John Brown (servant)
| John Brown | |
|---|---|
.jpg) |
|
| Born |
8 December 1826 Crathie, Scotland |
| Died | 27 March 1883 (aged 56) Windsor Castle, Berkshire, England |
| Resting place |
Crathie Kirk, Crathie, Aberdeenshire, Scotland |
| Nationality | Scottish |
| Occupation | Ghillie & Personal Servant |
| Employer | Queen Victoria |
John Brown (8 December 1826 – 27 March 1883) was a Scottish personal servant and favourite of Queen Victoria for many years. He was appreciated by many (including the Queen) for his competence and companionship, and resented by others for his influence and informal manner. The exact nature of his relationship with Victoria was the subject of great speculation by contemporaries, and continues to be controversial today.
Brown was born on 8 December 1826 at Crathienaird, Crathie and Braemar Aberdeenshire, to John Brown and Margaret Leys, and went to work as an outdoor servant (in Scots ghillie or gillie) at Balmoral Castle, which Queen Victoria and Prince Albert leased in February 1848 and purchased outright in November 1851.
Brown had several younger brothers and a sister, three of whom also entered the royal service. The most notable of these, Archibald Anderson "Archie Brown", fifteen years John's junior, eventually became personal valet to Victoria's youngest son, Prince Leopold, Duke of Albany.
Prince Albert's untimely death in 1861 was a shock from which some believe Queen Victoria never fully recovered. John Brown became a good friend and supported the Queen. Victoria gave him gifts and created two medals for him, the Faithful Servant Medal and the Devoted Service Medal. She also commissioned a portrait of him.
Victoria's children and ministers resented the high regard she had for Brown, and, inevitably, stories circulated that there was something improper about their relationship. The Queen's daughters joked that Brown was "Mama's lover", while Edward Stanley, 15th Earl of Derby, wrote in his diary that Brown and Victoria slept in adjoining rooms "contrary to etiquette and even decency".
The diaries of Lewis Harcourt contain a report that one of the Queen's chaplains, Rev. Norman Macleod, made a deathbed confession repenting his action in presiding over Queen Victoria's marriage to John Brown. Debate continues over this report. It should be emphasised that Harcourt did not receive the confession directly (he was nine when Macleod died) but that it passed (if it did) from Macleod's sister to the wife of Henry Ponsonby, the Queen's private secretary, and thence to Harcourt's father Sir William Harcourt, then Home Secretary. Harcourt served as Home Secretary in the final three years of Brown's life. While it is true that some widowed monarchs have contracted private marriages with their servants, there is little evidence that Victoria married Brown.
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Wikipedia