Royal farce Exhibition puts Victoria’s chaotic visits to Scotland in the frame
Evocative watercolours depicting the confusing and comedic Scottish visits of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert are among 80 works showcased in a new exhibition at the Palace of Holyroodhouse
PLANNED with military precision, it was to be a royal event unlike any the Scottish capital had seen before, packed with ceremony, celebration and crowds.
The youthful Queen Victoria and her consort Prince Albert were set to unleash royal-mania on Scotland with their firstever visit, and Edinburgh’s city fathers had prepared the most spectacular of welcomes.
The royal visit of 1842, however, would not meet the inch-perfect precision and fine attention to detail that was achieved during the Duke of Edinburgh’s recent funeral – or, to be fair, most other state occasions.
Instead, Queen Victoria’s first impressions of a Scottish welcome would be one of utter chaos, os, confusion and a comedy of f errors – from dignitaries missing her arrival to a fatal scaffold collapse – all of which would leave Edinburgh’s great and good with egg on their faces.
Despite the rocky start, the royal visit sparked a love affair for Scotland that would span the generations to today’s royal family.
Now, watercolours depicting cting their Scottish visits are among ong more than 80 works to be showcased in a major exhibition at The Queen’s Gallery at the Palace of Holyroodhouse.
A royal arrival
BEING shown for the first time is a particularly atmospheric work by selftaught Glaswegian artist William Leighton Leitch, showing the royal party’s arrival at Granton Pier in late summer 1842.
But while it illustrates a blustery scene of little vessels battling choppy waters to m make it to h harbour, it on only tells part of w what turned out to be a rather hair-rai hair-raising royal arrival.
Just five yea years into her reign, the young queen had been enchanted by Sir Walter Scott’s novels and, keen to provide the warmest of Scottish welcomes, Edinburgh’s great and good spent months – and significant expense – preparing what was to have been the grandest of welcomes. Bonfires were to be lit on the summit of hills from the Pentlands to the Lomonds in Fife to greet the royal yacht, HMY Royal George, on its elegant journey up the Firth of Forth. In Edinburgh, towering scaffolds were erected with seats for thousands of excited citizens who had paid handsomely for tickets that guaranteed the perfect vantage point.
‘All went wrong’
THE royal carriage was to make its way from Granton, accompanied by city leaders, towards the Palace of Holyroodhouse where the state rooms had been “profusely decorated”, according to one newspaper report of the time.
IT all started to go wrong when it emerged the royal yacht was running behind schedule. Tens of thousands who had made the journey to the city via the newly-opened Edinburgh-to-Glasgow railway, by carriage and cart, were sent home disappointed and told the visit would begin at around 11am next day.
However, blustery east coast winds powered the royal yacht to her destination faster than expected. Indeed, the queen would step onto Scottish soil three hours earlier than predicted.
And arrangements for the welcoming ceremony fell into total disarray as local dignitaries, organisations, military and tens of thousands of well-wishers suddenly found the royal visit was taking place without them.
As the queen’s carriage meandered through surprisingly quiet streets, signals were frantically exchanged and flags raised in a desperate attempt to raise the alarm.
In her wake, the parade of carriages which should have been filled with smartly-dressed city leaders was made up of oddball carriages and carts containing
Plans for the royals to stay at Holyroodhouse were scrapped due to an outbreak of scarlet fever and pools of raw sewage forming
rather bemused locals.
Even the Royal Archers, the queen’s bodyguard, was in a flap. Having been ordered to rush to Granton, it met Victoria’s procession coming in the opposite direction. As confusion reigned, the unit was mistaken as possible assassins and forced to explain what it was doing..
Having established it was not there to kill the queen, the flustered bodyguard then tried to join the parade. However, the royal carriage was moving so fast that instead of smartly marching alongside, it had to speed up to double quick time to keep up.
Scarlet fever
ELSEWHERE, the Lord Provost, magistrates and councillors were engulfed in confusion, arriving at locations where ceremonial welcomes had been planned, only to see Victoria’s carriage disappear in a cloud of dust. Worse, plans for the royals to stay at Holyroodhouse were scrapped due to an outbreak of scarlet fever and – perhaps even more troubling – pools of raw sewage that had appeared around its walls.
Instead, the royals bashed on to Dalkeith Palace, followed eventually by very red-faced city leaders. Having apologised profusely to the queen, they then faced the wrath of citizens furious at missing not one, but two opportunities to cheer the royal party.
The situation became disastrous when it emerged that a stand erected to provide a vantage point collapsed, leaving two dead and about 50 people injured.
The exhibition of watercolours includes views of the cities and landscapes the couple saw on their travels along with moments of significance, such as christenings, birthday parties and glittering balls.
According to the Royal Collection Trust: “The royal couple spent happy evenings together organising their watercolours into albums.
“Following Albert’s death in 1861, the albums took on even greater significance to the widowed Victoria, functioning as both a tangible memory of the time spent with her beloved husband creating them and a visual record of their lives together.”
Despite the unfortunate welcome to Scotland, the young queen was enamoured by the city. The tour sparked a love that culminated in the building of the couple’s private Aberdeenshire residence, Balmoral.
She wrote afterwards: “Edinburgh made a great impression upon us; it is quite beautiful & totally unlike anything I have seen.”
Victoria & Albert: Our Lives in Watercolour is at The Queen’s Gallery, Palace of Holyroodhouse from April 26