“One afternoon a King’s messenger stopped at our front gate. I had seen him before as it was he who delivered the royal invitations. He hopped off his big black horse and walked up the path. I met him at the door. ‘His Majesty’s compliments,’ he said, ‘and would Mrs. Strong be at home tomorrow morning at ten o’clock?’ ‘Are you sure,’ I asked, ‘that it isn’t Mr. Strong His Majesty would like to see?’ ‘No,’ said the man, smiling, ‘my message is to you.'” — “This Life I’ve Loved: An Autobiography” Mrs. Isobel Field — ‘Belle’

When was the last time you had Royalty invite itself into your home and with such class? Chances are that Joe and Belle Strong had not a clue when they arrived in Honolulu aboard the schooner Consuela that as the first professional artists to settle there, they were automatically a sensation and quickly assimilated into Island society. That meant you automatically became a partisan in Island politics, either with the ‘Royal set’ or the ‘Missionary set.’ They were like two gangs and there was no room for neutrals. In her book, Belle says, “Feeling at this time ran high and neither faction used any restraint in the stories they told of the other.” After meeting everyone of importance on both sides, Belle says the choice was easy. “It was the King’s set that captured us. They liked parties and dancing.”

Why King Kalakaua called on Belle instead of Joe, who had more experience, surprised them both along with their friend, Charley Stoddard, who said, “The King never calls on private people.” It turned out that somewhere the King had seen a sample of Belle’s watercolors and decided that this artist could execute a project he had conceived in his royal head.

“It was only on official occasions that the King wore a uniform,” says Belle. “When he called on me he was dressed in white flannels; his shoes were white, so were the gloves he threw into his hat…Kalakaua was so tall and impressive that my little parlor seemed to shrink when he came in. After a few polite preliminaries he laid out on the table several sheets of paper of which he had made designs in pencil.”

The King was pleased with the results of Belle’s first and unusual commission which involved painting the colorful and varied patterns on freshly caught fish before they faded in the light. “Do you think,” said King David, “that you could paint a fish in fifteen minutes?” After that, one project followed another from designing ballroom gowns to designing the insignia for the King’s royal Order of the Star of Oceania. “For all the work I did for the King–and there was much more than I could have told about here, he never asked the price but would always send his messenger with a generous cheque, always far more than I expected or would have asked. Later he appointed me teacher of drawing in the Government Schools, only a few hours on certain days a week, at a salary of $100 a month.”

Mr. and Mrs. Strong had attended the King’s Coronation Ball and now they joined his entourage and went to his private parties after the royal balls. Says Belle in her book: “In a small place like Honolulu teeming with gossip, the King’s late supper parties were whispered about as ‘orgies,’ not only by the Missionaries, but among a number of those who were much offended at not being invited to join them.”

King David Kalakaua was valiant but clumsy and nave in his efforts to stave off the greed of the Missionary set and their self-given permission to exploit non-whites in the name of God but especially American business interests. Belle was an eyewitness. “The leaders were the sons and grandsons of the original missionaries who came to Hawaii to convert the heathen. They were rich, prosperous American business men with one aim: to wrest the islands from the natives and have it taken over by the United States.” Mr. and Mrs. Strong became involved but in different ways.

Kalakaua had ascended to the throne with his consort, Kapiolani, after barely defeating his rival, Queen Emma, in the 1874 election. The Coronation Ball that Belle describes in chapter 19 of her book was the nine-year anniversary party celebrating that victory. But His Majesty’s royal authority was slowly being squeezed out of him by the above-mentioned conspiracy of phony respectability who were using familiar tactics still in use today by certain elected officials to chip away at democratic institutions with treasonous impunity. Historians pretty much agree that the King’s trust in his Prime Minister Gibson and other close advisors was misguided when they encouraged him to form an alliance with other Pacific Islanders against the encroachment of the colonial powers, a Polynesian version of the Delian League organized by the city of Athens in ancient times.

Samoa, the ancestral home of the Hawaiian people, received the only delegation to materialize from this dubious scheme. It didn’t end well. There was a feeling of imperialism to it all which apparently required window dressing in the form of a warship to deliver the embassy. Not having one, a guano carrier, the Kaimiloa, was shined up and fitted with smalls guns here and there while a local reform school supplied the crew. There is a lot of ocean between Hawaii and Samoa but they made it in spite of a skipper who drank a lot of whiskey. It might have been embarrassing to have been aboard the flagship Kaimiloa when she dropped anchor in Apia’s harbor, surrounded by several real warships from three countries, namely, Great Britain, Germany and the U.S.A. On board, as official artist of this historic occasion was Belle’s husband, Joe Strong. It all came down to John Edward Bush, chief diplomat, signing a meaningless article of confederation with Chief Malietoa, the head of one three tribal factions. With that out of the way, story has it that the embassy joined their skipper in some serious drinking and one can picture Joe brewing some of his famous rum punch. In the end, the King’s delegation had to borrow money to get home which included hiring a sober skipper to get them there.

This royal fiasco was next twisted into propaganda for power grabbing by the Missionary set. They attempted a coup and had even organized a militia company to place the King and his Prime Minister under house arrest. Now Joe’s wife got involved.

When Belle went to see Prime Minister Gibson she was stopped by the Missionary guards. “‘You can’t go in,’ they said. ‘Mr. Gibson’s under house arrest and no one is allowed to see him!'” Belle says, “I dodged under the rifles and walked up the path. As they had no orders to shoot ladies in the back I reached the house safely.” Belle served the cause of the Royal set as an undercover courier between Gibson and the King, walking past guards with ease at each residence.

Belle continues: “The insurrection, or whatever it was, blew over. Mr. Gibson was released.” But the King had been forced to sign a more liberal constitution, further weakening his power, with an act called the “Bayonet Constitution.” However, Kalakaua was impressed by and thankful for Belle’s assistance. She writes that “A week or so later the King sent for me to come to the palace … he received me alone in the great empty throne room…he motioned for me to sit on a footstool beside him.” The King said, “I promised you that I would not forget the service you did for me.” You will have to read her book to find out Belle’s reward.

Finally Belle popped the question: “But I would like to know why the Missionary Party is making so much trouble for your Majesty? ‘It is not me, personally, at all,’ he explained. ‘What they want is my country. They are hoping to annex Hawaii to the United States. It has been a steady fight ever since I came to the throne.’ I was appalled. ‘Take the Islands away from you? Surely they couldn’t do that!’ I exclaimed. ‘Not while I live,’ said the King.”

Into this state of affairs, Robert Louis Stevenson would soon be sailing aboard his chartered yacht Casco, en route from Papeete, Tahiti to Honolulu, about nine months after leaving Saranac Lake.