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| Balmoral Castle. Image from Wikimedia Commons |
The Scottish Highlands had enthralled Queen Victoria and Prince Albert that they favoured the isolation of the country.
“Oh, for some distant, some almost inaccessible sanctuary, where, in true domestic privacy, one could make happy holiday, just as if—or at least very, very, nearly—one were anybody else!,” wrote Lytton Strachey about this hideaway. [1]
"Oh! What can equal the beauties of nature ! What enjoyment there is in them! Albert enjoys it so much ; he is in ecstasies here,” [1] Queen Victoria wrote in her diary. In another entry, she wrote: "Albert said that the chief beauty of mountain scenery consists in its frequent changes.” [1]
One day she took a long expedition on a high hill. While enjoying the pristine beauty of the country, she wrote: " It was quite romantic. Here we were with only this Highlander behind us holding the ponies (for we got off twice and walked about). . . . We came home at half-past eleven,—the most delightful, most romantic ride and walk I ever had. I had never been up such a mountain, and then the day was so fine." [1]
Of the Highlanders, the queen quipped that they " never make difficulties, but are cheerful, and happy, and merry, and ready to walk, and run, and do anything." She also thought that Prince Albert " highly appreciated the good-breeding, simplicity, and intelligence, which make it so pleasant and even instructive to talk to them." [1]
Wanting to have a space of their own they leased Balmoral House, a small residence near Braemar in the wilderness of Aberdeenshire in 1848. Four years later, using part of the money that she inherited from Nield the miser, she bought the estate for £32,000. Lytton Strachey later described the property:
“The diminutive scale of the house was in itself a charm. Nothing was more amusing than to find oneself living in two or three little sittingrooms, with the children crammed away upstairs, and the minister in attendance with only a tiny bedroom to do all his work in. And then to be able to run in and out of doors as one liked, and to sketch, and to walk, and to watch the red deer coming so surprisingly close, and to pay visits to the cottagers!” [1]
Queen Victoria wrote also wrote about its charms:
“There is a nice little hall with a billiard room; next to it is a dining room. Upstairs (ascending by by a second broad staircase) immediately to the right and above the dining room is our sitting room, a fine large room – next to which is our bedroom, which is Albert’s . Opposite, down a few steps are the children’s and Miss Hildyard’s three rooms. The ladies live below and the gentlemen upstairs.” [2]
Not everyone, though, was happy about the Scottish home. Charlotte Canning, the queen’s lady of the bedchamber noted that
“It is a very small house, but now with eight at dinner, every day besides the three children of the governess, there are sixty servants. What these do and who they are I have no guess for the proportions are unlike any other establishments. Housemaids are already forgotten and two had to be improvised who had never played the part before.” [2]
The house was then enlarged to fit the growing family and the queen has fell in love with Balmoral, observing: " Every year my heart becomes more fixed in this dear paradise, and so much more so now, that all has become my dear Albert's own creation, own work, own building, own lay-out; . . . and his great taste, and the impress of his dear hand, have been stamped everywhere." [1]
Since then, Balmoral House has remained a favourite retreat
for generations of British royals. The Castle’s gardens have been opened to the public since 1931. It is now available for public tours from April until the end of July, after which Queen Elizabeth II enjoys her annual summer holiday.
[1] Queen Victoria by Lytton Strachey (1921). New York: Harcourt, Brace and Co.
[2] Serving Victoria: Life in the Royal Household by Kate Hubbard (2012). London: Vintage
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