Marzieh Gail - Persia and the Victorians (RLE Iran A)

MARZIEH GAIL

Volume 6

First published in 1951

This edition first published in 2011
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1951 George Allen and Unwin Ltd

Printed and bound in Great Britain

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ISBN 13: 978-0-415-57033-6 (Set)
eISBN 13: 978-0-203-83010-9 (Set)
ISBN 13: 978-0-415-60842-8 (Volume 6)
eISBN 13: 978-0-203-83318-6 (Volume 6)

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By
MARZIEH GAIL

London

GEORGE ALLEN AND UNWIN LTD

Ruskin House Museum Street

FIRST PUBLISHED IN 1951

This book is copyright under the Berne Convention,
No portion may be reproduced by any process without
written permission. Inquiries should be addressed to
the publishers.

TO MY PARENTS,
MRZ ALI-KULI KHAN OF KSHN AND TIHRN,
AND
FLORENCE BREED OF LYNN AND BOSTON,
SYMBOLS OF
THE MARRIAGE OF EAST AND WEST

PRINTED IN GREAT BRITAIN
in 12 point Fournier type
BY HAZELL WATSON AND VINEY LTD
ATLESBURY AND LONDON

EXCEPT where other spellings occur in quoted material, the system of transliteration used is that adopted at one of the International Oriental Congresses.

The term Persia has been preferred to Irdn because, although the name of the country was officially changed to Iran in 1935, Persia was used throughout the Victorian period, and is, in fact, now regaining popularity.

VICTORIA had on a morning dress, which she later referred to as smart, with her large pearls, and the Star and Ribbon of the Garter. Still she felt nervous and agitated; not because this June 20, 1873, had been her Accession Day thirty-six years ago; she could hardly believe that it was so long gone, and what was one more celebration among so many? Her anxiety was all because of the great event of the day, the Shahs visit.

Guns were being fired, bells were ringing, the latter partly for the guest. Every detail seemed to be as planned. Then at the last moment something was seriously wrong: the troops who were supposed to line the hill to Windsor were not lining it. Someone had blundered. Desperate measures were taken; a makeshift was arrived at. Just in time, because a dozen carriages were coming. The band struck up the new Persian March.

The Queen describes the Shahwho, the Sadr-i-Azam told her, characteristically adding a year in each case, had reigned twenty-six years and was forty-threeas fairly tall (she was short; Godeys Ladys Book for March 1838 had even said she is of the dumpy genus), and not fat, with a fine countenance, and animated. He wore a plain tunic, full in the skirt and covered with jewels; his buttons were huge rubies, his sword-belt and epaulettes entirely of diamonds with a gigantic emerald in the centre of each; his sword-hilt and scabbard were likewise bejewelled; he wore sundry other diamond ornaments wherever space permitted; his high black astrakan cap was set with an aigrette of diamonds.

Then I asked him to sit down [in the White Drawing-room], which we did on two chairs in the middle of the room (very absurd it must have looked, and I felt very shy).

With the help of Lord Granville, Arthur and Leopold, she now put the Garter over the Shahs shoulder; he kissed her hand, she saluted him, his own minister pinned on the diamond Star and Badge. Then it was Victorias turn to receive two decorations, one the Sovereigns order, his portrait set in diamonds, which had never been given to a woman before; the other a new, ladies order, a star and small badge in diamonds with a green-bordered, pink, watered-silk ribbon worn across the shoulder. The Shah himself adjusted this one, nearly upsetting the Queens cap in the process; fortunately the Grand Vizier, Lenschen, and Louise hurried to the rescue.

At luncheon, the Scottish pipers walking around the table especially delighted the Shah, who told Victoria he had caused her book on Scotland to be translated into Persian. Later the Queen left him to his servants, his pipe-bearer, cup-bearer and the rest, and he had a siesta, while she chatted briefly with Sir Henry Rawlinson (who speaks Persian perfectly); and afterwards His Majesty, having, as Victoria did not fail to notice, taken off his aigrette and put on his spectacles, departed. The Journal ends on a note of relief: Felt so thankful all had gone off so well.

A more profane account of this first visit of the Shah to England is given by Sir Frederick Ponsonby. The English, he says, could not imagine what the Shah would be like. Only those who as children had read the Arabian Nights (this of course antedated Burtons Nights, the first ten volumes of which appeared in 18856), and a few scholars who had grappled with the Rubiyt of Omar Khayyam knew a certain amount of the trend of Persian thought....

One of the Queens representatives delegated to meet the Shah when he landed was Lieutenant-Colonel the Honourable Arthur G. Hardinge; this gentleman, in his letter of June 18, 1873, to Colonel Ponsonby, is quite candid about the Shah. His view was doubtless not atypical, and was partially explanatory of the Queens nervousness on receiving the unplumbed sovereign from the wrong side of the planet. To Hardinge the Shah was simply a barbarian. Nothing, he writes of the landing, could have been more favourable to the desired impression upon the barbaric mind than the multitudinous gaieties of harbour and of pier, bunting and gauze floating wantonly.... his French had become more fluent.) All went well at luncheon, except that the Shah purportedly secreted a used thigh bone under the table. Further episodes in the elaborate programme arranged for His Majesty were his enthusiastic visits to the Crystal Palacewhere he admired among other things, including balloon ascensions, his own photographs at the shop-stalls; the adding of his effigy to the collection at Mme Tussauds; and a walk he enjoyed on June 28 in Buckingham Palace gardens. On this occasion it was raining; the rain stopped; the monarch, typically absolute, pitched the umbrella over his head by way of getting rid of it without even looking behind. He also incurred Victorias disapproval by engaging professional prizefighters to spar at the Palace, Her Majesty taking the stand that it was all right to look at prize-fighters, but not in her garden.