Behind Osborne, overlooking the Medina, is Whippingham Church, whose parish takes in Osborne and East Cowes, as West Cowes was a dependent on Northwood. This church, sometimes attended by the royal family, is rich in mortuary memorials, among them Theed’s monument of the Prince Consort, placed here by “his broken-hearted and devoted widow, Queen Victoria,” and the chapel that is the tomb of Prince Henry of Battenberg, married in Whippingham Church, 1885. The structure, finely situated, has a singularly un-English look, its German Romanesque features understood to have been inspired by the taste of the Prince Consort, on which account her late Majesty’s loyal subjects would fain have admired the effect, as many of them could not honestly do. A wicked tale is told of a gentleman well known in the architectural world, who, on a visit at Whippingham, was surprised by a summons to Osborne. Unfortunately, this stranger had not been furnished with a _carte du pays_, and when the Queen led the conversation to Whippingham Church, asking advice what should be done with it, he bluntly gave his opinion: “The only thing to be done, madam, is to pull it all down!”--whereupon the uncourtly adviser found his audience soon brought to an end. Other stories or legends are locally current, illustrating the difficulties of etiquette that hampered her Majesty’s desire to be on friendly terms with her less august neighbours. One hears of guests scared off by the sight of a red cloth on the steps to mark how royalty would be taking tea or counsel within; and of others suddenly bundled out of the way, when the Queen’s unpretentious equipage was announced as approaching. It seems that majesty’s neighbours were not all neighbourly. A lady of title here is said to have closed her gates to the Queen’s carriage, which never again took that direction. Such an assertion of private rights would have astonished that high-titled Eastern potentate, of whom it is told that, being entertained at the seat of one of our greatest dukes, he advised the then Prince of Wales to have their host executed without delay as much too powerful a subject! After the death of Queen Victoria, the present Sovereign gave up this estate to be in the main a public memorial of her, though Osborne Cottage is still occupied by the Princess Henry of Battenberg, Governor of the Island with which she has so many happy and sorrowful associations. The palace has been in part adapted as a home for convalescent officers, the room in which the Queen died and other [Illustration: WHIPPINGHAM CHURCH] apartments being kept as used by her, to make a sight at present open on certain days. In the grounds are the new buildings of a Naval College, whose cadets will be brought up in view of the famous anchorage haunted by memories of our “wooden walls,” and often stirred by the mighty machines that have taken their place, we trust, to the same good purpose.