page_title: Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll
section_title: Inauspicious arrival
hierarchical_section_title: Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll / Viceregal consort of Canada / Inauspicious arrival
caption_attribution_description: Princess Louise, Marchioness of Lorne, as Viceregal Consort of Canada
context_page_description: Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll, VA, CI, GCVO, GBE, RRC, GCStJ was the sixth child and fourth daughter of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. In her public life, she was a strong proponent of the arts and higher education and of the feminist cause. Her early life was spent moving among the various royal residences in the company of her family. When her father, the prince consort, died on 14 December 1861, the court went into a long period of mourning, to which with time Louise became unsympathetic. Louise was an able sculptor and artist, and several of her sculptures remain today. She was also a supporter of the feminist movement, corresponding with Josephine Butler, and visiting Elizabeth Garrett.
  Before her marriage, from 1866 to 1871, Louise served as an unofficial secretary to her mother, the Queen. The question of Louise's marriage was discussed in the late 1860s. Suitors from the royal houses of Prussia and Denmark were suggested, but Victoria did not want her to marry a foreign prince, and therefore suggested a high-ranking member of the British aristocracy.
context_section_description: On 15 November 1878, the couple left Liverpool and arrived in Canada for the inauguration at Halifax on 25 November.
  Louise became the first royal to take up residence in Rideau Hall, officially the queen's royal residence in Ottawa. However, the hall was far from the splendour of British royal residences, and, as each viceregal couple decorated the hall with their own furnishings, and thus took them when they departed, the Lornes found the palace sparse in décor upon their arrival. Louise put her artistic talents to work and hung many of her watercolour and oil paintings around the hall, also installing her sculpted works. Though the news that a daughter of the queen would be viceregal consort of Canada first saw a "thrill of joy burst upon the Dominion", it being felt that the princess would be a strong link between Canadians and their sovereign, the arrival of the new governor general and his wife was not initially welcomed by the Canadian press, which complained about the imposition of royalty on the country's hitherto un-regal society.
  Relations with the press further deteriorated when Lorne's private secretary, Francis de Winton, threw four journalists off the royal train. Although the Lornes had no knowledge of de Winton's action, it was assumed by the press that they did, and they earned an early reputation for haughtiness. Louise was horrified by the negative press, and when she heard about reports of "a nation of flunkies" at the viceregal court, taking lessons in "the backward walk," Louise declared that she "wouldn't care if they came in blanket coats!" (A reference to the ubiquitous capote, a coat made of blanket-cloth, both durable and warm. The cultural significance of the blanket coat in genteel society, with reference to several early Governors-General and their wives, can be found in "'Very Picturesque and Very Canadian': The Blanket Coat and Anglo-Canadian Identity in the Second Half of the Nineteenth Century" by Eileen Stack of the McCord Museum of Canadian History.) Eventually the worries of a rigid court at Rideau Hall and the "feeble undercurrent of criticism" turned out to be unfounded as the royal couple proved to be more relaxed than their predecessors.
caption: Princess Louise in Canada
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