1873: “Of Shadows and Sovereigns: On the Balmoral Séance Letters”
From “Cat Among The Pigeons” (Privately circulated)
England, that most respectable ghost, has once again taken to haunting itself. For several months, certain letters—reportedly penned by Her Majesty and addressed to a Scottish spiritualist of unremarkable ancestry but surprising persistence—have been the unseen guests at every table in London. The more virtuous folk call them forgeries; the more intelligent simply ask to see them again. I have seen one, or so I am told, and can confirm that it is either genuine or something better.
The story, now embalmed under the title The Balmoral Séance Letters, arrived via Fleet Street, whose editors would sell their souls were they not already in debt. It began when a Mr. T—of the Metropolitan Clarion—was approached by a quiet gentleman from Aberdeen offering correspondence “of the highest provenance and the lowest prudence.” The asking price was £800—proof that, even in scandal, the Scots remain thrifty. Before coin could change hands, the Home Secretary himself, Mr. Henry Austin Bruce, intervened, purchased silence at a discount, and smothered the thing alive under Official Secrets.
Mr. Bruce, whose devotion to Her Majesty is exceeded only by his fear of thunderstorms, declared the papers “an affront to the dignity of the Crown.” That phrase, as we know, is the surest confession of accuracy. Still, one must not expect gratitude from a ghost; the spectral Prince Albert, to whom these midnight inquiries were allegedly addressed, has not yet issued either a denial or thanks. The living, however, have been generous with both.
Parliament considered the matter too delicious to ignore. During one particularly somnolent session, a certain radical member, blessed with ignorance and lungs, alluded to “a Highland lady who communes with the higher powers.” The chamber tittered; the Press yawned; and the Palace fainted from discretion. Later, The Morning Ledger reported, “This paper understands that a female medium of reputable standing has been honoured by confidential communications from Her Majesty.” I can only assume “reputable standing” refers to her ability to remain upright while summoning spirits.
The lady in question, Mrs. Jean Lockhart of Inverness, has—wisely—maintained silence. Her neighbours recall her as a sober widow with an indifference to company and a fondness for clean aprons. It seems her chief miracle was convincing the Queen that otherworldly contact could be arranged in a Balmoral outhouse, a location both convenient and, alas, typical of royal architecture. Whether the Queen ever attended these conversational séances, history will not tell us; but London society is certain she did and will continue to believe so, if only to enliven dinner after pudding.
The Caledonian Gazette cites a witness (since vanished) who claimed the late Prince appeared “in the full uniform of the Household Cavalry, somewhat illuminated and expressing mild dissatisfaction with the ventilation.” The matter might have rested there had not a third‑rate weekly, The Spectral Chronicle, printed an editorial suggesting “Her Majesty’s policies may have been influenced by celestial counsel.” The Chronicle was instantly suppressed; its editor, Mr. Faden, was seen shortly thereafter driving a markedly new carriage. Miracles abound.
Of course, spiritualism is the fashionable vice of the virtuous. Society ladies who cannot flirt with men must make do with phantoms. The Englishwoman’s Domestic Journal now prints a column titled Spirit Etiquette: How to Converse Without Blasphemy. One correspondent notes that “the departed may be addressed as ‘Sir’ provided one’s gown is dark.” Fortunately, superstition has always worn well with silk.
But it is Her Majesty’s supposed role that most perplexes public morality. England permits its monarchs any quantity of grief, provided it is expressed through marble, not questions. The notion that the Widow of Windsor could sit through table‑rapping in pursuit of the late Prince’s opinion on Empire or eternity has terrified her courtiers more than any tax proposal. Even The Illustrated British Family Record felt obliged to print a sermon under the heading “Our Queen in Sorrow, Not in Superstition.” Reassurance, when issued so promptly, convinces nobody.
Mr. Bruce continues to protest that “no improper correspondence was ever initiated or received by Her Majesty.” That, of course, is precisely the claim that makes it interesting. The Political Journal of February 1873 observed: “It is characteristic of English governance that its scandals are best managed through an air of housekeeping.” Indeed. The Home Secretary has dusted the cupboard so briskly that the nation now imagines skeletons by the dozen.
Mrs. Lockhart herself is silent in her modest cottage, attended occasionally by gentlemen who insist they represent no one. She is said to have told a local minister: “When one speaks with the dead, one ceases to worry about the living.” Admirable advice for a courtier—but ruinous to the profession of pressman. Rumour grants her a pension discreetly arranged through “private channels.” Those channels, one presumes, flow north from Balmoral and remarkably uphill.
The letters, if they ever lived, may now reside in a box locked by both loyalty and superstition. The one description leaked to Parliamentary Sketches alleged that it began: “My dearest, it is you who summon me”— rather an inversion of spiritual procedure. Yet even this may tell us something of the times: that authority, bored with commanding the living, now attempts influence over the dead. As the Reformer’s Gazette commented, “It is very British to manage eternity by correspondence.”
Society is divided neatly into believers and envy. Believers see in the Queen’s supposed séances a tender continuation of wifely affection; envy sees, more accurately, a private grief impolitely shared. The aristocracy debates whether spirit communication is a vice or merely a Scottish hobby. Lady Wraxall assures me she once heard the Duke of Edinburgh thump a table in jest and nearly precipitated a moral crisis across Belgrave Square. “Every household,” she said, “now keeps a planchette in a drawer, should royalty call.”
I suppose one might forgive the Queen her eccentricities. Monarchy, like mediumship, runs on faith unsupported by logic. When a sovereign talks to the unseen, it is piety; when a subject does, it is madness. And if Mrs. Lockhart profited from the confusion, one can hardly blame her—every kingdom needs its priestess.
A pamphlet, now suppressed but lately circulated under the genteel pseudonym A Friend of Reason, concluded: “In England, ghosts are the only witnesses who never contradict their betters.” Exactly. It is why we continue to summon them.
The nation will recover. Indeed, scandal is our truest séance: the dead reputations rise, speak briefly, and fade again to polite oblivion. Meanwhile, we may take comfort that the Empire’s faith, official or otherwise, remains perfectly irrational and handsomely dressed.
And if in years hence a discreet volume of letters is found—some tender musings signed with the royal hand and sealed in regret—let us not be too scandalised. Many attempt to speak with the departed, but few achieve so imperial an audience.
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