Note 1385 — Chapter XLI
Reading edition
In connection with the above subject, our Jacobite correspondent has communicated to us the following anecdote. He does not vouch for its truth, but he states that he had it on very good authority. On one occasion, when her Majesty’s guests had been enjoying themselves, in scattered groups, in the pleasure-grounds around Balmoral, the conversation chanced to turn, amongst one of those groups, on Jacobite songs and Jacobite music. One of the ladies, known for her knowledge of Jacobite melodies, and for her skill in the execution of them, was asked to favour her companions with a specimen. The party having retired to a distance from the rest of the company, the lady sung her song. The echoes of the music reached, it is said, the quick ears of the Queen, who went at once to the spot whence it proceeded. And no one, it is added, enjoyed the melody more. One of the company having ventured to express surprise that the Queen could so enter into the spirit of a song which seemed to reflect so much on the present dynasty, her Majesty is said to have stated, as the representative of the family of Bonnie Prince Charlie, no one could be a greater Jacobite than herself; and that she considered all the songs in praise of “the Auld Stuarts” as songs in praise of her own ancestors.