The Life of King Edward VII. Marie Belloc Lowndes
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and Albert. Writing in her Journal on 2nd September, Queen Victoria says, with a pretty touch of maternal pride:—
“After passing the Alderney Race it became quite smooth; and then Bertie put on his sailor’s dress, which was beautifully made by the man on board who makes for our sailors. When he appeared, the officers and sailors, who were all assembled on deck to see him, cheered, and seemed delighted with him.”
Then, when the yacht arrived at Mounts Bay, Cornwall, Her Majesty records on 5th September that “when Bertie showed himself the people shouted ‘Three cheers for the Duke of Cornwall.’”
Again, at Falmouth, on 7th September, the Queen says:—
“The Corporation of Penryn were on board, and very anxious to see ‘The Duke of Cornwall,’ so I stepped out of the pavilion on deck with Bertie, and Lord Palmerston told them that that was ‘The Duke of Cornwall’; and the old Mayor of Penryn said that ‘he hoped he would grow up a blessing to his parents and to his country.’”
At Sunny Corner, just below Truro, the whole population “cheered, and were enchanted when Bertie was held up for them to see. It was a very pretty, gratifying sight.”
Princess Mary of Cambridge, afterwards the much-loved and lamented Duchess of Teck, gives a delightful picture of the Royal children in a letter written in 1847 to Miss Draper, her governess. Princess Mary was then about fourteen, and King Edward was rather more than five years old:—
“We paid a visit to the Queen at Windsor on New Year’s Eve, and left there on the 2nd. The Queen gave me a bracelet with her hair, and was very kind to me. The little Royal children are sweet darlings; the Princess Royal is my pet, because she is remarkably clever. The Prince of Wales is a very pretty boy, but he does not talk as much as his sister. Little Alfred, the fourth child, is a beautiful fatty, with lovely hair. Alice is rather older than him; she is very modest and quiet, but very good-natured. Helena, the baby, is a very fine child, and very healthy, which, however, they all are.”
In August 1847, Queen Victoria and Prince Albert, with the Queen’s half-brother, the Prince of Leiningen, went for a tour round the west coast of Scotland, taking with them their two eldest children, the Prince of Wales and the Princess Royal. This is notable as King Edward’s first visit to Scotland, for he was too young to accompany his parents on their first tour in Scotland in 1842; while when the Queen and Prince Albert visited Blair-Atholl in 1844 they only took with them the little Princess Royal.
Of this tour round the west coast of Scotland we obtain some delightful details in the late Queen’s Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands. The Royal party started from Osborne in the Royal yacht Victoria and Albert, and they took the opportunity, after leaving Dartmouth, of visiting the Scilly Islands. The Queen writes:—
“Albert (who, as well as Charles, has not been unwell, while I suffered very much) went with Charles and Bertie to see one of the islands. The children recover from their sea-sickness directly.” By “Charles,” it should be explained, is meant the Prince of Leiningen. Naturally, when the Royal yacht arrived in Welsh waters, there was the greatest enthusiasm among the inhabitants at the sight of their little Prince. It must be remembered that at that time practically nothing was known by the general public about the Royal children, for their parents had very wisely resolved that they should as far as possible enjoy a natural, happy childhood, that being the best possible preparation for the public life that awaited them. However, evidently no harm was done by the notice which was taken of the Royal children on this tour. At Milford Haven their loving mother writes:—
“Numbers of boats came out, with Welshwomen in their curious high-crowned men’s hats, and Bertie was much cheered, for the people seemed greatly pleased to see the ‘Prince of Wales.’” Then again at Rothesay, when the yacht had passed up the Clyde:—
“The children enjoy everything extremely, and bear the novelty and excitement wonderfully. The people cheered the ‘Duke of Rothesay’ very much, and also called for a cheer for the ‘Princess of Great Britain.’ Everywhere the good Highlanders are very enthusiastic.”
With regard to her son’s title of Duke of Rothesay, Queen Victoria appends the following interesting note:—
“A title belonging to the eldest son of the Sovereign of Scotland, and therefore held by the Prince of Wales as eldest son of the Queen, the representative of the ancient Kings of Scotland.”
At Inveraray, which was next visited, the little Prince first met his future brother-in-law, the Marquis of Lorne, whom the Queen describes, in words which have often been quoted but will bear repetition, as “just two years old, a dear, white, fat, fair little fellow with reddish hair, but very delicate features, like both his father and mother: he is such a merry, independent little child. He had a black velvet dress and jacket, with a ‘sporran,’ scarf, and Highland bonnet.”
Naturally a good deal of interest was taken in the little Prince of Wales by those who had an opportunity of seeing him. When the great geologist, Sir Charles Lyell, went to Balmoral, the Queen’s eldest son, “a pleasing, lively boy,” gave him an account of the conjuring of Anderson, the “Wizard of the North,” who had just then shown the Court some marvellous tricks. Said the Prince in an awestruck tone:—
“He cut to pieces Mamma’s pocket-handkerchief, then darned it and ironed it so that it was as entire as ever; he then fired a pistol, and caused five or six watches to go through Gibbs’s head; but Papa knows how all these things are done, and had the watches really gone through Gibbs’s head he could hardly have looked so well, though he was confounded.”
Gibbs, it should be mentioned, was a footman.
The late Archbishop Benson, before he went up to Cambridge, was tutor to the sons of Mr. Wicksted, then tenant of Abergeldie Castle. Writing to his mother on 15th September 1848, young Mr. Benson gives the following interesting description of a glimpse which he had of the King as a little boy:—
“The Prince of Wales is a fair little lad, rather of slender make, with a good head and a remarkably quiet and thinking face, above his years in intelligence I should think. The sailor portrait of him is a good one, but does not express the thought that there is on his little brow. Prince Alfred is a fair, chubby little lad, with a quiet look, but quite the Guelph face, which does not appear in the Prince of Wales.”
In September 1848 Queen Victoria and Prince Albert established themselves with their six children at Balmoral, and Her Majesty records her first impressions of the place which was to be for so many years her much-loved Northern home. After describing her own and Prince Albert’s rooms, she says, “Opposite, down a few steps, are the children’s and Miss Hildyard’s three rooms.” Only a few days later we hear of the little Prince of Wales going out with his parents for a “drive” in the Balloch Buie. “We then mounted our ponies, Bertie riding Grant’s pony on the deer-saddle, and being led by a gillie, Grant walking by his side.” Grant, it should be explained, was head keeper, and much trusted by the Queen and Prince Albert, and for him was built a pretty lodge called Croft, a mile from Balmoral. “We scrambled up an almost perpendicular place to where there was a little box, made of hurdles and interwoven with branches of fir and heather, about five feet in height. There we seated ourselves with Bertie.” It can readily be imagined with what excitement the little Prince waited for nearly an hour till his father obtained a shot. The Queen records how her son helped her over the rough ground until they all gathered round the magnificent “Royal” which had fallen to Prince Albert’s gun.
The life at Balmoral was as far as possible shorn of Royal state, and was much the same, no doubt, as that which was led under many another hospitable roof-tree in the country round about. Queen Victoria devoted herself to her husband and children. Thus she records, on 11th September 1849, “The morning was very fine. I heard the children repeat some poetry in German.”
The life at Windsor Castle was scarcely less simple. Writing to an intimate friend, the late Duchess of Teck thus describes a dramatic performance at the Castle in January 1849, in which King Edward appeared, in spite of an accident which he had had a few days before:—
“Last