John Brown (30 page)

24.  Obituary in
Aberdeen Journal
, 28 January 1897.

25.  Extract: Royal Archives, Windsor. It seems that Queen Victoria was influential in Profeit naming his fifth son Leopold on 7 April 1877; the boy became an actor. In 1883 the Queen acted as sponsor for Profeit’s only daughter Victoria.

26.  Correspondence between Mrs Edith Paterson and the author.

27.  
Ibid
.

28.  Duff,
Victoria in The Highlands
, p. 303.

29.  
Ponsonby Papers
.

30.  St Aubyn,
Queen Victoria
, p. 480.

31.  Tisdall,
Queen Victoria’s John Brown
, pp. 202ff.

32.  The following Christmas Queen Victoria gave John Brown a pocket watch by C.J. Klaftenberger; it was meant to be a ‘recollection’ present in memory of Old John. It is now in the John Brown Collection of Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums and is inscribed:
GIVEN TO
/John Brown/
THE DEVOTED PERSONAL ATTENDANT OF
/
QUEEN VICTORIA
/by her/Christmas 1875/After 27th March 1883/
IT BECAME THE PROPERTY OF HIS BROTHER
/
HUGH BROWN
.

33.  Soon after the funeral of Margaret Brown, Queen Victoria gave a Bible to Hugh Brown and his wife. It is now in the John Brown Collection of Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums and bears the Queen’s holograph inscription: ‘To/Hugh Brown & his Wife/In recollection/of their beloved Mother/from Queen Victoria Rg Balmoral Sept 17.1876’. Under the dedication are inscribed four lines of Scripture.

34.  Queen Victoria,
Journal
, 17 August 1876.

35.  Arthur Ponsonby,
Henry Ponsonby: Queen Victoria’s Private Secretary
, p. 123.

36.  Queen Victoria,
Journal
, 26 August 1878.

37.  Ponsonby,
Henry Ponsonby
, p. 284.

38.  
Ibid
, p. 286.

39.  Tay Bridge was destroyed in a gale, 28 December 1879.

40.  Queen Victoria,
Journal
, 6 October 1879.

 1.   Ponsonby,
Henry Ponsonby
, p. 184.

 2.   Sarah Bradford,
Disraeli
, p. 523.

 3.   The case is now in the John Brown Collection, Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums.

 4.   G.E. Buckle and W.F. Monypenny,
The Life of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield
.

 5.   Robert Blake,
Disraeli
.

 6.   
Ponsonby Papers
.

 7.   Lamont-Brown,
Royal Murder Mysteries
, p. 113.

 8.   
Ibid
.

 9.   
Ibid
.

10.  Following the Queen’s tirade the verdict was changed to ‘guilty but insane’, through the new law of 1883. That law remained on the Statute Books until 1964 when parliament restored the original statutory verdict, ‘not guilty on the ground of insanity’.

11.  
Ponsonby Papers
.

12.  Cullen,
Empress Brown
, p. 195.

13.  Emily Crawford,
Victoria, Queen and Ruler
.

14.  Duff,
Victoria in the Highlands
, p. 354.

15.  Queen Victoria,
Journal
, 17 March 1883.

16.  Lady Florence Caroline Dixie (1857–1905), was an author, traveller and big game hunter who won public notice as a correspondent with the
Morning Post
for her dispatches on the Zulu War of 1879.

17.  
Press Association
, March 1883.

18.  
Central News Agency
, File of Report, March 1883.

19.  
Daily News
, March 1883.

20.  
British Medical Journal
, March 1883.

21.  Louisa, Countess of Antrim,
Recollections
.

22.  Elizabeth Longford (ed.),
Louisa: Lady in Waiting
p. 18.

23.  
Press Association
, 24 March 1883.

24.  Queen Victoria,
Journal
, 25 March 1883.

25.  The death was registered by Archie Brown whose address is given as 19 Victoria Street, New Windsor.
General Register Office
, 28 March 1883. Ref: 154.

26.  Queen Victoria,
Journal
, 29 March 1883.

27.  Extract: Abt D24 No15, 28 March 1883.
Hessisches Staatsarchiv Darmstadt, Großherzogliches Familienarchiv
.

28.  Tisdall,
Queen Victoria’s John Brown
, pp. 22–4.

29.  
Ibid
, p. 224.

30.  
Official Court Circular
, 28 March 1883.

31.  Tisdall,
Queen Victoria’s John Brown
, p. 227.

32.  The Revd Orr was a pastor of the Congregational Union of England and Wales; he officiated as there was no Presbyterian Minister at court.

33.  
Press Association
, 3 April 1883.

34.  
John Brown Collection
.

35.  Letter, dated Windsor Castle, 3 April 1883.
John Brown Papers
, Aberdeen Art Gallery & Museums.

36.  
Ponsonby Papers
.

37.  
People’s Journal for Glasgow & Edinburgh
, Series 1882–6.

38.  
Press Association
.

39.  Sir Theodore Martin,
Queen Victoria as I Knew Her
.

40.  
Ponsonby Papers
. Letter, 26 May 1883.

41.  The railings were removed during the Second World War and were never replaced.

42.  Longford,
Queen Victoria
, p. 577.

43.  Elisabeth Darby and Nicola Smith,
The Cult of the Prince Consort
, pp. 96–8.

44.  Ponsonby,
Henry Ponsonby
, p. 96.

45.  The site of John Brown’s statue is not marked on the modern castle and estate guidebook to Balmoral, although memorials to deceased royal dogs are clearly indicated. To arrive at the statue go through the Gate Lodge castle entrance, and turn left off the main drive at the first crossroads. Follow the ‘Exit for vehicles’ signs towards Easter Balmoral and proceed to where the road forks past the East Lodge. Just past the fork on the right is Craig Gowan Lodge. Follow the dirt track right of the lodge into the forest. Up the track on the right look for a polished pink granite seat. The statue is beyond the seat in the trees and can be reached by following the path round.

46.  Miller,
Victorian Pictures
, Text Vol., p. 38.

47.  Clare Jerrold,
The Widowhood of Queen Victoria
.

48.  F.P. Humphrey,
The Queen at Balmoral
, quoting unnamed Crathie locals of the 1880s and 1890s.

 1.   St Aubyn,
Queen Victoria
, p. 451.

 2.   G.K.A. Bell,
Randall Davidson
.

 3.   
Ibid
, entries in December 1883.

 4.   Longford,
Victoria R.I.
, p. 571.

 5.   The Memoir on Brown, which incorporated excerpts of letters from him to the Queen, was destroyed by Ponsonby. Ponsonby,
Henry Ponsonby
, p. 146.

 6.   
Ponsonby Papers
.

 7.   Longford,
Victoria R.I.
, p. 572.

 8.   Cullen,
Empress Brown
, p. 227.

 9.   
Ibid
, pp. 224–5.

10.  A parallel scandal concerned Queen Victoria’s eldest child, the Princess Royal, who became the Empress of Germany and was widowed at the age of forty-eight. Loose tongues wagged that she had a ‘relationship’ with her Chamberlain, Baron Hugo von Reischach.
See also
,
Sunday Observer
, 27 May 1979.

11.  Reid,
Ask Sir James
, pp. 212–13.

12.  Bell,
Randall Davidson
.

13.  Tisdall,
Queen Victoria’s John Brown
, p. 230.

14.  
Ibid
.

15.  
Ibid
.

16.  
Ibid
.

17.  G. Lytton Strachey,
Queen Victoria
.

18.  Ponsonby,
Henry Ponsonby
, p. 128.

19.  
Ibid
.

20.  Ida Macalpine and Richard Hunter,
George III and the Mad-Business
, p. xii.

21.  
Ibid
, pp. 261–6.

22.  H.L. Kennedy (ed.),
Duchess of Manchester: My Dear Duchess
.

23.  Alexander Robertson,
John Brown: A Correspondence with the Lord Chancellor, Regarding a Charge of Fraud and Embezzlement Preferred Against His Grace the Duke of Athole, K.T.
, p. 6.

24.  
Ibid
, p. 5.

25.  
Ibid
.

26.  
Purves Papers
. Ponsonby,
Recollections
notes that the Dowager Duchess of Roxburghe, who was also ‘generally supposed to have been present at the marriage’ denied that any such thing had ever taken place and that mention of it was anti-royal propaganda, p. 95.

27.  Robertson,
John Brown, a Correspondence
, p. 6.

28.  
Ibid
.

29.  Public Record Office:
Home Office Papers
, 1873. Granville to Leveson-Gower.

30.  
Ponsonby Papers
.

31.  
Sunday People
, 24 June 1979.

32.  
Sunday Observer
, 27 May 1979.

33.  
Sunday People
, 24 June 1979.

34.  
Spiritualist Magazine
, 1864.

35.  Odette Borncand (ed.),
The Diary of W.M. Rossetti
, entries for 1870. Without a hint of the ludicrous nature of the content, modern writers on Spiritualism quote seances with the supposed shade of John Brown. For a recent example see: Neville Randall,
Life After Death
, pp. 161–2.

36.  A local Crathie superstition/tradition has it that John Brown also possessed the
Droch Shuil
(Evil Eye), which could blight the health of any upon which it malignantly fell. For this reason Crathie folk avoided passing John Brown’s statue at Balmoral lest ‘
Thuit droch shuil air
’ (‘An Evil Eye fell upon them’).

1.   Written on 9 December 1897: ‘Instructions for my Dressers to be opened directly after my death and to be always taken about and kept by the one who may be travelling with me.’ Reid,
Ask Sir James
, p. 215.

2.   Packard,
Farewell in Splendour
, p. 199.

3.   Reid,
Ask Sir James
, p. 216.

4.   
Ibid
.
See also
correspondence between Lady Reid and the author; also,
Purves Papers
.

5.   St Aubyn,
Queen Victoria
, p. 424.

6.   Guidebook:
Frogmore House and the Royal Mausoleum
, p. 47. Opposite Queen Victoria’s Tea House at Frogmore is a granite drinking fountain inscribed ‘In affectionate remembrance of John Brown, Queen Victoria’s devoted personal attendant and friend, 1883.’

7.   Inter alia,
Scotland on Sunday
, 27 December 1998, p. 7.

8.   
Sunday Post
, 27 September 1998, p. 5. When contacted by the author, Ecosse Films Ltd, makers of the film
Mrs Brown
, refused to cooperate in confirming or denying what data if any had been located.

9.   Reid,
Ask Sir James
, p. 56.

10.  
Ibid
, pp. 227–8.

British Census Records
, Public Record Office, Kew, Richmond, Surrey

Royal Household Indexes
, Public Record Office

Births, Marriages, Deaths Registers
, Scottish Register Office, Edinburgh

Ponsonby Papers
, The Lord Ponsonby of Shulbrede

Purves Papers
, private collection of unbound leaves, jottings, notes, letters collected by the late Marion Purves

Blunt Papers
, ‘Secret Diary’ of Wilfred Scawen Blunt, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge

John Brown Papers
, private collection (location withheld at request of owner)

John Brown Collection
, Aberdeen Libraries

Royal Archives
, various mss and the
Kronberg Letters
, Windsor Castle

Memorandum
, on the life of John Brown by Dr Andrew Robertson, Balmoral, 2 June 1865, private collection

Großherzogliches Familienarchiv
, Hessisches Staatsarchiv Darmstadt (former Grand Duchy of Hesse), West Germany

Baron Broughton de Gyfford Papers
, British Library

The Amberley Papers
, of John, Viscount Amberley (ed. B. & P. Russell and published by L. & V. Woolf, 1937)

Cullen, Tom.
The Empress Brown: The Story of a Royal Friendship
, (Bodley Head, 1969)

Philip, Kenwood.
John Brown’s Legs or Leaves from a Journal in the Lowlands
, published privately 1884

Robertson, Alexander.
John Brown: A Correspondence with the Lord Chancellor, Regarding a Charge of Fraud and Embezzlement, Preferred Against His Grace The Duke of Athole, K.T.
, published privately, 1873

Tisdall, E.E.P.
Queen Victoria’s John Brown
, Stanley Paul, 1938

Williams, Henry L.
Life and Biography of John Brown Esq
, E. Smith & Co., 1883

John Brown’s ‘Faithful Service Medal’ and Bar, and gold ‘Devoted Service Medal’ were sold at auction in 1965. Details of the awards are to be found in:

Cowell, J.C.
The Victoria Faithful Service Medal: Instituted 1872
, Harrison & Son, 1889

Balmoral: Castle and Estate
, Nevisprint, 1998

Brown, Ivor.
Balmoral: The History of a Home
, Collins, 1955

Clark, R.W.
Balmoral
, Thames & Hudson, 1981

Farr, A.D.
Stories of Royal Deeside’s Railway
, Kestrel, 1971

Frogmore House and the Royal Mausoleum
, Royal Collection, 1998

Humphrey, F.P.
The Queen at Balmoral
, T. Fisher Unwin, 1893

Lindsay, Patricia.
Recollections of a Royal Parish
, John Murray, 1902