his experience in Ireland and his sympathy for the peasants of his own country that made him such an outstanding Viceroy.
He was particularly worried about famine and this was indeed a serious problem that he had already encountered in the ‘Hungry Forties’ in Ireland.
He also wished India to build schools and hospitals as well as railways, canals and more roads and he wanted also to see everything for himself, which was another reason why he had invited his young friend, Michael, to join him.
Much of his travelling about the country was done on horseback.
The only aide-de-camp who could keep up with him was Michael and they often rode eighty miles a day.
Although he was not aware of it at the time, Michael Burne was learning to command people as well as his relative did.
The quality that the Viceroy looked for was, as he put it himself, ‘an enthusiasm which makes a man believe in the possibility of improvement and strives resolutely to obtain it.’
It was not long before Michael developed the same enthusiasm that his Chief possessed so abundantly and he was soon entrusted with difficult assignments that the other aide-de- camps were not keen on undertaking.
Everything seemed to be going well for the first four years of the Viceroy’s reign.
The Earl of Mayo had two more years to serve and it appeared as if he would be, without doubt, the most successful and the most loved Viceroy there had ever been.
It was then in February 1872 that the Viceroy arranged a visit to the Andaman Islands and a tour of the convict settlement at Port Blair.
It was the aide-de-camp’s job to see that the most stringent security measures had been taken for his visit and everything went off well.
Later in the afternoon the Viceroy visited another island of the group and then, when the official day’s arrangements were over, he crossed back to the principal island and climbed up Mount Harriet.
Only Michael was eager to go with him. It was a stiff climb to an altitude of more than one thousand feet.
The two men refused to ride ponies and walking reached the top.
They sat down for ten minutes to admire the sunset and the Viceroy exclaimed,
“How beautiful, how very beautiful!”
By the time the party had descended back to the waterfront, it was completely dark.
A launch was waiting to take the Viceroy back to his ship. The torch-bearers led the way and the Viceroy walked between Michael and the Chief Commissioner of the Andamans.
Just as the Viceroy was stepping forward to board the launch, the Commissioner gave an order.
The guards who had cordoned off the pier opened their ranks to let him through.
Before they could close up again, a tall Pathan rushed through the opening and jumped, as someone said at the time, ‘like a tiger’, on the Viceroy’s back.
He stabbed him twice between his shoulders.
The man was dragged away, but the Viceroy staggered to the side of the pier.
He raised himself out of the shallow water, saying,
“They have done it!”
A few minutes later he collapsed and the back of his coat was dark with blood.
He was lifted into the launch, but by the time the ship was reached he was dead.
To Michael it was a nightmare and he could hardly believe what had happened.
The man he had loved and admired would never again say to him,
“Come on, Michael, you and I can do it together.”
After the funeral his one thought was to get away from his memories and what had been the happiest time of his life.
He decided that he must return home and the voyage back home was very different from his passage out to India.
The Suez Canal had been opened in 1869, the year following his arrival, and so now the new ships of the P. & O. took only a little over seventeen days to reach England.
Michael had everything he possessed packed and he went aboard the first available ship.
His perturbed thoughts were still on the dead Viceroy, who was in Michael’s mind ‘the ‘Ideal Viceroy’. That was what one of his most distinguished successors was to call him.
It did not, however, ease Michael’s sense of loss.
He thought that never again would he be with someone who could arouse in him such an enthusiasm and a sense of gaiety in everything he undertook.
By the time the ship in which he was sailing had reached Tilbury, the first agony had softened a little.
He was now looking forward to seeing his own Castle and estate again.
He felt very sure that his uncle would, as he had promised him, have kept everything in perfect order.
He would go first to The Castle, which had been his home since his birth and would find it exactly as he had left it. The servants who had looked after him and had called him ‘Master Michael’ would be there waiting for him.
He would then ride the horses of which his father had always had a full and outstanding stable.
As Michael had left India so hurriedly, he had not arranged for anyone to meet him at the Port.
After the short journey from Tilbury to Central London, he took a train to Oxford and engaged a Post chaise to take him out to Rayburne Castle.
He paid for the best chaise available, which was drawn by two strong horses
He arrived at The Castle in under an hour, which he considered very good timing.
He thought as he entered the drive that the lodges appeared to be empty, which surprised him.
And the drive itself seemed rough and uncared for.
When he then saw The Castle, it seemed for a moment, in the sunshine, to look as it had always done, outstandingly beautiful and silhouetted against the fir trees behind it.
It had been a Castle since the thirteenth century, but each generation of Rayburnes had added to it and in their own way improved it.
Finally in the eighteenth century the tenth Earl had the whole façade altered.
The original Castle stood at one end of it and the rest of the building, which by now was very symmetrical, was given a new façade.
It made it not only even more beautiful but far more impressive.
The renovation was all designed by the Adam Brothers, who were known as the greatest architects of their time.
Now,
