Free Queen Victoria by E. Gordon Browne

Queen’s Journals, were intended at first for presentation only to members of the Royal Family and Her Majesty’s intimate friends, especially to those who had accompanied her during her tours. It was, however, suggested to the Queen that her people would take even as keen an interest in these simple records of family life, especially as they had already shown sincere and ready sympathy with her personal joys and sorrows.
    “The book,” its editor says, “is mainly confined to the natural expressions of a mind rejoicing in the beauties of nature, and throwing itself, with a delight rendered keener by the rarity of its opportunities, into the enjoyment of a life removed, for the moment, from the pressure of public cares.”
    It is of particular interest because here the Queen records from day to day her thoughts and her impressions in the simplest language; here she can be seen less as a queen than as a wife and mother. Her interest in her whole household and in all those immediately around her is evident on almost every page. To quote again: “She is, indeed, the Mother of her People, taking the deepest interest in all that concerns them, without respect of persons, from the highest to the lowest.”
    As a picture of the Royal Court in those days this is exceedingly valuable, for it shows what an example the Queen and her husband were setting to the whole nation in the simple life they led in their Highland home.
    That the old people especially loved her can be seen from the greetings and blessings she received in the cottages she used to visit. “May the Lord attend ye with mirth and with joy; may He ever be with ye in this world, and when ye leave it.”
    The Queen was never weary of the beauties of the Highlands, and quotes the following lines from a poem by Arthur Hugh Clough to describe ‘God’s glorious works’:
     The gorgeous bright October,
Then when brackens are changed, and heather blooms are faded,
And amid russet of heather and fern, green trees are bonnie;
Alders are green, and oaks; the rowan scarlet and yellow;
One great glory of broad gold pieces appears the aspen,
And the jewels of gold that were hung in the hair of the birch tree;
Pendulous, here and there, her coronet, necklace, and earrings,
Cover her now, o’er and o’er; she is weary and scatters them from her.
    In the year 1883 the Queen published   More Leaves from the Journal , and dedicated it “To my loyal Highlanders, and especially to the memory of my devoted personal attendant and faithful friend, John Brown.” They are records of her life in Scotland during the years 1862 to 1882.
    In the August of 1862 a huge cairn, thirty-five feet high, was erected to the memory of the Prince Consort. It was set on the summit of Craig Lowrigan, where it could be seen all down the valley.
    A short extract will serve as a specimen of the Queen’s style of writing:
    “At a quarter to twelve I drove off with Louise and Leopold in the waggonette up to near the ‘Bush’ (the residence of William Brown, the farmer) to see them ‘juice the sheep.’ This is a practice pursued all over the Highlands before the sheep are sent down to the low country for the winter. It is done to preserve the wool. Not far from the burnside, where there are a few hillocks, was a pen in which the sheep were placed, and then, just outside it, a large sort of trough filled with liquid tobacco and soap, and into this the sheep were dipped one after the other; one man took the sheep one by one out of the pen and turned them on their backs; and then William and he, holding them by their legs, dipped them well in, after which they were let into another pen into which this trough opened, and here they had to remain to dry. To the left, a little lower down, was a cauldron boiling over a fire and containing the tobacco with water and soap; this was then emptied into a tub, from which it was transferred into the trough. A very rosy-faced lassie, with a plaid over her head, was