Balmoral

Cabinet 14

Queen Victoria was the first English monarch since Charles I to make a home in Scotland, and the very first to write about it.

Her Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands (1868) was dedicated to her husband Prince Albert, and writing it helped her combat the ‘deep grief’ felt over his death.

More Leaves (1884), her second volume, was dedicated to John Brown, her personal servant (‘gillie’) and trusted companion on walks through the Highlands. Brown died in 1883. Both books were best-sellers, and did much to promote things Scottish.

Queen Victoria, More Leaves from the Journal of a Life in the Highlands from 1862 to 1882. London: Smith, Elder, & Co., 1885.