Victoria & Abdul (38 page)

‘All day long, the Angel of Death has been hovering over Osborne House,’ reported
The Times
. ‘One could almost hear the beating of his wings. But at half past six those wings were folded and the Queen put to rest.’ At Cowes post office, Mr Mott laid on forty extra people to man the wires, working through the night on shifts, as the press sent out the story to the world.

The Queen had left detailed instructions regarding the procedures to be followed after her death in a sealed letter, which she had given to Reid on 9 December 1897, three years back. With the help of her faithful dressers, Mrs Tuck and Miss Stewart, the doctor laid out all the things she had requested – photographs and mementoes of all the people she had held dear to her through her life – even the sprig of Balmoral heather that she so loved. He then packed the sides of the coffin with bags of charcoal in muslin. But he still had a final duty to perform.

The Queen was already wearing her own wedding ring and the wedding ring of John Brown’s mother, which was given to her by Brown in 1875, and which she had always worn after his death. The doctor now wrapped two items in tissue paper and placed them in the Queen’s left hand. They were a photograph of John Brown and a lock of his hair in a case. He discreetly covered these with the flowers given by Queen Alexandra so that the family could not see them.
⁴
The loyal doctor had taken care to keep his Queen’s last request; it was one of the secrets she carried to her grave.

Once the coffin was arranged, Reid called in the family and members of the Household to see the Queen for the last time. The Munshi was summoned at the very end. He was allowed to spend a moment with his Queen and was the last person to see her alone. As he left the room, the members of the Royal family entered and the coffin was closed by Mr Wardford, the Osborne carpenter and his two workmen. The Munshi watched silently as the coffin was covered with a white pall and carried downstairs by the Blue Coats (sailors) into the dining room, which had been prepared as the
Chapelle Ardante
.

‘My duties were over with the Queen after 20 years of service,’ wrote Reid in his diary. ‘I am exhausted.’

The Munshi sat in Arthur Cottage that night, the tears silently pouring down his face. He prayed for the friend who had stood by him for the last thirteen years and changed his life. To him, she had been more than the Empress of India and Queen of England. She had been a friend, a mother and an inspiration. He gazed at a photograph of the Queen on his desk and read the inscription in her familiar writing: ‘Dear Abdul, Merry Christmas, Your loving friend VRI.’ The Queen had written ‘VRI’ in Urdu.

A rich Indian shawl with a border of golden sequins was spread near the foot of the wrought-iron staircase in Osborne House. On it was spread a beautiful cushion of violets, from which rose a huge cross made of moss. The Queen was making her last journey from her beloved Indian rooms in Osborne, with its ornate carvings, collection of memorabilia and paintings of her Indian subjects.

In Calcutta the news of the Queen’s death had spread like wildfire. One of the Viceroy’s staff, who was out shooting early
in the morning in the countryside, was surprised to find a native running out of the village across the fields to ask ‘if the Great Queen was dead’, such was the speed with which the news travelled to even the rural areas. Soon all of India knew the Empress was dead and the day was declared as one of general mourning.

The Viceroy, who had been woken at 3.45 a.m. to be told the news, wrote to the Secretary of State:

No one who has not been to this country, can well realise the extent to which the British government, the monarchy, and the Empire did loyalty assume a more personal and therefore, a more passionate form … The virtues of the Queen, her domestic character, her homeliness, the old fashioned simplicity of her sentiments and sayings, the fact that she was equally revered as Queen, mother, and wife, have all combined to produce an overpowering effect upon the imagination of the Asiatic, and not until some time has passed and the new regime is started shall we realise, in all probability, to what a degree the contested incorporation of India in the British Empire has been facilitated by the character and attributes of the late Sovereign … No successor to the Queen, however genial, tactful and popular, and the new King is known to be all these, can ever win from the Indian people the feeling of personal devotion which assisted by her gt. longevity, and the glory of her reign, Queen Victoria aroused.
⁵

One hundred and one guns were fired at sundown to mark the death of Queen Victoria in Calcutta.

On 1 February the Queen’s coffin was taken down to Trinity Pier and carried on board the
Alberta
, the Royal yacht on which the Queen had made the same crossing so often over the years. The massed bands, their drums muffled, played Beethoven’s funeral march. King Edward followed the
Alberta
in the
Victoria and Albert
, and the Kaiser behind him in his own yacht, the gleaming
Hohenzollern
. Thirty British battleships and cruisers – proud evidence of Britain’s naval power – lined the eight-mile route from Cowes to Southampton, providing an escort to the
Alberta
. They stood in formation, barely 500 yards apart, the sailors
linking hands on the deck and the officers saluting as the
Alberta
sailed past. It was late afternoon when the
Alberta
turned into Portsmouth harbour. The sun set on the Solent in a blaze of red and gold, as the ships sailed out in a fitting farewell to the Queen.

Next morning her coffin was taken from Portsmouth by train to Victoria. Nearly 1 million people, dressed in mourning black, lined the streets in London to watch the funeral cortege on its way to Paddington Station. The Queen – the proud daughter of a soldier – had wanted a military funeral and decreed that her coffin would be carried on a gun carriage. On the coffin was placed the Imperial Crown, the orb and sceptre and the collar of the Order of the Garter. The crowds filled Hyde Park – standing sixty deep – to catch a final glimpse of the Queen who had become a legend in her lifetime and taken the country into the age of steam, telegraphs, industrialisation and Empire. Four European Kings followed the gun carriage on horseback: King Edward VII, Kaiser Wilhelm II, King George I of the Hellenes and King Carlos of Portugal. King Leopold II of Belgium rode in a separate carriage. The Crown Princes of Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Romania rode in the procession along with other Royals. The Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria represented the Austrian Emperor. Thirteen years later, his assassination would trigger the First World War. Victoria had spread her family by marriage across Europe and her Empire covered one-fifth of the globe. At her death they had gathered from around the world to pay their respects.

From Paddington the funeral procession moved by train to Windsor, as the Queen had done countless times over the years. Once again the crowds gathered in Windsor to get a last glimpse of their Queen. A slight mishap occurred: the horses had got cold waiting outdoors and had got out of hand when being harnessed to the gun carriage, breaking the splinter bar and nearly causing aserious accident. As confusion reigned, Ponsonby suggested that the horses be abandoned and the gun carriage be manually pulled with ropes through Windsor and up the castle’s Long Walk to the St George Chapel for the funeral service. After the service, an eighty-one gun salute was fired, one for each year of the Queen’s life.

Far away in Calcutta, in the capital of the Queen’s Indian Empire, the city rang out with the sound of eighty-one guns,
which were also fired there to remember the
Kaiser-e-Hind
and Empress of India.

The next day the coffin was taken to the mausoleum at Frogmore, where the Queen was buried beside her husband, Prince Albert. Standing in the funeral party was the Munshi, who watched as his Queen was buried in her own Taj Mahal. The Queen had left instructions that he would be one of those walking in her funeral procession along with her family, the Household and European Royalty. She had not forgotten him even in her death.

It was all to end soon for the Munshi. The King sent Princess Beatrice, Queen Alexandra and some guards to Frogmore Cottage where they demanded all the letters written by the Queen to the Munshi; they then burnt them in a bonfire outside the house. The King wanted no trace left of the relationship between his mother and the Munshi. Abdul Karim, the Queen’s companion and teacher for thirteen years, was ordered to leave the country and packed his bags like a common criminal. All the other Indian servants were also asked to go home. After the Queen’s funeral, Lord Esher noticed that the Indians were ‘wandering about like uneasy spirits’. The new King did not want to see any more turbans in the palaces or smell the curries from the Royal kitchens. The Edwardian era had begun.

T
he division of the spoils followed soon after. Days within the departure of the Munshi, Sir James Reid and his wife, Susan, went to see Arthur Cottage in Osborne, the Munshi’s former home, to see if it was suitable for them.
¹
The Munshi’s houses in Balmoral and Windsor were also quickly occupied. Every effort was made to deep clean the memory of the Munshi. ‘The Black brigade’, as the Indians were dubbed, were finally no longer occupying the centre-stage of life in the Royal palaces.