Victoria and Albert
Victoria and Albert's love affair with Scotland was a pivotal
moment for all things Scottish and especially for tartan. Then, as
today, it was the outward sign of belonging to or being in some way
connected with, that brave and romantic little country
which stirred the royal hearts. This excerpt from Queen
Victoria by Lytton Strachey sets the scene admirably:
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"With great ceremony, in accordance with a memorandum drawn up
by the Prince for the occasion, the foundation-stone of the new
edifice (Balmoral Castle) was laid, and by 1855 it was habitable.
Spacious, built of granite in the Scotch baronial style, with a
tower 100 feet high, and minor turrets and castellated gables, the
castle was skilfully arranged to command the finest views of the
surrounding mountains and of the neighbouring river Dee. Upon the
interior decorations Albert and Victoria lavished all their care.
The wall and the floors were of pitch-pine, and covered with
specially manufactured tartans. The Balmoral tartan, in red and
grey, designed by the Prince, and the Victoria tartan*, with a
white stripe, designed by the Queen, were to be seen in every room:
there were tartan curtains, and tartan chair-covers, and even
tartan linoleums. Occasionally the Royal Stuart tartan appeared,
for Her Majesty always maintained that she was an ardent Jacobite.
Water-colour sketches by Victoria hung upon the walls, together
with innumerable stags' antlers, and the head of a boar, which had
been shot by Albert in Germany. In an alcove in the hall, stood a
life-sized statue of Albert in Highland dress.
Victoria declared that it was perfection. "Every year," she wrote,
"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 layout... and his great taste, and the
impress of his dear hand, have been stamped everywhere."
* Lytton Strachey gets the facts a little wrong here. The
introduced line was not white but red and Victoria was not the
designer. The late Harry Lindley of Highland Dress outfitters and
Royal Warrant holders, Kinloch Anderson, said: "Queen Victoria
admired the Dress Stewart tartan so much, but requested a
variation, so the red line was introduced in the 1800s."


Very little to do with tartan but fascinating nevertheless, is
this excerpt from Tom Cullen's 1969 book The Empress Brown
which talks of the volume of MacLeay portraits of Balmoral staff
commissioned by Queen Victoria. He makes special comment on the
depiction of John Brown - the Queen's trusted ghillie who was her
frequent companion after the death of her beloved Prince Albert.
Here is the portrait of Brown which, Cullen suugests, was the
result of Macleay being 'nobbled' by the Queen and instructed to
'civilise' Brown so that he would be more acceptable to Victorian
society.
"In this unique work, portraits of a select few of the Royal
retainers are shown cheek-by-jowl with those of representatives of
the great Highland clans; thus Brown finds himself unexpectedly in
the distinguished company of MacDonalds, Gordons, Frasers and
Forbes. But it is Brown who is total unrecognisable: the
granite-like features have been softened, the chin sanded down, the
mouth given an almost feminine expression. He is shown wearing a
grey hunting kilt and a modern turndown collar and Royal blue
cravat such as no gillie on Deeside would be seen wearing even in
his coffin.
A massive gold watch is looped high in his waistcoat, a grey plaid
neatly folded and pedant from his arm. His dagger is visible above
the right stocking top. This son of a crofter who started life as a
stable hand is made to look like a foppish fashion-plate of some
Edinburgh kilt-maker."