Showing posts with label Marie of Roumania. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Marie of Roumania. Show all posts
Friday, 2 September 2011
Queen Victoria Was Often Amused
In fact, Queen Victoria was often highly amused. Lady Longford, in her wonderful ‘Victoria R.I.’ recounts a humorous story of a meal at which the Queen sitting next to an elderly admiral who was very hard of hearing. The Queen asked about the progress of repairs to a wrecked ship but the admiral did not catch her words. Out of the politeness, the Queen tried a different conversation, “How is your sister?”
“Ah,” said the admiral, suddenly realising what had first been said, “She’ll be fine, ma’am, when we turn her over and scrape the barnacles off her bottom!” The Queen was so overcome with laughter that she had to hide her face in her handkerchief.
There are numerous similar stories of Queen Victoria’s laughter, and her letters show her wit and humour. One amusing anecdote comes from Marie Mallet who says that a certain duchess presented the Queen with an ostrich egg on which she had written her own name. “You would think,” whispered the Queen, “that had laid it herself!”
Alongside her humour, there was a curious innocence and wonder about Queen Victoria. Perhaps because her own childhood had been so dull and she had been deprived of companions, she was particularly fond of children’s amusements. Her granddaughter, Marie of Roumania , wrote:
“So unspoilt was dear grandmamma in all things concerning amusements that her joy and interest in these performances was almost childlike.”
She also enjoyed ‘frivolous’ novels, circus troupes, travel, the pageants and plays performed by her children and she delighted – to the end of her life – in learning about different places and mastering different languages. One of her greatest pleasures was dropping into highland cottages near Balmoral to take a nip of whiskey and sit and talk with the local people.
She might have been ‘the widow of Windsor’ for six years or so following Prince Albert’s death but these six years of mourning are quite a small part of a life that spanned eight decades – a life that, for all its tragedies, was often filled with enjoyment and simple pleasures and a good deal of amusement!
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