The Queen and Scotland – A Platinum Jubilee Tribute
Scenery
Scott’s novels appealed to the young Victoria as much as they did to her subjects. After her marriage to Prince Albert in 1840, the couple made regular visits to Scotland. They began to use the slumbering Palace of Holyroodhouse again, but what they really wished for was a home of their own where they could drink in the scenery and enjoy the company of simple, honest Highlanders who displayed none of the fawning, pretentious manners of London society.
When they heard of an estate for sale 40 miles inland from Aberdeen, within sight of the towering Cairngorms, and directly beneath ‘the steep frowning glories of dark Lochnagar’, the mountain eulogised by both Byron and the present Prince of Wales, they made up their minds on the spot to buy it before they had even seen it.
Albert loved the thickly-wooded hillsides because they reminded him of his native Thuringia in south-eastern Germany. He immediately summoned William Smith, the Aberdeen city architect, and between them they designed, in a traditional Scottish Baronial style, the handsome castle of Balmoral which stands today, completed in 1855. To prevent their view being spoiled by the commercial felling of trees, they subsequently added the adjoining estate to their property.
The royal couple enthusiastically embraced all things Scottish, visiting distilleries and trekking through remote glens with the Queen on a pony. Victoria ensured that her children learnt to dance Highland reels, while Albert took the Royal Stuart tartan and redesigned it on a grey background, the exclusive pattern still worn by members of the present Royal Family and particularly favoured by the Duke of Edinburgh. Publication of Victoria’s Highland Journals finally ensured that the Scottish tourist industry would never look back.
After Albert’s death in 1861, Victoria found enormous solace in her Highland retreat, and in her manservant John Brown, although despite a creditable – and credible – cinematic portrayal by Billy Connolly and Dame Judi Dench, the true nature of their relationship has never been established beyond doubt.
Victoria’s son and successor Edward VII cared little for the Scottish castle he inherited, dismissing it once as ‘the Highland barn of a thousand draughts’, but both George V and George VI appreciated Balmoral and used it regularly.
