John Brown (20 page)

During Friday 6 September a large party of relatives and retainers, with John Brown ‘who supervised everything’ wrote the Queen in her
Journal
,
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set off from Balmoral to visit Dunrobin Castle. The thirteenth-century ancestral pile of the Dukes of Sutherland had been extended in 1856 and now sported a new wing and frontage of towers, turrets and extinguisher roofs to delight the eye. Set on a natural terrace by the sea, just to the north of Golspie, the castle was one of the most stunning in Scotland. As the royal train approached Keith, John Brown and two railwaymen disturbed the Queen’s peace when they had to break through a jammed carriage interior door. With her ears still ringing from the din, the Queen stepped down at Elgin for a tour of the sights on this ‘broiling hot day’. At Bonar Bridge they were met by their Dunrobin host, George Granville Leveson-Gower, 3rd Duke of Sutherland, who escorted them to Golspie station and thence to Dunrobin, whose approach road was bedecked with banners carrying Gaelic sentiments:

These were translated by Brown, who added his usual gratuitous comment: ‘Aye, they’re pleased to see you.’

The visit lasted until Monday 9 September, the day they visited Monument Hill, where the huge statue of George Granville Leveson-Gower, 1st Duke of Sutherland, still gazes out over his vast estates. The duke, dubbed the ‘great improver’, was a hate figure for decades as a result of the infamous ‘Highland Clearances’.
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En route John Brown ordered the royal carriage to stop when he spotted a clump of white heather; he jumped down and picked a spray for the Queen. Knowing her companions’ irritation at John Brown stopping the royal progress at will, Queen Victoria wrote in her
Journal
for that day: ‘No Highlander would pass by [white heather] without picking it, for it is considered to bring good luck.’ On this trip the Queen was to sample the Highland delicacy of boiled sheep’s head – ‘really very good’, she commented. A somewhat pushy host, the Duke of Sutherland had invited the Welsh explorer and journalist Henry Morton Stanley to meet the Queen; some years before, Stanley had ‘found’ the explorer Dr David Livingstone at Ujiji, Tanganyika. At the time Stanley was in some bad odour for his presumed opportunistic ‘self-advertisement’, and the Queen was annoyed that she was forced to greet him. The tour ended on a sour note.

For some time Queen Victoria had been contemplating emulating her relatives in the courts of Prussia and the Grand-Duchy of Hesse by awarding a special medal to her servants. She now gave attention to the creation of a Faithful Service Medal. Her main aim was to reward John Brown for his devotion to her, and to honour his
de facto
superior Rudolph Löhlein. Both Ponsonby and Princess Alice, who represented the opinions of the Queen’s children, thought the idea set a dangerous precedent. They feared that she would hand out the medal willy-nilly to her beloved Highlanders to the detriment of the morale of her English servants.

After due reflection Queen Victoria decided that acts of bravery by servants should be marked with a higher honour than a basic Faithful Service Medal, and the Devoted Service Medal was introduced. John Brown was thus awarded the silver Faithful Service Medal for his twenty-one years in Queen Victoria’s employment, to which in 1881 a ‘bar’ was added for another ten years’ service. His gold Devoted Service Medal, designed and engraved by Joseph Shepherd Wynn, chief engraver of seals, bore the inscription: ‘To John Brown Esq, in recognition of his presence of mind and devotion at Buckingham Palace, February 29, 1872.’ This was awarded in recognition of the O’Connor attack. The Faithful Service Medal was to survive as the Royal Victoria Medal for royal service, but the latter, dismissed by courtiers as ‘The Greater Order of Brown’, seems to have lapsed.
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For those in society who paid attention to such things – most of the County Set and London Club members and Salon devotees – the steady elevation of John Brown Esq. was an eyebrow-raising event. Even the
Almanac
, first published by the bookseller and editor Joseph Whitaker in 1868, lists ‘John Brown, Her Majesty’s Personal Servant’ as a member of the Royal Household, hob-nobbing on the page with the Queen’s relatives, such as Count Albert Edward Gleichen. Brown’s privileges also included not only the organisation of shoots at the royal estates, but also the right to take part; this also applied to salmon fishing on the Dee where Brown would proprietorially restrict the best beats to himself.

Brown’s duties had expanded greatly in the preceding ten years. He was now overseer of all below-stairs work and management and he acted as personnel officer when servants’ personal problems tipped over into their royal service. Brown monitored the servants’ lives from appointment to death. His keenness to know all that was going on meant that he was also message-bearer not only to the Queen but to her equerries, too. It led to a gruelling day. The Queen wrote tersely to Lady Biddulph, wife of the Master of the Household, on this subject with underlined emphasis:

All this was to take its toll. Wherever he went John Brown was a source of great interest to high and low alike, and those who were closest to the Royal Household began to see a decided physical change in him. From time to time his face swelled up, adding to the gossip that he was an alcoholic, and both his face and legs were subject to blotching. He was growing old and grey in his royal mistress’s service; his muscular leanness was now turning to fat and his famed thighs and legs, which had so set off the kilt he always wore, were causing him problems. Brown, who could once easily stride up hills with the Queen’s bag of paints and her easel, now tired more quickly, and he found difficulty in sleeping because of his swollen limbs and aching joints. It is certain that John Brown repeatedly jarred his legs jumping down from the royal carriages. From now on Brown’s health became a factor in the Queen’s planning of future jaunts and state visits.

Yet life went on, with the Queen’s mood swinging between melancholy and cheerfulness. The year 1873 was another bittersweet one. There was great sorrow for the Queen on the death of her brother-sovereign Napoleon III in English exile on 9 January, although she maintained her friendship with his Empress Eugénie. Brown was to accompany the Queen on the first visit to the Empress’s home at London’s Camden Place soon after the Emperor’s death. The Queen was also to share her sister-in-law’s grief after the tragic death of her son, the Prince Imperial, killed on 19 June 1879 while on scouting duties during the Zulu War. Brown broke the news to her at Balmoral and the Queen travelled south to comfort in person ‘the Poor, poor, dear Empress! her only, only child – her all gone!’
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This tragedy, however, lay in the future. Queen Victoria continued her regular pattern of life. Now that she suffered more from rheumatism, John Brown pushed her in a wheelchair around the gardens of Balmoral, Osborne and Windsor, with the patient Princess Beatrice chatting to her as they negotiated the flowerbeds. On Tuesday 9 September 1873 they were off to Inverlochy. Again Brown accompanied the Queen with her usual large retinue as they travelled from Ballater station on the main Aberdeen line south to join the Highland Railway. On such jaunts there was a respectful informality between sovereign, servants and courtiers; for instance, the Queen’s German maid Emilie Dittweiler shared a carriage with Henry Ponsonby, while Brown sat next to the Queen on the train.

Carriages awaited them at Kingussie. At Laggan Bridge they changed horses, and a little girl presented the Queen with a nosegay. This was a common occurrence on royal progresses, and ‘the innkeeper gave Brown a bottle with some wine and a glass’.
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People turned out along the way to cheer the Queen amid triumphal arches of heather, Gaelic inscriptions and pipers. The gentry, too, turned out, standing at the gateways of their estates to greet the Queen. At Ardverikie, an estate and deer forest not far from Loch Laggan, the new owner Sir John Ramsden, MP for Monmouth and erstwhile Under-Secretary for War 1857–8, stood at the roadside with his family and servants to salute the Queen.
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The Queen’s base for exploring this part of Invernessshire was the then modern Inverlochy Castle, some 3 miles from Fort William. Not far away were the ruins of the old Inverlochy Castle made famous by Sir Walter Scott in
The Legend of Montrose
(1819). Each day was to bring extensive and tiring excursions in the area known as Lochaber. At Loch Arkaig the Queen was hosted aboard a screw steamer owned by Cameron of Lochiel, chief of the Clan Cameron. His presence recalled a story that was to be often repeated in the ‘Brown anecdotage’. It seems that one day Cameron of Lochiel was making his way to a ‘drawing-room’ at Buckingham Palace, when his carriage, which had been delayed in the horse traffic, was surrounded by urchins clamouring ‘’Ooray! ‘Ere’s John Brown!’ Indignantly the chieftain lowered the sash-window of the carriage, brandished his glengarry bearing the eagle’s feather of his clan position and shouted: ‘I’m no John Brown. I’m Cameron o’Lochiel!’
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Many a Highland gentleman in full dress was similarly accosted on the streets of London.

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.
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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.
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In 1857 he graduated LRCS at Edinburgh.
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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.
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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.
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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.