Looking Back a Century

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20782, 17 July 1937, Page 12 (Supplement)

Looking Back a Century

SPACIOUS DAYS OF QUEEN VICTORIA

Last month marked the centenary of the accession of Queen Victoria, so that an autobiography with the subtitle, "A Reflection of the Golden Age,” attracts especial notice. The writer. Lady Muriel Beckwith, is the third daughter of the seventh Duke of Richmond and Gordon, and, although her "While I Remember” is mainly a family history, its pages provide entertaining gossip about the spacious, dignified lives of the aristocracy in the vanished age to which Victoria gave her name. Virtues of Demure Habits Lady Beckwith is not a conventional Victorian. She was born too late for that. Her book, despite its title, harks back beyond the bounds of personal memory, and she is rather - the industrious historian than the recorder of events observed. She blends the two roles pleasantly, and in places spices the narrative with piquant comment on the past from the point of view of today.

But a lively belief in modern practices has not blinded her to the virtues of the demure habits of last century. Then, "if troubled with a bad skin, it was not etiquette to rectify Nature’s blunder. If your nose shone you allowed it to glitter. If you were lucky enough to have a rich glowing colour in your cheeks it was admired so long as it kept to the area prescribed for beauty. You appeared in public as Nature had provided. True, it was whispered that certain dowagers, to stem the ravages of time, resorted to rouge or applied crude aniline dyes. Actresses, too, and ladies who were not ‘received’ were given to these bold attempts to repair discrepancies, but these only called forth the blunt wit of the really discerning male.” What simple pleasures diverted society in the days before the cocktail! At 2.45 p.m. precisely the ladies in the orthodox house party would drive in a waggonette or a victoria to some place of interest in the neighbour-hood. In those pious days the preference was given to cathedrals, but if the supply of cathedrals failed a “view” was substituted. Those who have become accustomed to the luxury of a saloon car 1 would regard the box seat of a waggonette in midwinter as a place of cold comfort.

The war has been blamed so often for the “decay” of society that a crumb

of moral satisfaction may be found in Lady Muriel Beckwith’s observation that in the “naughty ’nineties” champagne came to be regarded at luncheon as an excellent substitute for water. Victoria Off Parade There are many informal glimpses of members of the Royal Family in these pages. Queen Victoria visited Glenfiddich, one of the Scottish estates of the writer’s family, in 1867. Lady’ Muriel Beckwith believes that the Queen’s intention then was to ask her grandfather, the sixth Duke of Richmond, to become Prime Minister, as Lord Derby was about to resign because of ill-health. But it was Disraeli who succeeded.

Journeys were journeys in those days. The Queen drove from Balmoral to spend a few days at Glenfiddich—"Brown as usual on the box,” as the Queen recorded in her journal—and the journey was over a mountainous road, w’hich caused Victoria some qualms. The visit, because of its political import, was secret, and a delightful picture is painted of the great Queen walking into a neighbouring field to take tea while the horses were being changed, rather than accept the hospitality of a farmer’s wife.

At Dufftown, however, the news of the Queen’s arrival leaked out, and she was greeted by a brass band, which was not precisely to her mood. But the Queen enjoyed her stay at Glenfiddich. “One afternoon," says the writer, "the Queen set forth, mounted on a little Highland pony, my grandfather walking by her side. On this expedition Her Majesty herself made tea on the mountain side, and it was nearly dark before she returned. "But she wrote rather plaintively in her journal that she was no longer ’‘equal to such fatigue.

"Yet the charm of the Glenfiddich country drew her out on the following day to visit a fine spring called the Ladies' Well. Here she had luncheon and drank water from the well out of a silver cup. Afterwards she made several pencil sketches of the glen. The Queen recorded that that night Lady Churchill finished reading ‘Pride and Prejudice’ to her.” There are also many happy “snapshots” of King Edward VII. in this book. He was often a house guest at Goodwood for the racing. On one visit Lady Muriel Beckwith, then a child, was permitted to take a photograph of the King and his dog Caesar with her diminutive box camera. “The King actually paced out the yards for that photograph himself,” she says. “Caesar manifested great excitement, but the King made him keep still, and told him that he must be very honoured at a lady wanting his photograph. I got my photograph, and, when I had made my little curtsey of thanks the King delighted me by taking off his hat with a sweeping bow.” Fond of Croquet It is well known that King Edward VII. had the distinction of leading in a Derby winner, Minoru, for that event is usually regarded as the most democratic Incident in his public career. Not so well known is that the King found relaxation in croquet! Yet, writing of house party life at Goodwood during a race week, Lady Muriel Beckwith says:

“This was a period when croquet was the vogue. Long-skirted beauties with a neat foot and ankle loved to place the toe of an elegant foot on the ball, and attitudes were graceful as they trailed rustling skirts over the short turf. King Edward was very fond of a game after the races, and once I played with him as partner. He was marvellously kind because I was so nervous, and, with his usual diplomacy and tact he cried ‘Weil tried’ when shots were missed in such a manner of enthusiasm that his nervous partner glowed with pride at having had the courage to try at all. He was full of little jokes, too. I think that few people who knew him would deny that, in spite of the grand manner of which he was infinitely capable if people presumed on his genial kindness, he was a most delightful and enchanting person who, had he not been a king, would have held his own in brilliance and in charm to the exclusion of any rival.

The informal charm of King Edward has been inherited by his grandchildren. Lady Muriel Beckwith recalls that the Duke of Kent "before his marriage on one or two occasions came with us to Bognor,” and she says that his charm and naturalness im-

pressed everyone. Many of the pages in this book are of trivial drawing-room Interest only, and Lord Lonsdale is a trifle overgallant in the praise he bestows in a foreword, but it gives some diverting Insights into a past which, as the writer says, was "quaint, amusing, and pathetic.”

("While I Remember.” by Lady Muriel Beckwith. London: Ivor Nicholson and Watson.)