Queen Victoria The Year is ... 1873 On her first visit to Scotland, Queen Victoria promptly fell in love with the country and before long she was firmly ensconced at Balmoral. From here she undertook many excursions throughout the Highlands. In her journals, which were hugely popular and did much to promote the Highlands, she admired the stern, rugged, precipitous mountains of Glencoe, with their beautiful peaks and rocks piled high one above the other. On 13th September 1873, Queen Victoria visited Glencoe accompanied by her daughter, a companion and by John Brown, her personal attendant. As Queen Victoria sketched the Three Sisters, her solitude was disturbed. 'The day was most beautiful and calm. Here, however,--here, in this complete solitude, we were spied on by impudently inquisitive reporters, who followed us everywhere; but one in particular lay down and watched with a telescope ... and was most impertinent when Brown went to tell him to move ... However, he did go away at last, and Brown came back saying he thought there would have been a fight'.