The Royals had little reason to love Scotland in the 18t h C. The Jacobites were a real threat to the dynasty and the Clans had to be controlled and policed. For a time even the tartan was banned. Highland soldiers, however, helped change the image. They were increasingly seen as the heroes of the Empire, the gallant front-liners in India, the Americas, Africa and Europe. They were no longer the terrorist ogres from the wild and barbaric north.
The first real royal interest in a tartan-clad Scotland came with the visit of George IV to Edinburgh in 1820. The event was orchestrated by Sir Walter Scott who created a new mythology of the romantic Highlands and the brave and loyal highlanders. Victoria loved the works of Sir Walter Scott; she wholeheartedly bought into the myth. Victoria, who was crowned in June 1838 made her first visit to Scotland in 1842. Her Prime Minister, Robert Peel, initially advised against such a visit – he was worried about Chartist activity in the north of England. The compromise was for Victoria and Albert, whom she married in 1840, to sail to Scotland on the Royal Yacht, “Royal George”. It was the last royal use of the three-masted sailing ship built in 1817.They sailed from Woolwich to Leith and toured for 2 weeks getting no further north than Taymouth - but they tasted and appreciated real porridge and finnan haddies for the first time. They vowed to come back.
In 1844 they sailed to Dundee en route to Blair Castle. This time they toured for a month and tasted Athol Brose, which again, was appreciated. They were developing a real taste for the Highlands. They loved the countryside and it was
good to get away from the stuffiness of Court life.
In 1847 the royal yacht “Victoria and Albert” sailed the west coast and visited Ardverikie. The ship had been launched in 1843; it was a twin paddle steamer, the first steam-powered royal yacht. There were to be 2 other royal yachts of the same name, number 2 was launched in 1855 and number 3 in 1899.
By now, Victoria was in love with the Highlands and was quietly proud of the few drops of Jacobite blood in her veins. The weather, however, was dreadful, it poured with rain. Meanwhile, her physician Sir James Clark was boasting that his son, John, was enjoying the sunshine in Balmoral, where he was recuperating from a long illness: he claimed that the air there had revitalised his health. Albert
asked for reports on Balmoral, being worried about Victoria’s pangs of rheumatism.
That winter, the tenant of Balmoral, Sir Robert Gordon, died suddenly with 20 years left on his lease from the Earl of Mar. The royal couple took on the lease. On 5t h September 1848, the royal yacht sailed into Aberdeen. Next day the royals set off up Deeside. They had breakfast at Cults, lunch at Aboyne, and reached Balmoral in mid afternoon. They were delighted with the place, the views, the air and the new set of servants retained from Sir Robert Gordon. John Brown was a stable boy when they first arrived.
The royal couple eventually bought Balmoral with its 17000 acres in 1852 for £31,500: Albert had already bought Birkhall. In December 1852 Victoria was unexpectedly left a legacy of £500,000 by the eccentric miser John Neild and this was poured into a rebuild project for a new Balmoral Castle. The architect was Aberdeen’s City Architect, William Smith. The Royal Couple actively participated in the interior design with a concept once described as a “Feast of tartanitis”.
The foundation stone was laid in September 1853 and it opened in September 1855. Most of the Royal Household hated the place some 567 miles from the comforts of Buckingham Palace: the politicians also hated the remoteness and the discomfort of having to visit Deeside.
Victoria and Albert, however, could relax at Balmoral, free from the snooping critics and escaping the regimentation of the Royal Household in London and Windsor with their orchestrated ceremonies and strict protocols and routines. Balmoral was their creation, run by their rules; it gave them a sense of freedom and a sense of belonging.
John Brown was born in a humble but and ben in the small hamlet of Crathienaird in December 1826. He was the second son of a tenant farmer in a growing family that would eventually produce 9 boys and 2 girls. Five of the brothers were eventually to work on the royal Estates (James, John, Donald, High and Archie). The name Crathie comes from the Gaelic for brushwood. John started working on the family croft at 14 with a supplementary job as a stable lad at Pannanich Wells. He then looked after the Balmoral ponies for Sir Robert Gordon.
Victoria grew up with a flair for languages, some real ability in art, particularly drawing, and an intense interest in horse-riding. From her teen years onwards, she was a compulsive diarist. Unfortunately, Beatrice, her youngest daughter, edited out anything that could possibly be open to criticism. There are, however, many interesting bits in her journals. We can, for example, read of her suitors and her reaction to them. There was only ever going to be one winner, Albert, who “Is very handsome. I like him in every way”.
Victoria became Queen in 1837. She married Albert in February 1840 and gave birth to her first child, Princess Vicky, in November 1840. By the time that the couple leased Balmoral, they had 6 children.
Victoria retained the Balmoral estate workers and got to know their families. She got to know her workers by name, and gained their loyalty and respect. She loved the countryside at Balmoral and was entranced by the Highland way of life. She particularly liked her Highland picnics – Albert liked to hunt on his own, he needed his own space from time to time, so Victoria was taken by the staff on a picnic. John Brown could make the best tea she had ever tasted – he laced it with whisky. As they got older, the tea disappeared from the picnic menu but the whisky remained and was much appreciated by the monarch.
Albert recognised Brown as the most skilled of the gillies and promoted him in 1851 to ride on the box of the Queen’s carriage. Albert had huge respect for Brown who by 1860 bore the title of the “Queen’s Personal Assistant”. He led
the Queen’s pony, passed on the local folklore, kept Victoria alert to the current gossip in the area and in the Household, and even told her the latest jokes. He looked after her, protected her, and made her feel at ease.
In December 1861 Prince Albert became ill with typhoid at Windsor Castle, and he died on the 14t h December, aged 42. He had suffered ill health for some 2 years: m0dern diagnosis suggests Crohn’s disease or cancer. He had complained of stomach pains and back pain. The antics of the Prince of Wales with his taste for unsuitable accomplices did not help his father’s health. Victoria buried herself in grief, she was even too distraught to attend Albert’s funeral service, and for a time she verged on the suicidal. The Court was in mourning for a year but she remained in mourning for the rest of her life.
It was only at Balmoral that she seemed to come out of her shell. There John Brown fussed over her and deliberately got her involved in day-to-day details such as deciding which guest was suited to which pony. She always enjoyed her pony cart rides which Brown led. Elsewhere she remained morbid and trapped in her own self-pity. Her health was visibly deteriorating. In December 1864 John Brown was summoned to Osborne on the Isle of Wight, to give the Queen the fresh air she needed. He took along her favourite pony, Lochnagar.
Albert had persuaded Victoria to buy the Osborne estate in 1845 after renting it for a year. It offered them privacy and they normally took 4 short visits there per year, in spring, May, July and December.
From now on, Brown was with the Queen throughout the year. Wherever she happened to be, he met her at breakfast for instructions. He took his orders directly from her and passed on her instructions to others – often rather abruptly, he would never have made a diplomat. The Household hated his influence and his crude manners. He also drank rather a lot. Nevertheless, he had the ear of the Queen: they normally enjoyed cart-rides in the mornings and afternoons. His salary rose as his influence increased. In 1865 he was appointed “The Queen’s Highland Servant” at a salary of £120 per annum. In 1866 it increased to £150, by 1869 it was £230 and by 1870 it was £400. She had complete trust in him and valued his judgement. She really saw him as the male head of the Household. This somewhat miffed the Prince of Wales whom she thought would never be fit to rule: he was a playboy of the worst order.
The resentment of Brown kept growing at Court: he was lower class, rough, lacked the social graces, and had too much influence and too much salary. Although Victoria prized his comforting presence, most of her children hated him and were ashamed of her affection for him. He was, after all, a mere servant – and servants ought to know their place. Snobbery was rife at Court where Brown was
regarded as “A Rude, unmannerly fellow”.
Court life was stifled by boring, repetitive routines. By the late 1860s Victoria was becoming lethargic. She needed as new project to reawaken her interest in life and in 1868 she published an edited version of her Highland Journal. It was very readable and was a financial success but it caused her problems both at Court and among the general public.
The family was not happy with her obvious familiarity with her Highland servants whom she described as “noble” and on whom she lavished praise. She knew all her estate workers at Balmoral, and liked to pay visits to their families. There were 21 glowing references to John Brown: the Prince of Wales claimed that he himself didn’t get a mention – Victoria gave her son page references to read to prove that that was not the case. Edward was certainly mentioned but never praised. Victoria always blamed him for hastening Albert’s death.
The Journal seemed to suggest to the public that Victoria did very little other than fill her life with picnics and banquets. In fact, Victoria’s life centred round her desk: she was almost drowning in official paperwork – her only breaks were for meals and exercise.
In 1868 Brown was missed at Balmoral for a week and eventually turned up clearly battered and bruised. Rumour had it that the Prince of Wales had hired heavies in Aberdeen to beat up Brown in the grounds of Balmoral. Thereafter, Brown always slept with a pistol under his pillow, and he took to patrolling the grounds at dusk to check on the Queen’s safety.
The Queen was always a security risk with Fenians and Republicans around. There were in total some 7 attempts on her life. She was fired at by a deranged 18 year old in London in 1840, there were a further 2 shooting attempts in 1842, and again by an insane Irishman in 1849. A retired Army Officer managed to strike her on the face with his cane in 1850. By far the most serious attempt on her life was by a mentally-disturbed teenager with a flintlock in 1872 in the grounds of Buckingham Palace – an alert Brown grabbed him by the throat and held him down until the Police arrived. The Queen rewarded him with a gold medal, the “Devoted Servant Medal” – again, much to the chagrin of the family. The seventh attempt of her life was in March 1882 when a demented Scots poet shot at her at Windsor Station – 2 Eton schoolboys were the first to react and battered him with their brollies: he was sentenced to life in the asylum.
John Brown had always been renowned for his athletic fitness. By the 1870s that was a thing of the past. His health was deteriorating. His face swelled up from time to time, fuelling rumours of alcoholism – in fact it was erysipelas (a skin infection). He was also getting fatter, his joints ached and his limbs swelled. His legs gave him trouble from time to time due to cellutitis (a related skin infection). At Easter 1883 he fell ill after a severe soaking at Windsor. By Easter Sunday, erysipelas covered the right side of his face and he was delirious. By the Tuesday he was in a coma from which he never recovered. He died aged 56. The Queen was devastated. He was buried at Crathie on Thursday 5t h April. Victoria ordered his headstone in Aberdeen grey granite and penned the words “In affectionate and grateful memory”.
She handed out funeral brooches and tie-pins and commissioned a life-sized bronze statue (which can still be seen on the Balmoral estate, although it is largely hidden from view after Edward VII had it moved). Despite rumours that he had enriched himself at the Queen’s expense, he left just over £7000. He had quietly donated rather generously to numerous charities.
What he did leave behind was a trail of gossip. Victoria wanted to publish a memorial to John Brown: the manuscript was written and it took a lot of persuasion for her not to publish. The problem lay partly in her literary style. She was somewhat naïve in writing expressions of devotion to friends – she frequently used word such as “dearest”, “darling” and “beloved”. She even once sent a Valentine to her Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli. Disraeli flattered her, Gladstone bored her.
The rumour that she was “Mrs Brown” is as flawed as the earlier rumour that she was “Mrs Melbourne”(after her first Prime Minister). She was always faithful to her beloved Albert. She only stopped bearing children on strict medical advice. She gave birth to 9 children, 4 boys and 5 girls over a 17 year span – Vicky in 1840, Albert Edward in 1841, Alice in 1843, Alfred in 1844, Helena in 1846, Louise in 1848, Arthur in 1850, Leopold in 1853 and Beatrice in 1857. She was 38 when her 9t h child was born. After her death, her autopsy showed a prolapsed uterus: so further sex was physically out of the question. It was also socially out of the question: there was no way that she would sleep with a commoner.
She liked men. She never formed a close relationship with any woman. Albert was irreplaceable: Brown merely filled a void in her life. He devoted his life to her: she regarded him like a hero out of a novel by her favourite author, Sir Walter Scott.
Another scurrilous rumour was that Victoria had turned mad and that Brown was her keeper. There certainly was a history of mental illness in the family, but Victoria escaped it. She did, however, fall into depression from time to time and she hated changes.
The Scottish Republican, Alexander Robertson, seems to be the source of the rumour that Victoria and Brown were married: he also described Victoria as “semi-imbecile”. He even wrote that Victoria and Brown had a son, born in Switzerland. Such stories still emerge from time to time. In fact there seem to be 4 different “child” stories – one in Switzerland, 2 in Paris and one in New York.
The other false rumour was that Brown was a medium, gifted with the Gaelic “second sight”, using spiritualism to unite Victoria with Albert. She is absolutely no evidence that Victoria dabbled in Spiritualism: she didn’t need to; she was always convinced that Albert was watching over her.
After Brown’s death, Victoria attached herself to an Indian servant, Abdul Karim, whom she called Munshi (teacher). He was resented at Court ever more than Brown. An Indian Muslim, he served during the last 15 years of her reign. He took Brown’s room at Balmoral. The Household staff always felt superior to him: there were racial overtones just as there had been with Brown. Significantly, Edward VII
sent Munshi back home to India on Victoria’s death.
Victoria died at Osborne in January 1901 in her 82n d year, some 18 years after Brown’s death. She was interred in a series of coffins each inside the other. In the shell was placed Albert’s dressing gown and cloak. Her wedding veil was spread over her face and in her left hand was a photograph of John Brown and below her corsage of flowers was placed a lock of Brown’s hair and his mother’s ring (which Victoria had worn after Brown’s death).
On the morning of Victoria’s death, the Balmoral shepherds noted that Brown’s cairn had been flattened. After the Prince of Wales became Edward VII, he arranged the removal of all the busts, statues and artefacts of Brown. Brown’s room at Windsor became the billiard room. Edward never forgave his mother for loving her servants more that her family.
In 1844 they sailed to Dundee en route to Blair Castle. This time they toured for a month and tasted Athol Brose, which again, was appreciated. They were developing a real taste for the Highlands. They loved the countryside and it was
good to get away from the stuffiness of Court life.
In 1847 the royal yacht “Victoria and Albert” sailed the west coast and visited Ardverikie. The ship had been launched in 1843; it was a twin paddle steamer, the first steam-powered royal yacht. There were to be 2 other royal yachts of the same name, number 2 was launched in 1855 and number 3 in 1899.
By now, Victoria was in love with the Highlands and was quietly proud of the few drops of Jacobite blood in her veins. The weather, however, was dreadful, it poured with rain. Meanwhile, her physician Sir James Clark was boasting that his son, John, was enjoying the sunshine in Balmoral, where he was recuperating from a long illness: he claimed that the air there had revitalised his health. Albert
asked for reports on Balmoral, being worried about Victoria’s pangs of rheumatism.
That winter, the tenant of Balmoral, Sir Robert Gordon, died suddenly with 20 years left on his lease from the Earl of Mar. The royal couple took on the lease. On 5t h September 1848, the royal yacht sailed into Aberdeen. Next day the royals set off up Deeside. They had breakfast at Cults, lunch at Aboyne, and reached Balmoral in mid afternoon. They were delighted with the place, the views, the air and the new set of servants retained from Sir Robert Gordon. John Brown was a stable boy when they first arrived.
The royal couple eventually bought Balmoral with its 17000 acres in 1852 for £31,500: Albert had already bought Birkhall. In December 1852 Victoria was unexpectedly left a legacy of £500,000 by the eccentric miser John Neild and this was poured into a rebuild project for a new Balmoral Castle. The architect was Aberdeen’s City Architect, William Smith. The Royal Couple actively participated in the interior design with a concept once described as a “Feast of tartanitis”.
The foundation stone was laid in September 1853 and it opened in September 1855. Most of the Royal Household hated the place some 567 miles from the comforts of Buckingham Palace: the politicians also hated the remoteness and the discomfort of having to visit Deeside.
Victoria and Albert, however, could relax at Balmoral, free from the snooping critics and escaping the regimentation of the Royal Household in London and Windsor with their orchestrated ceremonies and strict protocols and routines. Balmoral was their creation, run by their rules; it gave them a sense of freedom and a sense of belonging.
John Brown was born in a humble but and ben in the small hamlet of Crathienaird in December 1826. He was the second son of a tenant farmer in a growing family that would eventually produce 9 boys and 2 girls. Five of the brothers were eventually to work on the royal Estates (James, John, Donald, High and Archie). The name Crathie comes from the Gaelic for brushwood. John started working on the family croft at 14 with a supplementary job as a stable lad at Pannanich Wells. He then looked after the Balmoral ponies for Sir Robert Gordon.
Victoria grew up with a flair for languages, some real ability in art, particularly drawing, and an intense interest in horse-riding. From her teen years onwards, she was a compulsive diarist. Unfortunately, Beatrice, her youngest daughter, edited out anything that could possibly be open to criticism. There are, however, many interesting bits in her journals. We can, for example, read of her suitors and her reaction to them. There was only ever going to be one winner, Albert, who “Is very handsome. I like him in every way”.
Victoria became Queen in 1837. She married Albert in February 1840 and gave birth to her first child, Princess Vicky, in November 1840. By the time that the couple leased Balmoral, they had 6 children.
Victoria retained the Balmoral estate workers and got to know their families. She got to know her workers by name, and gained their loyalty and respect. She loved the countryside at Balmoral and was entranced by the Highland way of life. She particularly liked her Highland picnics – Albert liked to hunt on his own, he needed his own space from time to time, so Victoria was taken by the staff on a picnic. John Brown could make the best tea she had ever tasted – he laced it with whisky. As they got older, the tea disappeared from the picnic menu but the whisky remained and was much appreciated by the monarch.
Albert recognised Brown as the most skilled of the gillies and promoted him in 1851 to ride on the box of the Queen’s carriage. Albert had huge respect for Brown who by 1860 bore the title of the “Queen’s Personal Assistant”. He led
the Queen’s pony, passed on the local folklore, kept Victoria alert to the current gossip in the area and in the Household, and even told her the latest jokes. He looked after her, protected her, and made her feel at ease.
In December 1861 Prince Albert became ill with typhoid at Windsor Castle, and he died on the 14t h December, aged 42. He had suffered ill health for some 2 years: m0dern diagnosis suggests Crohn’s disease or cancer. He had complained of stomach pains and back pain. The antics of the Prince of Wales with his taste for unsuitable accomplices did not help his father’s health. Victoria buried herself in grief, she was even too distraught to attend Albert’s funeral service, and for a time she verged on the suicidal. The Court was in mourning for a year but she remained in mourning for the rest of her life.
It was only at Balmoral that she seemed to come out of her shell. There John Brown fussed over her and deliberately got her involved in day-to-day details such as deciding which guest was suited to which pony. She always enjoyed her pony cart rides which Brown led. Elsewhere she remained morbid and trapped in her own self-pity. Her health was visibly deteriorating. In December 1864 John Brown was summoned to Osborne on the Isle of Wight, to give the Queen the fresh air she needed. He took along her favourite pony, Lochnagar.
Albert had persuaded Victoria to buy the Osborne estate in 1845 after renting it for a year. It offered them privacy and they normally took 4 short visits there per year, in spring, May, July and December.
From now on, Brown was with the Queen throughout the year. Wherever she happened to be, he met her at breakfast for instructions. He took his orders directly from her and passed on her instructions to others – often rather abruptly, he would never have made a diplomat. The Household hated his influence and his crude manners. He also drank rather a lot. Nevertheless, he had the ear of the Queen: they normally enjoyed cart-rides in the mornings and afternoons. His salary rose as his influence increased. In 1865 he was appointed “The Queen’s Highland Servant” at a salary of £120 per annum. In 1866 it increased to £150, by 1869 it was £230 and by 1870 it was £400. She had complete trust in him and valued his judgement. She really saw him as the male head of the Household. This somewhat miffed the Prince of Wales whom she thought would never be fit to rule: he was a playboy of the worst order.
The resentment of Brown kept growing at Court: he was lower class, rough, lacked the social graces, and had too much influence and too much salary. Although Victoria prized his comforting presence, most of her children hated him and were ashamed of her affection for him. He was, after all, a mere servant – and servants ought to know their place. Snobbery was rife at Court where Brown was
regarded as “A Rude, unmannerly fellow”.
Court life was stifled by boring, repetitive routines. By the late 1860s Victoria was becoming lethargic. She needed as new project to reawaken her interest in life and in 1868 she published an edited version of her Highland Journal. It was very readable and was a financial success but it caused her problems both at Court and among the general public.
The family was not happy with her obvious familiarity with her Highland servants whom she described as “noble” and on whom she lavished praise. She knew all her estate workers at Balmoral, and liked to pay visits to their families. There were 21 glowing references to John Brown: the Prince of Wales claimed that he himself didn’t get a mention – Victoria gave her son page references to read to prove that that was not the case. Edward was certainly mentioned but never praised. Victoria always blamed him for hastening Albert’s death.
The Journal seemed to suggest to the public that Victoria did very little other than fill her life with picnics and banquets. In fact, Victoria’s life centred round her desk: she was almost drowning in official paperwork – her only breaks were for meals and exercise.
In 1868 Brown was missed at Balmoral for a week and eventually turned up clearly battered and bruised. Rumour had it that the Prince of Wales had hired heavies in Aberdeen to beat up Brown in the grounds of Balmoral. Thereafter, Brown always slept with a pistol under his pillow, and he took to patrolling the grounds at dusk to check on the Queen’s safety.
The Queen was always a security risk with Fenians and Republicans around. There were in total some 7 attempts on her life. She was fired at by a deranged 18 year old in London in 1840, there were a further 2 shooting attempts in 1842, and again by an insane Irishman in 1849. A retired Army Officer managed to strike her on the face with his cane in 1850. By far the most serious attempt on her life was by a mentally-disturbed teenager with a flintlock in 1872 in the grounds of Buckingham Palace – an alert Brown grabbed him by the throat and held him down until the Police arrived. The Queen rewarded him with a gold medal, the “Devoted Servant Medal” – again, much to the chagrin of the family. The seventh attempt of her life was in March 1882 when a demented Scots poet shot at her at Windsor Station – 2 Eton schoolboys were the first to react and battered him with their brollies: he was sentenced to life in the asylum.
John Brown had always been renowned for his athletic fitness. By the 1870s that was a thing of the past. His health was deteriorating. His face swelled up from time to time, fuelling rumours of alcoholism – in fact it was erysipelas (a skin infection). He was also getting fatter, his joints ached and his limbs swelled. His legs gave him trouble from time to time due to cellutitis (a related skin infection). At Easter 1883 he fell ill after a severe soaking at Windsor. By Easter Sunday, erysipelas covered the right side of his face and he was delirious. By the Tuesday he was in a coma from which he never recovered. He died aged 56. The Queen was devastated. He was buried at Crathie on Thursday 5t h April. Victoria ordered his headstone in Aberdeen grey granite and penned the words “In affectionate and grateful memory”.
She handed out funeral brooches and tie-pins and commissioned a life-sized bronze statue (which can still be seen on the Balmoral estate, although it is largely hidden from view after Edward VII had it moved). Despite rumours that he had enriched himself at the Queen’s expense, he left just over £7000. He had quietly donated rather generously to numerous charities.
What he did leave behind was a trail of gossip. Victoria wanted to publish a memorial to John Brown: the manuscript was written and it took a lot of persuasion for her not to publish. The problem lay partly in her literary style. She was somewhat naïve in writing expressions of devotion to friends – she frequently used word such as “dearest”, “darling” and “beloved”. She even once sent a Valentine to her Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli. Disraeli flattered her, Gladstone bored her.
The rumour that she was “Mrs Brown” is as flawed as the earlier rumour that she was “Mrs Melbourne”(after her first Prime Minister). She was always faithful to her beloved Albert. She only stopped bearing children on strict medical advice. She gave birth to 9 children, 4 boys and 5 girls over a 17 year span – Vicky in 1840, Albert Edward in 1841, Alice in 1843, Alfred in 1844, Helena in 1846, Louise in 1848, Arthur in 1850, Leopold in 1853 and Beatrice in 1857. She was 38 when her 9t h child was born. After her death, her autopsy showed a prolapsed uterus: so further sex was physically out of the question. It was also socially out of the question: there was no way that she would sleep with a commoner.
She liked men. She never formed a close relationship with any woman. Albert was irreplaceable: Brown merely filled a void in her life. He devoted his life to her: she regarded him like a hero out of a novel by her favourite author, Sir Walter Scott.
Another scurrilous rumour was that Victoria had turned mad and that Brown was her keeper. There certainly was a history of mental illness in the family, but Victoria escaped it. She did, however, fall into depression from time to time and she hated changes.
The Scottish Republican, Alexander Robertson, seems to be the source of the rumour that Victoria and Brown were married: he also described Victoria as “semi-imbecile”. He even wrote that Victoria and Brown had a son, born in Switzerland. Such stories still emerge from time to time. In fact there seem to be 4 different “child” stories – one in Switzerland, 2 in Paris and one in New York.
The other false rumour was that Brown was a medium, gifted with the Gaelic “second sight”, using spiritualism to unite Victoria with Albert. She is absolutely no evidence that Victoria dabbled in Spiritualism: she didn’t need to; she was always convinced that Albert was watching over her.
After Brown’s death, Victoria attached herself to an Indian servant, Abdul Karim, whom she called Munshi (teacher). He was resented at Court ever more than Brown. An Indian Muslim, he served during the last 15 years of her reign. He took Brown’s room at Balmoral. The Household staff always felt superior to him: there were racial overtones just as there had been with Brown. Significantly, Edward VII
sent Munshi back home to India on Victoria’s death.
Victoria died at Osborne in January 1901 in her 82n d year, some 18 years after Brown’s death. She was interred in a series of coffins each inside the other. In the shell was placed Albert’s dressing gown and cloak. Her wedding veil was spread over her face and in her left hand was a photograph of John Brown and below her corsage of flowers was placed a lock of Brown’s hair and his mother’s ring (which Victoria had worn after Brown’s death).
On the morning of Victoria’s death, the Balmoral shepherds noted that Brown’s cairn had been flattened. After the Prince of Wales became Edward VII, he arranged the removal of all the busts, statues and artefacts of Brown. Brown’s room at Windsor became the billiard room. Edward never forgave his mother for loving her servants more that her family.