1888. The Queen in her reply requested that 
 it might be published, and this was done : — 
 
 OSBORNE. 
 
 Before Mid?iigkt, ^isi December 1887. 
 
 One hour, and 'twill be numbered with the past. 
 My year of Jubilee, that to my heart 
 Has tribute brought from cot and hall and mart 
 
 Of loyalty and love; — a treasure vast. 
 
128 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 There to be nursed and cherished to the last, 
 And with that one dear memory held apart, 
 Still sweetening through the years its bitter smart 
 
 With love in kingly story unsurpassed ! 
 
 Go, then, bright year, go with a fond good-bye, 
 For all thy days with loving-kindness fraught ! 
 
 And may all blessings from the God on high 
 Light on my people for their loving thought. 
 
 Keeping them worthy of the days gone by. 
 
 And the great name by their forefathers wrought ! 
 
129 
 
 CHAPTER V. 
 
 In the magnificent procession which attended 
 the Queen to and from Westminster Abbey, 
 no figure attracted more attention, or excited 
 greater admiration, than that of the Crown 
 Prince of Germany, in his white Cuirassier's 
 uniform, and rivetting all eyes by his noble 
 head and majestic bearing. Little was it 
 then dreamed that within a year he was 
 to succeed his father as Emperor of the 
 Germans, when himself stricken by the cruel 
 malady under which he sank within a few 
 months after his accession. The tragic circum- 
 stances of his death awakened a very profound 
 feeling throughout this country, and men's 
 thoughts turned to the uncrowned Empress 
 whom he left behind, and also to the Queen, 
 
 I 
 
I30 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 who thus saw the fair hopes blighted, with 
 which she and the Prince Consort had re- 
 signed their first and highly gifted child to 
 the man of her heart, by whose side they 
 might expect in time to see her throned as 
 sovereign over a mighty kingdom. 
 
 The Emperor Frederic died on the 15th of 
 June 1888. As soon as her health permitted, 
 the widowed Empress decided to come to 
 England for a time ; and the Queen wrote to 
 me suggesting that some special expression of 
 public sympathy should meet her daughter on 
 her arrival. That this sympathy would be 
 generally and warmly expressed through the 
 usual channels could not be doubted. But I 
 ventured to think, that the expression of it 
 might not unfitly be concentrated in the com- 
 pacter form of verse. With this view I wrote 
 the following sonnet, which appeared in the 
 Standard two days before the Empress reached 
 England : — 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 131 
 
 TO THE EMPRESS FREDERIC. 
 On her arriving in England, l^th Novefnber 1888. 
 
 When England sent thee forth, a joyous bride, 
 A prayer went through the land, that on thy head 
 Might all best blessings bounteously be shed, 
 
 And his, the lover-husband by thy side ; 
 
 And England marked with ever-growing pride, 
 As onwards still the years full-freighted sped. 
 How wrought in both the grace of worth inbred, 
 
 To noblest acts and purposes allied. 
 
 With eyes of longing, not undimmed by tears, 
 England now greets thee, desolate and lone, 
 Heart-stricken, widowed of the twofold crown 
 
 Of love and empire ; and the grief endears. 
 
 Remembering all the cherished hopes o'erthrown. 
 When at their height thy heart's lord was struck down. 
 
 I also wrote this other sonnet, which ap- 
 peared in the Morning Post on the day of 
 the Empress's arrival : — 
 
132 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 TO THE EMPRESS FREDERIC. 
 i<^th November 1888. 
 
 Oh lady, how our hearts were pang'd,i when he, 
 Whom late we saw, in England's festal hour, 
 Ride through our streets in manhood's stateliest power, 
 
 Hail'd by all eyes a star of chivalry. 
 
 Through long sad months of sorest agony. 
 
 Faced martyr-like the doom, that hour by hour 
 He saw still near and ever nearer lour, 
 
 To tear him from his country and from thee ; 
 
 Thee of the childlike heart and manlike brain, 
 Fit in all ways to share a monarch's throne. 
 Who made his people's good his chiefest care ! 
 
 Oh noble heart, all England shares thy pain, 
 And in thy grief thou wilt feel less alone, 
 'Midst all the love that waits to greet thee there ! 
 
 The 9th line of this sonnet was prompted by 
 an incident on the last occasion that I met the 
 Crown Prince and Princess together at Windsor 
 
 1 It seems a pity that this word should have fallen into disuse. 
 Shakespeare employs it with great effect in the fine scene iCymbe- 
 line, Act III. sc. iv.) where Imogen says — 
 
 " I grieve myself to think, 
 When thou shall be disedged by her 
 That now thou tirest on, how thy memory 
 Wilt then he fanged hy me." 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 133 
 
 Castle. "Do you know," he said to me, "what 
 her father said of her ?" "Oh, Fritz," the Prin- 
 cess broke in, anticipating what he was going 
 to tell me, "you should not speak of such a 
 thing." " I will speak of it," he continued, 
 looking at her with eyes of affectionate pride. 
 " Why should I not ? It is only the truth. 
 The Prince Consort said, ' She has the heart 
 of a child, the brain of a man ! ' " That her 
 father so thought of her I had seen many 
 proofs in the private correspondence which was 
 placed in my hands while I was writing his life. 
 I sent these Sonnets to the Queen, and on 
 November 13 she wrote: "The Queen thanks 
 Sir T. Martin for his two kind letters, and the 
 two exquisite little Sonnets. They should cer- 
 tainly be published, and a special copy be pre- 
 pared for her poor dear persecuted daughter." 
 A few days afterwards (November 20) the Queen 
 again wrote : " The Queen encloses a letter from 
 her dear daughter the Empress, which she is sure 
 he will be pleased to receive." This was a letter 
 thanking me in very gratifying terms for my 
 
134 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 Sonnets. "She thanks him again," the Queen 
 continued, " for her two kind letters and the 
 lovely poems. . . . The dear Empress is very 
 sad. The arrival upset her terribly, but she 
 struggles bravely with the dreadful misfortune, 
 and takes an interest in other things. But it is 
 a misfortune which one cannot understand, and 
 which is a great trial to one's faith. One can 
 but say, as one of her Indian attendants (who 
 are all Mohammedans), an excellent, very re- 
 fined, and gentle young man, said, ' God ordered 
 It ! ... 
 
 A few days afterwards I had a long and 
 most interesting interview with the Empress at 
 Windsor Castle, and was told of things which 
 explained what was meant by the Queen in 
 speaking of her as her " poor dear persecuted 
 daughter." They have now happily sunk into 
 oblivion. 
 
 Early in the 'Seventies the Queen intimated to 
 me her great desire to visit North Wales, if a 
 house could be found there suitable for her stay. 
 On looking round the counties of Denbigh and 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 135 
 
 Merioneth, where the Queen wished especially 
 to go, so as to be within reach of some of the 
 best Welsh scenery and also to be seen by the 
 large bodies of workers in coal and other mines 
 and industries, to which the county chiefly owes 
 its prosperity, the mansion of my friend the 
 late Henry Robertson, C.E., at Pale on the 
 Dee, between Corwen and Bala, seemed the 
 most eligible in itself, besides having the ad- 
 vantage of being close to the Llanderfel station 
 on the railway from Ruabon to Dolgelly and 
 Festiniog. It was at once placed by Mr Robert- 
 son at Her Majesty's disposal ; but the pro- 
 jected visit fell through, owing to the pressure 
 of various engagements which compelled the 
 Queen to abandon it for the time. 
 
 The project was again mentioned to me by 
 Her Majesty in the following letter, November 
 4, 1889:— 
 
 " The Queen thanks Sir Theodore for the 
 newspaper, and his article on Wales, which in- 
 terests her very much. This brings her to the 
 subject of the visit, once contemplated, to Wales. 
 
136 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 Would that be possible ? by the loan of a house 
 like the one mentioned at that time by Sir 
 Theodore ? She believes a short visit of four 
 or five days there would do good. She can no 
 longer ride up hills, but she can drive, and go to 
 some places where her presence might be useful." 
 Mr Robertson was dead, but his son and 
 successor in the Pale 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 de- 
 cision became known, the people of the princi- 
 pality, 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. Every- 
 thing 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 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 137 
 
 — from the 23rd to the 28th of August, one 
 of which was a Sunday. 
 
 The Queen arrived at Pale 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 pre- 
 pared a walking-stick of their native wood for 
 Her Majesty's acceptance. They were sur- 
 prised, 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 Wrex- 
 ham, the centre of the mining and other in- 
 dustries of Denbighshire, where a reception in 
 
138 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 Aston Park, the property of Sir Robert Cunliffe, 
 admirably arranged by the Mayor and Corpora- 
 tion 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 Pale. 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 be- 
 haved 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 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 139 
 
 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 birth- 
 day ! " 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 Llan- 
 gollen 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 
 
I40 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 the scenery and to satisfy the loyal feelings 
 of the large and intelligent slate-making popu- 
 lation 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, 
 1 891) 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 Llan- 
 gollen 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 re- 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 141 
 
 peat some day. She would wish to go again 
 to Pale, to which most pleasant and comfort- 
 able house Sir H. Robertson has again and 
 again invited her to return. The Queen could 
 visit Harlech Castle and Llanberis, &c., from 
 Pale, returning at night, could she not ? The 
 Queen uses the Welsh stick, so kindly given 
 her by the farmers and people at Pale, 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 loth of that month 
 she wrote to me : — 
 
 " The Queen is glad that Sir Theodore 
 
142 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 approves the idea of a short Life of her 
 husband being set in hand and pubHshed. 
 
 " 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." 
 
 Some further communications on the subject 
 took place, and on the 22 nd of that month I 
 wrote as follows : — 
 
 " Sir Theodore Martin, with his humble 
 duty, has the honour to acknowledge the re- 
 ceipt of Her Majesty's gracious letter of the 
 20th. 
 
 " Sir Theodore is much impressed by what the 
 Queen says as to the desirableness of a Life of 
 Her Majesty, which might put a stop to the gos- 
 siping fabrications which have of late become so 
 current. The subject has long been present to 
 his mind. While the Queen lives, he fears the 
 inventors of these fictions must have their way. 
 But that the story of Her Majesty's Life should 
 be truthfully and sympathetically told for pos- 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 143 
 
 terity is a matter of the highest importance. In a 
 great measure the work must be historical, and 
 will demand the skill of some one capable of 
 dealing with the events of Her Majesty's reign, 
 and of the political history of the civilized world, 
 from the date of the Prince Consort's death 
 onwards. It would be most desirable to lay the 
 foundation of such a work with Her Majesty's 
 direct assistance, could a biographer with the 
 necessary qualifications be found. There will 
 be the difficulty ; but, until he can be found, 
 would it be possible for Her Majesty to suggest 
 the lines on which the Life should be written, 
 and to furnish to some trusted person the facts 
 and incidents of which Her Majesty would 
 wish a record to be made ? 
 
 " The materials must be abundant in Her 
 Majesty's diaries and correspondence, and they 
 would form the basis of a work of infinite 
 value and instruction to future times. So much 
 that is false and misleading is sure to be 
 written in these days of reckless and unscrupu- 
 lous writing, that every loyal subject of Her 
 
144 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 Majesty must wish that it should in Her 
 Majesty's case be crushed at the outset. 
 Nothing would do this so effectually as the 
 knowledge that the true story would be told, 
 based upon authentic information as to the 
 private as well as public life of the Queen. 
 
 " Sir Theodore makes the above suggestion 
 with all deference to Her Majesty's better 
 judgment. His excuse must be his ardent 
 desire that the story of a life, which he most 
 deeply honours and reveres, should be fitly 
 told for the days to come." 
 
 The Queen, I believe, in so far concurred 
 with my suggestion, that she endeavoured to 
 persuade at least one writer of distinction as 
 a historian to agree to become her biographer. 
 He came to the conclusion that the task of 
 dealing with a subject so vast, and also with 
 a character so complex as that of Her Majesty, 
 was one with which he could not grapple con- 
 sistently with the duties of a high position 
 which he had already undertaken. Whether 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 145 
 
 any further attempt was made in the same 
 direction I am not aware. 
 
 And so the years went on, bringing us from 
 time to time assurances of the Queen's continued 
 interest in Lady Martin and myself In 1896, 
 when the new Victorian Order was established, 
 I was among the first on whom the Com- 
 mandership of the Order was conferred. The 
 Insignia of the Order reached me with the 
 following letter : — 
 
 " Balmoral Castle, Sept. 14, 1896. 
 
 " The Queen has heard that Sir Theodore 
 Martin will celebrate his 80th birthday on the 
 1 6th, which seems to her hardly possible from 
 his appearance. She wishes him to accept her 
 warmest and most heartfelt good wishes for his 
 happiness and welfare for many a year. The 
 Queen wishes on this occasion to mark her 
 sense of Sir Theodore's valuable services, and 
 sends him the decoration of Knight Commander 
 of her new personal 'Victoria Order.' 
 
 K 
 
146 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 " She hopes Lady Martin has recovered from 
 her last indisposition, and that no anxiety on her 
 account may mar the happiness of this day." 
 
 On every Christmas morning the Queen sent 
 greetings and good wishes to my wife with an 
 inscribed Christmas card, and to myself, with 
 some framed work of art, or valuable book. 
 In 1897, when all the world was alive with 
 congratulations on the memorable celebration 
 of Her Majesty's Diamond Jubilee, the words 
 which appeared in two of her perfect Ad- 
 dresses to her people inspired me to express, 
 as before, what I conceived was in her heart 
 in writing these Addresses. I give them here, 
 because they were stamped with Her Majesty's 
 approval. " The Queen," she wrote, " thanks 
 Sir Theodore Martin very much for his most 
 kind letter, and the Sonnets enclosed, which it 
 has touched her much that he should write. 
 Of course they may be published in the 
 Times ; " and they were published there ac- 
 cordingly. 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 147 
 
 THE QUEEN AT ST PAUL'S. 
 
 June 22, 1897. 
 
 [" From my heart I thank my beloved people. May God bless them ! "] 
 
 Not unto me, O Lord, not unto me 
 
 The praise be given, that my beloved land 
 
 This day in all men's eyes from strand to strand 
 Shines first in honour and in majesty ; 
 That borne from every clime, o'er every sea, 
 
 Around me clustering close on every hand, 
 
 Liegemen from far I see, a noble band. 
 Type of a nobler Empire yet to be ! 
 
 Oh, my beloved people, yours the praise. 
 Yours, who have kept the faith, that made your sires 
 
 Free, fearless, faithful, through the nights and days. 
 True to the zeal for right, that never tires ; 
 
 May God's best blessing rest on you always. 
 And keep you blameless in your heart's desires ! 
 
 THE QUEEN AT KENSINGTON. 
 June 28, 1897. 
 
 [" I gladly renew my association with a place which, as the scene of my 
 birth and my summons to the Throne, has had, and ever will have with 
 me, tender and solemn recollections. "] 
 
 Again the dear old home, the towering trees, 
 The lawns, the garden-plots, the lake, that were 
 My childhood's fairyland, — the dear ones there. 
 
 Who tended me so lovingly, — the ease 
 
148 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 Of heart when, sporting at my mother's knees, 
 I dreamed not of a crown, nor knew a care, 
 The call at early morn that crown to wear ! 
 
 Ah me, the host of tender memories. 
 
 Tender and solemn, that around me throng, 
 
 Of all that then I was, and since have been. 
 The many loved and lost, the One so long 
 
 Missed from my side, and I, a lonely Queen ! 
 Yet in the love my people bear me, strong 
 
 To front an Empire's cares with brow serene. 
 
 Yet once again I had the honour of being per- 
 mitted to express Her Majesty's sentiments in 
 verse. It had long been my earnest hope that 
 peace should reign in Her Majesty's realms while 
 she lived. But this was not to be ; and the South 
 African war, with all the loss of life and waste 
 of treasure which it involved, threw many a dark 
 shadow over the last year of the Queen's life. 
 But the shadows were not without breaks of 
 brilliant sunshine. She was proud of the way 
 in which her subjects rose to the difficulties of 
 the time ; she was proud of the response of the 
 army and navy, which she loved, to the call 
 upon their valour and endurance. She was 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 149 
 
 proud, too, of the common feeling that bound the 
 colonies to the mother - country, as but for this 
 war they might not for years have been bound, 
 and that they had sent their sons to share its 
 perils and glories — a first step to the consolida- 
 tion of her Empire. This was a suggestive 
 theme, to glance at which I thought might please 
 the Queen. I had for years been in the habit of 
 writing a letter of congratulation to Her Majesty 
 upon her birthday. Little weening that it was 
 to be her last, I sent the following sonnet with 
 my letter. It so pleased the Queen, that she 
 gave her sanction to its being published in the 
 Times, where accordingly it appeared. 
 
 A BIRTHDAY MEDITATION. 
 Balmoral, 2^th May 1900. 
 
 Am I not blest ? I cry, as I retrace. 
 
 Through gathering mists of not unwelcome tears, 
 All I have seen and known through the long years 
 
 Vouchsafed to me by Heaven's abounding grace ; 
 
 How evermore I have found strength to face 
 
 Their cares, their griefs, their overshadowing fears. 
 Nerved by the loving loyalty that cheers 
 
 My heart in all its lonely pride of place. 
 
I50 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 Oh, my dear land, whose sons, where'er they came. 
 Of freedom and of right have sown the seed, 
 
 Behold, their sons in serried thousands claim 
 A place beside thee, in thine hour of need. 
 
 Thy peril theirs, thy fortune theirs, thy fame ! 
 Thinking of this, am I not blest indeed ? 
 
 As it happens, I write the concluding pages of 
 this humble tribute to the memory of my be- 
 loved Queen in my study at Bryntysilio, on the 
 anniversary of the day when the noble woman 
 passed from earth, who was for more than fifty 
 years the crown and comfort of my life. It is a 
 day intimately associated with my thoughts of 
 Her Majesty, for late in the evening of this 
 day, after the constant inquiries of many weeks, 
 a telegram asking for information came from 
 the Queen only a few hours before my wife 
 fell asleep. Its words were the last she 
 read. She tried to reply to the Queen with 
 her own hand, but had to give up the at- 
 tempt. To the Queen the first news of my 
 loss was sent, and it was answered by a 
 message right from the heart in a few of 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 151 
 
 those incisive words, for which the Queen had 
 a special gift, that speak directly home to the 
 heart. Nor did her sympathy end here. She 
 so arranged that on the morning of the funeral 
 in London a letter in her own hand from Bal- 
 moral should reach me with words of encour- 
 agement such as those from which she had 
 herself so often had to seek courage in her own 
 hours of desolation and bereavement.^ Nor 
 was this all. Next morning, between eight 
 and nine, I received a telegram from Her 
 Majesty, inquiring how I had borne the ordeal 
 of the previous day. Can more be said to 
 show the tender, thoughtful, womanly nature, 
 which won the gratitude and reverence of those 
 who knew her best, and which also operated 
 to create a feeling of affectionate regard in 
 all her subjects, and indeed throughout the 
 world ? 
 
 1 A representative of Her Majesty attended Lady Martin's 
 funeral and placed on her bier a beautiful wreath, inscribed by 
 the Queen, and also a rich floral cross, inscribed by the Princess 
 Beatrice. 
 
152 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 One more instance of Her Majesty's never- 
 failing kindness to myself! The Christmas 
 morning of 1900 brought me its wonted offer- 
 ing from her in the shape of a beautifully framed 
 copy of Angeli's last portrait. As I looked 
 at it my heart was full of sadness, for I read in 
 the familiar face, as there depicted, the mani- 
 fest indications of physical weakness, and of 
 the probably early fulfilment of an apprehension, 
 which had for some time possessed me, that 
 the end of this " great woman " was near. 
 What pathos to me in the thought, that in a 
 time of so much weakness and preoccupation 
 the Queen had taken care that I should not 
 be without the accustomed Christmas memorial 
 from her. There are memories that " lie too 
 deep for tears." This is one of them. 
 
 Yet a few words more ! I have lived too long 
 not to have learned forbearance in my judgments 
 of character in man or woman, even when its 
 qualities seem to lie very much upon the surface. 
 I have also learned to revere the memories of 
 all who have earned honourable distinction by 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 153 
 
 act or word. Experience has taught me how 
 little we can know of the true nature even of 
 those with whom life has made us familiar, how 
 infinitely less of those whom we have never 
 known, or who have followed pursuits in which 
 we have never shared, or lived in a sphere 
 remote from our own. 
 
 Much, therefore, as I saw of the Queen as a 
 woman, much as I had occasion to know of the 
 remarkable powers of mind which she brought to 
 bear upon the performance of her functions as a 
 sovereign, I should not venture to form, much 
 less to publish, an appreciation of these powers, 
 without those full materials for a judgment which 
 are not at present before the world, but which 
 may in due season be expected to see the light. 
 Enough, however, came under my observation 
 to show me how great the Queen could be, 
 when occasion called for the exercise of her 
 higher powers. I know how richly endowed she 
 was with the " instincts of the heart, that teach 
 the head," — intuitions which prompted her to 
 say the right word and do the right thing with- 
 
154 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 out fail, whenever a grave or great purpose was 
 to be served. Perched as she was, to use her 
 own words now lying before me, " on a dreary, 
 sad pinnacle of solitary grandeur," I know with 
 what constancy and courage she bore the isola- 
 tion. I know how simple, how humbly-minded 
 she was, how truthful, how full of loving -kind- 
 ness, how generous, how constant in her friend- 
 ships. I know how she leant for consolation 
 and support upon the love of her people, how 
 earnestly she sought to gain it by sympathy with 
 their interests and their sorrows, by constant 
 watchfulness for the wellbeing of all throughout 
 the world who owned her sway. I know, too, how 
 resolute she was to uphold justice, and honour, 
 and right, wherever her voice could be heard. 
 
 Others may find pleasure, when they write of 
 Queen Victoria, in speaking slightingly of the 
 qualities of mind and heart which went to form 
 a truly noble character, of which personally they 
 can know nothing. To such I answer, Who in 
 the history of monarchies has lived a life so 
 exemplary, so pure, so absolutely devoted to 
 
QUEEN VICTORIA. 155 
 
 the service of the State, — who of all we read 
 of so won the affection of their people, the 
 admiration of the world, as she has done ? I 
 think of the mighty task she was called upon 
 to fulfil, and how admirably she fulfilled it, 
 under trials and drawbacks of which the out- 
 side world can form no estimate. I think of 
 her, borne to her tomb along the London 
 streets, through threefold ranks of her people, 
 all pale, silent, and with heads reverently bowed, 
 as though in mourning for one they loved. I 
 see her bier borne to the altar in St George's 
 Chapel, followed by men who represented all 
 the Rulers of all the Nations — a gorgeous 
 throng that crowded the central aisle of the 
 great chapel from the western door up to the 
 altar steps. Was ever such tribute paid in 
 the world throughout all the ages past ? Is 
 such tribute ever likely to be paid again ? 
 
 It is of this marvellous tribute, and how it was 
 won, that we should think, — not of this or that 
 foible or shortcoming, for who is without them ? 
 Above all, we should think of the heavy, un- 
 
156 QUEEN VICTORIA. 
 
 ceasing burden that lay upon brain and heart 
 through a long life, and with how brave and 
 constant yet how meek a spirit it was borne. 
 Then, remembering all this, let us, while we 
 live, cherish in our hearts the name of our 
 departed Queen, and pass it on to those who 
 shall succeed us, as 
 
 l^ictoria tje <&xmi anO CJrooii* 
 
 PRINTED BY WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS.