Read Ebook: Royalty in All Ages The Amusements Eccentricities Accomplishments Superstitions and Frolics of the Kings and Queens of Europe by Thiselton Dyer T F Thomas Firminger

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CHAP. PAGE

INDEX 433

LIST OF ETCHED PORTRAITS

ROYALTY

ROYALTY AT PLAY

In some cases, however, if we are to believe the traditions of history, chess has been responsible for some serious fracas. Thus a story is told of William the Conqueror, how when a young man he was invited to the Court of the French king, and during his stay there was one day engaged at chess with the King's eldest son, when a dispute arose concerning a certain move. William, annoyed at a certain remark made by his antagonist, struck him with the chess-board, which "obliged him to make a precipitate retreat from France to avoid the consequences of so rash an act."

De Foix, on hearing that the Queen of Scots had resolved on the marriage with her cousin Darnley, went to Elizabeth that he might discuss the matter. He found her at chess, and, profiting by the opportunity of discussing the matter, he said: "This game is an image of the words and deeds of men. If, for example, we lose a pawn, it seems but a small matter; nevertheless, the loss often draws after it that of the whole game."

The Queen replied, "I understand you. Darnley is but a pawn, but may well checkmate me if he be promoted."

As a warning against the perilous habit of playing chess with a wife, it is related of Ferrand, Count of Flanders, that, having constantly defeated the Countess, she conceived a hatred against him, which reached such a height that when the unfortunate Count was taken prisoner at the battle of Bouvines, she suffered him to remain a long time in prison, although, according to common report, she might easily have procured his release.

Don John of Austria had a room in his palace in which there was a chequered pavement of black and white marble, upon which living men attired in varied costumes moved under his direction according to the laws of chess. It is also related of a Duke of Weimar that he had squares of black and white marble, on which he played at chess with red soldiers.

Indeed, sovereigns, like other mortals, have sought recreation and a rest from the anxieties of life in sometimes what may seem the most childish amusements. One of Napoleon's favourite games, for instance, was blind-man's-buff, a pastime which, it may be remembered, Canning and Sir William Scott played with the Princess Caroline whilst at Montagu House. Napoleon, too, was very fond of children, and would carry the infant King of Rome in his arms, and standing in front of a mirror, make all kinds of grimaces in the glass. At breakfast he would take the child upon his knee, "dip his fingers in the sauce, and daub his face with it; the child's governess scolded, the Emperor laughed, and the child, always pleased, seemed to take delight in the rough caresses of his father."

"Because," replied the Count, "had there been any fault, all these gentlemen would have given it in favour of your Majesty."

The King submitted to his decision.

FREAKS OF ROYALTY

It is impossible to account, in many cases, for the strange and extraordinary freaks of bygone sovereigns on any other ground than eccentricity or madness. It is true that Charles the Fat used to excuse himself for the atrocities into which he plunged, by asserting that he was possessed of a devil, but this, of course, was in banter rather than sincerity. But, whatever the motives which prompted such peculiar vagaries on the part of certain monarchs, foibles of this kind, if not instructive, are certainly amusing.

Thus it is related of Marie Casimire, wife of Sobieski, King of Poland, that one of her amusements was to let herself be drenched by the rain, although at the time she might be magnificently dressed. On one occasion, when Monsieur le Comte de Teil, Conseiller du Parlement de Paris, who had been sent to Poland by the King of England, happened to be near the Queen when it rained very heavily, she said to him, "Monsieur l'Envoi, let us take a walk"--a request which he did not dare to refuse. He wore on that day a fine wig; nevertheless he endured the rain for some time, and then said to her, "Madam, your Majesty is getting wet." "Say, rather," answered the Queen, "that you are learning how to spoil your fine wig," and she continued walking in the rain maliciously a full half-hour.

"On apprend de Petersbourg que l'Empereur de Russie voyant que les puissances de l'Europe ne pouvoit s'accorder entre elle et voulant mettre fin ? une guerre qui la desoloit depuis onse ans vouloit proposer un lieu ou il inviteroit touts les autres souverains de se rendre et y combattre en champ clos ayant avec eux pour ecuyer juge de camp, et h?ros d'armes leurs ministres les plus ?clair?s et les generaux les plus habiles tels que Messrs. Thugust, Pitt, Bernstoff, lui m?me se proposant de prendre avec lui les generaux C. de Palen et Kutusof, on ne s?ait si on doit y ajouter foi, toute fois la chose ne paroit pas destitu?e de fondement en portant l'empreinte de ce dont il a souvent ?t? tax?."

The Czar Nicholas was fond of frightening or fascinating people by his eyes, and it is said that one of his terrible glances once terrified a Swedish admiral into the Russian service. On another occasion, we are told how happening to encounter a poor fellow who had strolled into the private part of the Imperial Park, Nicholas gazed at him with so fierce a glance that the trespasser was stricken with brain-fever. This strange peculiarity of the Czar reminds us of Augustus, who, according to Suetonius, was always well pleased with those persons who, when addressing him, looked upon the ground, as though there were a divine splendour in his eyes, too dazzling for them to gaze upon.

Some of the characteristics of one of his successors on the throne--the celebrated Christina--were uncommon, for having been educated by men, and brought up under the guardianship of men, she gradually imbibed a dislike of all that was womanly. Her ambition seems to have been to be as much like a man as possible, and nothing seems to have pleased her more than to don male attire. For womanly refinements, too, she had the most profound contempt, and it only coincided with this trait of character that she expressed her conviction of the utter disability of woman to conduct the affairs of a nation. In short, it is said that there was nothing of the woman in her save her sex, and that her presence, voice, and manners, were altogether masculine. Many of her strange freaks of conduct were attributable to this peculiar whim, in accordance with which she not only swore like a dragoon, but encouraged conversation of a by no means refined character. Thus a writer states that one of his friends used to entertain her with stories of a very unseemly nature, with which she was abundantly delighted, and adds, "Yet because there were some of his narrations which did sometimes require more modest expressions than the genuine or natural, chiefly before a Royal Majesty and in a maid's presence, as she saw him going about his circumlocutions and seeking civil terms, she would boldly speak out the words, though they were never so filthy, which modesty forbids me to write here." Indeed, her own acknowledgment that she was never nice of speech more or less corresponded with her personal habits, inasmuch as Manneschied, the confessor of Pimentelli, the Spanish ambassador at the Swedish Court, and a great admirer of the Queen, thus wrote of her: "She never combs her hair but once a week, and sometimes lets it go untouched for a fortnight. On Sundays her toilet takes about half-an-hour, but on other days it is despatched in a quarter." Manneschied then adds, "Her linen was ragged and much torn." And occasionally, when a bold person would hint at the salubrity of cleanliness she would reply, "Wash! that's all very well for people who have nothing else to do!"

But this note of warning had no effect on Christina, and with a smile she put it in the fire, little anticipating that the prediction would be fulfilled the following year. Despite her many foibles and follies, Christina was a great and remarkable woman, a riddle indeed to many who have read her history. She had a masterful character, and, however much her various eccentricities and habits of life may have created disgust, her intellectual powers, on the other hand, were of no mean order. But one reason, perhaps, which induced her to indulge in such extraordinary freaks of conduct was her supreme contempt for the parade and symbols of worldly power, and the conventionalities of society.

"The Comte d'Artois has taken it into his head to pull down a country house in the Bois de Boulogne, and to rebuild it from top to bottom. It is to be newly furnished, and a f?te is to be given there to the Queen. Everybody thought it absurd to attempt to finish such a piece of work in six or seven weeks; yet it has been done--nine hundred workmen having been employed day and night. The most extraordinary part of the case is that, as there was a deficiency of materials, especially of stones, lime, and plaister, and that time was not to be lost in procuring them elsewhere, M. le Comte d'Artois gave orders that patrols of the Swiss Guards should search the main roads, and seize every cart containing materials of this kind which they came across."

As a boy, we are told, the Castle of Hohenschwangau in the Bavarian Alps fascinated his imagination, for "knights in armour spoke to him; Rhine maidens drew him into their arms; he saw his ancestors, the old Wittelsbach heroes, seated upon their war-horses, their swords drawn, fighting their way into Rome, or resting under the palms by the banks of the Nile." At two and twenty he betrothed himself to his cousin, Sophie Charlotte--daughter of Maximilian of Bavaria and sister of the Empress of Austria--who afterwards became Duchesse d'Alen?on, and perished in the fire at the Bazar de la Charit?. But for some reason the match was broken off, and henceforth he became "more melancholy and more enamoured of solitude," dwelling "in pathetic loneliness, with little society save his brooding dreams--his days, or rather his nights, for he had already begun to invert the division of the twenty-four hours, peopled with the heroes and legends of myth."

Once only, it is said, did he really rouse himself, when he threw in his lot with Prussia in 1870. But after all it was only a fictitious enthusiasm, for he would not accompany his army, backing out on the plea that he had strained a sinew. He grew tired of life and disgusted with everything, and there seems to have been in his unbalanced mind some jealousy of the Crown Prince Frederick, who had performed the deeds which had ever been the subject of his dreams. And his extraordinary eccentricities got gradually worse, and he acquired the habit of drinking a mixture of champagne and Rhenish wine in which violets floated, consorting only with his servants. Finally, when it was announced to him that his deposition had been decided, he exclaimed, "Let the traitors be thrown into the deepest dungeon, loaded with chains, and leave them to die of starvation." But not very long afterwards he was removed to the Ch?teau of Berg, where he was mysteriously drowned in the Starnberg Lake.

And similarly, we are reminded how Maria Theresa, who survived her husband fifteen years, lived amid the emblems of perpetual mourning. She shut herself up on the 18th of every month, and the whole of every August, the day and month of his death. As her life drew near its end, she spent many days at times in the funeral chapel before the picture of her husband, taken as he lay in his coffin, and her last words, well understood by those around her, were, "I come to thee."

Queen Victoria was not altogether free from the morbid tendency of mind "which comes of excessive study of incidents of sorrow and suffering," and her habit of accumulating sepulchral memorials of relations and friends was one manifestation of it.

"She believes that it is given to our departed loved ones to watch over those who still struggle with the temptations and sorrows of the earthly life. It has been the real consolation of her bereaved years that she felt that the Prince was watching over the events of her life. During her retirement at Osborne, immediately after the Prince Consort's death, the Queen found 'her only comfort in the belief that her husband's spirit was close beside her, for he had promised that it should be so.' This was told to Dean Stanley by the Queen's half-sister, the Princess Hohenlohe."

That sentiments such as these found an echo in the heart of her Majesty may be gathered from what she wrote to Lord Tennyson on one of the anniversaries of her wedding-day, which she described as a day that she could never allow to be considered sad: "The reflected light of the sun which has set still remains. It is full of pathos, but also full of joyful gratitude, and he who has left me nearly fifty years ago surely blesses me still."

"Thank God," exclaimed the King, "my kingdom is saved." Not many days afterwards despatches were received from the Duke of Cumberland, announcing that the Highlanders had been completely routed at Culloden.

His violence, too, extended itself even to animals; he maimed the horses in his own stables, and he so ill-treated one which his father held in particular affection, that the unfortunate animal died in a few days. And yet his cruelties and eccentricities were not unaccompanied with kindness, for he paid the charges of the education of children thrown on the world without resources, although at the time he was himself much embarrassed with debt.

But among the merry scenes which took place between Edward and the Queen's ladies, with whom he now and then indulged in romping, was his being "heaved" on Easter Monday, 1290. It is recorded how seven of Queen Eleanora's ladies unceremoniously invaded the chamber of the King, and seizing their majestic master, proceeded to "heave" him in his chair, till he was glad to pay a fine of ?14 to enjoy "his own peace," and be set at liberty.

On another occasion his mad frolic made him an inmate of Coventry gaol, for some of his most outrageous acts were done at a manor of his close to Coventry, called Cheylesmore, a residence appertaining to his Duchy of Cornwall. But John Hornesby, the Mayor of Coventry, disregarding his royal position, took him and some of his friends into custody for raising a riot.

In speaking of his Majesty's religious freaks, we are reminded of Queen Anne, who was in the habit of dressing herself while her chaplain prayed. On one occasion, when decency compelled the attendants to close the door while the Queen put on some of her under garments, the chaplain suddenly stopped; and on her Majesty's inquiry as to the reason of this pause, he replied, "Because I will not whistle the Word of God through a keyhole."

Similarly, it was Queen Caroline's custom while she dressed herself to have prayers read in an outer room, where there hung a picture of a naked Venus. Dr. Maddox, afterwards Bishop of Worcester, was one day the chaplain on duty, when the bed-chamber woman-in-waiting conveyed to him the Queen's command to begin the service, at which he looked up archly at the picture and said, "And a very pretty altar-piece is here!"

ROYAL REVELRY

Perhaps no chapter in the social history of royalty has given us a more vivid insight into the merry doings of the sovereigns of the past, in our own and other countries, than that which deals with their drinking and revelry. Indeed, moralists, at one time or another, have been more or less severe in their strictures on what they regarded as the undue freedom displayed at Court festivities, when not infrequently king as well as courtiers were in a state of deplorable incapacity.

The King of Hungary was in the habit of sending yearly to the abdicated Polish king, Stanislaus Leczinski, at Nancy, a little cask of imperial Tokay, which was received at the gates of his palace under an escort of grenadiers. But, as it has been observed, "Little casks will soon run dry if the spigot be often turned," and when the Tokay was out, Stanislaus would sigh for more. He was not able to purchase it, for the produce was small and imperial property. He resolved to imitate it, and after various trials he succeeded, by mixing Burgundy with ingredients only known to himself, in composing what he thought might pass for Tokay. He kept his secret, and when the annual imperial cask arrived--it contained but a hundred bottles--he made presents of his own Tokay to his courtiers, and kept the genuine wine for himself. The lords of the Court were "delighted at the favour conferred on them, but when they discovered that his ex-Majesty had distributed no less than six hundred bottles, they thought of the readiness of his concocting hand, and laughed at the trick he had played them. The Stanislaus Tokay was not consumed so quickly as the imported wine, but it rose in value with its years, a single bottle having fetched the exorbitant price of forty-two francs. It was indifferent wine, but an ex-king made it, and the price was paid not merely for the liquor, but for the name of the composer." But this is only one of the many amusing anecdotes related of Stanislaus, who was famed for being the most courteous of hosts, entertaining not only nobles but artists, and philosophers, at his well-laden table. Indeed, after his abdication, Stanislaus kept a princely establishment, the splendour and cost of which was not infrequently the subject of comment. On one occasion, when he heard that the daughters of Louis--Adelaide and Victoria--had set out from Metz to Luneville to visit their grandfather, the ex-king ordered magnificent preparations for their reception, which prompted his steward to remark that so much splendour was not needed for his "petites filles"; but Stanislaus, with a smile, replied: "Mes petites filles sont plus grandes que moi."

It would have been well had he taken a lesson from the great Christina, who, it is said, occasionally passed days without drinking, detesting wine and beer, and having no special taste for any other liquid, with the exception of rose-water, of which she was extremely fond. Oftentimes when young she would repair to the Dowager's toilet-table, and there refresh herself with her favourite cosmetic, until she was one day caught in the act, when "the dowager lady administered to her such a whipping that Christina could never think of it, to her latest hour, without a feeling of uneasiness."

The consort of Queen Mary soon found out the favourite English drink, and for the first time he drank some ale at a public dinner, remarking that he had come to England to live like an Englishman. Elizabeth seldom drank anything but common beer, "fearing the use of wine, lest it should cloud her faculties." And Leicester writes to Burleigh that at a certain place in her Majesty's travels "there was not one drop of good drink for her, ... he were fain to send forthwith to London, and to Kenilworth, and divers other places where ale was; her own ale was so strong as there was no man able to drink it." But, abstemious and temperate as her Majesty was, exception has been taken to the costly extravagance displayed at the Kenilworth pageant, when, it is stated, no less than 365 hogsheads of beer were drunk, in addition to the daily complement of 16 hogsheads of wine.

On another occasion Charles was dining with Sir Robert Viner, during his mayoralty, when he rose to depart. The good Mayor, however, had indulged rather too freely in his own wines, and taking hold of the King, he swore that he should remain and have another bottle. Charles, it is said, "looked kindly at him over the shoulder, and repeating with a smile a line of the old song--

'He that's drunk is as great as a king'--

remained as long as he wished."

"Make no apologies," replied the King. "I was told you had no fault in the world but one, and I am glad to find it is true, for I dislike people who have no faults."

The scandal of the time, too, accused the Queen of fondness for drink, but it is certain that her physicians warned her against a strong spiritual cordial which, when ill, she was in the habit of taking in large quantities.

One of the failings laid to the charge of Queen Anne was a love of strong drink; but, as it has been remarked, "the supposition that she was in the habit of having secret recourse to the bottle, as affording the means of adventitious excitement, seems to rest on the widespread scandal of the period and a few contemporary lampoons." In some verses, "On Queen Anne's Statue in St. Paul's Churchyard," this allusion is made:--

"Here mighty Anna's statue placed we find, Betwixt the darling passions of her mind; A brandy-shop before, a church behind. But why the back turned to that sacred place, As thy unhappy father's was--to Grace? Why here, like Tantalus, in torments placed, To view those waters which thou canst not taste; Though, by thy proffered Globe, we may perceive, That for a dram thou the whole world wouldst give."

And again:--

"When brandy Nan became our queen, 'Twas all a drunken story; From noon to night I drank and smoked, And so was thought a Tory. Brimful of wine, all sober folk We damned, and moderation; And for right Nantes we pawned to France Our goods and reputation."

But the Duchess of Marlborough, despite her hostility to the Queen's memory, defends her character from this aspersion: "I know," says she, "that in some libels she has been reproached as one who indulged herself in drinking strong liquors, but I believe this was utterly groundless, and that she never went beyond such a quantity of strong wines as her physicians judged to be necessary for her."

"Purl, purl!" said the King promptly. "Robert, what's purl?" Which on his Majesty being informed was warm beer with a glass of gin, caused him to add, "I daresay, very good drink, but too strong for the morning; never drink in the morning."

One of the strangest acts of his life was his conduct upon the arrival of his bride-elect, Caroline of Brunswick, which Lord Malmesbury thus tells: "I introduced the Princess Caroline to him. She very properly attempted to kneel to him. He raised her and embraced her, said barely one word, turned round, retired to a distant part of the apartment, and calling me to him, said, 'Harris, I am not well; pray get me a glass of brandy.' I said, 'Sir, had you not better have a glass of water?' Upon which he, much out of humour, said with an oath: 'No; I will go directly to the Queen.'" No wonder the Princess remarked to Malmesbury, "Mon Dieu, est-ce que le Prince est toujours comme cela?" According to Lord Holland, on his wedding-day the Prince had drunk so much brandy that he could scarcely be kept upright between two dukes.

Another bacchanalian story is associated with the Pavilion at Brighton. It seems that the Duke of Norfolk--now a very old man, and celebrated for his table exploits--had been invited by the Prince to dine at the Pavilion, who had concocted with his royal brothers a scheme for making the old man drunk. Every person at table was enjoined to drink wine with the Duke--a challenge which the old toper did not refuse. But "he soon began to see that there was a conspiracy against him; he drank glass for glass; he overthrew many of the brave. At last the first gentleman of the empire proposed bumpers in brandy. One of the royal brothers filled a glass for the Duke. He stood up and tossed off the drink. 'Now,' said he, 'I will have my carriage and go home.' The Prince urged him to remain, but he said 'No,' for he had had enough of such hospitality." The carriage was called, and he staggered in as best as he could, and bade the postillions drive to Arundel. They drove him for half-an-hour round and round the Pavilion lawn; the poor old man fancied he was going home: the liquor had proved too potent for him. And when he awoke that morning he was in bed at the Pavilion.

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