John Brown

by Raymond Lamont-Brown

  The Inverlochy jaunt, which ended on 16 September, took in hundreds of miles of Inverness-shire, and the long days were spent soaking up Highland and Jacobite history and culture. The trip also resulted in another of John Brown’s encounters with the hated press. The royal party was at a location some10 miles from Ballachulish on Loch Linne. While the Queen viewed the peaks known in Gaelic as Na tri Peathrraichean (‘The Three Sisters’), John Brown and his cousin Francie Clark set out the luncheon on plaids. After setting up the Queen’s sketching board, Brown saw in the distance a group of ‘inquisitive reporters’ from the ‘Scotch papers’ approaching. One had already taken up position and was watching the Queen, Princess Beatrice and Lady Jane Churchill through a telescope. John Brown made his way over to them and told them to move away. ‘I’ve as good a right as the Queen to be here,’ replied the reporter with the telescope. Brown, quite politely for him, indicated the Queen’s distress at the reporters dogging her steps. Again the reporter refused to move and so Brown threatened him with violence. On his dignity, the reporter challenged Brown to repeat the threat to the rest of the reporters who were now moving over to the arguing men. Brown said he would repeat the threat, and an argy-bargy of ‘strong words’ ensued. At length his companions advised the reporter with the telescope to move away. The Queen was indignant when Brown reported what had happened; it was an increasing type of occurrence on her jaunts for the press to openly follow her: ‘Such conduct ought to be known,’ she said.21

  Another of Queen Victoria’s family was married in 1874. Her second son and fourth child Prince Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, had become engaged in July 1873 to the Grand-Duchess Marie of Russia (1853–1920), the only daughter of Czar Alexander II. Queen Victoria was not enthusiastic about the match as she looked upon the House of Romanov as ‘half-oriental’, but the marriage of Alfred and Marie took place on 23 January in St Petersburg. The year 1874 was also to be remarkable in the history of John Brown with the arrival at Balmoral of Dr Alexander Profeit.

  In 1874 Queen Victoria’s Commissioner at Balmoral, Dr Alexander Robertson, finally decided to retire and the Queen approved the appointment of Dr Profeit in his place. Born in 1833 at his father’s farm at Nether Towie, in the Aberdeenshire parish of Towie on the River Don, north-west of Balmoral, and some 8½miles from the railway terminus at Alford, Profeit had attended Towie parish school, Aberdeen Grammar School, and King’s College, Aberdeen University, where he graduated MA in 1855.22 In 1857 he graduated LRCS at Edinburgh.23 He married Miss Anderson (d. 1888) of Tarland, and by her had seven children; he practised medicine at Towie and Tarland, where he became a firm friend of Dr Robertson. At the latter’s suggestion Profeit went to Crathie as parish doctor, creating for himself a reputation for respect and efficiency.24 Alexander Profeit’s royal career started when he was engaged as medical resident at Balmoral in 1874; he became Commissioner of Balmoral and Overseer of Abergeldie on 22 November 1875.25

  While Profeit’s independence of character, energy, zeal for his job and devotion to her won him Queen Victoria’s regard, he and John Brown were enemies from the start, with neither willing to yield to the other. Profeit now knew Crathie and its people better than John Brown, a point that the latter resented. Profeit was permanently on hand at Balmoral and in medical practice at Crathie ministered to royal servants, estate tenants and locals alike. He was also a tireless organiser of the Braemar Gathering, of which the Queen was frequently hostess. John Brown resented Profeit’s involvement. Before Profeit arrived at Balmoral, John Brown had had a prominent role in the hiring and firing of estate workers and gillies. When Profeit was appointed he was disturbed by the fact that Brown was so influential and endeavoured to scale down the Highland Servant’s importance. The situation led on one occasion to a useful employee being sacked.

  In the mid-1870s Queen Victoria decided that she would like to have a ‘boy piper’ as a part of her permanent Balmoral staff and Dr Profeit was dispatched to Corgarff, in Strathdon parish, where the Machardy boys were winning a reputation for themselves as prominent pipers. Edith Paterson, the daughter of one of the boys, Jamie Machardy, remembered:

  Come an autumn day in 1877 [Jamie and his brother] climbed into a box cart with grandfather for the journey to Balmoral, their pipes cushioned in the straw at their feet. The day was hot and the pipes mute when Jamie would fain try a tune before the final descent on the Castle. ‘Ach,’ said grandfather, ‘there’ll be pipes there.’ And they trundled on again. The Queen heard them play in the rose garden. There were no other pipes [but their own]. And Jamie won [with his test piece ‘Whaur the Gadie rins’].26

  Backed by his own skill and Dr Profeit’s recommendation Jamie MacHardie entered royal service for training under Pipe Major Ross of the 42nd Regiment.

  Edith Paterson went on: ‘My father stayed with Queen Victoria for five years, 1877 to 1882.’ John Brown was always off-hand with him, as he was not a ‘Brown appointment’, and the boy was warned by the Highland Servant to keep his ‘eyes open and his mouth shut’ about life at Balmoral. At length, said Mrs Paterson, Jamie ‘streeve’ (‘quarrelled’) with John Brown, who refused to have him any longer on the staff. In his usual manner John Brown complained about him to the Queen, and despite Dr Profeit’s protestations, the young man had to go. His customary reference was terse: ‘James MacHardy left. Gave no offence. Signed, John Brown.’ Said Mrs Paterson: ‘My father with youthful impatience tore it up.’27

  On 17 September the Prince of Wales said goodbye to his mother before setting off on an important tour of India. The royal family, together with Henry Herbert, 4th Earl of Carnarvon and Tory Secretary of State for the Colonies, dined at the Prince’s quarters at Abergeldie. Rudolph Löhlein and John Brown were there to say goodbye to the Prince. Shaking him by the hand Brown said: ‘God bless your Royal Highness, and bring you safe back.’ This sentiment added to the Queen’s distress at the parting. Even so she urged her 34-year-old son to watch what he ate [he ate too much], attend a Sunday service [always a great reluctance on his part], and to go to bed before ten o’clock each night [a forlorn hope].28

  Four days later Queen Victoria set off by rail and carriage for Inverarary Castle, the home of George Campbell, 8th Duke of Argyll, and his Duchess Elizabeth Georgina. The Campbells were the in-laws of Princess Louise, who met the royal party with her husband the Marquess of Lorne and led them to the castle. Through an arch bearing the Gaelic welcomed Ceud mille Failte do’n Bhan Rhighinn do Inerara (‘A hundred thousand welcomes to the Queen to Inveraray’), the Queen drove into the heart of Campbell country.

  The Queen was to spend a week at Inveraray, with customary jaunts into the local hinterland. She treated the castle as if it were a hotel, and usually dined in her room separately from the Duke’s family but always attended by Brown. As Henry Ponsonby was to write: ‘Evidently she considered herself as paying a visit to Princess Louise’ and the other members of the household were ‘merely accidental’.29 Princess Louise took the opportunity to complain to her mother that her permanent quarters ‘were not good enough’ and that her husband’s family did not give her the respect due to a royal princess. The Duke’s staff were astounded to have to take orders from Brown.30 The Duke and Duchess held a ball to celebrate the royal visit, and John Brown danced a reel or two with Princess Louise and Lady Churchill. There was much adverse comment from the Queen and Brown that the band hired by the Duke, from Glasgow, could not play reels and pipers had to supply the required music. On the royal party’s return to Balmoral, John Brown was to receive some bad news.

  For some time John Brown’s father had been ailing and he died on 18 October 1875, aged eighty-five. On the morning of the funeral the Queen drove out alone after breakfast for the first time in years, while Brown went over to Wester Micras to finalise the funeral arrangements.31

  The day of the funeral was wet. Queen Victoria stood with the Brown family in the stone-flagged kitchen of the Wester Micras farmhouse and tried to co
mfort the newly widowed Margaret Brown. Outside, a hundred or so neighbours and Crathie folk waited for the funeral party to appear. As was the custom at a Highland funeral, since the Reformed Church of Scotland forbade any set burial service, the minister Dr Campbell intoned impromptu prayers while the chief mourners John Brown and his four brothers (Hugh was then in New Zealand), the Queen, Princess Beatrice and Lady Jane Ely, the Hon. Mortimer West (later Lord Sackville) and the three doctors, Marshall, Profeit and Robertson, stood around the ‘kist’ (coffin). According to custom, too, only the male mourners attended the actual burial, and the Queen and Princess Beatrice watched the interment from a distance. The Queen returned to the farmhouse with Mrs William Brown and gave the grieving widow a mourning brooch. Queen Victoria remained for the customary oatmeal cakes, cheese and whisky repast before returning to Balmoral, leaving the family with their grief.32

  In early 1876 John Brown’s legs were causing him great pain once more, and for this reason Queen Victoria postponed her planned trip to Germany. Even when the royal party were installed on the royal yacht Victoria and Albert, some doubts remained whether Brown would be well enough to sail. But pronounced fit to travel John Brown thus accompanied the Queen, this time travelling as the ‘Countess of Rosenau’, to Coburg where his temper developed an increased illness-produced acerbity.

  On 1 May 1876 Queen Victoria was promulgated Queen-Empress and proudly signed herself ‘Victoria Regina and Imperatrix’ for the first time. By 2 August John Brown was grief-stricken once more by the death of his 77-year-old mother at Craiglourican Cottage on the Balmoral estate.33 After her funeral he was soon back at the Queen’s side to prepare for the next engagements.

  The year 1876 was to see the unveiling of an equestrian statue by Sir John Steell of Prince Albert in field-marshal’s uniform at Charlotte Square Gardens, Edinburgh. Staying at Holyrood Palace on 17 August the weather was hot enough for the Queen to sit in the gardens to write her letters, with John Brown blotting and stacking them ready for posting. After lunch Princess Beatrice and Prince Leopold accompanied the Queen to the statue unveiling with Brown, in full dress Highland uniform, and Collins, Prince Leopold’s valet, on the box; Prince Arthur commanded the sovereign’s escort of 7th Hussars. The Queen noted that John Brown was delighted with the reception he received from the crowd.34

  Ceremonially the year was rounded off at Balmoral with the presentation of colours to Queen Victoria’s father’s former regiment, the Royal Scots, of which he had been Colonel. On this occasion John Brown’s brothers William and Hugh, with their wives, were included in the ‘viewing party’ near the Queen.

  The slow deterioration of John Brown’s health caused him to be more accident-prone. On 11 August 1877 he accompanied the Queen on a tour of one of the first British sea-going masterless warships HMS Thunderer; on this occasion he clumsily fell through an aperture in a gun turret, sustaining severe bruising to his shins. It is certain, too, that he was suffering from recurrent erysipelas of the face and cellulitis of the legs, and his feeling of unwellness contributed to his increased alcoholism and shortness of temper. Heavy drinking among the estate workers at Balmoral was an accepted fact; with so many whisky distilleries in the area the liquor was readily available so in this Brown was not acting out of character in any way.

  On his own drunkenness

  More than once a maid was sent to John Brown’s room to enquire about his non-appearance to attend the Queen. On one occasion a maid went to Brown’s room in the Clarence Tower, Windsor Castle, with just such a query from the Queen. Brown, fully clothed, addressed the startled woman from beneath a pile of bedclothes: ‘She’ll no be seein’ me the day. She kens damned well I’m fu’ [drunk].’

  Still John Brown soldiered on, embarking with the Queen on a six-day journey to Loch Maree, between Gairloch and Kinlochewe, Ross-shire. His workload was heavy, and largely self-regulated; for instance, on this occasion he helped the Queen to pack a number of large boxes with state papers and the documents she had to attend to while away. The entourage made the uneventful journey to Loch Maree Hotel, but a gruelling pace of visits and sightseeing was maintained, with John Brown jumping up and down from the box to run errands for the Queen. Writing about the trip Arthur Ponsonby opined: ‘Having a picnic luncheon, sketching, talking to old women in cottages and making purchases in the village shops, the Queen thoroughly enjoyed herself. She genuinely liked associating with humble people in the villages. This led to many stories which were pure fabrications.’35 To the sovereign all was gemütlich, but it was exhausting for everyone else, especially Brown.

  During Queen Victoria’s autumn visit to Balmoral in 1878 she spent a few days, from 24 to 26 August, at Broxmouth, just over a mile from the east coast town of Dunbar in East Lothian. Broxmouth was a seat of the Duke and Duchess of Roxburghe. On 26 August, the anniversary of the birthday of Prince Albert, the Queen dispensed presents in memory of her husband to her ladies and gentlemen and servants. ‘After breakfast,’ she wrote, ‘I gave my faithful Brown an oxidised silver biscuit-box, and some onyx studs. He was greatly pleased with the former, and the tears came to his eyes, and he said “It is too much.” God knows, it is not, for one so devoted and faithful.’36

  John Brown’s perceived ‘interference’ in all ‘Balmoral matters’ reached its peak of irritation for both courtiers and servants in the 1870s. An example was the ‘Great Pony Row’. It seems that Brown complained to the Queen that the small mountain ponies were being ridden too hard and too often by her visitors and courtiers. He cited particularly the Revd Canon Robinson Duckworth, a royal chaplain and Prince Leopold’s former tutor; Herr Hermann Sahl, her librarian and German secretary; and the sculptor Edgar Boehm (Brown’s ‘Mr Bum’). Each received a terse note from the Queen. All they could do was stand at the windows of Balmoral and fume at Brown riding out whenever he wished. Not even the intervention of the Prince of Wales on their behalf had much effect. It was an all-too-typical scenario.

  Yet Queen Victoria’s children as well as her courtiers found it convenient to get John Brown to broach matters with the Queen which they themselves dare not, and for him to break bad news to her. For example, he was asked to tell the Queen that her daughter Princess Alice had died of diphtheria at Neue Palais, Darmstadt, on 14 December 1878.

  As John Brown’s health continued to worsen, Queen Victoria’s enthusiasm for travel increased, with Highland jaunts in particular. The logistics for each journey, be they simple picnics in the Scottish hills or lengthy tours, were vast, with John Brown playing a major role in organising the packing and transportation of the large amount of personal impedimenta which the Queen considered basic requirements, from her desk, easel and paints, photograph collections and bric-à-brac to carriages and ponies. For serious jaunts an entourage of some sixty people was the norm. One such visit was her spring tour of Italy in 1879. This was her first trip to the country and she ensconced herself in the Villa Clara, Baveno, on the eastern shores of Lake Maggiore, as the ‘Countess of Balmoral’. Even the youngest Italian urchins correctly identified the elderly woman dressed in black, accompanied by the kilted Brown, a Maid of Honour (Miss Cadogan), a piper and numerous carabinieri, and hailed her with cries of ‘Bravissima . . . La Regina d’Inghilterra’.

  During this holiday John Brown suffered his first severe bout of erysipelas, which clearly discomfited the Queen. Her state of mind was already disturbed by news received when she stopped for a night at the British Embassy in Paris en route for Italy, that her eleven-year-old grandson Prince Waldemar of Prussia, the sixth child of Princess Victoria, Empress of Germany had died. Henry Ponsonby was to remember the Baveno trip: ‘John Brown was insufferably bored and made himself intensely disagreeable. He generally managed to prevent the Queen going out till after four o’clock as was her custom at home.’ He continued, describing a trip ‘to a lovely place’, where the Queen remained in her carriage. ‘We believed it was because Brown would not allow her to get out. He is surly beyond measure and to
day we could see him all the way – a beautiful drive – with his eyes fixed on the horses’ tails refusing to look up.’37 Although he was to receive as much attention as the Queen on excursions to places like Milan, John Brown remained ‘surly’ and the Queen ‘saw nothing’ as she remained in her closed carriage. Although Ponsonby stopped the carriage to point out particular features of the scenery to the Queen, his efforts were ‘coldly received’ as she mirrored Brown’s ill-temper.38

  Early 1879 was to bring the Queen news of a plethora of important personal events. On 13 March Prince Arthur, Duke of Connaught, married Louise of Prussia (1860–1917); on 12 May the Queen received news that Princess Charlotte of Saxe-Meiningen, still in mourning for her brother Prince Waldemar, had given birth to her first great-grandchild, Princess Feodora; and on 24 May the Queen celebrated her sixtieth birthday. Yet, the Queen’s writings also mentioned the deaths of several people who had played a prominent role in her life. Her Keeper of the Privy Purse, Sir Thomas Biddulph, was among them, while deaths at Balmoral included John Grant, her Head Keeper, and her former Commissioner Dr Andrew Robertson.

  ‘Packed my boxes with Brown,’ the Queen wrote on 20 June as she set out on her way to comfort Empress Eugénie on the death of her son the Prince Imperial. The Queen’s miserable state of mind was hardly lifted as she passed ‘over the marvellous Tay Bridge’39 as the ‘Scots papers’ brought her news of the Zulu War, the result of the British annexation of the Transvaal in 1877.