H. R. H. sported a full curly yellow
beard at the age of sixteen, a somewhat unusual adornment for an
English schoolboy. When I accompanied my father's special Mission
to Rome in 1878, at a luncheon at the Quirinal Palace, Queen
Margherita alluded to her brother having been at Harrow, and
added, "I am told that Harrow is the best school in England." The
Harrovians present, including my father, my brother Claud, myself,
the late Lord Bradford, and my brother-in-law the late Lord Mount
Edgcumbe, welcomed this indisputable proposition warmly--nay,
enthusiastically. The Etonians who were there, Sir Augustus Paget,
then British Ambassador in Rome, the late Lord Northampton, and
others, contravened her Majesty's obviously true statement with
great heat, quite oblivious of the fact that it is opposed to all
etiquette to contradict a Crowned Head. The dispute engendered
considerable heat on either side; the walls of that hall in the
Quirinal rang with our angered protests, until the Italians
present became quite alarmed. Our discussion having taken place in
English, they had been unable to follow it, and they felt the
gravest apprehensions as to the plot the foreigners were evidently
hatching.
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