CHAPTER XXIX.

IMMEDIATELY after proroguing Parliament, the Queen and Prince proceeded to Woolwich, where the Royal squadron was waiting to convey them to Aberdeen on their way to Balmoral. About eight o'clock on the morning of the 7th of September, Aberdeen harbour was reached; and although this was nearly twenty-four hours earlier than was expected, the municipal authorities were on the alert to give the Royal visitors an appropriate welcome to the fair city of Bon Accord. The Prince was presented before landing with the freedom of the city, and subsequently visited the two Universities, the Museum, and the great granite quarries in the neighbourhood. Next day the Royal party drove to Balmoral, full of eager anticipation as to their future Highland home.

Neither were they disappointed. The attention of the Royal physician, Sir James Clark, had been called by his son, now Sir John Clark, to the fine air and other attractions of this part of Deeside as a summer and autumn residence. Having satisfied himself on these points, he had urged the Queen and Prince to acquire the lease of the Balmoral estate from the Earl of Aberdeen, into whose hands it had come upon the death of Sir Robert Gordon in 1847. The lease was only for thirty-eight years from the year 1836; but the property was found to possess so completely the good qualities. which had led to its being selected, that the Prince purchased

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FIRST VISIT TO BALMORAL.

1848 the fee simple of it in 1852 from the trustees of the Earl of Fife. Apart from the beauty of the surrounding scenery, the dry bracing character of the air was precisely what, in Sir James Clark's opinion, was most essential for the peculiar constitutions of the Queen and Prince. The whole of Deeside, from Charleston of Aboyne to Castleton of Braemar, he held to be one of the driest districts of Scotland, and especially of the Highlands, and no spot along the valley to be more favoured in this respect than Balmoral. The causes of this were twofold: first, the sandy gravelly nature both of the lowlands and of the greater part of the surrounding hills; and next, the fact that the rain-clouds from the sea break and discharge themselves upon the range of mountains which lies between Braemar and the Atlantic, before they reach Deeside. On the 15th of September Sir James Clark writes: We have been here a week-the weather beautiful, and the place as regards healthiness of site and beauty of scenery, exceeding my expectations, great as they were.'

The first impressions made by the place upon the Queen and Prince have been graphically described in the Leaves from Her Majesty's Journal. Looking down from the hill which overhangs the house,' Her Majesty writes (8th September), the view is charming. To the left you look to the beautiful hills surrounding Loch-na-Gar, and to the right towards Ballater, to the glen (or valley) along which the Dee winds, with beautiful wooded hills, which reminded us very much of the Thüringer Wald. It was so calm and so solitary, it did one good as one gazed around, and the pure mountain air was most refreshing. All seemed to breathe freedom and peace, and to make one forget the world and its sad turmoils. The scenery is wild and yet not desolate; and everything looks much more prosperous and cultivated than at Laggan. Then the soil is delightfully dry. We walked beside the Dee, a beautiful rapid stream, which is

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OCCUPATIONS AT BALMORAL.

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close behind the house. The view of the hills towards Invercauld is exceedingly fine.'

Writing three days later to the Dowager Duchess of Coburg, the Prince says:~~

'We have withdrawn for a short time into a complete mountain solitude, where one rarely sees a human face, where the snow already covers the mountain tops, and the wild deer come creeping stealthily round the house. I, naughty man, have also been creeping stealthily after the harmless stags, and to-day I shot two red deer—at least, I hope so, for they are not yet found, but I have brought home a fine roebuck with me.

This place belonged to poor Sir Robert Gordon, Lord Aberdeen's brother, and the little castle was built by him. It is of granite, with numerous small turrets, and whitewashed [Scoticè, harled], and is situated upon a rising ground, surrounded by birchwood, and close to the River Dee. The air is glorious and clear, but icy cold.

Balmoral, 11th September, 1848.'

It was well for the Queen and Prince that they could refresh their spirits for a time, no matter how brief, with scenes which, in Her Majesty's words, 'seemed to breathe freedom and peace, and to make one forget the world and its sad turmoils.' Little of that oblivion, however, could be theirs during these their first days among the wilds of Lochnagar, and the picturesque glades of the Ballochbuie forest. Every day brought news of fresh complications in Foreign affairs, not unmixed with fresh causes of disquietude at home. Thus on the 10th, as we gather from the Prince's diary, came tidings of the refusal by the National Assembly at Frankfort to confirm the armistice between Denmark and Prussia, and of the consequent resignation of the Ministry of the Reichsverweser. On the 11th, intelligence arrives, that

Austria has accepted the mediation of England and France between itself and Sardinia, but coupled with conditions from which it is not difficult to foresee that the mediation will come to nothing, and that the continent of Europe, despite the strenuous efforts made by England to avert such a calamity, may possibly be plunged before long into the horrors of a general war. The 12th brings despatches which tell of the break-up of the Auerswald Ministry in Berlin, and that the bad feeling between the Court there and Frankfort is becoming more and more embittered. Ireland sends, on the 15th, its tale of further outrage and devastation in the account of a fresh rising in Tipperary, which, by the 18th, the Queen is happily assured, has been satisfactorily put down. On the 22nd the news arrive of the horrible scenes in Frankfort, already mentioned (supra, p. 103), which culminated in the massacre of Prince Lichnowski and Major Auerswald, and also of the sudden death of Lord George Bentinck-an event which, besides the natural regret which it occasioned, was not unimportant in its bearings on the future conduct of Her Majesty's Opposition.' The election of Louis Napoleon as Deputy by immense majorities in no fewer than five of the Departments of France was known at Balmoral on the 24th, and gave much cause for speculation, significant as it was of the strength of the spell which lay in the name he bore. In India, the state of matters in the Punjaub had for some time occasioned no small anxiety, and events were at this moment in progress there, from which it was apparent that the revolt of the Sikhs at Mooltan, which broke out on the 1st of April of this year, and against which the British forces had hitherto contested with success, was, in truth, part of a general movement of the whole Sikh nation to establish its independence, which would tax our best energies to put down.

It will be seen how much there was here to preoccupy the

1848

ACCIDENT IN SOLENT.

III

thoughts of the Sovereign and the Prince, and to make the invigorating air and wild beauty of their new home doubly precious to them as a tonic to mind and body. One day, a delightful one to both, the Prince was able to devote to an excursion with Sir Charles Lyell, who was knighted during his visit on this occasion to Balmoral. Under the direction of the great geologist, the Prince's powers of exact and rapid observation enabled him to master all the leading facts which the district presents to the eye of the scientific observer, and which, in the Prince's case, mingled with and heightened his pleasure in every future ramble among the many picturesque spots on which the records of the great material forces of past ages are written in impressive signs. On the 28th the Court left Balmoral for London, and after resting there one night, proceeded to Osborne, where it remained till the 9th of October, when it returned to Windsor.

In crossing from Osborne to Portsmouth the Royal party were witnesses of a very painful disaster. The Grampus frigate had just arrived at Spithead from the Pacific, and five women, who had relatives among the crew, had put out for the vessel in an open boat with two watermen. The day was thick and stormy, and a sudden squall swamped the boat, not far from the Grampus. The accident had not been observed there, but one of the men had managed to cling to the capsized boat, and he had attracted the attention of the crew of a custom-house boat, who in pulling for him steered right across the bows of the Royal yacht. The Prince was on deck. He called out,' says Her Majesty's Diary, 'that he saw a man in the water; I rushed out of the pavilion and saw a man sitting on something which proved to be the keel of the boat. The next moment Albert called out in a horrified voice, "Oh dear, there are more!"-which quite overcame me.' Instantly the Royal yacht was stopped, and one of its boats

6

He was made a Baronet in 1864.