QUEEN VICTORIA A Personal History

Chapter 1 THE FAMILY

Sitting at his breakfast table in his rented house in Brussels in December 1817, Edward, Duke of Kent, fourth son of King George III, carelessly threw across the Morning Chronicle to his attractive mistress, Julie de St Laurent, and began to open his letters. 'I had not done so but a very short time,' he told Thomas Creevey, the witty, gossipy politician who was then also living in Brussels for reasons of economy, 'when my attention was called to an extraordinary noise and a strong convulsive movement in Madame St Laurent's throat. For a short time I entertained serious apprehensions for her safety; and when, upon her recovery, I enquired into the occasion of this attack, she pointed to [an] article in the Morning Chronicle.'¹

This article - adverting to the death in childbirth of Princess Charlotte, the only legitimate child of his eldest brother, the Prince Regent - called upon the Duke of Kent and the other bachelor royal dukes to marry for the sake of the family succession. For, although it was later calculated that King George HI had no fewer than fifty-six grandchildren, at this time not one of these grandchildren was legitimate.

The Prince Regent, who was to become King George IV on his father's death in 1820, was now fifty-five years old, separated from a detested wife and living languorously in sumptuous grandeur at Carlton House in London and the exotic Marine Pavilion at Brighton. The King's second son, the Duke of York, was also married and also separated from a wife who, childless, lived an eccentric life at Oatlands House in Surrey where, surrounded by numerous pet dogs, monkeys and parrots, she was to die in 1820. The Regent's next brother, the Duke of Clarence, who, following the Duke of York's death, was to succeed to the throne as William IV in 1830, had lived contentedly for several years with the actress Dora Jordan, who had given birth to ten little FitzClarences, before dying the year before the death of Princess Charlotte. To be sure, the Duke of Clarence might marry now; and, indeed, after unsuccessfully pursuing various heiresses, both foreign and domestic, in the hope of paying off debts amounting to £56,000, he at last did find a bride in Princess Adelaide, the home-loving, good-natured but far from prepossessing eldest daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg Meiningen. But she was not to prove so successful a mother as Mrs Jordan had been: her two daughters both died as babies.

Of the Duke of Kent's three younger brothers only one as yet had children. This was the asthmatic Duke of Sussex, a man whom Thomas Creevey described as 'civil and obliging' but about whom 'there was a nothingness that was to the last degree fatiguing'. He had been married in Rome in 1793 to a rather bossy lady some years older than himself, Lady Augusta Murray, daughter of the Earl of Dunmore, by whom he had had two children; but since the marriage had been contracted in breach of the Royal Marriages Act of 1772, which made it illegal for any member of the Royal Family to marry without the previous consent of the Crown, the King had declared the marriage void and the Sussex children were accordingly illegitimate. The Duke of Sussex's elder brother, the sardonic, much feared, widely disliked, reactionary and fiercely Protestant Duke of Cumberland, whose face had been given an alarmingly ugly cast by a head wound suffered while he was serving with the Hanoverian cavalry in the Low Countries, had managed to obtain permission to marry Princess Frederica of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, the niece of his mother, Queen Charlotte. But the marriage had not been easy to arrange since Queen Charlotte was bitterly opposed to it, having heard scandalous reports of the past behaviour of the Princess who had been married twice before and was widely rumoured to have murdered one of, if not both, her former husbands. She and the Duke had had a child but she was stillborn.

The youngest duke, the Duke of Cambridge, a man more respectable and financially responsible than his brothers, was not yet married; and when he did marry Princess Augusta of Hesse-Cassel in August 1818 the children of this marriage were so far down the line of succession that they could be dismissed by the Duke of Kent in his determined efforts to become the father of the future King or Queen of England.

The Duke of Kent was a disappointed man. Trained for a military career in Germany, he had not achieved the distinction or recognition which he believed he deserved. He had served in Gibraltar, in Canada and in the West Indies, and in all these places he had gained a reputation both for wild extravagance and the most strict and severe attention to military discipline: he would insist that the men under his command be roused at dawn and appear on the parade ground in impeccable condition and would punish infringements of his draconian rules by occasional executions and regular floggings of hundreds of lashes, as many as 400 being given for 'trifling faults in dress' and 999, the maximum permitted, for desertion. He left Canada accused of 'bestial severity'; and, upon his recall from Gibraltar in disgrace, he was accused by his elder brother the Duke of York - who had been appointed Commander-in-Chief of the Army - of provoking a mutiny by his conduct which 'from first to last was marked by cruelty and oppression'. He was given to understand that there would be no more military commands for him.²

Charles Greville, the diarist and Clerk to the Privy Council, contended that the Duke of Kent was 'the greatest rascal that ever went unhung',³ while the Duke of Wellington, to whom Thomas Creevey related the story of the contretemps at Kent's breakfast table, regarded him as a figure of fun. At a ball in Brussels, where Wellington was serving as commander of the allied forces on the Continent after the defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, Creevey was approached by the great Duke who said to him, 'Well Creevey, what has passed between you and the Corporal since you have met this time?' Creevey then told Wellington of a conversation he had recently had with the Duke of Kent 'Upon which,' so Creevey recorded, 'the Duke of Wellington laid hold of my button and said: "God damme! D'ye know what his sisters call him? By God! They call him Joseph Surface [the shameless hypocrite in Sheridan's School for Scandal]\" and then sent out one of his hearty laughs, that made every one turn about to the right and left to see what was the matter.'⁴

Yet the Duke of Kent had his good points as well as his bad, as Wellington conceded: he was a good and intelligent, if rather garrulous, conversationalist with a gift for mimicry, and an even better after-dinner speaker; he was also a conscientious correspondent, keeping three or four secretaries busy at their desks. He was fond of music and, when in funds, employed the services of a large band.

However, like all his brothers except the Duke of Cambridge, he was more or less constantly entangled in debt. The several charities to which he lent his name were supported by money which, as often as not, had been borrowed from men who were not always repaid. It was a perennial grievance with him that he was not provided with an allowance adequate to his high position as a prince of the blood.

Yet for all his faults, the Duke was capable of affection and this affection had been returned not only by Mme de St Laurent but also by Princess Charlotte, whose favourite uncle he had been, and by Mrs Maria Fitzherbert, the Roman Catholic widow whom the Prince Regent had illegally married and with whom the Duke conducted a correspondence of easy and intimate friendship. For nearly thirty years the Duke had lived contentedly with Mme de St Laurent, and he did what he could to soften the blow when he declared that duty to his family forced him to send her away to live in Paris with her sister. 'You may well imagine, Mr Creevey, the pang it will occasion me to part with her,' he said to the Whig politician. 'I protest I don't know what is to become of her ... But before anything is proceeded with in this matter, I shall hope and expect to see justice done to her by the Nation and the Ministers ... Her disinterestedness has been equal to her fidelity.'⁵ He saw to it that she was provided with a generous allowance - which before long was much reduced - and he asked friends to go and see her to ensure that she was comfortable in Paris where she lived as the Comtesse de Montgenet, a courtesy title granted to her by King Louis XVIII. 'Our unexpected separation arose from the imperative duty I owed to obey the call of my family and Country to marry,' the Duke explained, 'and not from the least diminution in an attachment which had stood the test of 28 years and which, but for that circumstance' would have been kept up until one or other of them died.⁶ He later thanked Creevey and his wife for their kind attentions to the 'dear Countess' and earnestly asked him to give him his 'opinion of her health, her looks and her spirits very particularly.

The Duke at this time was forty-nine years old. He was tall and fat and stately in a ponderous way, with luxuriant whiskers dyed dark brown and a head without much hair. His breath smelled of garlic and his clothes of tobacco. He was attentive to women and very polite. He had the fleshy lips and rather protuberant eyes of the Hanoverians but he was handsome enough and carried himself like the soldier he was proud to have been.

He was of most regular habits, getting up at five o'clock, even earlier than his father, and eating and drinking sparingly. He had good reason to suppose that, if he found a suitable wife, he would soon be the father of children as healthy as he was himself. Already, before Princess Charlotte's death, he had begun the search for a wife, in the hope that Parliament would grant him a decent allowance to support one in the same way that his brother, the Regent, had been helped financially upon his disastrous marriage to Princess Caroline of Brunswick. Edward considered that the £25,000 a year settled upon the Duke of York after his marriage ought 'to be considered the precedent'.⁷ Having borrowed £1,000 from the Tsar for the cost of his journey, he had travelled to Germany to inspect the Tsarina's sister, Princess Katherine Amelia of Baden, but he had not liked the look of the 'old maiden' of forty-one whom he had found at Darmstadt; and his thoughts had later turned to Princess Victoire - sister of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, who had married the Regent's daughter, Princess Charlotte.

The Regent had been against the marriage of his daughter to Prince Leopold at first. He had conceded that Leopold was a good-looking, gifted fellow, charming in a rather solemn kind of way, and that he would probably treat Charlotte well. But there was something in the ingratiating suavity of his manner which was decidedly distasteful, and the ponderousness of his cautious approach to life was rather irritating. Adept at choosing nicknames, the Regent called him 'le Marquis peu a peu'.⁸ The less inventive Lord Frederick FitzClarence dismissed him as a 'damned humbug';⁹ and Princess Lieven, the Russian Ambassador's wife, found him 'wearing and ... with his slow speech and bad reasoning, a jesuit and a bore'.¹⁰ He had his supporters and admirers, however. Lady Ilchester, for example, told a friend that he was 'enchanting as far as appearance and manner' were concerned. He was 'like an Englishman in all but the ease, elegance and deference of his manners'.¹¹ Having discouraged the match, the Regent had learned with annoyance that his brother, the Duke of Kent, was promoting it and allowing correspondence between the young couple to pass through his hands.

Princess Charlotte herself had not at first been much taken with her suitor, 'Prince Humbug'. If she were to marry him, she had said, it would be 'with the most calm and perfect indifference'.¹² But, as she had grown to know him better, she had fallen in love with him. He was, she decided, 'the only being in the world who would have suited me and who could have made me happy and a good woman'.¹³ He, in turn, had been devoted to her; their short marriage spent mostly at Claremont Park, the handsome house built in 1771 for the first Lord Clive and bought for them on the outskirts of Esher, had been a very happy one, and Leopold had been distraught by her death, kneeling by her bed and kissing her lifeless hands for over an hour. He had not, however, been too upset to write to his sister at Amorbach, urging her to give an encouraging answer to the proposal of marriage which she had received from the Duke of Kent.

This proposal, conveyed precipitately in an extremely long letter soon after the Duke's arrival at Amorbach, had not at first been favourably received. Although she was only thirty-one, Princess Victoire had been married before to the grumpy, gouty Prince of Leiningen and had two children by him, Prince Charles, who was eleven years old, and Princess Feodora, aged ten; she was concerned about these children's future, about her son's succession, as well as by warnings about the Duke from certain members of her late husband's court. Besides, she had no wish to give up her independence, having been married at seventeen and not having enjoyed the experience much. But gradually the Dowager Princess was induced to change her mind. She spoke no English and was slow to learn it: later in England she was to have her speeches written out for her phonetically - 'Ei hoeve tu regrett, biing aes yiett so littl conversent in thie Inglisch, lenguetsch, uitsch obleitshes miy tu seh, in averi fiu words, theat ei em mohst gretful for yor congratuleschen'¹⁴ - but she was assured she would be well received in England where her brother, Prince Leopold, had made himself well liked since his wife's death.

Chapter 2 THE PARENTS

The Duke and the Dowager Princess were married in the Schloss Ehrenburg, Coburg on the evening of 29 May 1818. The Princess's mother, the Dowager Duchess of Coburg, led them to their bedroom where she saw them the next morning 'sitting together in friendly intimacy'.¹ Soon afterwards they left for their honeymoon at Claremont Park, which had been lent to them by Prince Leopold who continued to hold the house as tenant for life in addition to his enjoyment of the use of Marlborough House in London and the remarkably generous allowance of £50,000 which the Government provided for him.

The marriage of the Duke and Duchess of Kent continued, as it had begun, in harmony. The Duchess was rather stout and no great beauty, but she was warm-hearted and affectionate and, in need of guidance and self-assurance, was ready to depend upon her much older husband in a manner that appealed to him. To the letter which the Princess had written to the Duke accepting his proposal, he had replied that he was 'nothing more than a soldier, 50 years old and after 32 years service not very fitted to captivate the heart of a young and charming Princess who is years younger'; but that he would care for her with tenderness and affection so that she might forget the difference in their ages. And so he did. 'She is really happy and contented,' the Dowager Duchess of Coburg wrote of her daughter in March the following year, 'and Kent makes an excellent husband.' 'She quite adored him,' his sister, Princess Augusta, confirmed, 'and they were truly blessed in each other.' The Duchess of Kent was by then pregnant and expecting her baby in May. Her husband was determined that the child should be born in England, so that there could be no possible grounds for denying its right to succeed to the throne; a fate which, so it was alleged, a gypsy in Gibraltar had predicted for it and of which the Duke himself protested to have no doubt, dismissing the possibility that, although the Duchess of Clarence's two babies had died, there was no reason to suppose she might not yet give birth to a child who would be nearer to the succession than his own. 'My brothers are not so strong as I am,' the Duke declared. 'I have led a regular life. I shall outlive them all. The crown will come to me and my children.'²

Yet for the moment he lacked the means to return with his wife to England for the birth. One of his friends, Joseph Hume, the radical politician, deepened his fear that the time might come when the child's legitimacy might be 'challenged, and challenged with effect, from the circumstance of the birth taking place on foreign soil.'³

In his dilemma the Duke turned to his brother, the Regent, for help. He had already been much disappointed when an ill-disposed House of Commons proved unwilling to increase the allowance paid to the royal dukes on their marriages in the manner they had hoped; a rebuff which the Duke of Wellington considered only too understandable. 'By God,' Wellington said, 'there is a great deal to be said about that. They are the damnedest millstone about the necks of any Government. They have insulted - personally insulted - two thirds of the gentlemen of England, and how can it be wondered at that they take their revenge upon them when they get them in the House of Commons? It is their only opportunity and, I think, by God! they are quite right to use it.'⁴

The Duke of Kent, who was hoping for a grant of £25,000 a year and a capital sum of £12,000, dismissed his debts with the observation that 'on the contrary the nation [was] greatly [his] debtor'; and he added in his characteristically long-winded approach to his brother that he would also need a yacht to cross the Channel, the loan of restored and redecorated apartments in Kensington Palace, the provision of meals for the Duchess and himself and their attendants on their arrival in England and, should their physician recommend sea bathing for the Duchess, the use of a house at Brighton or Weymouth.

These demands exasperated the Regent, who had never much cared for his brother and was much annoyed by his improbable friendships with such radicals as Joseph Hume and Robert Owen, the social reformer, and by his attendance at Noncomformist services. He instructed his Private Secretary, after a long delay, to turn down all the Duke's requests, with the suggestion that it would be much more sensible for the child to be born on the Continent, thus both saving money and relieving Her Royal Highness, the Duchess, from 'the dangers and fatigues of a long journey at [this] moment'. If the Duke was still bent upon returning, and succeeded in raising the money to do so, he could 'not expect to meet with a cordial reception'.⁵

Momentarily downcast, the Duke soon recovered his spirits and set about raising the money elsewhere. By the end of March, with the help of the Duke of Cambridge and of various friends, including Lord Dundas, Earl Fitzwilliam, Lord Darnley and Alderman Matthew Wood (a chemist and hop merchant in a thriving way of business who was an extreme radical Member for the City of London), he had managed to collect over £15,000; and so, on the twenty-eighth of the month, the Duke's party set off from Amorbach for Calais, with several pet dogs and songbirds, in a strange, unwieldy caravan of carriages. The Duke and Duchess led the way in a phaeton, the Duke himself driving to save the cost of a coachman. They were followed by the Duke's barouche, containing the Duchess's lady-in-waiting, Baroness Spath, and Frau Siebold, a skilled obstetrician who had qualified as a surgeon at the University of Gottingen. Then, trundling after them, came a spare, unoccupied post-chaise, followed by a second post-chaise containing the Duchess's daughter, Princess Feodora, her governess and the English maidservants. Following these were a cabriolet with two cooks, a caravan with an English manservant looking after the royal plate, a second phaeton, two gigs (one containing the Duke's valet, Mathieu, and the Duchess's footman; the other, two clerks), and lastly a curricle with the Duke's personal physician, Dr Wilson.

The weather was fine, the pace slow but steady, and the inns at which the cavalcade stopped were not intolerably uncomfortable. The travellers passed through Cologne on 5 April and a fortnight later they reached Calais where, the Regent having relented, a yacht was waiting for them to take them across the Channel. After a few days' delay at Calais caused by unfavourable winds, they sailed on the 24th for Dover and were soon installed at Kensington Palace where, after a labour lasting just over six hours, at a quarter past four in the cold morning of 24 May 1819, a baby girl was born. She was 'as plump as a partridge',⁶ and 'a model of strength and beauty combined', so her grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Coburg, was informed by the Duke, who had remained with his wife throughout her labour. 'The dear mother and child are doing marvellously well ... It is absolutely impossible for me to do justice to the patience and sweetness with which [the mother] behaved.'⁷

'My God, how glad I am to hear of you,' the Dowager Duchess responded in a letter to her daughter. 'I cannot find words to express my delight that everything went so smoothly ... I cannot write much ... dear mouse ... for I am much too happy.' She hoped the mother was not disappointed that the baby was a girl: 'The English,' she said, 'like Queens.'⁸ As for the child's father, he was to show her proudly to his friends, telling them to 'look at her well, for she will be Queen of England'.⁹

The Duke's excitement at the arrival of his little 'pocket Hercules' at Kensington was not shared by the rest of the family. According to Prince Leopold, the Prince Regent did not trouble to disguise his hope that his brother would soon clear off to Germany again, taking his wife and child with him. Certainly the Regent's behaviour at the baby's christening was far from fraternal. He announced that the ceremony must be a strictly private occasion and that it should take place on 24 June at three o'clock in the afternoon. The godparents were to be himself, Tsar Alexander, the child's grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Coburg, and the baby's aunt Charlotte, her father's sister, widow of the King of Wurttemberg. None of these, apart from the Regent, was to be present and so they were represented by the Duke of York, and two others of the baby's aunts, the unmarried Princess Augusta and Mary, Duchess of Gloucester. The only other persons to attend, apart from the parents, were the Duke of Kent's cousin, the Duke of Gloucester, the Duchess of York and Prince Leopold.

As a matter of form, the parents sent a list of names proposed for the child to the Prince Regent - Victoire (her mother's name), Georgiana (in deference to the Regent), Alexandrina (in deference to the Tsar), and Charlotte and Augusta (the names of her aunts). Nothing was heard from the Regent until the day before the christening when he wrote to say that he could not allow the name of Georgiana to be used as he did not choose to place his name before the Tsar's, 'and he could not allow it to follow'.¹⁰ He would indicate the other names at the ceremony, disapproving of Charlotte, the name of his dead daughter, and of Augusta as being too majestic.

The ceremony took place in the Cupola Room at Kensington Palace, the walls of which had been draped with crimson velvet for the occasion. In the room stood a splendid silver gilt font which had been ordered by Charles II and first used in 1688 for the christening of his nephew -Prince James Francis Edward Stuart, the 'Old Pretender'. Waiting beside it stood the Archbishop of Canterbury, Charles Manners-Sutton, a grandson of the Duke of Rutland, and the Bishop of London, William Howley, a scholarly but otherwise (in Charles Greville's opinion) 'very ordinary man' who was to succeed Manners-Sutton as Archbishop in 1828. Neither of them had any idea what the names were to be when the ceremony began and the Archbishop had the child in his arms. He looked towards the parents, then towards the Regent, for enlightenment. The Regent announced 'Alexandrina'. There was a pause. The father proposed Elizabeth. The Regent dissented, then, looking at the Duchess of Kent who had been reduced to tears, he said sharply, 'Give her the mother's name also then, but it cannot precede that of the Emperor.'¹¹ So the child was christened Alexandrina Victoria, and in her early years was generally known by the diminutive of the first name, Drina.

The Regent had not spoken to the Duke of Kent during the ceremony; nor had he seen fit to suggest that his other brother, the Duke of Sussex (with whom he was, as usual, quarrelling), should be asked to attend the ceremony, though he was then living in Kensington Palace in an apartment furnished with 50,000 books and numerous clocks. Nor did the Regent attend the dinner party which was given afterwards; nor yet did he deign to notice the Duke of Kent's presence a few weeks later at a reception given at the Spanish Embassy where he was seen actually to turn his back on him. That same month at a military review, to which the Duke and Duchess had ill-advisedly taken their baby daughter, the Regent was heard to expostulate, 'What business has that infant here?'¹²

There could be no question of the Regent coming to the help of the Duke who was once more deeply in debt, having spent with characteristic extravagance far more than he could afford on furniture and improvements for his apartments in St James's Palace, including several thousand pounds' worth of looking-glasses. He had a country house, Castle Hill at Ealing, on which equally lavish sums had been spent and which, with its furniture and land, was estimated to be worth about £70,000; but when he applied for parliamentary consent to sell the property by means of a lottery, the Leader of the House of Commons declined to consider the proposal. He then considered selling the place in lots but was advised by auctioneers to wait until the spring. So the Duke decided to move to the West Country where he and his family and household could live more modestly in a rented house and where the mother of his child might benefit from 'luke warm sea baths' and the healthy air of the Devonshire coast.

Accompanied by his equerry, John Conroy, the Duke set off for Devonshire by way of Salisbury where he caught a bad cold. He had been looking round the freezing cathedral and had called on the Bishop, John Fisher, who had been his childhood preceptor and was the uncle of Conroy's wife, Elizabeth, daughter of Major-General Benjamin Fisher. From Salisbury he sent a letter to his 'beloved and very dear wife' to whom he wrote affectionately every day.

In Devonshire the Duke and Conroy looked at various houses along the coast, none of which was satisfactory, until at Sidmouth they chanced upon a pretty house with a partly castellated roof and Gothic windows, Woolbrook Cottage, Woolbrook Glen.

The Duke decided to take it; and on Christmas Day he and his family moved in as snow covered the ground outside. For days it was dreadfully cold and wet. The Duchess and her daughter, Feodora, ventured out to take walks along the coast; but the Duke stayed indoors for most of the day, writing letters. His stomach had been upset when they first arrived and, so he complained, 'the water had already begun to play the very deuce with [his] bowels'. Then, at the beginning of January 1820 he caught another cold which became so feverish that the Duchess called in his physician, Dr Wilson, who was much concerned by his case. On the evening of the twelfth his patient complained of pains in his chest and was overcome by nausea. Soon he was delirious. The Duchess, distracted, rarely left his side. She sent an urgent request to London for Sir David Dundas, the eminent physician, to come to Sidmouth; but Dundas was in attendance on the dying King George III at Windsor. Dr William Maton, who had been Queen Charlotte's physician, came instead. His arrival was no comfort to the Duchess: he spoke little French and scarcely any German, and the Duchess's English, despite her efforts to learn the language, was not yet good enough for her to communicate with him or adequately to protest against the tormenting treatment which he, like Dr Wilson, prescribed their helpless patient.

The Duke was bled and cupped day after day; blisters were applied to his chest; then he was cupped and bled again until, as the Duchess wrote to a friend, there was 'hardly a spot on his dear body which [had] not been touched by cupping, blisters or bleeding ... I cannot think it can be good for the patient to lose so much blood when he is already so weak ... He was terribly exhausted yesterday after all that had been done to him by those cruel doctors.'¹³ Although 'half delirious' he was induced to sign a will, appending his signature to the document with the most pathetic determination before sinking back on to his pillow. He died the next morning. The Duchess, who had, she said, 'adored him', knelt beside his bed, holding his hand.¹⁴

She was now almost destitute and it was left to her brother, Prince Leopold, to come to her aid. Without his help, he later assured her daughter, Victoria, the Duchess could not possibly have remained in the country. The Regent's 'great wish was to get you and your mama out of the country,' he told her emphatically. 'And I must say without my assistance you could not have remained ... I know not what would have come of you and your mama, if I had not then existed.'¹⁵

But Prince Leopold not only existed but still had so large an income that he could well afford to take his sister and his little niece into his care. He asked the Regent's sister, Princess Mary, Duchess of Gloucester, to seek permission from her brother - who was as fond of her as she was of him - to allow the stricken widow and her daughter to return to her late husband's apartments at Kensington Palace. 'Her situation is most melancholy,' Princess Mary wrote, 'for Edward had nothing in the world but debts & now there are all his old servants without a penny piece to provide for them. She knows what your goodness of heart is & she is sure you will do what you can for them. '¹⁶ The Regent immediately gave his consent; and so the Duchess of Kent, assured of an annual allowance from Prince Leopold of £2,000, later increased to £3,000 a year, returned to Kensington Palace where they learned that the poor, blind, demented King had died at last on 29 January 1820 and the Prince Regent was now King George IV.

Chapter 3 THE CHILD

The King's little niece, Victoria, was now eight months old. She had not been well at Sidmouth, suffering from a heavy cold for most of the time; and she had been Very upset by the frightful jolting' of the carriage that brought her back to Kensington. But she was a strong child, as her father had been pleased to note of his 'little joy'; and at six months she had, in his opinion, been 'as advanced as children generally are at eight'. She had been vaccinated without ill effects and having been weaned - her mother having caused some disapproval by indelicately insisting on giving what her husband described as 'maternal nutriment' - 'she did not appear to thrive the less for the change'. The Duchess was delighted with her little 'Vickelchen', as she called her, although she had to admit that she was already showing 'symptoms of wanting to get her own little way'.

This stubbornness and independence of spirit became more pronounced as she grew older. So did her impatience, her wilfulness, outbursts of temper and defiant truthfulness. Frustrated, she would stamp her feet and would burst into tears when told to sit still or to pay closer attention during her reading lessons; and once, in a tantrum, she hurled a pair of scissors at her governess. Before her lessons began one day, her mother was asked if she had been a good girl that morning. 'Yes,' the Duchess replied, 'she has been good this morning but yesterday there was a little storm.' 'Two storms,' corrected the little girl, pertly interrupting her mother's account, intent as always on speaking and hearing the truth, 'one at dressing and one at washing.' She was similarly pert when her mother said to her, after one of her outbursts of temper, that she made them both very unhappy by such behaviour. 'No, Mama, not me, not myself, but you.'¹

The Duchess's nervous temperament was not well adapted to dealing with such a child. 'To my shame,' she admitted, 'I must confess that I am over anxious in a childish way with the little one, as if she were my first child ... She drives me at times into real desperation ... Today the little mouse ... was so unmanageable that I nearly cried.'

Wilful as she was, however, the little girl, intelligent and lively and with an astonishingly retentive memory, progressed satisfactorily with her lessons when these began to a regular timetable supervised by her Principal Master, the Revd George Davys, a Fellow of Christ's College, Cambridge, later Bishop of Peterborough. Davys came to live in Kensington Palace before the Princess was four years old. He helped to teach her to read by writing short words on cards and, as he put it, 'making her bring them to me from a distant part of the room as I named them'.² Admittedly, she was not very good at Latin, and piano lessons were often a trial: once, when told that there was 'no royal road to success in music' and that she must practise like everyone else, she banged shut the lid of the instrument with the defiant words, 'There! You see there is no must about it.' But she was patient and attentive in her history and geography lessons; she learned to speak French and German - the latter in particular with a 'correct pronunciation' - and a little Italian.[i] She soon became adept at arithmetic; her written English was exemplary and her soprano singing voice, trained by John Sale, the organist at St Margaret's Westminster, was delightful. She danced with easy grace, she listened dutifully to Mr Davys's religious instruction, she read poetry 'extremely well', he said, and understood what she read 'as well, as at her age, could reasonably be expected'. She displayed a precocious skill in drawing at which she was given lessons by Richard Westall, the prolific historical painter and book illustrator, and later, by Edwin Landseer, Edward Lear and William Leighton Leitch, the distinguished watercolourist.³

In March 1830, when the Princess was ten years old, the Duchess decided that her daughter should be examined to ensure that her education was proceeding along the correct lines. The two invigilators chosen were Charles Blomfield, Bishop of London, described by Richard Porson, Regius Professor of Greek at Cambridge, as a 'very pretty scholar', and John Kaye, Bishop of Lincoln, who had been elected Master of Christ's College, Cambridge at the age of thirty and Regius Professor of Divinity two years later.

Having examined the Princess, these two eminent scholars expressed themselves as being 'completely satisfied' with her answers.

In answering a great variety of questions [they reported] the Princess displayed an accurate knowledge of the most important features of Scripture, History and of the leading truths and precepts of the Christian Religion as taught by the Church of England; as well as an acquaintance with the Chronology and principal facts of English History, remarkable in so young a person. To questions of Geography, the use of Globes, Arithmetic and Latin Grammar, the answers which the Princess returned were equally satisfactory, and Her pronunciation both of English and Latin is singularly correct and pleasing. Due attention appears to have been paid to the acquisition of modern languages; and although it was less within the scope of our enquiry, we cannot help observing that the pencil drawings of the Princess are executed with the freedom and correctness of an older child.4

In later years she spoke of her childhood as being lonely and 'rather melancholy' and Kensington Palace as being bleak in the extreme. 'I never had a room to myself,' she complained. 'I never had a sofa, nor an easy chair, and there was not a single carpet that was not threadbare.' The food was boring and unappetizing: she promised herself that when she was grown up and could eat as she liked, she would never have mutton for dinner again. Yet the events of her early life as she recorded them were far from being all unhappy ones. Certainly there were recollections of bogeymen: she had 'a great horror of Bishops' with their strange wigs and incongruous aprons and of the Duke of Sussex, 'Uncle Sussex', who, she was told, would appear from his nearby rooms in the Palace and punish her when she cried and was naughty. She remembered screaming when she saw him.⁵ But she was fond of her father's old preceptor, the kindly John Fisher, Bishop of Salisbury, who used to kneel down beside her and let her play with the badge he wore as Chancellor of the Order of the Garter; and she was fond, too, of her uncle, the childless Duke of York, who was very fat and very bald and held himself in such a way that it always seemed as though he would tumble over backwards. He was 'very kind' to her and gave her 'beautiful presents' including a donkey, and once he presided over a memorable party for her at the house of a friend where there was a Punch and Judy show.⁶ As for her uncle, King George IV, he paid little attention to her when she was taken by her mother to see him at Carlton House; but one day while she was staying near Windsor with her aunt, the Duchess of Gloucester, at Cumberland Lodge, she was driven over to see the King at the Royal Lodge and found him in one of his happier moods. 'Give me your little paw,' he said, affectionately taking the hand of the seven-year-old child in his, and then pulled her on to his stout knee so that she could kiss him. It was 'too disgusting', she recalled more than half a century later, 'because his face was covered with grease-paint'. But at the time she had responded to his 'wonderful dignity and charm of manner': he never lost his way of pleasing young children. 'He wore the wig which was so much worn in those days,' she remembered clearly. 'Then he said he would give me something to wear, and that was his picture set in diamonds, which was worn by the Princesses as an order to a blue ribbon on the left shoulder. I was very proud of this - and Lady Conyngham [the King's plump and stately intimate friend, supposedly his mistress] pinned it on my shoulder.'⁷

Next day, while she was out walking with her mother, the King, who was driving along in his phaeton with the Duchess of Gloucester, overtook her. As his horses were brought to a halt, the King called out cheerfully, 'Pop her in!' So she was lifted up and placed between him and her aunt Mary, who held her round the waist as the horses trotted off. She was 'greatly pleased', though her mother appeared 'much frightened', fearful that her daughter would either fall out on the road or be kidnapped.

The King drove her 'round the nicest part of Virginia Water' and stopped at the Fishing Temple. Here 'there was a large barge and everyone went on board and fished, while a band played in another!' Afterwards he had his little niece conducted around his menagerie at Sandpit Gate where she inspected his wapitis, his chamois and his gazelles.

In the evenings, while staying at Cumberland Lodge, Princess Victoria was invited to watch the Tyrolese dancers creating a 'gay uproar' or listen to 'Uncle King's' band playing in the conservatory at the Royal Lodge by the light of coloured lamps. He asked her what tune she would like the band to play next. With precocious tact she immediately asked for 'God save the King!' 'Tell me,' he asked her later, 'what you enjoyed most of your visit?' 'The drive with you,' she said. He was clearly very much taken with her.⁸

As the Duke of Wellington's friend, Lady Shelley, said, she paid her court extremely well. When giving the King a bunch of flowers, she said, 'As I shall not see my dear uncle on his birthday I wish to give him this nosegay now'; and when wishing him goodbye she said with appealing if rather affected gravity, 'I am coming to bid you adieu, sire, but as I know you do not like fine speeches I shall certainly not trouble you by attempting one.'⁹ Upon her return home she was most anxious that her mother should send 'her best love and duty to her "dear Uncle King"'.¹⁰

Although she remembered with pleasure her days at Windsor, the Princess enjoyed her visits to her uncle Leopold's house, Claremont, even more. So much did she enjoy these visits, indeed, that she cried when it was time to go back to Kensington. She remembered being allowed to listen to the music in the hall at Claremont when there were dinner parties there and being petted by Mrs Louis, Princess Charlotte's devoted former dresser. She was petted, too, by her own nurse, Mrs Brock, 'dear Boppy', and by her mother's lady-in-waiting, Baroness Spath, who had accompanied the Duchess from Germany. Indeed, Baroness Spath, so Princess Feodora said, idolized the child and would actually go on her knees before her.¹¹

Very different was the behaviour of the Princess's governess, Louise Lehzen, a handsome woman, despite her pointed nose and chin, clever, emotional, humourless and suffering intermittently from a variety of complaints, mostly psychosomatic, including cramp, headaches and migraine. She claimed that she did not know what it was like to feel hungry: all 'she fancied were potatoes';¹² but she was forever chewing caraway seeds for indigestion, a habit which some maliciously attributed to a need to hide the alcohol on her breath.

In her mid-thirties at the time of her appointment, she was the youngest child of a Lutheran pastor from a village in Hanover. She was 'very strict', her former charge said of her in later years, 'and the Princess had great respect and even awe of her, but with that the greatest affection ... She knew how to amuse and play with the Princess so as to gain her warmest affections. The Princess was her only object and her only thought... She never for the 13 years she was governess to Princess Victoria, once left her.'¹³

At night she stayed in the bedroom which the Princess shared with her mother until the Duchess retired; and in the morning, when the child was being dressed by Mrs Brock, she read to her so that the little girl would not get into the habit of talking indiscreetly to servants.

Yet Louise Lehzen's influence over Princess Victoria was not entirely beneficial, for the governess had her prejudices and these she implanted in her charge's mind. She encouraged the child to distrust her mother and her mother's friends and to tell people when they were wrong and 'to set them down'.¹⁴

If Princess Victoria's early childhood was not quite as melancholy as she afterwards decided when looking back upon it, it was - and was encouraged by Lehzen to be - certainly a lonely one. She was brought up in an adult world, rarely seeing children of her own age. 'Except for occasional visits of other children,' she said herself in later life, she 'lived always alone, without companions'. She was devoted to her half-sister, Princess Feodora, but Feodora, a pretty, attractive girl, was twelve years older than herself and longing to escape from Kensington where, so she claimed, her 'only happy time was driving out' with Princess Victoria and Louise Lehzen when she could speak and look as she liked. In February 1828, when Princess Victoria was nine, Princess Feodora did escape, her only regret being her separation from her 'dearest sister' of whom she so often thought and longed to see again.[ii]¹⁵

Having married the impoverished, 32-year-old Prince Ernest Christian Charles of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Princess Feodora went away with him to the enormous, uncomfortable Schloss Langenburg, leaving Princess Victoria to comfort herself with her dolls (one hundred and thirty-two of them - little wooden, painted mannequins made by herself and Lehzen and dressed as historical personages and characters from the theatre and opera, all of them listed in a copybook).¹⁶

Her mother had been lonely too. Having overcome the first shock of her husband's death, she had struck the few people with whom she came into close contact as being, in Lady Granville's words, 'very pleasing indeed', friendly and approachable.

But she herself, as she said, felt 'friendless and alone' in a country that was not her own, endeavouring to speak a language which she had not yet mastered, being, as she said with not altogether sincere self-denigration, 'just an old goose'.¹⁷

She was well aware that, as a German, she was not well liked in the country at large and, as the widow of the Duke of Kent and mother of Princess Victoria, much resented by the Duke of Clarence, heir to the throne after the death of his elder brother, the Duke of York, in 1827. Nor did King George IV care for her.

When the Prime Minister had suggested to the King that some provision ought to be made for his sister-in-law's child, the fatherless Princess Victoria, the King declared that he would not consider it: her uncle Leopold was quite rich enough to take care of her as well as her mother. The Duchess accordingly had to borrow £6,000 from Thomas Coutts, the banker.¹⁸ Later, however, the Government came to her aid by proposing an allowance of £4,000 a year; but, since a grant of £6,000 was at the same time proposed for Princess Victoria's cousin, Prince George of Cumberland, son of the deeply distrusted and malignant Duke of Cumberland, she refused to consider the proposal. The offer to the Duchess was then raised to £6,000 and she accepted it.

At the same time, Prince Leopold assured her that he would be happy to continue the allowance he made her of £3,000 a year. She was at first reluctant to accept this; but being still heavily in debt she eventually agreed to it, even though she was finding her brother increasingly and tiresomely irritating and, as she put it, 'rather slow in the uptake and in making decisions' as well as annoyingly preoccupied.

Prince Leopold had, indeed, other matters on his mind, not to mention sexual desires to gratify. After pursuing a succession of other women, he had fallen in love with a German actress who, looking 'wondrously like' his departed Charlotte, was brought over to England and ensconced alternately in a house in Regent's Park and a 'lonely desolate and mournful' little house in the grounds of Claremont Park where he spent his time either gazing at her longingly while she read aloud to him or picking the silver from military epaulettes to make into a soup tureen.¹⁹

He had also become involved in negotiations for his elevation to a European throne. He had been offered the throne of Greece in 1830 after that country had secured its freedom from Turkish rule and, having declined to become King of Greece, he agreed two years later, after typical hesitation, to be crowned King of the Belgians once Belgium had secured its independence from the King of Holland. The next year he married Princess Louise, the daughter of Louis-Philippe, King of the French.

Before leaving for Brussels he volunteered to give up the grant of £50,000 a year he had received upon his marriage to Princess Charlotte but this gesture, gratefully accepted, was less well regarded when he announced that some £20,000 would have to be retained for various expenses, including the upkeep of Claremont.

Princess Victoria was very sad to have to say goodbye to her uncle. He had done his best to take the place of the father she had never known. Ponderous and, on occasions, exasperating as he could be, she loved him and admired him greatly. 'To hear dear Uncle Leopold speak on any subject,' she said, 'is like reading a highly instructive book.'²⁰ He was the first of those several older men upon whom, throughout her life, she was to rely for help and reassurance. But her mother bore her brother's departure for the Continent far more equably than she would have done at the time of her arrival in England. For the need she had always felt for support, protection and comforting advice had been met by her late husband's beguiling equerry, John Conroy.

Chapter 4 CONROY

Prince Leopold described John Conroy as a 'Mephistopheles'; but the Prince's sister, the Duchess of Kent, did not know what she would do without him. He had been a 'dear devoted friend' of the Duke, she said, and he had not deserted the widow, doing all he could to help her by dealing with her affairs, financial and otherwise. Whereas Leopold was cautious and deliberate, inclined to see difficulties before advantages, Conroy exuded a confidence which the Duchess, comforted by positive men, found reassuring.

Although of Irish descent, with forbears who were proud to trace their lineage back to a royal chieftain of the early fifth century, Conroy had been born in Wales in 1786. He had obtained a commission in the Royal Artillery when he was seventeen and had been transferred to the Horse Artillery two years later. But thereafter he had not progressed as well in the Army as he considered his talents deserved, despite his marriage to a General's daughter, the rather nondescript, indolent niece of the Duke of Kent's friend, Bishop Fisher, by whom he was to have six children. He had not served in either the Peninsular War or the Waterloo campaign; and the Duke of Kent's attempts to find him a suitable staff appointment had not been successful. He had entered the Duke's household as equerry in 1817; and the death of the Duke three years later had given him the opportunity to worm his way into a position far more rewarding and influential than he could have hoped for in the Army.

The same age as the Duchess, he was a good-looking man of insinuating charm, tall, imposing, vain, clever, unscrupulous, plausible and of limitless ambition. Overbearing with those whom he sought to dominate, he was both short-tempered and devious. Charles Greville, the diarist and Clerk of the Privy Council, dismissed him as 'a ridiculous fellow'.¹ Conroy immediately recognized that by exerting a compelling influence over the susceptible and self-doubting Duchess of Kent, by isolating her household at Kensington from outside contacts and interference, he might be able to exercise unbounded control over her bright, spirited, affectionate and popular but obstinate and 'naturally passionate' child.

At the same time, Conroy made up his mind to win the confidence of King George IV's sister, Princess Sophia, who had apartments at Kensington Palace. She was nine years older than himself. Cloistered at Windsor in her father's lifetime, in what she and her sisters referred to as 'the nunnery', she had fallen in love with one of her father's equerries, General Garth, and had secretly borne him a child. Conroy had little difficulty in charming the impressionable and mentally rather unstable woman whose considerable finances he controlled, and with the help of whose liberality he was able to acquire a house in Kensington for £4,000 as well as a country house near Reading, Aborfield Hall, and an estate in Wales for £18,ooo.² Princess Sophia - whose generosity was said to be at least partly owing to Conroy's skill in dealing with the 'bullying importunities' of her illegitimate son, Captain Garth³ - having appointed Conroy her unofficial Comptroller, was induced to apply to her brother, the King, for suitable ranks to be bestowed upon the Duchess of Kent's household. The King, who was fond of his adoring sisters, responded promptly: Louise Lehzen was created a Hanoverian baroness by His Majesty in his right as King of Hanover, while Conroy was created a Knight Commander of the Hanoverian Order.

Sir John Conroy, while so successfully beguiling both the Duchess of Kent and Princess Sophia, failed lamentably in his efforts to win the confidence of Princess Victoria whom he treated with that kind of bullying jocularity which children find so offensive. He told her she reminded him of the Duke of Gloucester, one of the least well-favoured members of her family; he said her economical habits, including the saving of her pocket money, must have been inherited from her parsimonious grandmother, Queen Charlotte; he teased her in the naive belief that she would be amused by his facetiousness rather than offended by what she described as 'personal affronts'. She grew to hate him. The Duke of Wellington believed that this hatred sprang from her having witnessed 'some familiarities' between her mother and Conroy; and when Charles Creevey remarked to the Duke that he 'concluded he was her lover', the Duke replied that he also 'supposed so'.⁴ In later life Victoria strongly denied that her mother and Conroy could have been lovers, and she was no doubt right to disbelieve that they were; but her detestation of Conroy was nonetheless virulent and the Duchess's fond feelings for her Comptroller soured the feelings between mother and daughter. So too did they sour the friendly feelings which the Princess had earlier felt for Conroy's daughter, Victoire, a rather dull girl, and one of the few children of her own age with whom Victoria was allowed to associate.

Having established his position at Kensington, Sir John Conroy -who did not now trouble to conceal his occasional irritation with the Duchess who, so he said, lived 'in a mist' - set about what became known as 'the Kensington System', a process by which, in Conroy's words, Princess Victoria would become the 'Nation's Hope', the 'People's Queen'.⁵ This entailed ensuring that the child became completely dependent upon her mother who - should the girl's uncle, the Duke of Clarence, die before she came of age at eighteen - would become Regent. In the meantime, there must be no risk of anyone beyond the Kensington household gaining any influence over the Princess. She must continue to sleep in her mother's room; she must never be left alone in any other room; when going downstairs she must be accompanied by an adult to hold her hand; she must never have the opportunity of talking to a visitor unless a third person were present. She must be strictly shielded from anyone who might endeavour to gain her confidence; furthermore, she must be separated from other members of the Royal Family, in particular from her uncle, the wicked Duke of Cumberland, who, so Conroy liked it to be supposed, as an additional reason for keeping her isolated, was quite capable of having her poisoned or otherwise disposed of so that he could succeed to his brother's throne.

Well aware of the system being adopted at Kensington, the Duchess of Clarence wrote to her sister-in-law to advise her against a policy which was attributed - 'rightly or wrongly', she could not judge - to Sir John Conroy, 'a man of merit' but one whose family was 'not of so high a rank that they alone should be the entourage and companions of the future Queen of England'. She must not allow Conroy to exercise 'too much influence over her but keep him in his place'. The Duchess of Kent, a willing accomplice in the 'system', paid no attention.⁶

As well as being separated from the Royal Family, the Princess must also be shielded from any English lady who might have undesirable connections and friends; and Baroness Lehzen, being German, and 'entirely dependent' upon the Duchess, happily had none of these. The Princess must also, like her mother, 'acquire popularity and a wide following', clearly distinguishing her from all her dissolute relations.

Fortunately, though little was known about her, the glimpses which the public were permitted to see had already created a favourable impression of Princess Victoria. She had been seen riding her white donkey in Kensington Gardens with 'an old soldier, a former retainer of her father's, leading her bridle rein', 'riding in a pony chaise over the gravel walks, led by a page', and walking along the paths there followed by a very tall footman looking like 'a gigantic fairy'.⁷ Lord Albemarle, a member of the Duke of Sussex's household, had watched from a window of the Palace 'a bright, pretty little girl' in a large white hat 'impartially' dividing the contents of a watering can 'between the flowers and her own little feet'.⁸ Charles Knight, the publisher, also caught a glimpse of her one day having breakfast with her mother on the lawn outside Kensington Palace and running off to pick a flower in the adjoining meadow. 'I passed on,' Knight wrote, 'and blessed her.'⁹

Charles Greville saw her at a children's ball, given by the King and attended by the ten-year-old Queen of Portugal, and he thought that 'our little Princess' was a 'short, vulgar-looking child, and not near so good-looking as the Portuguese'.¹⁰ But this was not a characteristic verdict. Most of those few people who came across her were more likely to share the opinion of Lady Wharncliffe, who was invited to dinner at Kensington where the Princess was occasionally allowed down from her bedroom to sit at the table, eating her 'bread and milk out of a small silver basin'. Lady Wharncliffe was delighted with 'our little future Queen'.

She is very much grown, though short for her age [she wrote],has a nice countenance and distingue figure, tho' not very good; and her manner the most perfect mixture of childishness and civility I ever saw. She is born a Princess without the least appearance of art or affectation ... When she went to bed we all stood up and after kissing Aunt Sophia, she curtsied, first to one side, and then the other, to all the Ladies, and then walked off with her governess. She is really very accomplished by taste, being very fond both of music and drawing, but fondest of all of her dolls. In short I look to her to save us from Democracy, for it is impossible she should not be popular when she is older and more seen.11

The Duke of Wellington's friend, Harriet Arbuthnot, was equally taken with the little girl, 'the most charming child' she ever saw. 'She is a fine, beautifully made, handsome creature,' Mrs Arbuthnot continued, 'quite playful & childish [she was nearly nine], playing with her dolls and in high spirits, but civil & well bred & Princess-like to the greatest degree.'¹² She was graceful in her movements and walked with a regal air, an accomplishment attributed to her having had to submit on occasions to a bunch of prickly holly pinned to the front of her dress to keep her head up.

It was not until she was nearly eleven years old that the Princess learned how near she was to the throne. Of course, she knew that she was an honoured little personage. Servants behaved to her with noticeable deference; when she was out walking, gentlemen touched or raised their hats to her. She herself once told a child who put a hand out to play with her toys, 'You must not touch those, they are mine. And I may call you Jane but you must not call me Victoria.' According to Baroness Lehzen, a few days after her charge had been cross-examined by the Bishops of London and Lincoln, and having discussed the matter with the Duchess of Kent, the Baroness placed a genealogical table into one of the Princess's history books. 'I never saw that before,' Victoria said; and, after examining the table, she commented, 'I see I am nearer to the throne than I thought. '¹³ She then burst into tears. Lehzen reminded her that Aunt Adelaide was still young and might yet have children and, of course, if she did, it was they who would ascend the throne after their father died.

A few weeks later, on 26 June 1830, King George IV died at Windsor Castle and the short reign of King William IV began.

Chapter 5 PROGRESSES

When she was two years old, Princess Victoria had received a letter from her 'truly affectionate Aunt', the Duchess of Clarence, in which the Duchess referred to her as 'my dear little Heart'; and, when she lost her second baby daughter, she wrote to the Duchess of Kent to say 'My children are dead, but yours lives and She is mine too.'¹

A good-natured, unselfish and religious woman, almost thirty years younger than her husband, she was quite sincere in expressing these sentiments, and upon his accession to the throne she was as kind to her little niece as ever, doing all she could to persuade her guardians at Kensington to allow her to appear at Court. Her husband also strongly expressed his wish to see her there.

On becoming King, William, as good-natured as his wife, 'began immediately to do good-natured things'. He clearly loved being a king; and, excited by his rank, he strode about the London streets, nodding cheerfully to right and left, relishing his popularity. Expressing a general opinion, Charles Greville said that he was 'a kind-hearted, well-meaning ... bustling old fellow [sixty-five years of age] and, if he doesn't go mad, may make a very decent King.' Contrasting his gregarious familiarity with the seclusion in which his predecessor had chosen to spend the last years of his life, the Duke of Wellington, the Prime Minister, told Dorothea Lieven that this was not so much a new reign; it was 'a new dynasty'. At Kensington Palace, however, the new reign had no effect whatsoever upon the 'system' practised there. Sir John Conroy remained as the Duchess of Kent's Comptroller, organizing the household and all the particularities of its life, telling the Duchess to report to him upon 'everything' that happened to the Princess down to the 'smallest and insignificant detail'. As soon as he heard of King George IV's death, Conroy wrote a letter which, signed by the Duchess, was sent to the Duke of Wellington for onward transmission to King William IV. This letter, referring to Princess Victoria as now being 'more than Heiress Presumptive' to the throne, required the appointment of the Duchess as Regent 'without any interference whatsoever'. It also required the appointment of an English lady of rank to be appointed governess to the Princess, superseding Baroness Lehzen, and requested the recognition of the Duchess as Dowager Princess of Wales with an increased allowance for her in her new position in the kingdom.

Dismayed by both the tone and the contents of this importunate letter, Wellington replied that he earnestly entreated her Royal Highness to allow him to consider it as 'a Private and Confidential Communication; or rather as never having been written'.² Angered by this rebuff, the Duchess, advised by Conroy, immediately returned a sharp reply, contending that she would find it irksome to be Regent but that she owed it to her conscience for her daughter's sake to undertake the duty. Wellington answered her letter in a mollifying tone but thought it as well to offer a guarded warning by urging her Royal Highness 'not to allow any Person' to persuade her to entertain the idea that there was any 'Party or Individual of influence in the Country' who wished to injure the interests of the Duchess and her daughter. Deeply offended by this reference to her Comptroller, the Duchess declined to see the Duke when he proposed to bring her a draft of a Regency Bill, telling him to communicate with Sir John Conroy, and refusing to talk to him for 'a long time after'.³ The Regency Bill, introduced by the Lord Chancellor in Lord Grey's government which succeeded Wellington's in November 1830, did, however, provide for her appointment as sole Regent in the event of King William dying before her daughter reached the age of eighteen, the House of Commons recoiling in horror from the thought that the dreadful Duke of Cumberland might otherwise lay claim to share the appointment with her. When she was told of Parliament's decision, the Duchess, reduced to tears, said that it gave her more pleasure than anything else had done since the death of her husband.⁴

Yet the settlement of the Regency question, and the appointment of the Duchess of Northumberland as the Princess's English Governess, did nothing to improve relations between the Duchess of Kent and the Court which were also soured not only by the Duchess's attitude towards the King's illegitimate children but also by political differences; the King and Queen Adelaide both being strong Tories and known to be opposed to the Reform Bill which Lord Grey was endeavouring to push through Parliament; the Duchess of Kent, following her late husband's example, being as committed a Whig, and welcoming Whigs and reformers to Kensington Palace.

The family quarrel was exacerbated when the King proposed that the Princess's name of Victoria should be changed for an English one. Since Victoria had been named after herself, the Duchess naturally was upset by this request; but since the two names, Alexandrina and Victoria, her daughter bore had not been chosen by her but had been forced upon her by the late King, and since she was ready to concede that both, being foreign, were 'not suited to our national feeling', she agreed that they might be 'laid aside'. Soon afterwards, however, she changed her mind and much annoyed the King, who, persisting in his objection to Victoria as a name 'never known heretofore as a Christian name in this country', proposed Elizabeth instead. The Duchess declined to consider it.⁵

Then there was trouble over Princess Victoria's appearances at Court, which the King and Queen wished were more frequent and which the Duchess and Conroy wanted to be 'as few as possible'.[iii]

One reason which the Duchess persistently gave for keeping her daughter away from Court as much as possible was the presence of the King's bastard children, the FitzClarences, who moved into Windsor Castle, one after the other, until it was 'quite full with toute la bdtardise'.⁶ Queen Adelaide raised no objection at all to this, but not so the Duchess of Kent. She insisted that nothing would induce her to allow her daughter to mix freely with the offspring of such a shameful relationship. 'I never did, neither will I ever, associate Victoria in any way with the illegitimate members of the Royal Family,' she told the Duchess of Northumberland. 'Did I not keep this line, how would it be possible to teach Victoria the difference between vice and virtue?'⁷

Quarrels over Princess Victoria's attendances at Court were followed by a dispute over the Princess's style as Royal Highness, the word Royal having been omitted in a message to Parliament from the King concerning a proposed increased allowance of £6,000 for the Duchess. Then there was trouble over the Princess's precedence at the coronation, the King declaring that she must follow his brothers in the procession through Westminster Abbey, the Duchess insisting that she follow immediately after the King. When the King stood firm, the Duchess declared that, in that case, the Princess would not attend the coronation at all - maintaining that she could not afford the expense and that, in any case, the child's health made her attendance out of the question. The Princess, who had not been consulted, cried bitterly. 'Nothing could console me,' she said, 'not even my dolls.'⁸ She would have loved to go, she said: it would have been a special treat like her rare visits to Windsor, even though, being well aware of how much her mother disapproved of them, she was sometimes so nervous in the King's presence on these visits that he once complained of her stony stares. 'I was very much pleased there,' she wrote of one such visit, 'as both my Uncle and Aunt are so very kind to me.' She felt nothing but 'affectionate gratitude' to the King whose wish it was that 'she should be duly prepared for the duties' which she was destined to perform.⁹

Kept apart from the King and Queen for months on end, with her uncle Leopold preoccupied with affairs in Belgium and with her half-sister, Feodora, now living in Germany, the Princess was more and more isolated at Kensington where she felt increasingly defenceless against the rule of Conroy so unquestioningly supported by her mother. Baroness Spath, who had presumed to question the 'Kensington System' and was believed to indulge the Princess unduly, had been dismissed after having been in the Duchess's service for a quarter of a century. It was decided that the time would also soon come to get rid of the Duchess of Northumberland who was not sufficiently subservient to Conroy's rule. At the same time an extra lady-in-waiting was appointed to the Duchess of Kent's household in the person of Lady Flora Hastings, daughter of the first Marquess of Hastings.

In the meantime steps were being taken to bring about the removal, or at least to lessen the influence, of Baroness Lehzen who was treated so rudely that it was hoped she would resign. This merely resulted in Princess Victoria becoming more attached than ever to Lehzen. 'I can never sufficiently repay her for all she has borne and done for me,' she wrote. 'She is the most affectionate, devoted, attached and disinterested friend that I have.' She was, the Princess added later, 'my ANGELIC dearest mother Lehzen, who I do so love'. It could not but give grim satisfaction to the Princess, as well as embarrass her, when the King, who warmly supported Lehzen, dismissed Conroy from the Chapel Royal -where his niece, looking so demure in a white lace dress and rose-trimmed bonnet, was about to be confirmed - on the grounds that the Duchess's retinue was too large. Upon her return to the Palace, upset as much by the Archbishop of Canterbury's admonitory sermon as by the stuffiness of the Chapel on that hot July day and by her mother's anger at the King's behaviour, she burst into tears.

On this day, 30 July 1835, Princess Victoria received a firm letter from her mother telling her that her relationship with Lehzen must now change: the Baroness was to be treated with more formality, less intimate affection. Dignity and friendly manners were 'quite compatible'. 'Until you are at the age of 18 or 21 years,' the Duchess added, 'you are still confided to the guidance of your affectionate mother and friend. '¹⁰

Nothing about the Duchess of Kent's behaviour exasperated King William more than what he termed the 'Royal Progresses' upon which she and Conroy took Princess Victoria so as to make her better known to the people over whom she was destined to rule and to introduce her to the leading families in the counties through which she passed.

The first of these journeys was undertaken in the summer and autumn of 1830 when the Duchess and Sir John Conroy and, as an unwanted companion for the Princess, Conroy's daughter Victoire, drove to Holly-mount in the Malvern hills, calling on the way at Stratford-on-Avon, Kenilworth and Warwick, and paying a visit to the Duke and Duchess of Marlborough at Blenheim Palace. They also went to Earl Beauchamp's house, Madresfield Court, Malvern and to the Duke of Beaufort's Badmin ton House. They visited Hereford, Gloucester and Stonehenge; at Bath on 23 October the Princess opened the Royal Victoria Park; at Worcester she was taken round the porcelain works.

There was another tour two years later when, in the summer of 1832, the Princess and her incompatible entourage set off for north Wales by way of the Midland counties. With the utmost annoyance, the King read of these 'disgusting parades', of the vociferous welcome accorded to his niece, of the bands and choirs, of the loyal addresses delivered and graciously accepted, the decorated triumphal arches, the salutes of cannon from the walls of castles, the flags and flowers, the cheering crowds, the escorts of regiments of yeomanry, the presentation of medals. Drawn by grey horses, caparisoned with ribbons and artificial flowers, the post-boys wearing conspicuous pink silk jackets and black hats, the royal party - 'the Conroyal party' as the disapproving called it - passed through Welshpool to Powis Castle and Caernarvon, then on to Plas Newydd on the island of Anglesey, home of the first Marquess of Anglesey, the one-legged cavalry commander, who had offered them the use of it. They returned by way of Eaton Hall in Cheshire, home of Lord Grosvenor, calling at Chester, where the Princess opened the Victoria Bridge spanning the river Dee, on their way to the Devonshires at Chatsworth where the Princess played her first game of charades and enjoyed her first tableaux vivants.

From Chatsworth they drove to the Earl of Shrewsbury at Alton Towers and then to Pitchford in Lancashire, seat of the Earl of Liverpool, half-brother of the former Prime Minister, whose daughter, Lady Catherine Jenkinson, a young woman of whom the Princess was fond, had been appointed lady-in-waiting to the Duchess of Kent two years before.

In November the royal party reached Oxford where, in the Sheldonian Theatre, to which they were escorted by a troop of yeomanry commanded by Lord Churchill, the Princess was obliged to watch the honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law being awarded to Sir John Conroy and to listen to the speech of the Regius Professor of Civil Law who, having referred to the 'singular prudence' and 'much industry' with which Sir John had carried out his duties for the Duke of Kent, declared, 'Can you wonder that he who had gained the esteem of the Husband, should also have pleased His surviving Consort.'¹¹

Despite the presence of Sir John and his daughter, the Princess had enjoyed the tour, the drives in the carriage, the rides at 'dear Plas Newydd' where her horse, Rosa, had taken her across the fields at an 'enormous rate. She literally flew.'¹²

The Princess had kept a journal of their travels as her mother had told her to do. The earlier entries were most precisely dated and, since both the Duchess and Lehzen read them, rather stilted in style and matter of fact in content, not to say boring:

Wednesday, August 1st 1832. We left Kensington Palace at 6 minutes past 7 and went through the lower-field gate to the right. We went on and turned to the left by the new road to Regent's Park. The road and scenery is beautiful. 20 minutes to 9. We have just changed horses at Barnet, a very pretty little town. 5 minutes past half past nine. We have just changed horses at St Albans...13

It was not until she was free to do so that she wrote from the heart and made full use of her powers of acute observation and a Boswellian ability to recall a conversation, the details of a man's appearance, a woman's dress. Even now, however, her writing was graphic when her imagination was aroused as it was, for instance, in her description of the mining districts of the Midlands, her first experience of such sights, such pitiable poverty which, in later years, she was rarely to witness again:

The men, women, children, country and houses are all black [she wrote] ... The country is very desolate Every Where ... The grass is quite blasted and black. Just now I saw an extraordinary building flaming with fire. The country continues black, engines flaming, coals, in abundance, everywhere smoking and burning coal heaps, intermingled with wretched huts and carts and little ragged children.14

What a contrast these dark scenes were with country towns, with her reception elsewhere, in other places where, as at Oxford, her party 'were most WARMLY and ENTHUSIASTICALLY received!¹⁵

The King read the reports of his niece's enthusiastic welcome with mounting annoyance and serious concern: the Princess was being presented, not so much as his rightful successor, as his rival, a friend of the people who, as the daughter of committed Whigs, was presumed to be in favour of the Reform Bill to which the Tory King and Queen were opposed.

So, when in 1833 the Princess was taken on another tour, this time to the south and west of England, the King decided to curb so far as he could the 'disgusting' excesses of these 'Royal Progresses' by putting an end to what he called the 'pop pop' of naval salutes whenever the Duchess, her daughter and their entourage sailed by one of His Majesty's vessels.

The Duchess was informed that since she was sailing for her own pleasure she must no longer expect to be saluted by any of the King's ships. Sir John Conroy replied that 'as H.R.H.'s confidential adviser he could not recommend her to give way on this point.¹⁶ So the King called a meeting of the Privy Council and issued an order requiring salutes to be given only for ships in which the King or Queen happened to be sailing.

Yet while the King was able to silence the naval 'pop pops', he could do little to prevent the unseemly excitement of the welcome accorded to his sister-in-law and niece on land; and reports of the 'progress' of 1833 were quite as irritating as those of previous years. On this occasion the royal party went to stay at Norris Castle on the Isle of Wight and at the beginning of August were sailing in the Emerald, tender of the royal yacht, the Royal George, when the ship ran foul of a hulk and broke her mast. The Princess was full of praise for the sailor in command of the Emerald who picked up her precious King Charles Spaniel, 'dear sweet, little Dash', and kept him 'under his arm the whole time, but never let him drop in all the danger'.¹⁷

That summer the Princess went to Portsmouth where she inspected Nelson's flagship, the Victory, and tasted some 'excellent' beef, potatoes and grog as a sample of the sailors' rations.¹⁸ The Emerald anchored off Plymouth so that she could present new colours to the 89th Regiment; she was taken over the Eddystone lighthouse; she visited Torquay and Weymouth and Exeter; and she was driven in an open carriage, escorted by the Dorsetshire Yeomanry, to stay at Melbury House, Lord Ilchester's house near Dorchester.

No sooner had the disagreement about naval salutes been settled than there was further trouble over the provision of a country house for the Duchess of Kent and her daughter. The Duchess wrote to the Prime Minister asking for one. The King offered her Kew Palace for that summer. The Duchess did not want a house just for that summer but a permanent country residence; besides she had made arrangements to go to Tunbridge Wells in the summer. Well then, she might have Kew Palace on a more permanent basis. The Duchess went to see it. She did not like it: it was 'very inadequate in accommodation and almost destitute of furniture'.¹⁹ The King replied that Kew had been considered perfectly satisfactory by his 'royal father and mother'. He had nothing else to offer.²⁰

Disgruntled though she was by her brother-in-law's response, the Duchess seems to have enjoyed her autumn holiday at Tunbridge Wells in 1834. The Princess certainly did so, all the more so because she had been confined by illness to her room for over three weeks earlier that year, dutifully writing of her 'dear Mama's' anxiety throughout her indisposition and 'dear Lehzen's unceasing' care. She described her rides in the lovely countryside around the town and the public dinners which were held for them, at one of which Sir John Conroy surprised his fellow-guests by singing a song called 'The Wolf. The Princess left 'dear' Tunbridge Wells for St Leonard's-on-Sea and Hastings on 4 November with 'GREAT REGRET'.²¹ At St Leonards, where she was given 'a most splendid reception', she showed her resourcefulness when the carriage in which she, her mother, Lehzen and Lady Flora Hastings were riding overturned, bringing the horses down with it. She called for her dog, Dash, to be rescued, then 'ran on with him in my arms calling Mama to follow', and then, when one of the horses broke loose and started chasing them down the road, she told them to take cover behind a wall.[iv]²²

Meanwhile another tour of England, this time in the northern and eastern counties, was being planned to start at the beginning of August 1835. There were to be excursions to some of the principal towns in Yorkshire, to Stamford and Grantham in Lincolnshire, to Newark in Nottinghamshire, to Belvoir Castle, home of the Duke of Rutland, and to the Marquess of Exeter's Burghley House, near Stamford.

The King made it known that he was firmly opposed to yet another 'progress'; and he wrote to say that he strongly disapproved of his niece being taken 'flying about the kingdom as she had been for the past three years'.²³ But the Duchess demanded to know from Lord Melbourne, who had succeeded Lord Grey as Prime Minister in 1834, 'on what grounds' she could be prevented from making these visits; and when Princess Victoria protested that she did not want to be taken on another one since the King did not approve of them, her mother wrote to remonstrate with her: the King was merely jealous of the reception accorded her; of course she must go; it was her duty to go: 'Will you not see that it is the greatest consequence that you should be seen, that you should know your country, and be acquainted with, and be known by all classes ... I must tell you dearest Love, if your conversation with me could be known, that you had not the energy to undertake the journey or that your views were not enlarged enough to grasp the benefits arising from it, then you would fall in the estimation of the people of this country. Can you be dead to the calls your position demands? Impossible ... Turn your thoughts and views to your future station, its duties, and the claims that exist on you.'²⁴

They left the next morning. They attended the York Musical Festival and a performance in the Minster of Messiah which she acknowledged was considered 'very fine', but personally she thought the music 'heavy and tiresome', not sharing her grandfather George Ill's passion for Handel. She liked 'the present Italian school ... much better'. They were entertained by her grandfather's friend, the elderly, benevolent Archbishop Harcourt;[v] they went to Doncaster Races; they passed through Leeds and Wakefield and Barnsley; they inspected the Duke of Rutland's family mausoleum at Belvoir. Passing into East Anglia, they visited the Earl and Countess of Leicester at Holkham Hall where the Princess was so tired she nearly fell asleep at dinner; and they went to the Duke of Grafton's house, a rather decrepit Euston Hall. At Burghley House, after opening a ball with her host, the Marquess of Exeter, she had such a 'dreadful headache' that she went to bed after that one dance.²⁵

'It is an end to our journey, I am happy to say,' the Princess wrote in her diary when it was all over. 'Though I liked some of the places very well, I was much tired by the long journey & the great crowds we had to encounter. We cannot travel like other people, quietly and pleasantly.'²⁶

For most of the time on this tour she had been feeling unwell and had quite lost her appetite. There was no need now for those warnings occasionally despatched to her by her uncle Leopold who, in one of his arch letters, had written to say that he had heard that 'a certain little princess ... eats a little too much, and almost always a little too fast'.²⁷

Her 'dearest Sister' Feodora had also warned her that she ate too fast, and that in addition she helped herself to far too much salt with her meat.

Now the very thought of food sometimes made her feel sick. She was also suffering from intermittent headaches, back ache, sore throats, insomnia, and dreadful lassitude. 'When one arrives at any nobleman's seat,' she wrote, 'one must instantly dress for dinner and consequently I could never rest properly.'²⁸

Chapter 6 UNCLES

The prospect of an autumn holiday at Ramsgate did little to raise the Princess's spirits, even though her uncle Leopold, whom she had not seen for over four years, was also to be staying in the town at the Albion Hotel.[vi] 'What happiness it was for me to throw myself in the arms of that dearest of Uncles, who has always been to me like a father, and whom I love so very dearly,' she wrote in her diary. 'I look up to him as a Father with confidence, love and affection. He is the best and kindest adviser I have ... I have such great love for him and such great confidence in him.' 'I love him so very much,' she added later. 'Oh, my love for him approaches to a sort of adoration. He is indeed "il mio secondo padre", or rather "solo padre", for he is indeed like my real father, as I have none.' His young wife, Queen Louise, daughter of Louis-Philippe, King of the French, whom he had married when she was twenty a bare three years before, was also 'quite delightful', 'an Angel' who behaved towards her in the most friendly manner, playing games with her in the evenings, praising her drawings, sending her hairdresser to rearrange her light brown hair and pressing upon her all kinds of presents from her own wardrobe which were followed by boxes of dresses and hats sent to her when Queen Louise had returned home.¹

Yet the Princess was still feeling unwell; and when she returned to Ramsgate from Dover, where she had said goodbye to King Leopold and Queen Louise, she found life 'terribly fade & dull without them' and tired herself out with crying. She was, indeed, really 'very ill'. The Duchess's doctor, James Clark, was called but did not stay long. The Duchess considered that her daughter's indisposition could largely be attributed to the girl's 'childish whims' and Baroness Lehzen's imagination.² Conroy hinted that it was all brought about by the Princess's childishness and he hinted that it was a mere maladie imaginaire, further evidence of the fanciful girl's inability to reign without her mother's constant guidance. One day he took advantage of her indisposition to endeavour to induce her to sign a paper authorizing his appointment as her Private Secretary. 'They (Mama and John Conroy) attempted (for I was still very ill) to make me promise [to do so],' she later said. 'I resisted in spite of my illness and their harshness, my beloved Lehzen supporting me alone.'³

When Dr Clark had returned to London, it was clear that his patient was now seriously ill, suffering perhaps from severe tonsillitis or typhoid fever exacerbated by mental stress: she was feverish with a racing pulse. Lehzen proposed that Dr Clark should be sent for again; but the Duchess accused her of making an unnecessary fuss. 'How can you think I would do such a thing?' she said. 'What a noise that would make in town; in short we differ so much about this indisposition that we had better not speak of it at all.'⁴

When the Princess grew worse, however, both Conroy and the Duchess agreed that Dr Clark must be summoned immediately; and when he replied to the effect that he could not come until late that night, a local doctor was called in. But by now the patient was recovering. Even so, after his return, Dr Clark thought it as well to remain in Ramsgate for over a month, while Lehzen, the 'most affectionate, devoted, attached friend' the Princess had ever had, nursed her 'as attentively as ever'.

On 3 November 1835 Princess Victoria felt strong enough to report to King Leopold that she was 'much better', but she had to admit that she had grown 'very thin' and her hair was falling out 'frightfully'; she was 'litterally now getting bald'.⁵ Dr Clark advised a new regime for her at Kensington: she should be moved to apartments on a higher floor; she should go for regular walks, not sit too long at her lessons, exercise her arms with Indian clubs, and chew her food thoroughly, curbing her inclination - reproved by Baroness Lehzen as well as King Leopold and Princess Feodora - to eat too fast, even though of late she had not been eating much at all: a dose of quinine had been followed by potato soup for luncheon, and a thin slice or two of mutton with rice and orange jelly for dinner.⁶

By the end of January 1836 she had settled once more into the tedious routine of life at Kensington Palace, longing 'sadly', as she put it, 'for some gaiety', but for days on end seeing no one of her own age from the outside world and having to endure the company of 'the usual party' including Sir John Conroy, now more detested than ever, the boring Lady Conroy, the '2 Miss Conroys', Victoire and Jane, and the friend of the Conroys, the clever and incompatible Lady Flora Hastings. She was still convalescent, living on a spare diet which now included bread and butter, performing exercises to strengthen her legs and arms and taking drives to the villages north of Kensington, Hampstead, Finchley and Harrow, and to places she was taken to on her mother's charitable rounds. She went one August evening to St George's Chapel at Windsor and stood looking mournfully at the tombs, one of which was her 'poor dear Father's', sadly reflecting how cruel it was to lose those whom we loved and to be 'encumbered' by those we disliked.

There were, of course, breaks in this boring and frustrating existence: there was her first drive down the course at Ascot during race week; there were rare visits to Windsor Castle for dinners and dances, and even rarer appearances at St James's on drawing-room days; there were walks on Hampstead Heath with Dash, 'DEAR SWEET LITTLE DASH', whom not so long ago she had been in the habit of dressing up like one of her dolls. There were singing lessons with the amusing, good-humoured and wholly delightful bass, Luigi Lablache, of whom she was so much in awe at first that no sound came out, though she later grew so fond of him that she would have liked to have had lessons every day instead of once a week. She eagerly discussed music with him in French and could not agree with his high estimation of Mozart. 'I am a terribly modern person,' she wrote in her journal, 'and I must say I prefer Bellini, Rossini, Donizetti, etc., to anything else; but Lablache who understands music thoroughly said, "C'est le Papa de tous."'⁷ 'Oh!' she wrote in her diary of Lablache's birthplace, 'could I but once behold bella Napoli with its sunny blue sky and turquoise bay dotted with islands!'⁸

There were, above all, exciting evenings at the theatre and the opera, where she delighted in the performances of the half-Italian, half-Swedish ballerina, Marie Taglioni, who 'danced quite exquisitely', of Taglioni's brother, Paul, 'the most splendid man-dancer [she] ever saw', of the tenor Rubini, the baritone Tamburini, her hero, Luigi Lablache, and the lovely soprano Giulia Grisi, 'a most beautiful singer and actress' whom she saw in her favourite opera, Bellini's Puritani, and in Donizetti's Anna Bolena by which she was 'VERY MUCH AMUSED INDEED'.⁹

There were interesting afternoons at the Zoological Gardens in Regent's Park; and evenings when she was brought downstairs by Lehzen to be introduced to distinguished guests, on one occasion to Sir Robert Peel, on another to Lord Palmerston who was 'so very agreeable, clever, amusing & gentlemanlike' and with whom, a year or two later, she had 'much pleasant and amusing conversation'. There were birthday parties and birthday presents including, one year, a print of Marie Taglioni from Lehzen, earrings from the King, a brooch containing a strand of her mother's hair, a writing-case from Sir John Conroy, a paper-knife from Lady Flora Hastings and a prayer book from 'a bookseller of the name of Hatchard'. There were occasional balls at Kensington Palace; and above all, there were very occasional visits by German cousins whose departure, as she lamented in her diary, made her 'quite wretched', grieved and sad, missing them 'dreadfully', feeling that it was 'like a dream that all our joy, happiness and gaiety should thus suddenly be over'. King Leopold wondered in his cautious way if these bursts of excitement were good for her. Might they not undermine her health? But no; it was the tedium of life at Kensington and the stress of the relationships there that upset her and made her ill. 'Merriment and mirth' were a tonic. 'I can assure you,' she wrote to him, 'all this dissipation does me a great deal of good.'¹⁰ So did a change of air at King Leopold's house at Esher, and a subsequent few days at Buxted Park in Sussex, the family home of her friend, Lady Catherine Jenkinson, daughter of the Earl of Liverpool.

Yet even away from Kensington Palace the tensions of life there followed her about like inescapable shadows. Lady Catherine got on well with Lehzen, so was persona non grata with the Conroy faction, and was soon to leave the Duchess of Kent's household, ostensibly on the grounds of ill health. The Duchess of Northumberland had also fallen out with Conroy who considered she was undermining his authority, since she had written to Princess Feodora requesting her to approach her uncle, King Leopold, and ask him to do what he could to protect Baroness Lehzen, who was still being treated 'with contempt and incredible harshness' in an attempt to get rid of her and replace her with someone of Conroy's own choosing. At the same time there was no love lost between Princess Victoria and the Conroys' sharp-tongued friend, Lady Flora Hastings. As for the Duchess of Kent's relations with the King they went from bad to worse.

There was trouble when the King declined to receive the Duchess's daughter-in-law, the wife of Charles, Prince of Leiningen, on the grounds that she was not of royal blood and therefore by tradition barred from the Closet at St James's Palace.¹¹ Then there was further trouble when the King required the gentlemen of the Duchess of Kent's household to leave the Throne Room during the course of a drawing room there because, so he said, only gentlemen of the King's and Queen's household enjoyed the privilege of attendance at such a reception in such a place, the households of other members of the Royal Family being limited to ladies only.¹²

These, however, were relatively minor incidents when compared with an outrageous and distressing contretemps at Windsor Castle on 21 August 1836. This was the King's birthday. He had invited the Duchess of Kent and Princess Victoria to come to Windsor for the Queen's birthday party on 13 August and then to stay on for his own on the 21st. The Duchess, rudely taking no notice of the invitation to the Queen's birthday party, replied that she intended to be at Claremont for her own birthday celebrations on 17 August but would bring her daughter to Windsor on the 20th.

This put the King into a fury [Charles Greville was informed by one of the King's illegitimate sons, Adolphus FitzClarence, who was living in the Castle at the time]. He made, however, no reply, and on the 20th he was in town to prorogue Parliament, having desired that they would not wait dinner for him at Windsor. After the prorogation He went to Kensington Palace to look about it; when He got there He found that the Duchess of Kent had appropriated to her own use a suite of apartments, seventeen in number for which She had applied last year, and which he had refused to let her have. This increased his ill-humour, already excessive. When he arrived at Windsor [suffering from the effects of sleepless nights and asthmatic attacks] and went into the drawing-room (at about ten o'clock at night), where the whole party was assembled, he went up to the Princess Victoria, took hold of both her hands, and expressed his pleasure at seeing her there and his regret that he did not see her oftener. He then turned to the Duchess and made her a low bow, almost immediately after which he said that 'a most unwarrantable liberty had been taken with one of his Palaces; that He had just come from Kensington, where He found apartments had been taken possession of not only without his consent, but contrary to his commands, and that he neither understood nor would endure conduct so disrespectful to him.' This was said loudly, publicly, and in a tone of serious displeasure. It was, however, only the muttering of the storm which was to break the next day. Adolphus went into his room on Sunday morning, and found him in a state of great excitement. It was his birthday, and though the celebration was (what was called) private, there were a hundred people at dinner, either belonging to the Court or from the neighbourhood. The Duchess of Kent sat on one side of the King and one of his sisters on the other, the Princess Victoria opposite. Adolphus sat two or three from the Duchess, and heard every word of what passed. After dinner, by the Queen's desire, 'His Majesty's health, and long life to him' was given, and as soon as it was drunk He made a very long speech, in the course of which he poured forth the following extraordinary and foudroyant tirade: - 'I trust in God that my life may be spared for nine months longer, after which period, in the event of my death, no Regency would take place. I should then have the satisfaction of leaving the royal authority to the personal exercise of that Young Lady (pointing to the Pss.), the Heiress presumptive of the Crown, and not in the hands of a person now near me, who is surrounded by evil advisers and who is herself incompetent to act with propriety in the station in which She would be placed. I have no hesitation in saying that I have been insulted - grossly and continually insulted - by that person, but I am determined to endure no longer a course of behaviour so disrespectful to me. Amongst many other things I have particularly to complain of the manner in which that young Lady has been kept away from my Court; she has been repeatedly kept from my drawing-rooms, at which She ought always to have been present, but I am fully resolved that this shall not happen again. I would have her know that I am King, and that I am determined to make my authority respected, and for the future I shall insist and command that the Princess do upon all occasions appear at my Court, as it is her duty to do.' He terminated his speech by an allusion to the Princess and her future reign in a tone of paternal interest and affection, which Adolphus told me was excellent in its way.

This awful philippick (with a great deal more which I forget) was uttered with a loud voice and excited manner. The Queen looked in deep distress, the Princess burst into tears, and the whole company were aghast. The Duchess of Kent said not a word. Immediately after they rose and retired, and a terrible scene ensued; the Duchess announced her immediate departure and ordered her carriage, but a sort of reconciliation was patched up, and she was prevailed upon to stay till the next day.13

The Duke of Wellington's comment upon all this was characteristically laconic: 'Very awkward, by God!'

The Princess's distress was alleviated by the thought that her beloved Uncle Leopold was coming to England to stay at Claremont in three weeks' time. Her delight in his company was as profound as ever: 'He is so clever,' she recorded in her diary, 'so mild and so prudent; he alone can give me good advice on every thing.' She loved Queen Louise, too, she protested, and 'very much regretted' that she was unable to come to England with her husband as she was expecting a second child. Louise sent 'lovely' presents, however, a silk dress and a satin bonnet, the dress 'made by Mlle Palmyre, the first dressmaker of Paris'.

Her uncle's visit was soon over, however; and thereafter week after week passed at Claremont with 'the usual society', including that of Conroy's daughter, Victoire, whom she increasingly grew to dislike the more she hated the girl's father, and she longed to return to London for the season, yearning for the opera and the theatre and 'for some merriment after being so very long in the country' with such companions as she was obliged to live with there. Yet, when she did return to Kensington, life there was far from gay: Conroy was as detestable as ever and more than ever determined not to lose his influence in the Duchess of Kent's household when her daughter came of age. The Duchess herself was just as much under Conroy's influence as she had ever been.

Shortly before her eighteenth birthday Princess Victoria received a letter from the King in which he told her that he proposed applying to Parliament for a grant of £10,000 a year to be entirely at her own disposal. He intended her also to have the right to appoint her own Keeper of the Privy Purse, suggesting Sir Benjamin Stephenson whom the Duchess much disliked, for this post. The Princess was, in addition, to have the right to form her own household. When the Lord Chamberlain brought this letter to Kensington, Sir John Conroy insisted upon its being delivered to the Princess in the Duchess's presence. Once the Princess had read it she handed it to her mother who was, of course, appalled by its contents. Having satisfied herself that the King had consulted the Cabinet before writing the letter, she wrote an extremely angry reply to Lord Melbourne, the Prime Minister, then, having summarily dismissed suggestions by her daughter that her tutor, the Revd George Davys, now Dean of Chester, might be appointed her Keeper of the Privy Purse, and that the Princess might have a private conversation with Lord Melbourne, the Duchess, with Conroy's help, wrote a letter to the King which the Princess, who had felt 'very miserable' the evening before and had refused to go down to dinner, was required to copy. 'I wish to remain in every respect as I am now in the care of my Mother,' ran this letter which the Princess had for a time resisted in copying. 'Upon the subject of money I should wish that whatever may be necessary to add, may be given to my dear Mother for my use, who always does everything I want in pecuniary matters.'¹⁴

When he read this letter the King commented, before laying it aside, that Victoria had not written it.¹⁵ To a later letter, offering a compromise - £4,000 a year for the Princess and £6,000 for herself - the Duchess replied curtly, rejecting it without even consulting her daughter who by now no longer spoke to her when they were alone together.

By this time the King was clearly very ill. He had arranged to give a ball on the evening of 24 May when the Princess came of age; but he was not well enough to greet his niece who drove to St James's through streets crammed with people whose anxiety, so she wrote, 'to see poor stupid me was very great, and I must say I am quite touched by it, and feel proud, which I always have done of my country and the English nation'.¹⁶ At the Palace she was told that His Majesty had directed that she should occupy his own chair of state. She did not greatly enjoy the ball, though. She felt Sir John Conroy's eyes on her the whole evening, like those of a disapproving hawk; and when it was over she wrote resignedly in her diary: 'Today is my eighteenth birthday! How old! And yet how far am I from being what I should be.'¹⁷

It was a sentiment which both Sir John Conroy and her mother did all they could to endorse. 'You are still very young,' the Duchess, with Conroy clearly at her shoulder, wrote to her, 'and all your success so far has been due to your Mother's reputation. Do not be too sanguine in your own talents and understanding.' Conroy himself asserted that Victoria was 'younger in intellect than in years' and that she had too flippant a mentality to dispense with the guidance of those who knew her best.

The day after her birthday her uncle Leopold's friend and counsellor Baron Stockmar, a Coburger of Swedish descent, arrived in London. Then forty-nine years old, Christian Frederick Stockmar was a qualified physician who had been head of the military hospital in Coburg. Having come across him there, Prince Leopold had been impressed by his honesty and knowledge of the world, and he had asked him to become his personal physician. When Princess Charlotte died, Prince Leopold had begged Stockmar never to leave him. Stockmar had promised never to do so and thereafter he spent more time with Leopold and on various missions for him than he did with his wife and children. Small, rotund, hypochondriacal, trustworthy, sardonic, moody, obsessively moral, and with a rather too high opinion of his understanding of political manoeuvres and psychological insights, he was to become a familiar figure at the English court, where, until his retirement to Coburg in 1857, he was to be seen walking into dinner of an evening without decorations and wearing ordinary trousers instead of the regulation knee-breeches.

He soon grasped the realities of the imbroglio at Kensington. On previous visits to England he had got on quite well with Sir John Conroy who spoke of him with the 'greatest respect'; but as he came to understand the extent of the man's ambition and of his influence over the Duchess of Kent - an influence which King Leopold was later to describe as 'witchcraft' - Stockmar began to agree with his master that Conroy's conduct was 'madness' and 'must end in his own ruin'.

Certainly Conroy's machinations became almost desperate as King William's health rapidly deteriorated and the accession of Princess Victoria as Queen grew ever closer.

On 22 May Sir Henry Halford, the King's doctor, reported that his 72-two-year-old patient was 'in a very odd state and decidedly had the hay fever and in such a manner as to preclude his going to bed'. Four days later Lord Palmerston, the Foreign Secretary, wrote of the King being in 'a very precarious state' and, 'though he would probably rally', it was not likely he would last long. 'It is desirable he should wear the crown some time, however,' Palmerston added, 'for there would be no advantage in having a totally inexperienced girl of eighteen, just out of strict guardianship, to govern an Empire.'

In the meantime, Conroy was doing all he could to ensure that his guardianship was maintained, while the Princess, supported by Baroness Lehzen and Baron Stockmar, was doing all she could to break free from her guardian's control. He again proposed to her that he be appointed her Private Secretary, a proposal which she naturally again rejected. After a conversation with her on 9 June, Stockmar reported to King Leopold:

I found the Princess fairly cool and collected, and her answers precise, apt and determined. I had throughout the conversation, the impression that she is extremely jealous of what she considers to be her rights and her future power and is therefore not at all inclined to do anything which would put Conroy into a situation to be able to entrench upon them. Her feelings seem, moreover, to have been deeply wounded by what she calls 'his impudent and insulting conduct' towards her. Her affection and esteem for her mother seem likewise to have suffered by Mama having tamely allowed Conroy to insult the Princess in her presence, and by the Princess having been frequently a witness to insults which the poor Duchess tolerated herself in the presence of her daughter ... O'Hum [Conroy] continues the system of intimidation with the genius of a madman, and the Duchess carries out all that she is instructed to do with admirable docility and perseverance ... The Princess continues to refuse firmly to give her Mama her promise that she will make O'Hum her confidential adviser. Whether she will hold out, Heaven only knows, for they plague her, every hour and every day.18

The Princess also managed to have a private conversation with the moderate Tory, Lord Liverpool, of whom she was so fond. Like Stockmar, Lord Liverpool urged her not to consider for a moment appointing Conroy her Private Secretary, a post for which he was quite unsuited. She must rely on the Ministers at present in office, particularly Lord Melbourne, the Prime Minister, to advise her. Of course for the moment she must continue to live with her mother. To all this the Princess agreed. With Lord Liverpool, Baron Stockmar and King Leopold all supporting her, she now felt quite capable of resisting Sir John Conroy's threats and blandishments. Lord Liverpool suggested that, as a compromise, the Princess might consider appointing Sir John her Privy Purse, provided he did not stray from that department. But, primed by Lehzen, the Princess protested that Lord Liverpool 'must be aware of many slights & incivilities Sir John has been guilty of towards her, but besides this she knew things of him which rendered it totally impossible for her to place him in any confidential position near her ... She knew things which entirely took away her confidence in him, & that she knew this of herself without any other person informing her. '¹⁹

Before parting from Lord Liverpool she suggested he spoke to Baron Stockmar who would tell him many things she did not like to talk about herself. Also, Lord Liverpool's daughter, Lady Catherine, would confirm what she had told him about Sir John Conroy's intolerably rude behaviour towards herself.

The day after this conversation with Lord Liverpool, Baron Stockmar reported that 'the struggle between the Mama and daughter' was still going on and that the Duchess was 'being pressed by Conroy to bring matters to extremities and to force her Daughter to do her will by unkindness and severity'. Conroy claimed he had been advised by James Abercromby, a former Judge-Advocate-General and the future Lord Dunfermline, that the girl must be 'coerced', if she would not listen to reason. But, so he later maintained, he decided not to go to such lengths because he 'did not credit the Duchess of Kent with enough strength for such a step'.²⁰

The King was now very close to death. When told this on 19 June the Princess 'turned pale and burst into tears'. The next morning, her mother woke her at six o'clock to tell her that the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chamberlain, Lord Conyngham, whose horses had galloped all the way, had come to the Palace and wished to see her. She got out of bed and went downstairs, the Duchess holding her hand and carrying a candle in a silver candlestick, Lehzen following with a bottle of smelling salts. 'I went into my sitting room (only in my dressing gown) and alone\ she wrote in her diary, 'and saw them. Lord Conyngham then acquainted me that my poor Uncle, the King, was no more, and had expired at 12 minutes past 2 this morning and consequently that I am Queen.'²¹

Chapter 7 THE YOUNG QUEEN

'I cannot resist telling you,' Thomas Creevey wrote to his step-daughter, Elizabeth Ord, 'that our dear little Queen in every respect is perfection.'¹

A few weeks later Creevey gave an example of the little Queen's good nature by relating a story of her encounter with one of her ladies, Lady Charlemont, well known to be a bluestocking, who had asked Lady Tavistock, the Queen's Lady of the Bedchamber, if she might take books out of the library at Windsor. ' "Oh yes, my dear," said Lady Tavistock, not knowing what reading means, "as many as you like."'

Upon which Lady Charlemont swept away a whole row, and was carrying them away in her apron. Passing thro' the gallery in this state, whom should she meet but little Vic! Great was her perturbation, for in the first place a low curtsy was necessary, and what was to come of the books, for they must curtsy too. Then to be found with all this property within the first half hour of her coming and before even she had seen Vic! ... But Vic was very much amused with the thing altogether, laughed heartily and was as good humoured as ever she could be.2

Creevey's good opinion of the Queen was commonly shared. Charles Greville, never a man to pay an idle or ill-considered compliment, had an opportunity to study her closely when, acting in his office as Clerk to the Privy Council, he attended a meeting of the Council in the Red Saloon at Kensington Palace soon after eleven o'clock on the morning of her accession, and was much impressed by her behaviour.

She had already had a conversation with 'good, faithful' Baron Stock-mar over breakfast, written to her uncle, King Leopold, signing herself for the first time 'your devoted and attached Niece, Victoria R.' and to Princess Feodora, assuring her that she would 'remain for life' her 'devoted attached Sister, V.R.'.[vii] She had also written a letter of condolence to her aunt, Queen Adelaide, whom she addressed as 'Her Majesty the Queen, Windsor Castle' and, when it was intimated to her that she should have written 'Her Majesty, the Queen Dowager', she replied, 'I am quite aware of Her Majesty's altered status, but I would rather not be the first person to remind her of it.'³ In her letter she assured her that she must remain at Windsor Castle just as long as she liked.

At nine o'clock she had received the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, talking to him 'of COURSE quite ALONE' as she intended 'always' to do with all her Ministers, and assuring him, as King Leopold had advised her to do, that she intended to 'retain him and the rest of the present Ministry at the head of affairs and that it could not be in better hands than his'.⁴ She had had another brief conversation with him before entering the Red Saloon for the Council meeting, going into the room by herself 'quite plainly dressed, and in mourning'.[viii] She had been asked if she would like to be accompanied by the Great Officers of State, but she had decided to go in 'quite alone'.⁵

There never was anything like the first impression she produced [Charles Greville wrote in his diary], or the chorus of praise and admiration which is raised about her manner and behaviour, and certainly not without justice. It was very extraordinary, and something far beyond what was looked for. Her extreme youth and inexperience, and the ignorance of the world concerning her, naturally excited intense curiosity to see how she would act on this occasion, and there was a considerable assemblage at the Palace, notwithstanding the short notice which was given.6

She bowed to the company, took her seat, read a short speech written for her by Lord Melbourne in 'a clear, distinct' voice 'without any appearance of fear or embarrassment', then offered her hand to be kissed by the Privy Councillors who came forward to be sworn one after the other, following her two uncles, the Dukes of Cumberland and Sussex,[ix] and blushing 'up to the eyes', so Greville noticed, as these 'two old men' knelt before her to swear allegiance.

Her manner to them was very graceful and engaging; she kissed them both and rose from her chair and moved towards the Duke of Sussex, who was farthest from her and too infirm to reach her. She seemed rather bewildered at the multitude of men who were sworn ... [But] she went through the whole ceremony (occasionally looking at Melbourne for instruction when she had any doubt what to do, which hardly ever occurred) and with perfect calmness and self-possession, but at the same time with a graceful modesty.7

She was 'perfectly composed and dignified', 'though a red spot on either cheek showed her mental agitation', Lord Dalmeny confirmed; while the Duke of Wellington declared that 'if she had been his own daughter he could not have desired to see her perform her part better': her personality not only filled her chair, 'she filled the room'. It was noticed with satisfaction that not by a smile or gesture did she indicate partiality, favour or disapproval for any of the Councillors who came forward to kiss her hand.

Her voice [one of the Tory Councillors, John Wilson Croker, said] which is naturally beautiful, was clear and untroubled and her eye was bright and calm, neither bold nor downcast ... There was a blush on her cheek which made her look both handsome and interesting; and certainly she did look as interesting and handsome as any young lady I ever saw.8

Such praise of her modest yet regal demeanour could be heard all over London during the next few days as she fulfilled one engagement after another. When the Council meeting was over on the first day of her reign (and she was seen through the glass door rubbing her hands and skipping away like a schoolgirl) she saw both Lord Melbourne and Baron Stockmar again; she also saw the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Home Secretary, Lord John Russell, and the Master of the Horse, Lord Albemarle. She appointed Dr James Clark her physician and created a special office in the Household, that of Attendant on the Queen, for Baroness Lehzen who wisely declined accepting an official position for fear of arousing jealousy but who, the Queen said, must 'ALWAYS remain' with her as her 'friend'.⁹ She dismissed Sir John Conroy from her Household and would have liked to have had him dismissed from her mother's also, but this she could not yet contrive to do. She had her bed removed from her mother's room and arranged for a doorway to be made between Lehzen's bedroom and the room where she herself was to sleep. Before going to bed that night, she went downstairs to say 'goodnight to Mama etc'.¹⁰

In her long diary entry for that day this was the first mention of the Duchess since she had been awakened by her at six o'clock that morning. It was immediately apparent that the relationship between her mother and Conroy and herself was now to be transformed. On this the first night of her reign she had her dinner alone, and was clearly determined to demonstrate her independence: her mother was not to presume to come to her whenever she liked. 'I had to remind her,' she told Lord Melbourne, 'who I was.' 'Quite right,' Melbourne commented, 'disagreeable but necessary.'

Lord Melbourne advised her not to answer the notes the Duchess sent her and to let him reply to them formally on her behalf. 'My appeal was to you as my daughter,' the Duchess replied crossly, ignoring the Prime Minister's missives, 'not to the Queen.'

When the Queen and her mother did dine together for the first time there was trouble over the precedence accorded to the Duchess who was placed at table below the Queen's aunts. 'Oh! what a scene did she make.' Then there was trouble over the Duchess's demand for the rank and precedence of Queen Mother which her daughter rejected immediately. 'It would do my mother no good,' she said, 'and would no doubt, offend my aunts.' Frequently she discussed her relationship with the Duchess with Lord Melbourne to whom she admitted her dislike of her. Melbourne advised her to be patient and polite, however much her mother exasperated her by her constant complaints and criticisms, her protestations that she ate too much or went to the theatre too often: it would never do if the Queen were held responsible for a formal break in their relationship. All the same, Melbourne made no secret of his own opinion of the Duchess in his talks with the Queen. She was 'a liar and a hypocrite'; he had never known 'so foolish a woman'. This was 'very true', the Queen agreed and they both laughed. For her daughter's nineteenth birthday the Duchess pointedly presented her with a copy of King Lear.'¹¹

It was all the more galling to the Duchess because her daughter was, by contrast, especially respectful and affectionate in her dealings with Queen Adelaide, the Queen Dowager, and generous towards the late King's bastard children whose existence her mother continued to ignore as completely as she could.

The antipathy between mother and daughter was also exacerbated by the Duchess's insistence that Sir John Conroy and his family should be received at Court and the Queen's determination that they should certainly not.

I thought you would not expect me to invite Sir John Conroy after his conduct towards me for some years past [she told her mother in one characteristic letter], and still more so after the unaccountable manner in which he behaved towards me, a short while before I came to the Throne.12

The Queen also declined to grant permission for the Duchess to take Sir John and their friend, Lady Flora Hastings, to the proclamation ceremony, on the advice, so she said, of Lord Melbourne; a refusal which provoked an angry protest from her mother: 'Take care, Victoria, you know your prerogative! Take care that Lord Melbourne is not King.'¹³

Yet another angry letter from the Duchess was prompted when Conroy was refused an invitation to a banquet at the Guildhall. In this 'extraordinary' letter the Duchess maintained that not to invite him would 'look like the greatest persecution'. 'The Queen should forget what dis pleased the Princess,' her mother added. 'Recollect that I have the greatest regard for Sir John, I cannot forget what he has done for me and for you, although he had the misfortune to displease you.'¹⁴

The Queen, however, was not to be moved: she could not, she said, depart from the line of conduct she had adopted, upset though she was by the scenes her mother made and the letters she received from her. She was soon to decide that her mother never had been very fond of her.

There was also trouble over the Duchess's debts which by the end of 1837 were to amount to well over £50,000. Prompted by Conroy, she had asked her daughter to contribute £30,000 towards the repayment of this sum. She herself would find the rest of the money, provided her income was suitably increased. After the matter had been considered by the Cabinet, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Thomas Spring-Rice, was authorized to say that they were prepared to recommend to Parliament the payment of those debts which had been incurred before the Queen came to the throne. This offer the Duchess promptly and indignantly rejected, declaring at the same time that she would not in any case negotiate with her Majesty's servants: she would rather state her case directly to Parliament.

Ministers then proposed increasing the Duchess's income from £22,000 to £30,000 a year, and this was accepted. At the same time the Queen's income was settled at £385,000 a year, including £60,000 for her Privy Purse and £303,760 for the salaries and expenses of her Household. In addition she enjoyed the revenues of the duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall at that time worth about £30,000 a year.

The Queen, who had been taught to be careful with her pocket money as a girl, had frugal instincts; but, now that she was so well provided for, she was generous with her new-found wealth, continuing pensions to those who had received them in her predecessor's time and offering, for instance, £300 to her relatively poor half-sister, Feodora, for her expenses whenever she was able to come over to England to visit her. She also settled her father's debts as she had long had in mind to do; but finally settling her mother's was a much more difficult and vexatious problem and led to the Queen's receiving further angry letters from the Duchess who had soon overspent the increase in her allowance, even though she had been most generously helped by Coutts & Co., the bankers, both before and after her daughter's accession.¹⁴ 'Got such a letter from Mama, oh, oh such a letter,' the Queen was later to write in her diary on 15 January 1838.¹⁵ She and Conroy really ought to remember, she added, 'what incalculable falsehoods they have told about these debts. During the King's [William IV's] life they said there were no debts and that it was all a calumny of the King's - which is really infamous'. She was 'much shocked' by it all, and even more so when she heard that her mother's debts had appreciably increased despite the additional income she was receiving. She was likely to get into 'a dreadful scrape', Lord Melbourne observed. The Queen said that she really ought to be able to manage on the handsome income now allowed her. 'Yes, if her income really were well managed,' Melbourne said, 'but not if he makes money by it.'¹⁶

Chapter 8 MELBOURNE

As the days passed people spoke of the new Queen with mounting enthusiasm. A large crowd stood in the courtyard of St James's Palace and cheered her loudly as she stood by an open window to hear the heralds proclaim her Queen and it was 'most touching' to see the colour drain from her cheeks and the tears well up in her eyes. She was cheered again quite as vociferously when she drove to the House of Lords for the dissolution of Parliament for the first time on 17 July 1837 and, later, when she went to the Lord Mayor's dinner in Guildhall. It really was 'most gratifying', she told Princess Feodora, 'to have met with such a reception in the greatest capital in the World and from thousands and thousands of people. I really do not deserve all this kindness for what I have yet done. '¹

Charles Greville said that at her second Privy Council meeting she presided 'with as much ease as if She had been doing nothing else all her life.' 'She looked very well, and though so small in stature, and without any pretension to beauty, the gracefulness of her manner and the good expression of her countenance give her on the whole a very agreeable appearance, and with her youth inspire an excessive interest in all who approach her.'²

Princess Lieven, not the most indulgent of critics, was much impressed by the contrast between her childish face and sometimes rather diffident smile and the dignity of her queenly manner. Lord Palmerston, the Foreign Secretary, said that 'any Ministers who had to deal with her would soon find that she was no ordinary person'.

Many of those who saw her now for the first time were surprised to see how very small she was, surely no more than five feet in height if that. She herself told Lord Melbourne that the 'worry and torment' of the 'Kensington System' had stunted her growth. She said as much to King Leopold whose letters frequently referred to her diminutive size and who wrote to her teasingly as though she could do something about it if she put her mind to it: in one letter he told her that he had heard reports that she was growing at last and expressed the hope that she would 'persist in so laudable a measure'. He had, however, he later regretted, 'not been able to ascertain that she had really grown taller lately'; he felt he 'must recommend it strongly'. In a subsequent letter, thanking her for sending him a portrait of her, he commented that 'she shone more by her virtues than by her tallness'.

It was generally agreed that, as well as being very short, she was a little too plump and really, it had to be admitted, rather plain with the protuberant blue eyes and receding chin of her Hanoverian grandfather, George III. Within a few weeks of Victoria's accession, the wife of Andrew Stevenson, the American Minister in London, watched her at a dinner. 'Her bust, like most English women's is very good,' Mrs Stevenson wrote, 'hands and feet are small and very pretty ... Her eyes are blue, large and full; her mouth, which is her worst feature, is generally a little open; her teeth small and short, and she shows her gums when she laughs, which is rather disfiguring.'³ The laugh itself, however, Mrs Stevenson decided on a later occasion, was 'particularly delightful', 'so full of girlish glee and gladness'. Others also spoke of this pleasing, uninhibited laugh and a voice which was, and remained, exceptionally clear and melodious. Her smile, too, was described as enchanting, and her deportment at once graceful and impressive.

Thomas Creevey, who was invited to dine at Brighton Pavilion in October, said that 'a more homely little being you never beheld, when she is at her ease, and she is evidently dying to be always more so. She laughs in real earnest, opening her mouth as wide as it can go, showing not very pretty gums ... She eats quite as heartily as she laughs, I think I may say she gobbles ... She blushes and laughs every instant in so natural a way as to disarm anybody. Her voice is perfect, and so is the expression of her face, when she means to say or do a pretty thing.'⁴

After a conversation with her, Lord Holland, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, came away 'quite a courtier' and 'a bit of a lover'. 'Like the rest of the world', he later decided, he was both 'captivated and surprised'.[x]⁵

Although shy and often uncertain of herself in the presence of people whom she took to be intellectually superior to herself, she was already capable of assuming an alarming hauteur and fixing those who had offended her in a glare of disapproval from faintly hooded eyes, the disconcerting gaze of the basilisk. She had not been Queen for long when her Mistress of the Robes, the grand, young and beautiful Duchess of Sutherland, was half an hour late for dinner. She did not hesitate to give her 'a very proper snub', telling her she 'hoped it might not happen another time'. She had occasion to reprimand her Maids-of-Honour also. She did not like doing this, she told Lord Melbourne; but, he said, she must start as she meant to go on, otherwise they would take advantage of her. She was determined not to let them do that.

As Charles Greville observed, the young Queen had already begun to exhibit 'signs of a peremptory disposition, and it is impossible not to suspect that, as she gains confidence, and as her character begins to develop, she will evince a strong will of her own'.

She could also be self-centred, apparently quite unaware of the difficulties and discomforts she was imposing upon others. In September that year she was riding in her carriage at Windsor when, feeling the cold, she had got out to walk. 'Of course, all her ladies had to do the same,' Lady Tavistock told Thomas Creevey, 'and the group being very wet, their feet soon got into the same state. Poor dear Lady Tavistock, when she got back to the Castle, could get no dry stockings, her maid being out and her cloathes all locked up ... I am sure [she] thinks the Queen a resolute little tit.'⁶

So did some of her other ladies who were inconsiderately required to stand in the drawing room until the gentlemen came up after dinner, which they were required to do soon after the ladies had withdrawn. 'I hear the Duchess of Kent first remonstrated and has since retired from the drawing-room for half an hour every evening to repose herself in her own room, till she can return and sit by her daughter or at the Whist table in the Evening,' Lord Holland related. 'It was droll enough to see the Ladies, young and old, married or unmarried with all their rumps to the wall when we came from the dining room and eagerly availing themselves of their release when the Queen took her seat on the sofa.'⁷

Nor did most guests find the evenings very lively thereafter. Charles Greville, invited to dine one day in March 1838, described a characteristic large dinner party attended by, amongst others, Lord Rosebery and his wife, Lord and Lady Grey, Lord Ossulston and the Hanoverian Minister, Baron Munchhausen. Just before dinner was announced the Queen entered the room with the Duchess of Kent, preceded by the Lord Chamberlain, Lord Conyngham, and followed by her six ladies.[xi]

She shook hands with the women, and made a sweeping bow to the men, and directly went in to dinner, conducted by Munchhausen, who sat next to her, and Conyngham on the other side ... After the eating was over the Queen's health was given by [her Chief Equerry] who sat at one end of the table: a vile, vulgar custom, and, however proper it may be to drink her health elsewhere, it is bad taste to have it given by her Officer at her own table ... However it has been customary in the last two reigns ...8

When we went into the drawing-room, and huddled about the door in the sort of half-shy, half-awkward way people do, the Queen advanced, and spoke to everybody in succession ... As the words of Kings and Queens are precious, and as a fair sample of a royal after-dinner colloquy, I shall record my dialogue with accurate fidelity.

Q. 'Have you been riding to-day Mr Greville?

 G. 'No, Madam, I have not.'

Q. 'It was a fine day.'

G. 'Yes, Ma'am, a very fine day.'

Q. 'It was rather cold though.'

G. (like Polonius). 'It was rather cold, Madam.'

Q. 'Your sister, Ly. Francis Egerton, rides I think, does not She?'

G. 'She does ride sometimes, Madam.'

(A pause, when I took the lead through adhering to the same topic.)

G. 'Has your Majesty been riding to-day?'

Q. (with animation). 'O yes, a very long ride.'

G. 'Has your Majesty got a nice horse?'

Q. 'O, a very nice horse.'

- gracious smile and inclination of head on part of Queen, profound bow on mine, and then She turned again to Lord Grey. Directly after I was deposited at the whist table to make up the Duchess of Kent's party, and all the rest of the company were arranged about a large round table (the Queen on the sofa by it), where they passed about an hour and a half in what was probably the smallest possible talk, interrupted and enlivened, however, by some songs which Ossulston sang. We had plenty of instrumental music during and after dinner.

Nobody expects from her any clever, amusing, or interesting talk, above all no stranger can expect it. She is very civil to everybody, and there is more of frankness, cordiality, and good-humour in her manner than of dignity. She looks and speaks cheerfully: there was nothing to criticise, nothing particularly to admire. The whole thing seemed to be dull, perhaps unavoidably so, but still so dull that it is a marvel how anybody can like such a life. This was an unusually large party, and therefore more than usually dull and formal; but it is much the same sort of thing every day. Melbourne was not there, which I regretted, as I had some curiosity to see Her Majesty and her Minister together.9

Had Melbourne been of the company that evening, Greville would have seen the Queen in a far more lively mood.

The Queen's relationship with Melbourne was of the closest and most trusting kind. He was fifty-eight when she came to the throne, still attractive though rather portly now, sophisticated and urbane. She delighted in his conversation, rejoiced in his celebrated epigrams, aphorisms and paradoxes, his well-told reminiscences, his brilliant table-talk and anecdotes which were full of irreverent, heterodoxical and sometimes flippant asides but usually contained information 'of the most interesting kind'. It became 'a source of great amusement' to her to 'collect his "sayings"'. 'He has such stores of knowledge,' she wrote; 'such a wonderful memory; he knows about everybody and everything; who they were and what they did.' He remembered things 'from thirteen months old\' and his days at Eton in great detail.¹⁰ She delighted in the stories he told her about Napoleon and Byron, Pitt and Charles James Fox, her wicked uncles, and was very pleased that he did not include their brother, her father, as being of their naughty company. 'From all what I heard,' she wrote, 'my father was the best of all.'¹¹

His conversation was not only unfailingly interesting, it made her laugh. He would plead, for example, that he rarely went to church 'for fear of hearing something very extraordinary'. Besides, his 'father and mother never went. People didn't use to go so much formerly; it wasn't the fashion.' Or he would protest that it was almost worthwhile for a woman to be beaten by her husband, 'considering the exceeding pity she excites'. In the world of Whiggery, in which Whigs were 'all cousins', people used never to change their lives when they married: 'they were very fond of their wives, but did not take care of them, and left them to themselves'. Chastity was not prized and there was 'great licence'. In any case, the wife was 'always in the wrong'.

Whig families like his also emphasized their separateness from the rest of society by bestowing nicknames which were recognized only by the cognoscenti and they pronounced words in a peculiarly Whiggish way. When Queen Victoria was once asked if Lord Melbourne had been a proper Whig she replied that he must have been because he spoke in a recognizably Whiggish manner, pronouncing Rome as 'room' and gold as 'goold'.[xii]¹²

Talking of children he said that 'almost everybody's character was formed by their mother and that if children did not turn out well, their mothers should be punished for it'. Talking of doctors he would say that the English variety killed you while the French merely let you die; and commenting on horse racing he would express the opinion that the Derby was 'not perfect without somebody killing himself. Yet at heart he was 'such a good man', 'excellent and moral with such a strong feeling against immorality and wickedness'. One day when she remarked that there were so few good preachers in the Church, he agreed with her and added, 'But there are not many very good anything.' That was very true, the Queen thought. She was equally sure, though, that he was one of the 'very good'.¹³

Having so high an opinion of Melbourne's talents and virtues, she basked in his skilful flattery. Her shyness, he assured her, was not only appealing, it was indicative of a sensitive and susceptible temperament; her smallness, of which she was continually conscious, was a positive advantage in a queen; her inexperience was all to the good: she came to her duties fresh and unprejudiced. Upon her complaining of the great difficulty she had in keeping her temper when she was 'very much irritated and plagued' and how 'very sorry' she was when she 'let it out' towards her servants, he comforted her by observing that a person who had rather a choleric disposition might control it, never wholly got over it and could not help letting it out at times.

He endeavoured to curb her tendency to intolerance and to a truthful directness which verged on tactlessness; but the advice was given in such a 'kind and fatherly' way she never resented it. Nor did she mind when he warned her that, having inherited the Hanoverian tendency to plumpness, she was liable to grow 'very fat'.

The Queen was well aware of Melbourne's past amours, of the divorce cases in which he had been involved, of his late, unbalanced wife, Lady Caroline Ponsonby, who had been so much in love with Byron, and of his pathetic, infantile son, also dead. These misfortunes made him all the more fascinating in her eyes, all the more to be pitied, loved and indulged. She soon concluded 'that he was, in fact, the best-hearted, kindest and most feeling man in the world ... straightforward, clever and good', a 'most truly honest and noble-minded man'. She esteemed herself 'most fortunate to have such a man at the head of the government', a man in whom she could 'safely place confidence'. There were 'not many like him in this world of deceit'.[xiii]¹⁴

Drawn to Melbourne by their common experience of loneliness, the Queen spoke to him of her past life, as well as the problems and business of politics, talking to him for three or four hours a day and writing to him on the occasions when they could not meet. These occasions were rare enough since he now virtually lived at Court where their intimacy was plain for all to see. 'I have seen the Queen with her Prime Minister,' wrote Princess Lieven. 'When he is with her he looks loving, contented, a little pleased with himself; respectful, at his ease, as if accustomed to take first place in the circle, and dreamy and gay - all mixed up together.'¹⁵ Charles Greville, who suspected that the Queen's feelings for him were 'sexual though she [did] not know it', thought that no man was more formed to ingratiate himself with her than Lord Melbourne.

He treats her with unbounded confidence and respect, he consults her tastes and her wishes, and he puts her at her ease by his frank and natural manners, while he amuses her by the quaint, queer, epigrammatic turn of his mind, and his varied knowledge upon all subjects ... [He is] so parental and anxious, but always so respectful and deferential ... She is continually talking to him. Let who will be there, he always sits next to her at dinner, and by arrangement, because he always takes in the Lady-in-Waiting which necessarily places him next to her, the etiquette being that the Lady-in-Waiting sits next but one to the Queen. It is not unnatural, and to him it is peculiarly interesting. I have no doubt he is passionately fond of her as he might be of his daughter if he had one, and the more because he is a man with capacity for loving without having anything in the world to love. It is become his province to educate, instruct, and form the most interesting mind and character in the world ... Melbourne thinks highly of her sense, discretion, and good feeling.16

Content as she was to listen to his advice, to be instructed in such simple matters of propriety as the inadvisability of receiving divorced women at Court, of allowing maids-of-honour to walk unchaperoned on the terraces at Windsor Castle and of accepting the dedication of novels until he had read them to ensure that they contained nothing 'objectionable', the Queen was always ready, having formed her own views, to express her own opinions.¹⁷

While the Queen's feelings for Melbourne may have been subconsciously sexual, as Charles Greville suggested, she herself said that she loved him like 'a father'. She forgave him when he fell asleep after dinner and when he snored, as he did even in chapel, or became 'very absent' and began talking to himself, 'loud enough to be heard but never loud enough to be understood'. 'I am now, from habit,' she wrote, 'quite accustomed to it; but at first I turned round, thinking he was talking to me.' By way of apology, and then with welcome regularity, bouquets of flowers would arrive at the Palace from Brocket Hall, Melbourne's house in Hertfordshire.

Although he was conscientious in instructing the young and, in many respects, naive Queen about the political problems of the day, the workings of Parliament and the Cabinet, and the mysteries of the Constitution - leaving Lord Palmerston, the Foreign Secretary, to acquaint her with international relations - Lord Melbourne cannot be said to have aroused the Queen's social conscience, or to have made her more aware of the pitiable conditions in which so many of her people lived and which she had briefly glimpsed in her travels in the Midlands and in the North before her accession to the throne. Melbourne was far from being an idle man. That acute observer, the Revd Sydney Smith, commented: 'Our Viscount is somewhat of an impostor ... I am sorry to hurt any man's feelings and to brush away the magnificent fabric of levity and gaiety he has reared, but I accuse our Minister of honesty and diligence. '¹⁸ Yet Melbourne's suspicion of reform and of the motives of reformers, his not altogether flippant suggestion that one should 'try to do no good' and then one wouldn't 'get into any scrapes', undoubtedly had their effect on the still developing sensibilities of the young Queen Victoria. He maintained that Sir Walter Scott was quite right to suggest that it was not worthwhile bothering with the poor; it was better to 'leave them alone'. Melbourne was quite convinced that the attempts by his niece's husband, Lord Ashley, later Lord Shaftesbury, to improve the conditions of children working in mines and factories were quite unnecessary and doomed to failure: since education of such children would never 'do any good'; parents should be free 'to send them under a certain age to work'.

One day the Queen mentioned that she had just read Oliver Twist and had been much affected by its 'accounts of starvation in the Workhouses'. But Melbourne dismissed the book as one of Dickens's own blinkered characters might well have done: 'It's all among Workhouses, and Coffin Makers, and Pickpockets ... It's all slang; just like the Beggar's Opera ... I don't like these things; I wish to avoid them; I don't like them in reality and therefore I don't wish to see them represented.'¹⁹ As for railways, which were built by Irishmen - 'who mind neither lord nor laws' - and which he refused to have within fifteen miles of his house at Brocket, he didn't 'care about them'. 'None of these modern inventions,' he told the Queen, 'consider human life.'²⁰

Chapter 9 CORONATION

After a disturbed night in which she had 'a feeling that something awful was going to happen tomorrow', the Queen was woken up at four o'clock in the morning in her bedroom at Buckingham Palace by the sound of guns in the Park, and 'could not get much sleep afterwards on account of the noise of the people, bands etc. etc.'. It was Thursday, 28 June 1838 and she was to be crowned that day in Westminster Abbey. Thousands of people had travelled to London the day before until, as the diarist Mary Frampton told her mother, there were 'stoppages in every street ... Hundreds of people waiting ... to get lifts on the railway in vain ... Not a fly or cab to be had for love or money. Hackney coaches £8 or £12 each, double to foreigners. '¹

'The uproar, the confusion, the crowd, the noise are indescribable,' Charles Greville confirmed. 'Horsemen, footmen, carriages squeezed, jammed, intermingled, the pavement blocked up with timbers [for the spectators' stands], hammering and knocking and falling fragments stunning the ears and threatening the head ... The town all mob, thronging, bustling, gaping and gazing at everything, at anything, or at nothing. The Park one vast encampment, with banners floating on the tops of tents and still the roads are covered, the railroads loaded with arriving multitudes.' He found the racket 'uncommonly tiresome', yet he had to concede that the 'great merit of this Coronation is that so much has been done for the people [the theatres, for example, and many other places of entertainment were to be free that night]. To amuse and interest them seems to have been the principal object.'² While not prepared to spend as much as the lavish sum of £243,000 which Parliament had voted for the coronation of King George IV, the Government were prepared to ensure that the ceremony in the Abbey and its attendant processions and celebrations were conducted with appropriate grandeur and an eye to the enjoyment of the people. £70,000 was deemed a reasonable sum, £20,000 more than had been spent on the coronation of King William IV.

Much attention was paid to the pretty dresses of the Queen's eight young, unmarried trainbearers, the Queen's own three different robes, the new uniforms of the Warders of the Tower and the Yeomen of the Guard, the regalia to be used in the various rites of the Abbey service, and the crown which had been used for the coronation of George IV but which had to be modified for Queen Victoria's much smaller head before being reset with diamonds, pearls, rubies, emeralds and sapphires.

'It was a fine day,' the Queen, having been up since seven o'clock, wrote in her journal, recalling the long ride to the Abbey in the state coach drawn by eight cream horses, down gravelled streets lined with policemen and soldiers, up Constitution Hill to Hyde Park Corner, then down Piccadilly, St James's and Pall Mall to Trafalgar Square and Whitehall, accompanied by the Duchess of Sutherland, her Mistress of the Robes, and the Earl of Albemarle, the Master of the Horse.

'The crowds of people exceeded what I have ever seen,' the Queen continued her account. 'Many as there were the day I went to the City, it was nothing - nothing to the multitude, the millions of my loyal subjects, who were assembled in every spot to witness the Procession. Their good humour and excessive loyalty was beyond everything, and I really cannot say how proud I feel to be the Queen of such a Nation. I was alarmed at times for fear that the people would be crushed and squeezed on account of the tremendous rush and pressure.'³ But she kept smiling and bowing from side to side.

Preceded by the Royal Huntsmen, the Yeomen Prickers and Foresters and the Yeomen of the Guard, and followed by an escort of cavalry, the state coach drew up outside the Abbey door to be greeted by thunderous cheers. Inside the Abbey there were more cheers for the Queen and clapping, too, for Lord Melbourne and for the Duke of Wellington and for Wellington's opponent in the Peninsular War, Marshal Soult, created Duke of Dalmatia by Napoleon and appointed French Ambassador Extraordinary to the Court of St James's by Louis-Philippe, King of the French. 'Soult was so much cheered, both in and out of the Abbey,' commented the dandiacal merchant, Thomas Raikes, 'that he was completely overcome. He has since publicly said, "C'est le plus beau jour de ma vie. It shows that the English believe I have always fought loyally." In the Abbey he seized the arm of his aide-de-camp, quite overpowered, and exclaimed, "This is truly a great people."'⁴

Wellington was predictably not so pleased by his own reception, the 'great shout and clapping of hands'. He looked down the aisle 'with an air of vexation', his friend, Lady Salisbury thought, as if to say, 'This should be for the Queen.'⁵ She fully deserved the acclamation, the Duke considered: she carried herself with such charm, dignity and grace, never more so than when the frail and ancient Lord Rolle tripped up as he approached her to make his homage. 'It turned me very sick,' the writer, Harriet Martineau, recorded. 'The large, infirm old man was held by two peers, and had nearly reached the footstool when he slipped through the hands of his supporters, and rolled over and over down the steps, lying at the bottom coiled up in his robes. He was instantly lifted up; and he tried again and again, amidst shouts of admiration of his valour.'⁶ 'May I not get up and meet him?' the Queen asked in anxious concern; and, since no one answered her, she outstretched her hand as he manfully rose to his feet and attempted to climb the steps once more as the congregation's vociferous cheers echoed round the Abbey walls.⁷

Wellington's high opinion of the Queen's demeanour was commonly shared. As she caught her first glimpse of the brilliant assembly in the Abbey she was seen to catch her breath and turn pale, clasping her hands in front of her. One of her trainbearers, Lady Wilhelmina Stanhope, believed 'her heart fluttered a little' as they reached the throne; 'at least the colour mounted to her cheeks, brow, and even neck, and her breath came quickly'⁸ and there were those who regarded with some disapproval the smile she exchanged with Baroness Lehzen when, while sitting on the throne, she caught sight of that 'most dear Being' in the box above the royal box.

But to most observers she was a model of dignity and composure as she received the welcome accorded by the boys of Westminster School, whose traditional privilege it was to shout a Latin greeting to the monarch on such occasions. She was equally dignified as she turned from side to side to acknowledge the congregation's shouts of 'God Save Queen Victoria', and as she undertook to 'govern the people of this United Kingdom ... according to the statutes in Parliament ... to cause law and justice, in mercy, to be executed in all [her] judgements ... [and] to maintain the laws of God, the true profession of the Gospel and the Protestant Reformed religion established by law.'

'All this,' she replied to the Archbishop of Canterbury in a clear and steady voice, 'I promise to do.'⁹

She appeared undaunted by the solemnity of the occasion, the blaze of diamonds, the glittering gold plate on the altar, the splendid uniforms of foreign dignitaries, the magnificent robes of the peeresses, the hundreds of faces peering down at her from the specially erected galleries draped with red cloth fringed with gold, and the solemn moment when - as she sat in St Edward's Chair with four Knights of the Garter holding a canopy of cloth of gold over her head - she was anointed by the Archbishop with holy oil, 'as Kings, priests and prophets were anointed'.

She appeared equally composed when the crown was placed upon her head and the peers and peeresses put on their coronets and the bishops their caps to cheers and drum beats, to the notes of trumpets and the firing of guns at the Tower and in the royal parks. Indeed, although in doubt from time to time as to what she was expected to do, she seemed far more calm than the clergy, who, as Charles Greville said, 'were very imperfect in their parts and had neglected to rehearse them'.¹⁰ She was also far calmer than Lord Melbourne who was, she noticed, 'completely overcome and very much affected' when the crown was placed on her head and who, kneeling down to kiss her hand, could not hold back his tears as she 'grasped his with all [her] heart'.¹¹

Lord John Thynne, who, as his deputy, took the place of the elderly, infirm Dean of Westminster, admitted that 'there was a continual difficulty and embarrassment, and the Queen never knew what she was to do next'. She whispered to Thynne, who appeared to know more than his colleagues did, 'Pray tell me what to do, for they don't know!' Certainly Edward Maltby, the scholarly, 'remarkably maladroit' Bishop of Durham, who had an important role in the ceremony, 'never could tell [the Queen],' so she complained, 'what was to take place'. At one point he lost his place in the prayer book and began the Litany too soon. When the time came for the ring to be placed on her little finger, the Archbishop endeavoured to place it on her fourth. She told him it was too small; but he persisted, pressing it down so hard that she had 'the greatest difficulty' in getting it off again in the robing room afterwards and had to apply iced water to her fingers for half an hour. When she was given the extremely heavy orb she asked what she was meant to do with it. She was told that she was to carry it; but it then transpired that she had been given it too soon. By this time the Archbishop '(as usual) was so confused and puzzled and knew nothing' that he went away. She, too, was sent away to St Edward's Chapel and had to be summoned back from it when it was discovered that George Henry Law, Lord Ellenborough's brother, the Bishop of Bath and Wells, had turned over two pages at once, thus omitting an essential part of the service.¹²

Nor were the lay peers and trainbearers any more adroit than the clergy. The peers gave the Queen a headache, so her Mistress of the Robes said, by 'very unceremoniously' knocking her crown instead of touching it gently in their act of homage. One of them 'actually clutched hold of it, while others might well have knocked it off altogether had she not 'guarded herself from any accident or misadventure by having it made to fit her head tightly'.¹³ As for the bearers of the Queen's train, they carried it 'very jerkily and badly', one of them admitted, 'never keeping step as she did, even and steadily and with much grace and dignity, the whole length of the Abbey'.¹⁴ Two of them could be heard chattering to each other throughout the service as animatedly as they might have done had they been at a ball.¹⁵ And, when the coronation medals were thrown about in the choir and lower galleries by Lord Surrey, the Treasurer of the Household, everybody scrambled 'with all their might and main to get them, and none more vigorously than the maids-of-honour!'

All in all, Benjamin Disraeli, one of the recently elected Members of Parliament for the borough of Maidstone, told his sister, 'the want of rehearsal' was very obvious: 'Melbourne [who, feeling ill, had dosed himself with laudanum and brandy] looked very awkward and uncouth, with his coronet cocked over his nose, his robes under his feet, and holding the great Sword of State like a butcher ... The Duchess of Sutherland ... full of her situation ... walked, or rather stalked up the Abbey like Juno ... Lord Lyndhurst [the former and future Lord Chancellor] committed the faux pas of not backing from the presence ... I saw Lord Ward after the ceremony ... drinking champagne out of a pewter pot, his coronet cocked aside, his robes disordered, and his arms akimbo.'¹⁶

Nor were Melbourne and Ward the only peers to appear dishevelled in their robes. Indeed, only two of them apparently knew how to wear them properly, both of these being practised performers in amateur theatricals. If Disraeli had gone into St Edward's Chapel - 'a small dark place behind the altar', as the Queen described it - he would have seen what Melbourne represented as being 'more unlike a Chapel than anything he had ever seen; for, what was called an Altar was covered with sandwiches, bottles of wine, etc'

It was almost five hours before the ceremony was over; but conscious that she deserved Lord Melbourne's words of praise - 'You did it beautifully - every part of it, with so much taste; it's a thing that you can't give a person advice upon; it must be left to a person' - the Queen did not yet appear to be tired. After an hour spent changing into her purple robe of state in the robing room, then waiting there until half past four, she was taken back through crowds as dense as ever, carrying her sceptre and, heavy as it was, the orb, her close-fitting crown on her head, and the people cheering her all the way to Buckingham Palace where she dashed upstairs to give a bath to her beloved dog, Dash.¹⁷

After dinner she went into the Duchess of Kent's room; but it was not so much to see her mother - who had burst into tears at the sight of her daughter kneeling alone in the Abbey to receive the Sacrament - as to go out on to the balcony to watch the fireworks in Hyde Park where the next day a grand fair was to be held until the following Monday night. She remained on the balcony until after midnight, when she admitted at last to feeling rather weary. 'You may depend upon it,' Melbourne told her solicitously, 'you are more tired than you think you are.' She herself, she decided, would 'ever remember this day as the proudest' of her life.¹⁸

Chapter 10 THE HASTINGS AFFAIR

One day in the week after the coronation the Queen recorded in her diary that she was 'quite cross ... annoyed and put out'. Irritated as she often was by other people's illnesses, she was particularly exasperated by Lord Melbourne who had taken to his bed. He had obviously been exhausted by the service in the Abbey where he had appeared quite worn out by the weight of the Sword of State which it had been his duty to carry. 'It was most provoking and vexatious', the Queen complained, that she should be deprived of the 'agreeable daily visit' of her Prime Minister, who would talk to her so amusingly, sitting beside her so comfortingly and protectively, letting Dash, or another of her dogs, a Scotch terrier called Islay, lick his hand. 'All dogs like me,' he said complacently.

The Queen was also put out whenever he did not come to dinner. 'Lord Melbourne dines with Lady Holland,' she wrote after one of these Melbourneless evenings. 'I wish he dined with me.' She was jealous and admitted it. She was also jealous of the beautiful Duchess of Sutherland, who often sat next to Lord Melbourne at dinner and made it almost impossible for him to talk to anyone else.

His absence was particularly tiresome at this time, as she had a meeting of the Privy Council to attend on 4 July; and there she must be without the person who made her 'feel safe and comfortable'.

She was not feeling very well herself. A rash had broken out on her hands; and, as the summer turned into autumn, she grew increasingly prone to headaches, outbursts of irritation and bouts of lethargy during which she found it an effort to get out of bed in the morning, get dressed, or even brush her teeth. Her handwriting suffered: she wrote indistinctly, misspelling words and leaving others out.

Lord Melbourne, by then recovered from his illness, told her she ate too much, was too fond of highly spiced food, drank too much ale and not enough wine; and did not take enough exercise: she ought to walk more in the open air. She protested that walking made her feel tired as well as sick, and she got stones in her shoes and her feet got swollen. As for Lord Melbourne's contention that she should eat only when she was hungry, she was always hungry, she retorted, so, if she followed his advice, she would be eating all day long. In any case, the Queen of Portugal was always taking exercise, yet she was very fat. It was certainly true that Victoria was putting on weight: she was weighed on 13 December and, to her consternation, discovered that she was only one pound under nine stone.¹ Her skin had taken on a yellowish tinge; her eyes were sore and troublesome - she once showed Melbourne a stye which rather disgusted him - and she feared she might be going blind, as her grandfather, George III, had done. Moreover, her hands were always cold in winter and her fingers red and swollen. She admitted herself that she was 'cross and low'. By the end of the year she was given to lamenting that she was 'unfit for [her] station'; and it took all Melbourne's tact and powers of persuasion to get her to think otherwise.

Baron Stockmar reported to King Leopold that she had become rather difficult of late, over-conscious of her exalted position, quick to take offence, impatient of advice and thoroughly out of sorts. By the beginning of the next year she was still far from being as lively and happy as she had been in the months immediately following her accession, and quite unprepared to deal rationally with a scandal concerning Lady Flora Hastings that now engulfed the Court.

She had never liked Lady Flora, known to her friends as 'Scotty'. The woman was an 'amazing spy who would repeat everything she heard', an 'odious' person. It was 'very disagreeable having her in the house'.² The Queen was quite ready to believe the worst of her when it appeared from her distended figure that she might be pregnant. Both the Queen and Baroness Lehzen, who much resented Lady Flora's teasing of her, became convinced that she was pregnant. So did others; and 'the horrid cause' of this condition, so the Queen decided, was undoubtedly that 'Monster and demon Incarnate', Sir John Conroy who, so it was believed, had travelled back from Scotland overnight in a post-chaise alone with his friend, the 'amiable & virtuous' Lady Flora, after spending the Christmas holidays with her mother, at Loudon Castle.³ Conroy had taken the opportunity - 'to use plain words' - to get her 'with child.⁴ Lady Tavistock - who, as senior Lady of the Bedchamber, had been approached by other ladies to protect their purity from this contamination - was authorized to consult Lord Melbourne.

Melbourne had already heard something about Lady Flora's supposed condition from Sir James Clark, who had been appointed Physician in Ordinary to the Queen in 1837, and predictably gave the advice that he was wont to do when faced with a difficult problem that had no easy solution. He had once told the Queen, 'All depends on the urgency of a thing. If a thing is very urgent, you can always find time for it; but if a thing can be put off, well then you put it off.' So, on this occasion, he advised that the 'only way' was 'to be quiet and watch it'.⁵ If no fuss was made it would no doubt all blow over. Similar advice was later given to Lord Hastings, Lady Flora's young brother, by the Duke of Wellington, who was generally consulted, and loved to be consulted, in such tracasseries: the wisest plan, the Duke advised, was to hush the whole matter up.⁶

Unfortunately, Lady Flora, concerned about her condition, consulted Sir James Clark who, as a man who had started his professional life as a surgeon in the Navy, was not as well qualified as he might have been to give advice on female complaints. He did not 'pay much attention' to her ailments, Lady Flora said, or, perhaps, he 'did not understand them'. He prescribed rhubarb and ipecacuanha pills and a liniment largely composed of camphor and opium.⁷ However, having felt her stomach over her dress, he discovered a 'considerable enlargement of the lower part of her abdomen'. But 'being unable to satisfy myself as to the nature of the enlargement,' he reported, 'I at length expressed to her my uneasiness respecting her size, and requested that at my next visit, I might be permitted to lay my hand upon her abdomen with her stays removed. To this Lady Flora declined to accede.'⁸ Clark then said, according to Lady Flora's own account, that Lady Portman and others of the Queen's ladies were talking about her; he considered that they did so with justification; he thought no one could look at her and doubt that she was pregnant; he urged her to confess as 'the only thing' to save her; nothing but a thorough medical examination 'could satisfy the ladies of the Palace, so deeply were their suspicions rooted'.⁹

After this unpleasant conversation Clark consulted the Duchess of Kent, who refused to believe that her lady-in-waiting was pregnant. However, Lady Portman, who also went to see the Duchess, insisted that it was 'impossible that the honour either of the Court or of the Lady can admit of the least doubt or delay in clearing up the matter'.¹⁰

So the Duchess, rather than allow Lady Flora to leave Court under unwarranted suspicion, advised her to agree to what Sir James Clark had proposed.

And so Lady Flora changed her mind about submitting to a proper medical examination. She consented to undergoing one, provided Sir Charles Clarke, an experienced accoucheur and leading practitioner in midwifery, who had known the Hastings family for years, was present in the room with Sir James Clark. The two doctors accordingly conducted their examination in the presence of Lady Portman, who stood by the window with her head in her hands, and Lady Flora's maid, who was in tears throughout.¹¹ After this examination a formal declaration was issued in both the doctors' names:

We have examined with great care the state of Lady Flora Hastings with a view to determine the existence, or non-existence, of pregnancy, and it is our opinion, although there is an enlargement of the stomach, that there are no grounds for suspicion that pregnancy does exist, or ever has existed.12

This report was expected to settle the matter. But in a conversation with Lord Melbourne, Sir Charles Clarke remarked that there were cases when, despite appearances of virginity, pregnancies had occurred. Sir Charles had observed such cases himself.¹³ Melbourne reported this conversation to the Queen and was evidently persuaded that Lady Flora's condition was one of those which Sir Charles had mentioned. When the Queen remarked that Lady Flora had not been seen in the Palace for some time because she was so sick, Melbourne repeated, 'Sick?' with what the Queen described as 'a significant laugh'.¹⁴

Having read the doctors' report, the Queen agreed with Melbourne that the whole matter was getting 'very uncomfortable' and she thought that it would be as well that she should see Lady Flora and conciliate her. So she sent a message of regret to her through Lady Portman, who had already apologized herself, and offered to see her immediately. Lady Flora replied that she was too ill to see the Queen at present. A few days later, however, she appeared in the Queen's sitting room. 'She was dreadfully agitated,' the Queen wrote, 'and looked very ill, but on my embracing her, taking her by the hand, and expressing great concern at what had happened, and my wish that all should be forgotten, she expressed herself exceedingly grateful to me, and said that, for Mama's sake, she would suppress every wounded feeling and would forget it, etc.'¹⁵

The Hastings family were not prepared to forget it, though; nor was Lady Flora's friend, Sir John Conroy, who was quick to seize this opportunity to make trouble for those who had thwarted his ambition; nor were certain Tory propagandists who recognized in this scandal at Court a useful stick with which to beat Melbourne and the Whigs whom the Queen so openly supported; and nor, on reflection, was Lady Flora herself who wrote to her uncle by marriage, Captain Hamilton Fitzgerald, then living in Brussels, informing him that her honour had been 'most basely assailed'.

Fitzgerald left for London immediately. Lord Hastings, Lady Flora's brother, was equally determined to avenge this slur on his family's good name. Having seen his sister, he was convinced that Lord Melbourne was responsible for promoting the scandal, and he announced that he would challenge him to a duel. But, having talked to him, he was forced to conclude that the Prime Minister had tried to keep everything quiet and that he must look elsewhere for a culprit. His sister generously maintained that the Queen herself was not responsible. She was quite sure, she said, 'that the Queen does not understand what they have betrayed her into. She has endeavoured to show her regret by her civility to me, and expressed it most handsomely with tears in her eyes.'¹⁶ Even so, her brother demanded an audience with the Queen which Lord Melbourne tried to prevent, thereby provoking an outraged letter from Lord Hastings:

Having waited two days in the hope of having an audience with Her Majesty which I requested (if not as a matter of right as a Peer, at least as one of feeling), my patience being exhausted, and being anxious to return to the bosom of my afflicted and insulted family, I am forced to resort to the only means now left in my power, of recording my abhorrence and detestation of the treatment which my sister has lately sustained.17

He shared his sister's belief that the Queen was not directly responsible for this treatment, declaring that responsibility rested with the 'baneful influence' which surrounded the throne and declaring that if he discovered any more relevant facts about the whole affair he would return to Court from whose 'polluted atmosphere' he for the time being retired.

The 'baneful influence' Lady Flora herself identified in her letter to Hamilton Fitzgerald as 'a certain foreign Lady', Baroness Lehzen, whose 'hatred of the Duchess of Kent [was] no secret'. Lady Flora also blamed Lady Portman, her 'accuser' in this 'diabolical conspiracy'. 'Good bye, my dear uncle,' her letter ended. 'I blush to send you so revolting a letter, but I wish you to know the truth, and nothing but the truth - and you are welcome to tell it right and left. '¹⁸

Excerpts from this letter were accordingly sent to the press;[xiv] so were letters written to both the Queen and Lord Melbourne by Lady Flora's mother, the Dowager Marchioness of Hastings, who praised the behaviour of the Queen's 'admirable mother', contended that Her Majesty's honour demanded that 'the criminal inventor' of the falsehoods spread about her daughter should not 'remain without discovery', and demanded as a 'mark of public justice' the removal of Sir James Clark from the Queen's Household. To this last request Melbourne replied, 'The demand which your Ladyship's letter makes upon me is so unprecedented and objectionable that even the respect due to your Ladyship's sex, rank, family and character would not justify me in more, if indeed it authorizes so much than acknowledging the letter for the sole purpose of acquainting your Ladyship that I have received it.' This letter, with the rest of the correspondence, was published in the Morning Post.¹⁹

By now Lady Flora's humiliation, the Queen's supposed failure to make a proper apology for it, as well as her failure to dismiss her Scottish doctor, Sir James Clark, from her Household as he had been dismissed from her mother's, were the subject of intriguing gossip in almost every drawing room in London.

Lord Melbourne characteristically advised the Queen to take no notice of such gossip, nor of the letters which were appearing in the newspapers. But the Queen could not bring herself to ignore them; and the more she fretted about them the more she worked herself up into a fury with Lady Hastings, that 'wicked, foolish old woman', and with 'that wretched Ly. Flo.'.²⁰ She would like to see the whole Hastings family hanged alongside the editor of the Morning Post. As for her mother, who had taken Lady Flora's side and was reported to have looked after her when she was ill as though she had been her own child, her behaviour had been unforgivable. Indeed, it was her mother's behaviour which angered the Queen quite as much as that of the Hastings family. She confessed to Lord Melbourne that she felt 'a growing dislike for Mama', and that it was like 'having an enemy in the house'.

Day after day she spoke in these terms, week after week the atmosphere in the Palace became more charged, and the coolness between the rival households of the Queen and the Duchess became more marked. Lady Tavistock, fearful that Lord Hastings would challenge her husband to a duel, followed Lady Flora about in an effort to make amends. 'Won't you speak to me? Won't you shake hands?' she pleaded. 'That is quite impossible,' Lady Flora said.²¹

She became increasingly ill, while the Queen, dismissive as usual of other people's complaints and always most reluctant to change an opinion once formed, continued to deny the seriousness of Lady Flora's illness which she felt sure was just 'a billious attack'. Her mother insisted that, on the contrary, the poor woman was gravely ill; she was 'in a dreadful state' about her; indeed, she thought Lady Flora was dying. The thought that she might die greatly alarmed Lord Melbourne. That would certainly lay the Queen open to reproach; it would be wise to send to enquire after her. 'First of all,' he said, 'because she is under your roof, and then because it shows feeling.'

But the Queen's dislike of the woman had become so intense that she could not show such feeling. While her mother, who now refused to sit next to Lady Tavistock at the whist table, kept crying and insisting that Lady Flora was mortally ill, her daughter attended a ball and enjoyed herself 'excessively'. There then, however, came very grave reports from Sir William Chambers, one of the leading physicians in London, who had succeeded Sir James Clark as the Duchess of Kent's physician. The Queen was advised to postpone another ball which was due to be held on 26 June. This she did and sent word that she would go to see Lady Flora that afternoon. But the dying woman felt too ill to see her then. Chambers advised her to go to her as soon as she could the next day.

I went in alone [the Queen recorded of this distressing visit]. I found poor Lady Flora stretched on a couch looking as thin as anybody can be who is still alive; literally a skeleton, but the body very much swollen like a person who is with child; a searching look in her eyes, a look rather like a person who is dying; her voice like usual, and a good deal of strength in her hands; she was friendly, said she was very comfortable, and was very grateful for all I had done for her, and that she was glad to see me looking well. I said to her, I hoped to see her again when she was better, upon which she grasped my hand as if to say 'I shall not see you again.' I then instantly went upstairs and returned to Lord M. who said, 'You remained a very short time.'22

Four days later Lady Flora was still clinging weakly to life. The Queen said to Lord Melbourne that she found it very disagreeable and painful 'to think there was a dying person in the house'.²³ On 5 July in the early hours of the morning, over a week since the Queen had last seen her, Lady Flora died. A post mortem was conducted by the distinguished surgeon, Sir Benjamin Brodie, who discovered a large tumour on the liver: 'the uterus and its appendages presented the usual appearances of the healthy virgin state'.

The Queen felt no remorse, she told Lord Melbourne defiantly. She had 'done nothing to kill her'. However, much of the Press, led by the Morning Post, and many of the public at large considered that she should have felt remorse. At Ascot that summer, as her open carriage was driven up the course, two ladies in a private stand, one of them a duchess (two 'foolish, vulgar women' in the Queen's opinion, who ought to be flogged), hissed her loudly. Other voices could be heard shouting, 'Mrs Melbourne'. She was hissed and booed also in the streets of London, as she had been at the opera in Lady Flora's lifetime; and insults such as 'Whose belly up now?' were hurled at her as she rode by. Few men troubled to raise their hats at sight of her as they had done in the recent past. In fact, as Greville commented, it seemed that nobody cared for the Queen any more; loyalty was a dead letter; the scandal had played the devil with her popularity.

The Morning Post continued to upbraid her, attacking The Times for the excuses it offered for her behaviour. Pamphlets, assailing the 'evil counsellors' by whom she was surrounded, the 'stranger harboured in our country' (Baroness Lehzen) and the 'court physician with his cringing back' (Sir James Clark), were hawked about the streets. At a dinner in Nottingham, so General Sir Charles Napier said, his was the only voice to respond to the royal toast. Lord Ilchester believed the Queen would be well advised to leave London for a time to avoid further insult. Lord Melbourne suggested that a body of police should be made available on the day of Lady Flora's funeral in case the Queen's mourning carriage, which he thought should be sent as a token of respect, was stoned by demonstrators.

The family disdainfully returned the £50 which the Queen had sent to Lady Flora's maid; and for many years thereafter the blinds of Loudon Castle were drawn whenever Queen Victoria went to Scotland.

Not long after the funeral which, in fact, was conducted without serious interruption though, as Melbourne feared, a few stones and jeers were directed at the Queen's coach, Her Majesty was riding in Hyde Park where, although the crowd was 'very great', there was 'not one hiss'. In fact a few people cheered her as she rode through the gate into St James's Park. This, she wrote with complacent satisfaction, 'is a good answer to those fools who say that the public feeling - a few paid Wretches - was displayed on Thursday by hooting at Ministers'.²⁴

She was, however, far from as content and relieved as her protestations suggested. The Lady Flora Hastings affair had upset her deeply, and induced in her that malaise and inappetence so often consequent upon her emotional distress. She was 'disgusted with everything' and would have left the country immediately had she been a private individual. She was even, so she told Lord Melbourne, 'tired of riding'. As for Melbourne himself, he was conscious of not having guided the young Queen in the way he should have done: he certainly should not have shuffled the blame on to her ladies during his interview with Lord Hastings. He felt penitent. So did the Queen at last. When she got a stone in her shoe while walking with him, he told her it was a penance. She did not contradict him.²⁵

Chapter 11 'A PLEASANT LIFE'

For all Victoria's occasional withering disapproval and what Lady Paget called her 'commanding look', and for all the criticism levelled at her in the immediate aftermath of the Lady Flora Hastings affair, it was generally conceded that the Queen was a young woman of charm and character, self-willed and pertinacious admittedly but determined, as she confided to her journal, to do her utmost to fulfil her duty to her country. 'I am very young,' she wrote with unconscious pietism, 'and perhaps in many, though not in all things, inexperienced, but I am sure, that very few have more real good will and more real desire to do what is fit and right than I have.'

Certainly she was relishing her new role as Queen and was scarcely in need of the sympathy expressed for the 'poor little Queen' by Thomas Carlyle who said that she could hardly be expected to choose a bonnet for herself let alone undertake a task 'from which an archangel might shrink'.¹ She said that sometimes when she woke up in the morning she was 'quite afraid that it should all be a dream'. It was such 'a pleasant life', she said. 'Everybody says that I am quite another person since I came to the throne,' she told Princess Feodora. 'I look and am so very well ... I [lead] just the sort of life I like. I have a good deal of business to do, and all that does me a world of good.'²

She had left Kensington Palace with mixed feelings: she had had days of great unhappiness there; but she had pleasing memories of it too, most particularly of the earlier days of her childhood. But she had been anxious to move into Buckingham Palace as soon as possible, even though it was scarcely habitable yet, builders still having much work to complete at the time of King William IV's death. She had insisted on moving within three weeks of her accession; and so she had done. She was delighted with it. Thomas Creevey thought it a dreadful building which really ought to be called The Brunswick Hotel: it displayed 'every species of infirmity', its costly ornamentations exceeding 'all belief in their bad taste', its raspberry-coloured pillars enough to 'quite turn you sick to look at'.³ The Queen, however, having no pretensions to taste in the design and decoration of rooms, was delighted with the Palace, its 'high, pleasant and cheerful' interiors, and its garden of forty-five acres laid out by the botanist, W. J. Aiton. It was just the place for parties, she thought, for balls and for concerts given by her own band.

Her first state ball had been given in the Palace in May 1838. She had 'felt a little shy in going in' but had soon been caught up in the excitement of the music, the galops and quadrilles. She 'had not danced for so long & was so glad to do so again'. She felt 'so happy and so merry'. Her cousin, Prince George of Cambridge, 'thought she danced really very nicely and seemed to be very much amused'.⁴ She did not leave the ballroom until ten minutes to four and by the time she climbed into bed the sun was up.⁵ She had shocked some of her guests, including old Lady Ilchester, by eating her supper standing up in the ballroom, breaking with the custom of King William IV who, as Mary Frampton said, was 'quite Citizen King enough' but who 'always supped with the Queen in his private apartments with a select party'.⁶ Charles Greville, however, was much struck by Queen Victoria's 'exceedingly graceful manners', blended with 'dignity and cordiality, a simplicity and good humour, when She talks to people, which are mighty captivating. When supper was announced She moved from her seat, all her officers going before her -She, first, alone, and the Royal Family following; her exceeding youth strikingly contrasted with their mature ages, but She did it well.'⁷

She was not so taken with the Marine Pavilion at Brighton, that remarkably exotic structure which John Nash had created for her uncle, George IV, 'a strange, odd, Chinese-looking thing, both inside and outside', the 'most extraordinary Palace' that she had ever seen.⁸ But, although she felt too much on display there, she grew to be less censorious of the place. Her sitting room was 'pretty & cheerful' and from her bedroom she had 'a nice little peep of the sea'.⁹

To begin with she was not much taken with Windsor Castle either. She had first arrived there as Queen towards the end of August 1837 on a rainy day when the great stone towers and terraces, haunted by the cawing of rooks, looked particularly gloomy. She had felt that she did not belong there, that she was not mistress of the place, that at any moment she might 'see the poor King and Queen'.¹⁰ Memories of the King's quarrels with her mother, and of herself being 'terribly scolded' by her mother in the Tapestry Room in the Lancaster Tower because of her wish to be on good terms with her uncle, had come back to depress her. It was not long, however, before the atmosphere of the place captured her imagination. She even grew to like the tolling of the bells and the striking of her grandfather's numerous clocks. She enjoyed the games of battledore and shuttlecock she played with her Ladies in the immensely long Great Corridor beneath the Canalettos and the family portraits. Ministers whose company she enjoyed came to stay. So, to her 'inexpressible happiness', did King Leopold and Queen Louise; and when they had gone she wrote to Queen Louise to say that the late summer she had spent at Windsor was the 'pleasantest summer she had EVER passed in her life'.^11[xv]

Back in London she settled down to the routine of her life with perfect contentment, much enjoying, indeed 'delighting' in her work. She had been advised to be methodical about this by King Leopold who told her 'the best plan is to devote certain hours to [business]; if you do that, you will get through it with great ease. I think you would do well to tell your Ministers that for the present you would be ready to receive those who should wish to see you between the hours of eleven and half-past one.' He went on to suggest that 'whenever a question of some importance' arose with these Ministers 'it should not be decided on the day it [was] submitted'.¹²

Although her obedience to this advice sometimes annoyed her Ministers, none of them could deny that she was extremely conscientious in her consideration of the matters put to her; and when King Leopold suggested that she ought to spend more time at Claremont and less in London she retorted that she could not possibly do so: she had to see her Ministers 'every day'. She did 'regular, hard but delightful work with them' and 'never felt tired or annoyed' by the hours she had to devote to it.¹³

She got up promptly at eight o'clock and dealt with papers until it was time for breakfast at which her mother usually joined her, but not until she had received a formal invitation. At eleven o'clock she saw Lord Melbourne, not only as her Prime Minister but also as a kind of private secretary and confidential adviser. After luncheon she went out riding with various ladies and gentlemen of her Household, Melbourne on one side, an equerry on the other. She was usually dressed in a black velvet riding habit, sometimes galloping ahead of the others on her lively horse, displaying her skill and grace as a horsewoman. 'She has a small, active, safe but very fleet horse,' Lady Holland told her son, 'nor does she undervalue the last quality, or allow it to rust for want of using: the pace at which she returns is tremendous ... I am startled by the thinness of Lord Melbourne. It is too much; but it may be partly ascribed to the hard riding of those who are attendants of the Queen.'¹⁴

Before dinner at eight, the Queen took up her sketchbook or her music; and, after dinner, there were those dutiful, stilted conversations with her guests which Charles Greville had described, followed by more intimate talk with a few friends, games of chess and draughts, jigsaw puzzles and spillikins. Or she might look into books of prints, Lord Melbourne at her side, making comments pertinent or wry, paradoxical, funny or facetious, occasionally reducing both her and himself to helpless laughter, the loud hoots of Melbourne's laugh, like those of the Duke of Wellington, being heard all over the room. He told her, for instance, when talking of cannibalism, of the old woman ill in bed who was asked if there was anything she would like to have and who replied, 'I think I could eat a little piece of the small bone of a boy's head.' He defended Henry VIII's treatment of his wives by declaring, 'Oh, those women bothered him so.' He recommended the employment of Dissenters as gardeners because they wouldn't take time off to go hunting or to the races. He read out 'so funnily' a printed paper which he had come across in a packet of Assam tea and which contained a commendation of the product by one Dr Lun Qua, a name that 'put him into paroxysms of laughter, from which he couldn't recover for some time, and did one good to hear'. She herself, she said, would sometimes almost 'die with laughing' in his company.¹⁵

The Duke of Wellington, while admitting that he liked Melbourne and thought that he was 'the best Minister' the Queen could have, was 'afraid he joked too much with her, and made her treat things too lightly which are very serious'.¹⁶ When Melbourne told the Queen of this criticism, which he had heard about through Lord Clarendon, he conceded that there was some truth in it. She protested, however, that it was not so. Nor would she have agreed with the earnest and upright Lord Ashley, later Lord Shaftesbury, who, while recognizing that the Prime Minister had 'a sincere and even ardent affection for the Queen', suggested that he did not possess the 'courage to act and advise her according to her real interests'. 'His society and conversation are pernicious to a young mind,' Ashley believed. 'His sentiments and manner blunt the moral sense ... [His cynicism] and 'reckless language' were a 'perpetual source of poison to her mind'.¹⁷

The Queen would have none of this. As for the confidence of the Crown, she insisted, 'God knows, No Minister, no friend EVER possessed it so entirely, as this truly excellent Lord Melbourne possesses mine!'

It was noticed that when Lord Melbourne was not by her side after dinner, she glanced repeatedly in his direction; Lord Hatherton observed that 'she could not bear that he should be out of her sight... if Melbourne even left the room her eyes followed him, and ... she sighed when he was gone';¹⁸ and when he was not at Court she was jealous of the hostess who had attracted his presence elsewhere. More often than she liked this was Lady Holland; and once, when she knew he had gone to Holland House, she lamented in her diary, 'I WISH he dined with me.' She told him that Lady Holland, who was old enough to be her grandmother, did 'not care for him half as much as she did, which made him laugh'. Indeed, she said, 'I am sure none of your friends are as fond of you as I am. '¹⁹

Chapter 12 'A HEADSTRONG GIRL'

He was, said the Queen, capable of every villainy'. She and Lord Melbourne were once again, on 21 January 1839, talking about Sir John Conroy. Melbourne had remarked, apropos of the man's intimacy with the Duchess of Kent, Princess Sophia and Lady Flora Hastings, not to mention his wife, 'What an amazing scape of a man he must have been to have kept three ladies at once in good humour. '¹

Conroy, that 'Devil incarnate', had been giving trouble ever since she had come to the throne. On the very morning of the late King's death, as Lord Melbourne came out of the Privy Council meeting, he was handed a paper listing the sacrifices Conroy had made, both professionally and financially, to serve the Duchess so selflessly and the conditions which he required before he could consider retirement: they were a peerage, the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath, and a pension of £3,000 a year.² 'This is really too bad! Have you ever heard such impudence,' exclaimed Lord Melbourne as the paper fell from his hands.³ Soon, however, he came to agree with Baron Stockmar that the man's retirement was the 'only measure' which might help to improve the Duchess of Kent's relationship with her daughter who was, indeed, prepared to promise almost anything to the dreadful fellow provided he left the country; and, since Conroy protested that he was far from content with the mere baronetcy accorded him, he was given an undertaking that, if Melbourne 'should continue as her Majesty's adviser', he would be raised to an Irish peerage as soon as a new creation could be made. Melbourne had hoped that this offer would induce Conroy to leave the country; but Sir John declined to fulfil his part of the bargain until the Queen had fulfilled hers. So he and his family remained at Kensington where, so Princess Lieven heard, he bullied the Duchess as vigorously as ever. All this, Lord Liverpool observed to Baron Stockmar, was 'the result of Lord M.'s careless way of doing things'.

As the months went by, however, Conroy's position and reputation in England became increasingly insecure. He felt obliged to lodge an action for libel when The Times in a prominent article hinted at gross mismanagement of the Duchess of Kent's financial affairs by 'a certain newly created baronet' who had also been enabled to buy 'a certain estate in Wales' with money not his own. Then there were complaints from the Duchess of Kent's Coburg relations that the sitting room which had been made available to them on their visits to England was insolently invaded by this Irish interloper who was accustomed to come in and sit there as if he, too, were a member of her family. Following upon these complaints came a letter from James Abercromby, by now the highly respected Speaker of the House of Commons, who bluntly informed Conroy that it was 'everywhere boldly asserted' that his 'remaining in the family of the Duchess of Kent' was the main if not the only cause of the sorry state of the relationship between the Queen and her mother. If he withdrew from London he would be doing a service of the 'greatest public importance'.⁴

At length the Duke of Wellington, always delighted to be involved in such delicate situations, was called upon for help as, indeed, he had been in the Lady Flora Hastings case upon which both the Duchess of Kent and the Marquess of Hastings had sought his advice.

After a conversation with Wellington, Conroy agreed to leave the country, a decision for which the Duke with evident satisfaction took full credit, telling Charles Greville that he had persuaded the man to go by means of cajoling and flattery, using 'plenty of butter', and assuring Conroy that his decision to leave was 'an honourable and manly course'.⁵

Unfortunately the departure of Sir John Conroy for Italy did not improve relations between the Queen and the Duchess who, having assured Conroy that she still retained for him 'the most unshaken esteem', was kept quite as much at arm's length at Buckingham Palace as she had ever been at Kensington. She was required to seek permission before visiting her daughter in her apartments and was not infrequently told that Her Majesty was too occupied with affairs of state or other matters to receive her. One day the Queen was talking to Lord Melbourne in the Blue Closet when her mother 'unceremoniously opened the door, but on [the Queen's] holloaing out, begged pardon and retired'.

The ill feeling between mother and daughter was exacerbated by complaints from the Duchess that the apartments allowed to her and her household were uncomfortably small when compared with those of the Queen who slept in a large bedroom between those of her maid and Baroness Lehzen, her 'ANGELIC, dearest Lehzen... the most estimable & precious treasure' she possessed and 'EVER SHALL POSSESS'.⁶

The comfort of having Lord Melbourne to talk to, and support her when plagued by such problems as were posed by her mother, made life so much more agreeable than it might otherwise have been; and when, at the beginning of May 1839, the Queen learned from the Home Secretary, Lord John Russell, that their Government was facing defeat on a colonial issue in the House of Commons and that her beloved Prime Minister would have to resign, she received the news with horrified dismay. Some weeks earlier the possibility of his Government's defeat had distressed her beyond measure: 'I am but a poor helpless girl who clings to him for support and protection, & the thought of ALL ALL my happiness being possibly at stake, so completely overcame me that I burst into tears and remained crying for some time.'⁷

Now, distressed as she already had been by the Lady Flora Hastings affair and the presumptuous demands of the now mercifully departed Conroy, she was even more distraught: 'The state of agony, grief and despair into which this [defeat of the Government] placed me may be easier imagined than described!' she wrote in her diary. 'That happy peaceful life destroyed, that dearest kind Lord Melbourne no more my minister ... I sobbed and cried much.'⁸

'I really thought my heart would break,' she added after Melbourne had been to see her to confirm the terrible news himself and she had begged him 'ever to be a father to one who never wanted support more than she does now', 'He was standing by the window; I took that kind dear hand of his in both mine and looked at him and sobbed out, "Don't forsake me." I held his hand for a little while, unable to leave go; and he gave me such a look of kindness pity and affection, and could hardly utter for words, "Oh! no!" in such a touching voice.⁹ We then sat down as usual and I strove to calm myself... After a pause he said, "You must try and be as collected as you can and act with great firmness and decision" ... I went on crying and feeling as thoroughly wretched as human mortal can be.'¹⁰

When he had gone she wrote him three letters beseeching him to come to see her again and to stay for dinner. He would not come to dinner, he replied: it would not be proper to do so while negotiations for a new Government were in progress; but he would come to see her that afternoon.

In the meantime Lord John Russell called to see her; but she could not stop crying and she was still in tears when Lord Melbourne returned with a paper in which he recommended her sending for the Duke of Wellington who would probably suggest that she send for Sir Robert Peel, who had been Prime Minister in the Tory administration of 1834-5. If the Duke did so, she must try to make allowances for Peel's stiff, shy, awkward manner.¹¹ Certainly Peel was 'an underbred fellow' for all his time at Harrow and Christ Church. He was, after all, 'not accustomed to talk to Kings and Princes' as Melbourne himself was, yet he was 'a very able and gifted man'.¹²

'I burst into tears and said, "You don't know what a dreadful thing it is for me,"' the Queen continued in her diary entry. 'He looked really so kindly at me and seemed much affected ... I sobbed much, again held his hand in both mine ... as if I felt in doing so he could not leave me ... He then got up ... and he kissed my hand, I crying dreadfully.' When he had gone she wrote to beg him to ride tomorrow in the Park so that she could 'just get a glimpse' of him; it would be 'such a comfort'. 'Ld. Melbourne may think this childish but the Queen really is so anxious it might be; & she wld bear thro' all her trials so much better if she did just see a friend's face sometimes ...'

That evening she 'could not touch a morsel of food' and spent a restless night. The next morning the Duke of Wellington called. He told her that he was really too old at seventy, too deaf, too out of touch with the House of Commons to think of becoming Prime Minister again. He recommended, as Melbourne had supposed he would, that she should send for Sir Robert Peel. The prospect of Peel as Prime Minister depressed her still further: he was so difficult to talk to, his shyness made her shy too, his nervous mannerisms were so distracting. Her uncle, George IV, had been driven in his presence to complain of his irritating habit of thrusting out his arms as he talked; the Queen herself said that the way he pointed his toes and shook down his cuffs reminded her of a dancing master. Charles Greville compared him to a 'dapper shopkeeper': 'he eats voraciously and cuts cream jellies with his knife.'

Although Peel seemed 'embarrassed and put out' when he came into the Queen's presence that afternoon - and was 'such a cold, odd man ... oh, how different, how dreadfully different, to that frank, open, natural and most kind, warm manner of Lord Melbourne' - the interview was not as painful to her as she had feared it might be.¹³ Melbourne had advised her to express the hope that none of her Household except those engaged in politics would be removed. 'They'll not touch your ladies,' he had said, to which she had replied that they would not dare: she 'never would allow it'. She mentioned the subject of her Household to Peel, 'to which at present he would give no answer, but said nothing should be done without the Queen's knowledge and approbation'.¹⁴

The next day the Queen received a letter from Lord Melbourne in which he suggested that she ought to 'urge this question of the household strongly as a matter due to yourself and your own wishes'. But, if Sir Robert Peel insisted upon certain changes she should not refuse them, nor break off negotiations upon the point.

That, however, was precisely what she intended to do. During Peel's second audience that day, he came more firmly and directly to the question uppermost in both their minds. 'Now, Ma'am,' he said, 'about the Ladies.' The Queen, bridling at the implied question, replied that she could never give up any of her ladies, that she 'had never imagined such a thing'.

Did she intend to retain all of them? Peel asked

'All.'

The Mistress of the Robes and the Ladies of the Bedchamber?

'All.'¹⁵

But some of these ladies were married to his Whig opponents, protested Peel, who, so the Queen noted with satisfaction, began to look 'quite perturbed'. It did not matter whom they were married to, she riposted: she never talked politics with her ladies. He would not ask her to change her younger ladies, Peel persisted; it was only some of the more important, senior ladies whom he would like to see replaced. But these, she countered, were just the ones she could not spare; besides, queens had not been asked to make such sacrifices in the past. Comparisons with past queens did not really apply, Peel pointed out; they had been queen consorts, she was a reigning queen: that made all the difference. 'Not here,' the Queen declared sharply, resolutely standing her ground.¹⁶

'I never saw a man so frightened,' she reported triumphantly to Lord Melbourne. 'He was quite perturbed ... I was very calm but very decided, and I think you would have been pleased to see my composure and great firmness ... the Queen of England will not submit to such trickery. Keep yourself in readiness for you may soon be wanted. '¹⁷

Some three hours later Peel returned to the Queen. He had already reassured her when she had asked him that he surely could not expect her to give up the society of Lord Melbourne. Nothing could be further from his thoughts, he had said: he would always 'feel perfectly secure in the honour of Lord Melbourne'. He was also perfectly agreeable to the appointment of the Queen's friend, Lord Liverpool, as Lord Steward. But the question of the ladies was a different matter. He tentatively suggested that some changes might be desirable to show that the new Government enjoyed Her Majesty's confidence but he again assured her that nothing would be done without her knowledge and approval. The Queen quickly rejoined that the only members of the Household with whom she could be expected to part were those gentlemen who were also in Parliament. Taking childish pride in her stiff demeanour, she remained, she said, 'very much collected, civil and high' throughout the interview. She found the man 'cold, unfeeling' and 'disagreeable' and took no trouble to disguise her distaste as Peel put forward the names of the men he proposed to her as Ministers. When he awkwardly took his leave and the door closed behind him she gave vent to her feelings in further floods of tears.

Forced to conclude that he could do nothing more to persuade her to be less intransigent, Peel enlisted the support of the Duke of Wellington who found that the Queen had worked herself up into a state of 'high passion and excitement'.

'Well,' he began, 'I am sorry to find there is a difficulty.' 'Oh, he began it not me,' she replied. 'It is offensive to me to suppose that I talk to any of my ladies upon public affairs.'

'I know you do not ... But the public does not know this.'¹⁸

The discussion continued for some time; but the old Duke was powerless in the face of the young girl's stubborn pertness. As Charles Greville observed, the Queen, 'a clever but rather thoughtless and headstrong girl', was 'boldly and stubbornly' using her ladies as a pretext to fulfil her 'longing to get back her old Ministers' and she was not prepared to abandon that pretext however unconstitutional it might be.

Soon after Wellington had withdrawn from the battle, Peel returned to the Palace to say that unless there was some demonstration of her confidence in a Tory administration, and if she insisted on retaining all her ladies, his colleagues had concluded 'unanimously that they could not go on'. Having tartly observed that her 'Ladies were entirely her own affair and not the Ministers'' and that 'Sir Robert must be very weak if even the Ladies were required to share his political opinions', she wrote in triumph to Melbourne, 'This was quite wonderful! ... What a blessed and unexpected escape.'¹⁹

Most of the senior members of the Cabinet were far readier than Melbourne himself to believe the Queen had done well to stand firm against Peel's demands. Melbourne noted with some concern that Peel had asked for some changes not a complete replacement of the entire household as was widely believed. But this did not much concern Lord John Russell, who considered it unthinkable to desert the Queen in her stand against the Tory demands, nor Lord Grey, the former Prime Minister, who believed Her Majesty had 'the strongest claims' to the Government's support 'in the line which she [had] taken'. So Lord Melbourne, not unwillingly, allowed himself to be persuaded. He read out to his colleagues a summary of two letters he had received from the Queen in which she sounded a highly triumphant note: 'Do not fear that I was not calm and composed. They wanted to deprive me of my Ladies, and I suppose they would deprive me next of my dressers and my housemaids; they wished to treat me like a girl, but I will show them that I am Queen of England.'²⁰ That evening she gave a ball for the Tsarevich, the future Tsar Alexander II, noting in her diary afterwards that both Peel and the Duke of Wellington looked 'very much put out ... I left the ballroom at 1/4 to 3, much pleased, as my mind felt happy.'²¹ There was, however, a feeling in the country, and not only amongst Tories, that the Queen, as she herself was later to admit, had behaved unwisely and impetuously in this the first constitutional crisis of her reign.

Charles Greville, as was so often the case, well expressed the view of these critics of the Queen's behaviour:

It is a high trial of our institutions when the caprice of a girl of nineteen can overturn a great Ministerial combination, and when the most momentous matters of Government and legislation are influenced by her pleasure about the Ladies of the Bedchamber ... The origin of the present mischief may be found in the objectionable composition of the Royal Household at the accession. The Queen knew nobody, and was ready to take any Ladies that Melbourne recommended to her. He ought to have taken care that the female part of her Household should not have a political complexion, instead of making it exclusively Whig as (unfortunately for her) he did. The simple truth in this case is that the Queen could not endure the thought of parting with Melbourne, who is everything to her ... In the course of the transaction She thought She saw the means presenting themselves of getting Melbourne back, and She eagerly grasped at, and pertinaciously retained them. Nothing else would have emboldened her to resist the advice and opinion of the Duke of Wellington and to oppose so unbendingly her will to his authority. There is something which shocks one's sense of fitness and propriety in the spectacle of this mere baby of a Queen setting herself in opposition to this great man ... She has made herself the Queen of a party.22

Baron Stockmar, too, was concerned that a 'great Ministerial combination' had been overturned by 'the caprice of a girl of nineteen'. He wondered if, like her grandfather, King George III, she was mentally unbalanced. 'How could they,' he asked, 'let the Queen make such mistakes, to the injury of the Monarchy?'²³

Chapter 13 GERMAN COUSINS

It is rumoured and confidently believed in the highest circles [The Watchman had informed its readers on 4 May 1828] that Prince George, Son of His Royal Highness, the Duke of Cumberland, will speedily be betrothed to his royal Cousin, the Princess Victoria, daughter of the late Duke of Kent; the Prince is a fine healthy boy, in his tenth year, and the Princess, a lovely child, within a few days of the same age.1

Wild as was this surmise, it was scarcely more improbable than some other conjectures about Princess Victoria's future husband which were to appear in newspapers over the next few years. Indeed, the French press suggested that she was to be married to her uncle Leopold, ignoring the fact that the Church of England's Table of Kindred and Affinity prohibited such a marriage in her own country. She was also, at one time or another, rumoured to be intended as a bride for the Duke of Nemours's brother, the Duke of Orleans, for the Duke of Brunswick, nephew of King George IV's unbalanced wife, Queen Caroline, for Prince Adelbert of Prussia, for Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, the future King Christian IV of Denmark, and for the eldest son of the Prince of Orange who, to the fury of King Leopold, had been invited to England by King William IV, a warm advocate of the match. 'Really and truly I never saw anything like it,' expostulated King Leopold, who had other plans for his niece. 'I am really astonished at the conduct of your old Uncle the King; this invitation of the Prince of Orange and his sons, this forcing him upon others is very extraordinary ... I am not aware ... of the King's even having spent a sixpence for your existence'.²

Fortunately the Princess did not at all like the look of the young men from Holland. 'The boys are both very plain,' she reassured her uncle, 'moreover they look heavy, dull and frightened and are not at all prepossessing. So much for the Oranges, dear Uncle.'³

King Leopold's opposition to the Orange match was prompted not only by the troubles he foresaw as King of the Belgians but also by his having a candidate of his own. This was Prince Albert, son of King Leopold's eldest brother, Ernest, Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, whom his family had long destined for the role of consort to the English Queen.

Born on 24 August 1819 at the Schloss Rosenau, his father's modest Gothic castle on the edge of the forest of Thuringen a few miles from Coburg, Prince Albert had been an exceptionally good-looking child, 'superb, extraordinarily beautiful', in the words of his mother, though the Dowager Duchess of Coburg considered him 'too slight for a boy'. Certainly he was rather feminine, sensitive and shy, far from robust and often in tears.

His early years had been overcast by the departure of his mother who, when he was no more than five years old and in bed with whooping cough, had left her profligate and much older husband, whom she had married at sixteen, for an army lieutenant two years younger than herself. He never saw her again; and his character, introspective, and given to melancholy, was for ever scarred by this painful separation from a beautiful woman who had petted and indulged him.

Yet his childhood was far from being as unhappy as he was later to describe it to his eldest daughter. He was much attached to his elder brother, Ernest; his father, stern with others, was not unkind to him, bestowing upon him an affection which was warmly returned; his good-natured grandmothers did their best to take the place of his mother; his tutor, Herr Florschutz, was sympathetic and understanding, his Swiss valet attentive and protective. He was an intelligent and painstaking pupil, preternaturally conscientious. At the age of eleven he wrote with earnest precocity in his diary, 'I intend to train myself to be a good and useful man.' And this assiduous determination to do well marked his every activity: he applied himself to sport and games with as much diligence as he brought to his lessons. When walking in the lovely countryside around the Rosenau, he made detailed and exact observations of all the natural objects he came across and formed comprehensive collections of stones and shells, stuffed birds, insects and butterflies, all neatly labelled and categorized.

After ten months studying in Brussels, where his uncle, King Leopold, kept a close eye on his protege's progress, he and his brother were sent, in April 1837, to undergo more advanced studies at Bonn University where Prince Albert was described as a model student, getting up at five o'clock to read his books and write his essays, diligently attending lectures, taking careful notes, fencing and skating with skill and grace. But it was felt that he did not yet display those social graces, that ease of manner which would be expected of him at the English Court: with strangers he was inclined to be distant, formal and stiff. So in October 1838 he was sent with Baron Stockmar on a continental tour, following the route which so many young gentlemen had taken before him through Florence, Rome and Naples. In Italy he was as conscientious in his studies as he had been in Germany, getting up early to read and to learn Italian, walking round galleries, museums and churches, studying paintings and sculpture.[xvi]⁴ He sketched; he played the piano; he went for long walks. Baron Stockmar could not fault his industry; but there was, it had to be admitted, more than a whiff of pedagogic pedantry in the evident pleasure he took in the dissemination of his knowledge, in his categoric pronouncements upon the merits or faults of whatever came under his observation, his readiness to correct the misapprehensions of others, to score points. In Rome, for example, he was granted an audience with Pope Gregory. 'The Pope asserted,' recorded the Prince, 'that the Greeks had taken their models from the Etruscans. In spite of his infallibility, I ventured to assert that they had derived their lessons in art from the Egyptians.'⁵

The Prince's humour, too, was of a rather heavy and ponderous kind. He was said to be a fairly convincing mimic but no one could have called him witty; and he had a distressing fondness for rather childish jokes; he was fond of one about a short-sighted man who came into a room and, mistaking a fat woman for a stove, turned his back on her with his coat tails turned up. He also enjoyed catching people out on April Fool's Day and perpetrating practical jokes such as that which he and his brother played upon the inhabitants of a small German town through which they drove. Prince Albert held up the head of his dog at the window, while he and Prince Ernest crouched down in the bottom of the carriage out of sight of the people who had gathered to see them pass by.[xvii]⁶

With the example of his parents and his brother - who was twice to contract a venereal disease - ever before his eyes, he had a horror of sexual irregularities. He was also subject to an occasional nervous irritability and a tendency to express opinions, in the words of his brother, 'which are wont to arise from contempt of mankind in the abstract'.

What concerned Stockmar as much as anything else in Prince Albert's character was his awkward manner with women, a gaucherie which the Baron attributed principally to his 'having in his earliest years been deprived of the intercourse and supervision of a mother, and of any cultivated woman. He will always have more success with men than with women. He is too little empresse with the latter, too indifferent and too reserved.'⁷

When he had first arrived in England aged sixteen with his brother, Ernest, in May 1836, Prince Albert had been an undeniably handsome and prepossessing boy. His constitution was, however, not well adapted to the bustle and festivities, the dinners and balls, the concerts and levees which he was expected to attend. He was not accustomed to late nights: one evening he had felt compelled to go to bed at what the lively Princess Victoria considered an absurdly early hour; the next evening at a ball attended by over 3,000 guests to celebrate the Princess's seventeenth birthday, after having danced only twice, the Prince had turned 'as pale as ashes' and looked as though he were going to faint. He had been obliged to take to his bed for two days. 'I am sorry to say,' the Princess had reported to her uncle Leopold the next day, 'that we have an invalid in the house in the person of Albert.'⁸ Frequently in the future she was to refer in her journal to Prince Albert's 'delicate stomach'. Unlike the Queen, he had not been able to build up natural resistance to infections consequent upon the appallingly insanitary conditions which he encountered in England, having become used in his childhood and early manhood to the far more hygienic conditions of his native land.⁹

The ceaseless round of entertainments in England, so he had complained to his stepmother, were all too much for him: one concert had lasted until one o'clock in the morning, another had gone on until two. However, in letters to her uncle and his wife, Princess Victoria had assured them that she found Albert and his brother most agreeable, though it had to be said that Albert was rather fat:

They are both very amiable, kind and good. Albert is very handsome which Ernest is not, but he has a most good-natured countenance ... I thank you, my beloved Uncle, for the prospect of great happiness you have contributed to give me in the person of dear Albert. Allow me, then, my dearest Uncle, to tell you how delighted I am with him, and how much I liked him in every way. He possesses every quality that could be desired to render me perfectly happy. He is so sensible, so kind, and so good, and so amiable too. He has, besides, the most pleasing and delightful exterior and appearance you could possibly see.10

'The charm of his countenance is his expression, which is most delightful,' she had written in her diary, 'full of goodness and sweetness and very clever and intelligent.'

Prince Albert had been less enthusiastic. 'Dear Aunt [the Duchess of Kent] is very kind to us, and does everything she can to please us,' he had added in his letter to his stepmother, 'and our cousin is also very amiable.'¹¹ That was all. He had later expressed certain reservations about his cousin: they shared a love of music, but did they have much else in common? He was told she was 'incredibly stubborn', that she delighted in 'ceremonies, etiquette' and the 'trivial formalities' of court life, that she did not share his love of nature, that her pleasure in balls that went on all night was not in the least abated and that after these balls she liked to lie late in bed. Besides, he feared that he would be dreadfully homesick in England.

Princess Victoria herself, much as she had liked Prince Albert upon this brief acquaintance, had not wanted to marry so soon, not until 1840 and perhaps not even then; and she had grown rather annoyed with King Leopold for pressing the marriage upon her. She was 'not yet quite grown up'; and Prince Albert was still a boy really: she would not want him as a husband until he was at least twenty years old. Besides, he 'ought to be perfect in the English language; ought to write and speak it without fault, which is far from being the case now: his French too is ... unfortunately ... not good enough yet in my opinion.' She had also been concerned by his habit of falling asleep after dinner. Had Lord Melbourne been told about that? Lord Melbourne, who disapproved of the Queen's passion for dancing into the small hours of the morning, had merely replied that he was very glad to hear it.

After Prince Albert had gone home and she herself had become Queen, there was another reason for her not wanting to be married just yet. Once the Flora Hastings affair was in the past and she had contrived to retain Lord Melbourne as Prime Minister, she was much enjoying herself as a young, unattached queen. On her twentieth birthday the Grand Duke Alexander of Russia, the 21-year-old son and heir of the Tsar Nicholas I, came to Windsor where a grand dinner in St George's Hall was followed by a ball which did not finish until nearly two o'clock in the morning. 'I never enjoyed myself more,' she wrote in her journal. 'We were all so merry'; and the Grand Duke was 'a dear, delightful man'. She had loved dancing the mazurka with him: he was 'so very strong, that in running round you must follow quickly, and after that you are whisked round like in a Valse, which is very pleasant ... I really am quite in love with him ... He is so frank, so really young and merry, has such a nice open countenance with a sweet smile and such a manly figure.' After the Grand Duke, no one else was 'seen to advantage'. When she went to bed on the night of that exciting ball she could not get to sleep until five o'clock.¹² From time to time she and Melbourne discussed the question of her marriage and one day they considered all those of royal blood who might be considered as a husband for her. There was not one whom they thought suitable. Yet she did not think she ought to marry a commoner: it would not do, she thought, to make a subject one's equal. There were, however, those who thought she might, even so, consider marriage to her equerry, Lord Alfred Paget, son of the cavalry commander, the Marquess of Anglesey, one of the most handsome young men at Court who wore her portrait on a chain round his neck, tied another portrait of her round the neck of his retriever, Mrs Bumps, and who took pains to ingratiate himself with Baroness Lehzen, calling her 'mother' as the Queen did.¹³

Lord Melbourne did not altogether approve of King Leopold's choice of Prince Albert. 'Cousins are not very good things,' he said. 'Those Coburgs are not popular abroad; the Russians hate them.' The Duchess of Kent was a fair example of the breed. The men of the family were not so bad, the Queen objected, laughing. Melbourne, laughing too, said he hoped so. But what if the Prince were to take the side of his aunt, the Duchess, against her? In any case a marriage with a German cousin would not go down well in England. It would not go down well with himself, come to that: Germans never washed their faces and were always smoking, and he hated tobacco, the very smell of it made him swear for a good half hour. On the other hand marriage into an English family would not go down well, either, except with the particular family honoured. Indeed, if one were to create a man specifically for the purpose of marrying the Queen it would be 'hard to know what to make'. It might be better 'to wait for a year or two'. It was a 'very serious question'. An early marriage was 'not NECESSARY'.¹⁴

The more she thought about it the more she found the whole subject 'an odious one'. She really 'couldn't understand the wish of getting married' merely for the sake of it. She 'dreaded the thought of marrying'. She was so accustomed to getting her own way that she 'thought it was 10 to 1 she wouldn't agree with anyone'. When she spoke, as she often did, of her unhappy relationship with her mother, who made it plain that she would never leave her daughter until she was married, Lord Melbourne had commented, 'Well, then, there's that way of settling it.' To this solution of her troubles with her mother she strongly objected: she thought the idea of marrying for that reason a quite 'shocking alternative'. Yet she was tired of living with people so much older than herself. When her young relations came to stay she realized how much she liked living with young people, for after all she was young herself, which she 'really often forgot'.

In September some other young Coburg cousins came to stay, her uncle Ferdinand's sons Augustus and Leopold, their sister Victoire, and yet another cousin, Alexander Mensdorff-Pouilly, son of Princess Sophia of Saxe-Coburg. Queen Victoria enjoyed their company immensely, their family jokes and high spirits, Victoire's carefree gaiety, Alexander's striking looks and pretty hair, his endearing habit of shaking hands at every fresh meeting. 'We were so intimate, so united, so happy,' she wrote after they had gone and she had been to Woolwich to wish them a tearful farewell aboard the Lightning before clambering down the ship's ladder and calling out to an officer who offered his assistance, 'No help, thank you. I am used to this.'¹⁵

Before having her young cousins, Albert and Ernest, to stay again, however, she thought it as well to make it quite clear that the visit must not be seen as compromising her in any way. Albert must understand that 'there was no engagement between us'. She had never made any definite promise to marry him and would not do so now. She might like him as a friend and a relation but no more than that; and even if she did come to like him more than that, so she told her uncle Leopold, she 'could make no final promise this year for, at the very earliest, any such event could not take place till two or three years hence'.¹⁶

Disturbed that Prince Albert might be put off by this apparent reluctance on the Queen of England's part, King Leopold had already asked his nephew to come to see him in Brussels. The Prince was reassuring: he was prepared to wait on the understanding that the marriage would take place in the end. 'I am ready,' he said, so the King reported to Baron Stock-mar, 'to submit to this delay if I have some certain assurance to go on. But if after waiting, perhaps for three years, I should find the Queen no longer desired the marriage, it would place me in a very ridiculous position and would to a certain extent ruin all the prospects of my future life.'¹⁷

The King was reassuring in turn. All would turn out well when Prince Albert made his next visit to England.

This visit took place in October 1839. In anticipation of it the Queen was on edge, snappy with her servants and disinclined to concentrate on her paperwork. When she was told that her cousins were not able to leave quite as early as they had hoped, she wrote a sharp letter to King Leopold: 'I think they don't exhibit much empressement to come here, which rather shocks me.'¹⁸ She was also unusually sharp and impatient with Lord Melbourne who was more than ever liable to fall asleep after dinner and during the sermon in church on Sundays, snoring loudly. She wondered how he could do so before so many people. When he drank wine in an effort to stay awake, she told him it would make him ill. She was annoyed with him, too, for not telling her about some changes in the Home Office - she was 'the last person' to be told about what was done in her name - and for pressing her, as King Leopold had done, to invite some Tories to meet them when Albert and his brother came. She abruptly marched out of the room; and when she returned she looked more cross than ever. A fortnight or so before her cousins were due to arrive she was again 'sadly cross to Lord Melbourne when he came in, which was shameful'. 'I fear he felt it,' she wrote in her diary, 'for he did not sit down of himself as he usually does, but waited until I told him to do so.' 'I can't think what possessed me', she continued, 'for I love this dear excellent man who is kindness & forbearance itself, most dearly.'¹⁹

A young person like her, who 'hated a Sunday face', 'must sometimes have young people to laugh with'. She had missed that sadly in the lonely days at Kensington when she had longed 'for some gaiety', some 'mirth', and when she had looked admiringly at handsome young men at parties and had made lists of the prettiest girls in the room. 'Nothing so natural', commented Lord Melbourne with apparent unconcern yet with tears in his eyes.²⁰

Chapter 14 PRINCE ALBERT

On the morning of 10 October 1839 Queen Victoria awoke in her bedroom at Windsor with a headache and feeling rather sick: the pork she had had for dinner the night before had disagreed with her. It was not a propitious beginning to her cousins' visit; nor was the news that some lunatic had smashed a few of the Castle's windows. She went out to get some fresh air, and was walking along a path when a page ran towards her with a letter. It was from King Leopold who told her that her cousins would arrive that evening.

Accordingly, at half past seven, she was standing at the top of the stairs to greet them. She watched them as they climbed up towards her, pale after a tempestuous Channel crossing in a heaving paddle-steamer, and she was immediately overcome by a coup de foudre - Prince Albert was 'beautiful'. His blue eyes were 'beautiful'; his figure, too, was 'beautiful', no longer rather too fat as she had thought when they first met but broad in the shoulders with a 'fine waist'. All in all, he was so 'excessively handsome', his moustache was so 'delicate', his mouth so 'pretty', his nose 'exquisite'. He really was 'very fascinating'. He set her heart 'quite going'. Everything about him seemed perfect. He was just the right height, attractively tall as she liked men to be but not so tall as to emphasize her own diminutive size.¹

On further acquaintance he proved to be so 'aimiable' and 'unaffected', so clever, so graceful in his movements, so elegantly dressed. His voice was charming, his manner delightful, his red leather topboots so unusually smart, his beautiful greyhound, Eos, so splendidly groomed, obedient and picturesque.

Unfortunately his trunks had not yet arrived and so he and Prince Ernest felt unable to appear at dinner, which Lord Melbourne thought they ought to have done. They did appear after dinner, however, and the Queen was further entranced by Prince Albert who danced 'so beautifully', holding himself so well with that 'beautiful figure of his'. Two days later she learned, as she listened to him playing Haydn symphonies with Ernest in a nearby room, that he played the piano as well as he danced. He did not enjoy dancing as much as she did, however. He seemed happier on Sunday evening as he looked through an album of drawings by Domenichino while the Queen sat by his side.

She recited his praises to Lord Melbourne who listened patiently and kindly, endeavouring to suppress the sadness and anxiety he felt at the prospect of the changes in his life which now seemed inevitable. Yes, Prince Albert was 'certainly a very fine young man, very good looking'; and handsome looks, as he well knew, were important to her. She had readily admitted when he had teased her about her admiration for Prince Alexander Mensdorff-Pouilly that she was 'not insensible to beauty'. She had made a good choice in Prince Albert, Lord Melbourne assured her. His 'strong Protestant feelings' would be an additional asset, provided he was not bigoted. Oh, no, the Queen replied, he was certainly not bigoted. Well then, Melbourne assured her in so 'fatherly' a way, with tears yet again in his eyes, 'I think it is a very good thing and you'll be much more comfortable; for a woman cannot stand alone for long, in whatever situation she is.'² He suggested only that she should take a week before she definitely made up her mind. But she did not need a week; she could not wait so long:

'I said to Lord Melbourne, that I had made up my mind (about marrying dearest Albert) - "You have" he said; "well then, about the time?" Not for a year, I thought; which he said was too long ... Then I asked if I hadn't better tell Albert of my decision soon, in which Lord Melbourne agreed. How? I asked, for that in general such things were done the other way - which made Lord Melbourne laugh.'³

On the afternoon of 15 October, five days after Prince Albert's arrival, having accepted the fact, as she told her Aunt Gloucester, that Albert 'would never have presumed to take such a liberty to propose to the Queen of England', she sent him a note asking him to come to her in the Blue Closet. He arrived nervous and trembling. She too was trembling, although the squeeze he had given her hand when they had parted the night before gave her hope that all would be well. At first they talked self-consciously in German of other things, though both knew what was to be said. At length, she said in a rush that it would make her 'too happy if he would consent to what she wished. The quickly spoken words ended their nervousness. Before she had finished uttering them he took her hands in his, covering them with kisses and murmuring in German that he would be very happy to spend his life with her. 'He was so kind, so affectionate,' the Queen wrote when she was alone again. 'Oh! to feel I was, and am, loved by such an Angel ... He is perfection; perfection in every way - in beauty - in everything ... Oh! How I adore and love him ... We embraced each other over and over again.'⁴

That evening, after Prince Albert had appeared at dinner in the Windsor uniform of blue and red designed for the Royal household by George III, the Queen was handed a letter before she went to bed addressed to 'Dearest greatly beloved Victoria'. 'How is it,' she read, 'that I have deserved so much love, so much affection? ... I believe that Heaven has sent me an angel whose brightness shall illumine my life ... In body and soul ever your slave, your loyal ALBERT.' After reading it the Queen burst into tears.⁵

It was clear to all at Court that she was blissfully happy. Her passion was plain to see: her eyes followed Prince Albert round the room as they had once followed Lord Melbourne. Victoria and Albert sang duets together; they walked and rode together; they gave each other rings and locks of hair; he sat beside her while she signed papers, blotting the ink; he accompanied her when she reviewed a parade of soldiers in Hyde Park, wearing, she noted with admiration, a pair of white cashmere breeches with 'nothing under them'.⁶ They gazed at each other longingly, obviously dying for the moment when they could be alone together, to hold each other and to kiss; and, when they were alone, tears of happiness and pleasure poured down her cheeks as he took her face in his hands, whispering endearments, kissing her mouth 'repeatedly'.

'I love him more than I can say,' she wrote to King Leopold that same day. 'These last few days have passed like a dream to me, and I am so much bewildered by it all that I hardly know how to write. But I do feel very, very happy.'⁷ When they had to say goodbye on his return to Coburg she 'cried much, wretched, yet happy to think we should meet again so soon! Oh! how I love him, how intensely how devotedly, how ardently!'⁸

Prince Albert's affection for her was already deep and unfeigned. 'I need not tell you that since we left all my thoughts have been with you and your image fills my whole soul,' he wrote to her from Calais. 'Those days flew by so quickly, but our separation will fly equally so.'⁹

'Dearly beloved Victoria, I long to talk to you,' he told her a fortnight later, 'otherwise the separation is too painful. Your dear picture stands on my table and I can hardly take my eyes off it.'¹⁰ 'Victoria is so good and kind to me,' he told Baron Stockmar, 'that I am often at a loss to believe that such affection should be shown to me. I know the great interest you take in my happiness, and therefore pour out my heart to you.' 'Love of you fills my heart,' he wrote to the Queen herself. 'Where love is there is happiness ... Even in my dreams I never imagined I should find so much love on earth.' He wished to walk through the whole of life, 'with its joys and its storms' with Victoria at his side.

Prince Albert's letters to his friend, Prince von Lowenstein, and to his tutor and family in Germany, however, reveal that he did not view the future, and its expected 'storms', without concern. He spoke of the 'firm resolution' and 'courage' he would need in the position he would have to occupy, of the tribulations that marriage to the Queen of England would be bound to bring, of his 'dread of being unequal' to his position. He ended a letter to his grandmother: 'May God be my helper.' His future lot was 'high and brilliant but also plentifully strewn with thorns'.¹¹ To his stepmother he wrote that Victoria was 'good and amiable'; and he was sure that heaven had not given him into evil hands; but the skies above him would 'not always be blue and unclouded'. Life, wherever one was, had its storms. It was consoling to contemplate the future opportunity for 'promoting the good of so many'. He would be untiring in his efforts on behalf of the country to which he was to belong; but he would never cease to be 'a true German, a true Coburg and Gotha man'. Soon after his return to Coburg, he had a foretaste of the difficulties that lay ahead.

Chapter 15 THE BRIDEGROOM

On 23 November 1839 the Queen made her Declaration of Marriage at Buckingham Palace before an assembly of Privy Councillors. She appeared before them in a simple dress and wearing a miniature of Prince Albert in a bracelet on her wrist. It was 'rather an awful moment', she confessed; and her hands were so fluttering that she nearly dropped the paper on which the Declaration was written.¹ But, as at her first Council meeting, her voice was clear and true. J. W. Croker, the politician and essayist, thought her 'as interesting and handsome as any young lady' he had ever seen.²

News of the engagement had already reached Coburg and Gotha where it had been received with great pleasure. In Coburg the sounds of gunfire and pistol shots in the streets could be heard throughout the night; and in Gotha cannon thundered as the Prince, standing in the throne room before the ladies and gentlemen of the Court, was invested with the Order of the Garter by his father, the Duke, and Queen Victoria's half-brother, Prince Charles of Leiningen, both Knights of the Garter themselves. At the subsequent banquet the band of the Coldstream Guards, which had sailed from England for the occasion, played 'God Save the Queen'.³

In England, where the Prince landed at Dover on 7 February after a stormy, five-hour crossing, crowds gathered to cheer him on his way through Kent in the pouring rain, escorted by the Earl of Cardigan's nth Light Dragoons, henceforth known as the nth Prince Albert's Own Hussars⁴. At Canterbury, where he and his brother stayed the night and attended a service in the Cathedral, the city was illuminated in his honour.⁵

The enthusiasm of the populace was not, however, universally shared at Queen Victoria's Court or in Tory aristocratic circles, though it was generally conceded that, 'if her political partisanship were to be limited, she undoubtedly needed a husband's guidance and support'. Yet this husband was only twenty, the same age as herself; and, so The Times observed, 'one might without being unreasonable, express a wish that the Consort selected for a Princess so educated and hitherto so unfairly guided as Queen Victoria - should have been a person of riper years, and likely to form more sound and circumspect opinions.'⁶

The Queen's uncles were scornful of the match; so were many of the prosperous middle classes. Newspapers reported it with lukewarm approbation or with unconcealed disapproval. Versifiers proposed that Prince Albert had come to England to marry the Queen for money:

He comes the bridegroom of Victoria's choice

The nominee of Lehzen's Voice;

He comes to take 'for better or for worse'

England's fat Queen and England's fatter purse.7

The question of money had, in fact, already arisen as one of the first problems to blight the Queen's happiness. Lord Melbourne had assured her that there would be no difficulty in getting Parliament to agree that the Prince should receive the same provision of £50,000 a year which Prince Leopold had received upon his marriage to Princess Charlotte, and which Prince George of Denmark had had when he married the future Queen Anne in 1683. But there was difficulty. The Radical, Joseph Hume, protested that, having regard to the financial state of the country and the distress of the poor, £21,000 would be quite sufficient. The House of Commons did not think so; but when a Tory Member proposed that £30,000 a year would be a fair compromise this amendment was accepted by a large majority.⁸

The Queen was furious: she said she hated the Tories more than ever. She had long decided that, like insects and turtle soup, they were among the things she most disliked in all the world. The Prince, who greatly regretted that he would not now be able to do so much as he had hoped for poor scholars and artists, was also much put out. 'I am surprised that you have said no word of sympathy to me about the vote of the 28th,' he wrote to the Queen in a letter far sharper than any he had yet sent her, 'for those nice Tories have cut off half my income ... and it makes my position not a very pleasant one. It is hardly conceivable that anyone could behave as meanly and disgracefully as they have to you and me. It cannot do them much good for it is hardly possible to maintain any respect for them any longer. Everyone, even here [Coburg], is indignant about it.'⁹

The Queen became even angrier with the Tories, and with their standard bearer the Duke of Wellington, when it was suggested that Prince Albert, like many of his Coburg relations, had 'papistical leanings'. In Victoria's Declaration of Marriage to the Privy Council, the Prince had not been specifically described as a Protestant prince and therefore able to receive Holy Communion in the form prescribed by the Church of England, since Lord Melbourne had thought it best not to mention religion at all. He did not want to upset the Irish Catholics, who supported him in the House of Commons, and he could not employ the usual formula about 'marrying into a Protestant family' because a large number of Coburgs were either Roman Catholics themselves, or, like King Leopold, had married into Catholic families.

The Duke of Wellington - who, while not really caring a fig about it, according to his private secretary, had expressed the opinion that the annual income of £30,000 was quite sufficient for Prince Albert - now rose in the House of Lords to declare that the people ought to know something about the Queen's future husband other than his name, that they should be given the satisfaction of knowing that he 'was a Protestant - thus showing all the public that this is still a Protestant State'.¹⁰

'Do what one will,' the Queen protested to King Leopold, 'nothing will please these most religious, most hypocritical Tories whom I dislike (I use a very soft word), most heartily.' It was absurd of them to make this fuss, seeing that, by the law of the land, she could not 'marry a Papist' anyway. Sir Robert Peel was 'a low hypocrite', a 'nasty wretch'; as for that 'wicked old foolish' Duke of Wellington, she would never speak to him or look at him again; she would certainly not ask him to her wedding. 'It is MY marriage,' she protested when Melbourne endeavoured to dissuade her from slighting the Duke in this way, 'and I will only have those who can sympathize with me.' Nor would she send a message to Apsley House when it was reported that the Duke was ill. Charles Greville called there and found 'his people indignant that, while all the Royal Family have been sending continually to enquire after him, and all London has been at his door, the Queen alone has never taken the slightest notice of him'. Greville immediately sent Melbourne a note 'representing the injury it was to herself not to do so'. Melbourne asked Greville to come to see him without delay and told him when he arrived that the Queen was 'very resentful, but that people pressed her too much, did not give her time'. To this Greville replied that it 'really was lamentable' that she did the things she did, that she would get into a great scrape. The people of England would not endure that she should treat the Duke of Wellington with disrespect. Greville had no scruple in saying so to Melbourne since he knew that he was doing his utmost to keep her straight. 'By God!' Melbourne said, 'I am moving noon and night at it.'

He wondered, though, if it were not too late now for the Queen to send a message to Apsley House. 'Better late than not at all,' Greville advised him; so Melbourne sat down and wrote to the Queen. 'I suppose she will send now?' Greville asked. 'Oh, yes,' Melbourne replied. 'She will send now.'¹¹

Then there was trouble over the precedence to be granted the Prince. King Leopold, who regretted not having accepted the offer of an English peerage as Duke of Kendal himself, had suggested that Prince Albert should be created an English peer so that his 'foreignership should disappear as much as possible'. But the Queen dissented. 'The whole Cabinet agrees with me in being strongly of the opinion that Albert should not be a Peer,' she replied to her uncle. 'I see everything against it and nothing for it.' She told the Prince why:

The English are very jealous of any foreign interference in the Government of the country and have already in some of the papers ... expressed a hope that you would not interfere: - now, tho' I know you never would, still, if you were a peer they would all say the Prince meant to play a political part - I am sure you will understand.12

The Prince himself had no wish to be an English peer: 'It would be almost a step downwards, for as a Duke of Saxony, I feel myself much higher than as Duke of Kent or York.' He was quite content to have no title other than his own. 'As regards my peerage and the fears of my playing a political part, dear, beloved Victoria,' he wrote, 'I have only one anxious wish and one prayer: do not allow it to become a matter of worry to you. '¹³

Though Albert had expressed his own opposition to receiving a peerage, the Queen was strongly of the view that he should have precedence over all other peers in the country, including the royal dukes. If she had her way he would be King Consort.

Once again the Duke of Wellington, now recovered from his illness, opposed her: the precedence of the Royal Family, he pointed out, was fixed by Act of Parliament. It was well known that he held no brief for the royal dukes; but it would be unfair to ask them to support a change in the law to interfere with their rights. When Charles Greville asked the Duke what he thought should be done about the Prince's precedence, he answered emphatically, 'Oh, give him the same which Prince George of Denmark had: place him next before the Archbishop of Canterbury.' 'That will by no means satisfy her,' Greville objected. At this the Duke 'tossed his head and with an expression of extreme contempt said, "Satisfy her! What does that signify?"'¹⁴

Upon hearing Tory objections to her granting the Prince the precedence she had in mind for him, the Queen was quite as cross as Melbourne had feared she would be. She 'raged away', perfectly 'frantic', in her own words, railing at her uncles and the vile, confounded, 'infernal Tories' responsible for this 'outrageous insult'. They were 'wretches', 'scoundrels' 'capable of every villainy [and] personal spite'. 'Poor dear Albert, how cruelly they are ill-using that dearest Angel! You Tories shall be punished. Revenge! Revenge!'¹⁵

In her anger she turned upon Melbourne himself. She was forced to concede that the state of feeling in the country, the unemployment and the unrest - the plight of the poor which he usually did not care to think or talk about - made the reduction of Albert's allowance at least tolerable. But there could be no excuse for this cruel slight over the matter of precedence. Lord Melbourne really ought to have foreseen the trouble that there might be. He should not have led her 'to expect no difficulties'.

Melbourne unwisely commented that there would not have been such difficulties were Prince Albert not a foreigner: foreigners always caused trouble, particularly from Coburg. They had been through all this before, the Queen crossly rejoined. She could never have married one of her own subjects, and she was not marrying Albert because he was a Coburg but because she loved him and he was worthy of her love. Later Melbourne tactlessly stumbled into trouble again when the Queen remarked that one of the things she most loved about Albert was his indifference to the charms of all women other than herself. 'No,' said Melbourne carelessly, 'that sort of thing is apt to come later.' It was 'an odd remark to make to any woman on the eve of marriage, let alone the Queen, Lord Clarendon observed when Melbourne told him of this gaffe, chuckling 'over it amazingly'. Certainly the Queen took it very ill. 'I shan't,' she said, 'forgive you for that.'

She did, of course, and she came close to forgiving the Duke of Wellington when, having read a pamphlet prepared by Charles Greville, he changed his mind about Prince Albert's precedence. The Queen, he now declared, much to the annoyance of the Duke of Cambridge, had 'a perfect right to give her husband whatever precedence she pleased'. So, the Lord Chancellor and the Attorney General concurring, Letters Patent granting the Prince the precedence she had wanted to give him were issued by the Queen. From then on the Queen's attitude to the Duke of Wellington softened. He had, after all, supported her when she had expressed a wish to be accompanied only by her mother and one of her ladies in the state coach on her way to St James's Palace to be proclaimed. Her Master of the Horse, Lord Albemarle, insisted that he had a right to ride with her as he had done with William IV. 'The point was submitted to the Duke of Wellington as a kind of universal referee in matters of precedence and usage. His judgement was delightfully unflattering to the outraged magnate - "The Queen can make you go inside the coach or outside the coach or run behind it like a tinker's dog."'¹⁶ The Queen decided to ask the Duke to her wedding after all. She drew the line, however, at inviting him to the wedding breakfast. She had not entirely forgiven him yet. 'Our Gracious,' Wellington concluded, was still 'very much out of Temper.'¹⁷

A problem which concerned the Prince far more than his title or his precedence was the composition of his Household which he hoped would be of perfect respectability, unlike the Queen's which comprised a number of men whose morals were highly questionable, including the Lord Chamberlain, the Marquess of Conyngham, whose mistress was employed as Housekeeper at Buckingham Palace, and the Earl of Uxbridge, the Lord Steward, whose mistress had also been found a position in Her Majesty's household. Indeed, there were so many Pagets living at Court, in addition to Lord Alfred Paget, the Clerk-Marshal, that it was known as 'the Paget Club House'.

Prince Albert had assumed that he would be allowed to choose his gentlemen himself and that some of them might be German and all, of course, 'well educated and of high character'. Believing as he did that the Crown should not display a preference for any political party, that King William IV had been much misguided to favour the Tories and Queen Victoria was equally in error to demonstrate her support of the Whigs, he had hoped that his own household would indicate his impartiality. 'It is very necessary,' he wrote, 'that they should be chosen from both sides - the same number of Whigs as of Tories.'¹⁸

The Queen, encouraged by Melbourne, did not agree. 'As to your wish about your Gentlemen, my dear Albert,' she told him severely, 'I must tell you quite honestly that it will not do. You may entirely rely upon me that the people who will be round you will be absolutely pleasant people of high standing and good character ... You may rely upon my care that you shall have proper people and not idle and not too young and Lord Melbourne has already mentioned several to me who would be very suitable. '¹⁹

It was useless for the Prince to protest. 'I am very sorry,' he had replied, 'that you have not been able to grant my first request, the one about the Gentlemen, for I know it was not an unfair one ... Think of my position, dear Victoria, I am leaving my home with all its associations, all my bosom friends, and going to a country in which everything is new and strange to me ... Except yourself I have no one to confide in. And it is not even to be conceded to me that the two or three persons who are to have the charge of my private affairs should be persons who already command my confidence.'²⁰

The Queen was not softened by this appeal, although Lord Melbourne thought that it might now be better to give way, and King Leopold wrote what the Queen described as 'an ungracious letter' urging the Prime Minister to persuade the Queen to take a 'correct view'. But, so she wrote to Prince Albert, that was just like Uncle Leopold: he was 'given to believe that he must rule the roast [sic] everywhere ... I am distressed to be obliged to tell you what I fear you do not like but it is necessary, my dearest most excellent Albert ... I only do it as I know it is for your own good.' It was conceded that a German whom the Prince did know, Herr Schenk, should be appointed to a minor post which did not entitle him to a place at the equerries' table; but the appointment of Private Secretary, the principal post in his Household, was to be filled by George Anson who was not only a confirmed Whig and Secretary to the Whig Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, but whose uncle, Sir George Anson (chosen for an appointment as Groom of the Bedchamber), was also a Whig. In vain the Prince protested to his 'dearest love' that taking the Secretary of the Prime Minister as his own Private Secretary would surely from the beginning make him 'a partisan in the eyes of many'. The Queen, however, was 'very much in favour' of the appointment: Mr Anson was 'an excellent young man, very modest, very honest, very steady, very well informed' and would be 'of much use' to him. Further objection was clearly useless: advised to do so by Baron Stockmar, the Prince gave way, on condition that Anson resigned as the Prime Minister's Secretary before he became his own.²¹

The Prince submitted with a good grace, much to the relief of the Queen who had been warned by King Leopold that Prince Albert had seemed 'pretty full of grievances' when he had passed through Brussels on his way back to England. She had, in fact, been so worried that he would be resentful that she was feeling ill when he returned. But all was well. 'Seeing his dear dear face again' put her 'at rest about everything'.²²

Almost at once she spoke to him about Anson's appointment and the 'little misunderstandings' that had arisen because of it. He accepted the fait accompli and was, so the Queen said, 'so dear and ehrlich [honest] and open about it'. She 'embraced him again and again'.²³ Her recent peevishness evaporated in her love for him, in her pleasure at his having given way to her demands and in excited anticipation of their marriage. Yet she felt it impossible to agree with his suggestion that her bridesmaids must be selected only from those young ladies whose mothers were of unblemished character. Lord Melbourne had been aghast at this suggestion. As he told Greville, the Prince was 'a great stickler for morality' and 'extremely strait-laced'. He did not seem to appreciate that the lower orders should, of course, be judged by moral standards but those of high birth must be deemed above such considerations. The Queen at first objected that there surely could not be one set of moral standards for the humble poor and another for the aristocratic rich; but she acknowledged the impossibility of submitting to Prince Albert's severe proscriptions; and among the twelve tall, plain bridesmaids there were several whose mothers could not have passed his test.

'I always think one ought always to be indulgent towards other people,' the Queen explained to Prince Albert, 'as I always think, if we had not been well brought up and well taken care of, we might also have gone astray.'²⁴

The evening before the wedding the Queen and Prince Albert went through the marriage service together and, mindful of the painful embarrassment at the coronation, tried on the ring. The Prince, who had endured yet another fearful Channel crossing, seemed tired and rather nervous, still suffering from the effects of severe seasickness which had left his face, so he said, more the colour of a wax candle than that of a human visage. But the Queen was in high spirits and serenely happy. She went to bed excitedly conscious that it would be, as she wrote in her journal, the last time she would sleep alone. She slept peacefully, quite untroubled by the agitation she had noticed in her dear bridegroom's manner, worried only by the thought that she might have a lot of children.

Chapter 16 HONEYMOON

The Queen awoke on Monday, 10 February 1840 to a blustery morning with torrents of rain splashing against her bedroom windows; but the clouds soon cleared and, as was so often to happen on important days in her life, the sun came out for an afternoon of what was to become known as 'Queen's weather'. After breakfast - in defiance of the traditional belief (in her opinion a 'foolish nonsense') that it was unlucky to do so - she went to see the bridegroom to whom she had already written a note: 'Dearest, How are you today and have you slept well? I have rested very well, and feel very comfortable ... What weather! I believe, however, the rain will cease. Send one word when you, my most dearly loved bridegroom, will be ready. Thy ever faithful, Victoria R.'¹ Then, with a wreath of orange flower blossoms on her head, wearing a white satin dress and a sapphire brooch set with diamonds, a present from the Prince, and accompanied by her mother and the Duchess of Sutherland, she was driven to the Chapel Royal, St James's, where the marriage was to be celebrated, much to the annoyance of the Queen who thought it a 'shocking locale'. She would have had a private ceremony had not Melbourne spoken strongly against it, for she had, so she said, 'a horror' of being married before a large congregation. She would have far preferred a simple ceremony in a room at Buckingham Palace, a small room which would afford her an excellent excuse not to ask people she did not want. The Duke of Sussex, wearing the black skullcap he so often affected, and close to the tears he was to shed throughout the ceremony, gave her away, quite ready as always, so it was said of him, to give away what did not belong to him.² He led her to the altar where Prince Albert, looking pale in the uniform of a British field-marshal, and decorated with the Order of the Garter, stood waiting for her. Albert's nervousness, so it was supposed, was increased by the loud whispers of Queen Adelaide and of his aunt, the Duchess of Kent, who was plainly annoyed by the fact that once again she had been given a place that did not accord with what she conceived to be her precedence.

The Queen's progress up the aisle was much impeded by the bridesmaids who, since her train was far too short to allow them all to grasp it while walking normally, had to trip forward as though walking on ice in order not to tread on each other's ankles.³ But the Queen 'only felt so happy'. She was pale and rather nervous - the congregation could see the orange flower blossoms quivering on her head. But she made her responses in confident tones, and remained perfectly patient when the Duke of Norfolk, insisting that as Earl Marshal it was his privilege and duty to sign the register first, could not find his spectacles in order to do so and kept all the others waiting while he went through one pocket after another in a laborious attempt to locate them.

Unlike her coronation, the marriage service passed off without too many untoward incidents, although the Queen's uncle, the Duke of Cambridge was - by contrast with the 'disconsolate and distressed' Duchess of Kent - 'decidedly gay, making very audible remarks from time to time'; while the bridegroom himself was 'certainly a good deal perplexed and agitated in delivering his responses'.⁴

The bride, however, had behaved 'with much grace and propriety', according to Charles Greville, 'not without emotion, though sufficiently subdued'. She had been seen to tremble as she entered the Chapel and as the congregation applauded her as she stood before the altar. But her voice had been clear and confident and her 'eye bright and calm'. As she left the Chapel it was noticed that she paused to kiss her aunt, Queen Adelaide; but that she merely shook hands with her mother.⁵

It was also remarked that of the three hundred or so people in the Chapel, very, very few were Tories. Indeed, Charles Greville said that, apart from the Duke of Wellington and Lord Liverpool, there were only three Tories there, Lord Willoughby de Eresby and the Marquess of Cholmondeley, whose presence was required as joint Lord Great Chamberlains, and Lord Ashley, who was there because he was married to Lord Melbourne's niece, Lady Emily Cowper. The Queen 'had been as wilful, obstinate and wrong-headed as usual about the invitations,' Greville said, 'and some of her foolish and mischievous Courtiers were boasting' about the pointedly small number of Tories invited. 'The D. and Dss of Northumberland [her former governess] were not there and She did worse than not invite them ... for the invitation was sent so late that they could not have got it in time to come; and the truth is that it was intended not to invite them at all. Nothing could be more improper and foolish than to make this a mere Whig party, and if She was to make a selection, She might with great propriety have invited all those, such as the D. of Rutland and [the Marquess of] Exeter, who had formerly received and entertained her at their houses. But She would not, and stuffed in a parcel of Whigs taken apparently at haphazard, in preference to any of these.'⁶

The Queen returned with her husband for the wedding breakfast to Buckingham Palace where, awaiting them, was an enormous wedding cake, three yards in circumference, which needed four men to carry in.⁷ Lord Melbourne came up to congratulate her. 'Nothing could have gone off better,' he assured her. She pressed his hand and 'he said, "God bless you, Ma'am" most kindly, and with such a kind look'.⁸ He, too, had done well, carrying the Sword of State with far more ease and confidence than he had shown at the coronation and wearing a magnificent dress coat which, to the Queen's delighted amusement, he had claimed would be the 'Thing most observed' at the marriage ceremony.

During the half hour which the Queen and Prince spent alone together before the wedding breakfast, the Queen gave her husband a wedding ring; and he said there must never be a secret which they did not share. After the breakfast, so the Queen recorded, 'Dearest Albert came up and fetched me downstairs, where we took leave of Mamma and drove off at near 4, Albert and I alone which was SO delightful'.⁹

Upon leaving the Palace for Windsor She and her young Husband were pretty well received [Charles Greville reported], but they went off in a very poor and shabby style. Instead of the new chariot in which most married people are accustomed to dash along, they were in one of the old travelling coaches, the postillions in undressed liveries, and with a small escort, three other coaches with post horses following. The crowds on the roads were so great that they did not reach the Castle till 8 o'clock.10

'Our reception was most enthusiastic and hearty and gratifying in every way,' the Queen confirmed. 'There was an immense crowd of people outside the Palace, and which I must say never ceased until we reached Windsor Castle ... the people quite deafening us; and horsemen and gigs etc. driving along with us. We came through Eton where all the Boys ... cheered and shouted. Really I was quite touched.'¹¹

On arrival at Windsor she inspected the apartments which had been prepared for them, changed her dress, then went into the Prince's room where she found him playing the piano and wearing the Windsor uniform with which, as a clothes-conscious man, he had replaced the travelling outfit he had worn in the coach, this in turn having replaced the field-marshal's uniform. He stood up, put his arms around her and was 'so dear and kind'.

We had our dinner in our sitting room [the Queen recorded], but I had such a sick headache that I could eat nothing, and was obliged to lie down in the middle blue room for the remainder of the evening on the sofa; but ill or not, I NEVER, NEVER spent such an evening!! MY DEAREST DEAREST DEAR Albert sat on a footstool by my side, and his excessive love and affection gave me feelings of heavenly love and happiness I never could have hoped to have felt before! He clasped me in his arms, and we kissed each other again and again! His beauty, his sweetness and gentleness -really how can I ever be thankful enough to have such a Husband! ... to be called by names of tenderness, I have never yet heard used to me before - was bliss beyond belief! Oh! this was the happiest day of my life! - May God help me to do my duty as I ought and be worthy of such blessings!12

It was also bliss beyond belief to wake up next morning, after having, so she said, not slept very much, and to find that 'beautiful angelic face' by her side. 'It was,' she wrote, 'more than I can express.' 'He does look so beautiful in his shirt only, with his beautiful throat seen. '¹³ It was bliss also to have him with her at breakfast and to gaze again upon his naked throat, exposed above the black velvet collar of his jacket, to walk with him arm in arm upon the Terrace where her grandfather King George III had paraded with Queen Charlotte and their several daughters, to write letters in her sitting room while he, exhausted and still suffering from the effects of his dreadful seasickness, dozed on a sofa, then rested his 'darling head' on her shoulder. It was delightful, too, to watch him shave in the morning and to have him put on her stockings for her.¹⁴

On that first day of her honeymoon she wrote to Lord Melbourne to assure him how 'very very happy' she was; she 'never thought she could be so loved' as she was by 'dearest, dear Albert'. And she told King Leopold that she was 'the happiest, happiest Being that ever existed'. Really she did 'not think it possible for anyone in the world to be happier. Her husband was 'an Angel'.¹⁵

The Prince grew more and more tired as the days of the short honeymoon progressed; for, as Melbourne commented, it was quite 'a whirl'. The first evening was the only one they spent alone. On Tuesday there was a dinner party for ten. The Queen thought it a 'very delightful, merry, nice little party'; but the Prince was obviously still exhausted. The next evening she 'collected an immense party ... for a dance which she chose to have at the Castle'. This is 'a proceeding quite unparalleled,' Charles Greville wrote in high disapproval. 'Even her best friends are shocked at her not conforming more than she is doing to English customs, and not continuing for a short time in that retirement, which modesty and native delicacy generally prescribe and which few Englishwomen would be content to avoid. But She does not think any such constraint necessary ... Lady Palmerston said to me last night that she was much vexed that She had nobody about her who could venture to tell her that this [ball on Wednesday] was not becoming and would appear indelicate. But She has nobody who dares tell her, or She will not endure to hear such truths. [Lord] Normanby [the Home Secretary] said to me the same thing. It is a pity Melbourne did not tell her ... He probably did not think about it. '¹⁶

Prince Albert had, in fact, already suggested before their marriage that 'it might perhaps be a good and delicate action not to depart' from what he had been told was the 'usual custom in England for married people to stay up to four to six weeks from the town and society'. Since this was so, he ventured diffidently, might they not retire from the public eye for 'at least a fortnight - or a week'?

The Queen had replied to this suggestion as sharply as she had done when the Prince had proposed being allowed to choose his own household: My dear Albert, [she had written] you have not at all understood the matter. You forget, my dearest Love, that I am the Sovereign, and that business can stop and wait for nothing. Parliament is sitting and something occurs almost every day for which I am required and it is quite impossible for me to be absent from London; therefore two or three days is already a long time to be absent... I must come out after the second day... I cannot keep alone. This is also my wish in every way.17

While refusing to prolong the honeymoon, the Queen was determined to make the most of the three days she had allocated to it. On the Wednesday evening she stayed up dancing until after midnight when she went upstairs to find her husband fast asleep. She woke him up and they went to bed. On Thursday there was another dance at which she bounced around the floor with Prince Albert in a lively, graceful galop.

Late nights did not preclude early rising. On the morning after their first night together it was 'much remarked', so Greville said, 'that she and P A were up very early walking about [in fact, they were up at half past eight, and did not go out until the early afternoon] which is very contrary to her former habits. Strange that a wedding night should be so short; and I told Lady Palmerston that this was not the way to provide us with a Prince of Wales. '¹⁸

The days, even so, the 'very, very happy days', were too short for the Queen. Prince Albert's 'love and gentleness' were 'beyond everything': to 'kiss that dear soft cheek, to press [her] lips to his' was 'heavenly bliss'. On her return to London, Melbourne commented that she seemed very well. 'Very,' she said, 'and in very high spirits.' She 'never could have thought there was so much happiness in store.'¹⁹

She delighted in walking with her husband in the grounds of Buckingham Palace when he would tell her the names of the trees and flowers. She obviously loved it when he would display his affection for her as he came into her room, as Lady Lyttelton, a Lady of the Bedchamber, saw him do one day, his cheeks flushed after riding in the Park, taking her hand in his. She was so pleased that he always got up from the dinner table as soon as he could, requiring the other gentlemen to follow him presently, having finished their wine. He then joined her in the drawing room where he would play and sing duets with her, or occupy himself with double chess, leaving her to talk to Lord Melbourne. Sometimes they would all play games together. One evening the whole court 'took to playing spillikins and puzzling with alphabets'; another evening they 'learnt a new round game', and they 'all grew quite noisy over it' - it was called main jaune and they liked it better than mouche. When they played vingt-et-un or Pope Joan the stakes were never high, and it was rather tiresome always to have to remember to carry new coins so that court etiquette should not be broken by passing used money to the Sovereign, but the maids-of-honour, 'all wearing their badge of the Queen's picture surrounded with brilliants on a red bow, looked so cheerful when they were gambling and a haul of even threepence excited them.'²⁰

Once they played a letter game in which Melbourne was given the word 'pleasure' to guess. The Queen gave the Prime Minister a hint: it was a common word, she said. But not, said the Prince, 'a very common thing'. Melbourne suggested, 'Is it truth or honesty?' They burst out laughing.²¹

Prince Albert could not fully share his wife's contentment. He confided in Baron Stockmar that he considered her 'naturally a fine character but warped in many respects by wrong upbringing'. She was wilful and thoughtless, and while kind at heart, given to outbursts of temper and moods of sulky pettishness. There could be no doubt that he loved her; but he was deeply concerned not only to be denied her confidence in what he termed the 'trivial matters' of the running of their households, but also by her strong disinclination to allow him to take any part in political business. He was not asked into the room when she was talking to the Prime Minister; nor did she discuss affairs of state with him, changing the subject when he tried to talk to her about political matters. Nor did she allow him to see the state papers which were sent to her by the various government departments, whereas he learnt from his brother that Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Kohary, the husband of Maria da Gloria, Queen of Portugal, was King Consort and as such vetted all her visitors before they were allowed to see her and then to do little more than to kiss her hand. The English, however, so Victoria reminded her husband, were 'very jealous of any foreigner interfering in the government of this country'.²²

'My impression,' Lord Melbourne told George Anson, 'is that the chief obstacle in Her Majesty's mind is the fear of difference of opinion and she thinks that domestic harmony is more likely to follow from avoiding subjects likely to create difference.'²³ A greater obstacle, no doubt, was her reluctance to share her authority with anyone, even her adored husband.

'The Prince ought in business as in everything to be necessary to the Queen,' King Leopold advised, 'he should be to her a walking dictionary for reference on any point which her own knowledge or education have not enabled her to answer. There should be no concealment from him on any subject.'²⁴ There was concealment, though; and there was much resentment when Prince Albert presumed to offer his advice. When, for example, a box of official papers arrived labelled tersely, 'sign immediately', he suggested she show her displeasure at receiving such peremptory instructions by not signing for a day or two. She signed at once.²⁵

She was, in fact, prepared to limit the Prince's role as partner to what she herself ingenuously called a little 'help with the blotting paper'. He told his friend, Prince William of Lowenstein, 'In my home life I am very happy and contented; but the difficulty in filling my place with the proper dignity is that I am only the husband, and not the master of the house.'²⁶

There were other problems, too. He could not share his wife's passion for excitement, merriment and late nights. He preferred the peace of the countryside to the bustle of the town, and he liked to go to bed early. He told his brother that he sometimes wished he were back at Coburg 'in a small house' instead of living the life that his sense of duty had imposed upon him.²⁷

When he was feeling tired or particularly frustrated, he became irritable over matters of little importance. Often he was seen to be asleep in the evening, and then the Queen would nudge him to wake him up, as Guizot, the French Ambassador, noticed her do at a concert soon after their marriage: 'Prince Albert slept. She looked at him, half smiling, half vexed. She pushed him with her elbow. He woke up, and nodded approval of the piece of the moment. Then he went to sleep again.'²⁸ He was often bored in the evenings, constantly disappointed that he was unable to fulfil his ambition to bring scientific and literary people about the Court, to make it a more general reflection of the life of the country.²⁹

He was far from being a morose man: he did take pleasure in life, but his pleasures were far more restrained, less hectic than hers. He found it difficult to get used to the food and the climate in England, and a strain to have to speak English most of the time. The ordinary people of the country seemed quite happy to accept him; but the upper classes remained extremely wary of him, while several members of the old Royal Family were still openly antagonistic, the Duke of Cambridge making a ridiculous fuss when his Garter banner in St George's Chapel, Windsor, was moved a few inches to make way for that of the 'young foreign upstart'. The Duchess of Cambridge went so far as to remain seated when the Prince's health was drunk at a dinner.

The quarrel between the Duchess of Cambridge and the Prince became more heated than ever when her son, that 'odious' boy as the Queen had described him, was rumoured to have made Lady Augusta Somerset pregnant. Prince George of Cambridge was a highly flirtatious though rather timid young man and Lady Augusta, eldest daughter of the Duke of Beaufort, a 'very ill-behaved girl, ready for anything that her caprice or passions excite her to do'. So there were some grounds for the rumour, false though it was, and Prince Albert firmly believed it to be true. Both he and the Queen refused to speak to Lady Augusta when she appeared at Court and ordered the ladies there not to do so either. And when solemnly assured that the stories were unfounded, the Prince's reply -that he supposed, therefore, 'they must believe that it was so' - left the Cambridges 'by no means satisfied' and the Beauforts 'boiling with resentment and indignation'.³⁰

The Prince was now more unpopular with the aristocracy than ever. His prudery, his obvious cleverness, his enterprise on the hunting field, his graceful accomplishment on the ballroom floor and as a skater on frozen lakes, his vigour as a swimmer, his talents as a musician and singer, all aroused dislike and jealousy rather than admiration. At dinner parties his competence, his conscientiousness, his intelligence and his honesty would alike be grudgingly conceded but then, as Baron Stockmar remarked, someone would be sure to add, 'Look at the cut of his coat, though, and the way he shakes hands' with his elbow held stiffly at his side. Even the way he rode a horse appeared determinedly, even arrogantly, German. With women, it was often observed, he was particularly ill at ease, concealing his shyness in their presence beneath a veneer of stiff formality or avoiding their eyes altogether as though aware of some grave fault of character that would not allow him to recognize their existence. When walking in the park at Windsor or in the gardens at Buckingham Palace, with his sleek greyhound at his heels, he would pass them by without a word. Later, in the drawing room, he would make it painfully plain that he was totally unmoved by their charms. He had 'never feared temptation with regard to women', he admitted to his secretary, having 'no inclination in that respect': such 'species of vice disgusted him'. The Queen was far from displeased by this obvious 'utter indifference to the attraction of all ladies'; but the ladies themselves naturally found his impassivity disconcerting, not to say demeaning; nor did the maids-of-honour like the manner in which the Prince walked out of the door in front of them and would not allow them to sit down in his presence: once when the pregnant Lady John Russell seemed to be overcome by fatigue the Queen whispered to her to sit down but took the precaution of placing Lady Douro in front of her so that the Prince should not notice this breach of etiquette.³¹

Well aware of his unpopularity among the upper classes and at Court, Prince Albert felt increasingly homesick. And on the return of his father to Coburg after a brief visit to England the Queen found her husband weeping bitterly in the hall. Embarrassed to be found in so unmanly a state, he ran upstairs to his room. She hurried after him, anxious to comfort him; but he was, for the moment, inconsolable: she had never known her father, he reminded her, and her childhood had been a miserable one in comparison with the past with which he had had so suddenly to break.

The Queen was moved by his nostalgia. 'God knows,' she wrote in her diary, 'how great my wish is to make this Beloved being happy and contented.'³²

Chapter 17 ROBERT PEEL

Within a few weeks of her marriage the Queen discovered herself to be pregnant; and this event was to mark a profound change in the Prince's career as Consort. The Queen, however, was dismayed. It was 'the ONLY thing' she dreaded. She was 'furious'. It was 'too dreadful', she told Prince Leopold. She 'could not be more unhappy', she confessed to the Dowager Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. 'I am really upset about it and it is spoiling my happiness; I have always hated the idea and I prayed God night and day to be left free for at least six months ... I cannot understand how anyone can wish for such a thing, especially at the beginning of a marriage." And if her 'plagues' were to be 'rewarded only by a nasty girl', she told King Leopold that she would drown it.²

Shortly before the birth she was to consult Charles Locock, the obstetrician, who confessed to his friend, Lady Mahon, that he 'felt shy and embarrassed' but that she 'very soon put him at his ease'.

She had not the slightest reserve & was always ready to express Herself, in respect to her present situation, in the very plainest terms possible [Locock confided in Lady Mahon who told her friend, Charles Arbuthnot, who, in turn, passed the account on to his friend, the Duke of Wellington]. She asked Locock whether she would suffer much pain. He replied that some pain was to be expected, but that he had no doubt Her Majesty would bear it very well. 'Oh yes,' said the Queen, 'I can bear pain as well as other People.'... Locock left Her Majesty without any very good impressions of Her; & with the certainty that She will be very ugly & enormously fat. Her figure now is most extraordinary. She goes without stays or anything that keeps Her shape within bounds; & that she is more like a barrel than anything else.3

Dr Locock went on to say that there would be nobody at the delivery except himself, Prince Albert and a maid. Lady Mahon commented that no doubt the Queen would be very relieved at this privacy, 'upon which [Locock] remarked that he verily believed from Her manner as to delicacy, She would not care one single straw if the whole world was present.'

For Prince Albert, the pregnancy was a blessing. First of all it was considered necessary to provide for the contingency of the Queen dying and leaving a baby as heir to the throne. A regency was required; and after some proposals that a council of regency or, at least, a co-regent, should be appointed, Parliament passed a Regency Bill entirely to the Prince's satisfaction and to that of the Duke of Wellington who had gained further favour with the Queen by declaring that the regent 'could and ought to be nobody but the Prince'.⁴

'In the event of Victoria's death and her successor being under eighteen years of age, I am to be Regent - alone - Regent without a Council,' the Prince told his brother with the utmost satisfaction. 'You will understand the importance of this matter and that it gives my position here in the country a fresh significance.'⁵

The next month when Parliament was prorogued he rode with the Queen to the Palace of Westminster and there sat in a chair next to her throne; in September his writing table was moved next to hers, both at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle. That month also he was appointed a Privy Councillor. By then he had also been made a Freeman of the City of London and had made his first public speech as President of the Anti-Slavery Society; and, although extremely nervous, he had delivered it very well. Lord Holland reported that it was 'now all the fashion to praise Prince Albert'; while Lord Melbourne remarked to the Queen, commenting upon the readiness with which it had been agreed that Prince Albert should be appointed sole Regent in the event of her death, 'Three months ago they would not have done it for him. It is entirely his own character.'⁶

The Prince complacently reported to Stockmar that he was now 'constantly provided with interesting papers', and to his brother he wrote that he had 'come to be extremely pleased with Victoria during the past few months. She had only twice had the sulks ... Altogether she puts more confidence in me daily.'⁷

A lingering source of trouble, however, was the continued and unwelcome presence of Baroness Lehzen who, now that she was no longer the most important person in the Queen's life, attempted to exert with all the more authority her influence over her. This influence was still profound, for although the Queen loved Lehzen she was also rather frightened of her and was reluctant to stand firm against what her husband took to be her gross importunities and reprehensible delight in gossip. Time and again when the Queen and Prince were alone together, the sharp nose of the Baroness would appear round the door and, with the smell of caraway seeds on her breath, she would summon the Queen away to some business connected with the household, the nature of which was not divulged to the Prince whose dislike of the woman - the 'old hag' as he called her, or, in allusion to the jaundiced appearance of her skin, the 'Yellow Lady' - began to deepen into an almost obsessive hatred. He knew that she had opposed his being appointed Regent in case of the Queen's death; he knew, too, that she had also opposed his being permitted to accompany her when she went to open the new Parliament and to sit beside her while she read the speech from the Throne. She told the Queen that her husband really ought to have no position of real power in the state, to fade into the background with no high official status, as she had done. Yet that hesitancy in his nature, which Stockmar had condemned, induced the Prince not to tackle the problem firmly but, as he himself put it, to 'remain on his guard, and patiently abide the result'. He was also, so Stockmar thought, inhibited by his concern not to provoke the Queen's anger which might bring on symptoms of that distressing, hereditary malady of mental derangement which had afflicted her grandfather, King George III, and, on occasions to a lesser degree, her uncle, King George IV. So, in the meantime, according to Stockmar, the Queen continued to be 'influenced more than she [was] aware of by the Baroness'.⁸

The Queen's baby, a girl, to be christened Victoria Adelaide Mary Louisa and to be known in the family as 'Pussy', was born at Buckingham Palace, a fortnight before she was expected, on 21 November 1840, a 'dark, dull, windy, rainy day with smoking chimneys', after a labour of twelve hours during which the mother 'suffered severely' but was 'not at all nervous once it began'.⁹ The Duchess of Kent and the Prince, holding his wife's hand, were both in the room at the time with the obstetrician, Dr Locock, and a midwife. In the next room, the door to which was left open, were three other doctors; and, in a room beyond that, were various Ministers and dignitaries, including the Prime Minister, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London and the Lord Steward of the Household, Lord Errol, who claimed that he could see the Queen plainly the whole time and hear what she said. The baby was brought into their room and placed, 'stark naked', upon a table for their inspection.

The Queen admitted to being 'sadly disappointed' it was not a boy. Her husband, too, was disappointed; but when Dr Locock had called out, 'Oh Madam it is a princess', the mother had cheerfully replied, 'Never mind, the next will be a Prince.'¹⁰

She fervently hoped, however, that there would not be too many more babies of either sex; and when King Leopold tactlessly wrote to say that he hoped that the little Princess Victoria would be the first of several children, she responded crossly:

You cannot really wish me to be the Mamma d’une nombreuse famille for I think you will see with me the great inconvenience a large family would be to us all, and particularly to the country, independent of the hardship and inconvenience to myself; men never think, at least seldom think what a hard task it is for us women to go through this very often.11

Throughout her confinement, and during the fortnight in which she was kept in bed after the birth, Prince Albert was 'just like a mother' to her; 'nor could there be a kinder, wiser or more judicious nurse'. 'He was content to sit by her in a darkened room, to read to her, or write for her. No one but himself ever lifted her from her bed to her sofa, and he always helped to wheel her on her bed or sofa into the next room. For this purpose he would come when sent for instantly from any part of the house.' In the evenings he dined with the Duchess of Kent.¹²

He had his rewards. On the day of Princess Victoria's birth he represented the Queen at a Privy Council meeting and ten days later he wrote contentedly to his brother, 'I have my hands very full as I also look after Victoria's political affairs.¹³ According to his Private Secretary, George Anson, with whom the Prince was now (and would remain) on the best of terms, this advance in his status 'had been brought about by the fact of the Prince having received and made notes of all the Cabinet business during the Queen's confinement, this circumstance having evinced to the Queen his capacity for business and power to assist'. To the Duke of Wellington the Prince confessed that his aim was, in fact, to be far more than a kind of assistant to the Queen. He intended to be 'the natural head of the family, superintendent of her household, manager of her private affairs, her sole confidential advisor in politics, and only assistance in her communication with the officers of the Government... her private secretary and her permanent Minister'.¹⁴

The satisfaction which the Prince felt at his growing influence was, however, soon overcast by his concern about the Queen's political sympathies. Her dear friend Melbourne's Government had been in trouble for some time when in the summer of 1841 the Tories won a decisive victory in a general election. During this election the Queen, choosing not to tell him of arrangements of which he was sure to disapprove, took the Prince on a tour of various Whig magnates to whose houses she had been introduced during those 'royal progresses' which had so exasperated King William IV. They went to Chatsworth and Woburn Abbey, to Pans-hanger, the house of Lord Melbourne's nephew, Earl Cowper, and to Lord Melbourne's own house, Brocket Hall. The Prince did not appear to advantage in any of them. He disapproved of the rivalries of adversarial politics which set 'families by the ears', 'demoralised the lower classes' and 'perverted many of the upper'.¹⁵ The Crown should be above such partisanship; and he told the Queen that it really was her duty to be so.¹⁶

Yet when the Tories won their resounding victory she could not disguise her disappointment; nor did she attempt to do so. She declared that she would never send for 'that bad man Peel who had behaved so wickedly in the past'. She declined to attend the opening of the first session of the new Parliament; and did not conceal her strong reluctance to accept Sir Robert Peel as her Prime Minister in place of Lord Melbourne whom she had seen almost every day for four years. 'Eleven days was the longest I was ever without seeing him,' she told King Leopold, 'so you may imagine what this change must be.' She had grown so very accustomed to him, whereas Peel was always so shy and awkward with her. Charles Greville thought she would get on better with him if only he could keep his legs still.¹⁷ Melbourne tried to comfort and reassure her: he agreed to write to her regularly as what she termed a 'very useful and valuable friend out of office'; and so he did for some time, much to the concern of both Peel and of Baron Stockmar who spoke about it to Melbourne who burst out angrily, 'God eternally damn it!' But when Stockmar warned him that Peel was threatening to resign and that Melbourne's old friend, Mrs Norton, was entertaining dinner parties with stories based on what she was told of the correspondence, Melbourne wrote far less frequently and then not on delicate political matters.

Certainly, as Melbourne admitted to the Queen, he hated the idea of not seeing her regularly and did not at all relish the thought of losing office; but he was tired, he told her, and the rest would do him good. Besides, he was leaving her in excellent hands. 'The Prince understands everything so well,' he said, 'and has a clever able head.' She could rely upon his advice and assistance with confidence. He had, so he said, formed 'the highest opinion of HRH's judgement, temper and discretion'.¹⁸

To ease the way for them both, he had advice to give to Peel in his dealings with the Queen. Rather than give it to Peel himself, he asked Charles Greville, whom he met at a dinner at Stafford House, to pass it on for him.

Whenever he does anything, or has anything to propose [Melbourne said] let him explain to her clearly his reasons. The Queen is not conceited; she is aware there are many things she does not understand, and she likes to have them explained to her elementarily, not at length and in detail, but shortly and clearly; neither does she like long audiences, and I never stayed with her a long time.19

Some time later, on this occasion through George Anson, Melbourne added another piece of advice for Peel: Don't irritate her by 'talking at her about religion'.

Urged to recognize his merits by the Prince, who had much more in common with the serious, stiff, happily married Peel than he had with the easy-going, amusing Melbourne, the Queen was more accommodating and gracious with her new Prime Minister than he had reason to expect and, at Prince Albert's urging, was prepared to be more accommodating than she had been in 1839 about the ladies of her Household. At the Council meeting at which the new Ministers were appointed and took over from their predecessors, she conducted herself, so Greville said, in a manner which excited his 'greatest admiration' and was 'really touching to see'. 'She looked very much flushed, and her heart evidently brim full, but she was composed, and throughout the whole of the proceedings, when her emotion might very well have overpowered her, she preserved complete self-possession, composure and dignity.'²⁰

'There was not one of the new Government who did not place the fullest confidence in Her Majesty's intended fairness towards them,' W. E. Gladstone, who had been appointed Vice-President of the Board of Trade, told George Anson. 'They admired the extreme dignity of the Queen ... It was evidently painful to her but her conduct was beautiful.'²¹ W. B. Baring, the new Secretary to the Board of Control, and Sir George Grey, Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, were seen to be in tears. Lord Erroll dashed out of the room before he, too, broke down.²²

'Peel told me she had behaved perfectly to him,' Greville continued, 'and that He had said to her that He considered it his first and greatest duty to consult her happiness and comfort; that no person would be proposed to her who could be disagreeable to her ... I asked him if She had taken this well, and met in a corresponding spirit and he said, "Perfectly." In short, he was more than satisfied; he was charmed with her.'

Chapter 18 THE PRINCE AND THE HOUSEHOLD

'Really when one is so happy, blessed in one's home life, as I am,' the Queen wrote not long after Sir Robert Peel came into office, 'politics (provided my country is safe) must take only 2nd. place.' Already George Anson had noted that 'Her Majesty interests herself less and less about politics' and that 'her dislike is less than it was to her present Ministers'.¹

Victoria soon came to regard Peel far less unkindly and was able to recognize his great qualities. To be sure he was still rather stiff and irritating on occasions; but he could talk 'very interestingly' and strongly recommended himself to her by entertaining a high opinion of Prince Albert's character and attainments. He saw to it that the Prince, who now had keys to Cabinet boxes, was sent all important Government papers so that he could go through them with the Queen and explain to her any points she did not understand. Peel also made it possible for the Prince to be present when Ministers had audiences with her; indeed, on occasions, the Prince saw Ministers alone on the Queen's behalf, with her approval, and held receptions for her since, so she said, 'presentations to him should be considered the same as to me'.

He wrote memoranda for her, drafted letters, took decisions, became, in effect, not only a highly competent and extremely hard-working private secretary, but an adviser of exceptional, indeed unique influence, intent, as Anson put it, upon 'reforming' the Queen's mind and 'drawing out her Powers'.² Also, much to the annoyance of the old Royal Family who still considered him a meddlesome interloper, the Prince began to assume an importance in fields beyond the spheres of government and the Court. He was, for example, appointed to the chairmanship of an Arts Commission 'to take into consideration the promotion of the Fine Arts in connection with the rebuilding of the Houses of Parliament' which had been almost destroyed by fire in 1834.

On his own initiative he set about reforming the Royal Household, an immense organization consisting of an astonishing variety of courtiers, attendants and servants.

The Housekeeper was one of numerous senior servants and specialist officials, many of whose offices had been established centuries before and some of whose duties had long since been forgotten. There were Pages of the Presence and Pages of the Backstairs, Resident Bedchamber Women, Body Linen Laundresses and Linen Women, Fire Lighters, Livery Porters, Butlers, Under Butlers, Footmen, Cooks and Kitchen Boys, a Rat Killer and a Chimney Sweep. The large medical establishment included four Physicians to the Person, two Sergeant Surgeons, the Physician, Surgeon and Apothecary to the Household, the Dentist, the Chemist and Druggist to the Person.³

The archaic administration of this large Household was examined by Baron Stockmar in one of those lengthy memoranda which poured from his busy pen. He explained the difficulties of running the royal palaces when daily life was ruled by three separate departments, those of the Lord Steward (consisting of no fewer than 445 persons), the Lord Chamberlain and the Master of the Horse, all of which changed with every administration. The heads of these departments no longer lived at Court but delegated their authority to 'servants very inferior in rank', none of whom was sure how far they might trespass upon the customary preserves of another department and all of whom went through an elaborate procedure before anything worthwhile was done. If, for instance, a pane of glass required replacing in the kitchen or a cupboard door mending, a requisition had to be prepared and signed by the Chief Cook; it had then to be countersigned by the Clerk of the Kitchen; then taken to be signed by the Master of the Household; then taken to the Lord Chamberlain's office, where it was authorized and passed on to the Clerk of the Works who was responsible to the Department of Woods and Forests. The consequence of this rigmarole was that many a window remained broken for months while many others were permanently opaque since the Lord Chamberlain was responsible for the inside and the Department of Woods and Forests for the outside and their cleaners very rarely worked simultaneously. One day Baron Stockmar, always susceptible himself to the cold at Windsor, was asked by the Queen to complain to the Master of the Household that the dining room was often icy. 'But you see,' he was told, 'properly speaking, it is not our fault; for the Lord Steward lays the fire only and the Lord Chamberlain lights it', the Lord Chamberlain being responsible for the numerous housemaids, while the porters, like the cooks, came under the Lord Steward's department, and the footmen, who slept 'ten and twelve in each room', under the Master of the Horse.⁴

When guests arrived it was difficult to find anyone to show them to their apartments. It was often equally difficult for them to find the way down to the drawing room; and at night, if they happened to forget which corridor led to their rooms, they might wander about for minutes on end, helpless and unassisted. Once a visitor got lost on his way to bed and was forced to spend the night on a sofa in the State Gallery adjoining the Waterloo Gallery where a housemaid found him and, supposing him to be drunk, fetched a policeman.⁵ Another guest, who got lost one night, 'spent nearly an hour wandering about the corridors to try and identify his bedroom'. At length he opened a door which he imagined led to it and came upon the Queen having her hair brushed by a maid.[xviii]⁶

Vast amounts of money were squandered in all the royal palaces and the system was frequently abused: it was discovered, for instance, that of the tens of thousands of people who were provided with dinners every year, only a proportion were actually entitled to them; that, when carriages were needed, the signatures of ladies-in-waiting would be forged in order to obtain them; that an under-butler was still being paid £1. 15s a week for 'Red Room Wine', a legacy from the days when officers on guard in George Ill's time were allowed this sum for wine served in a room hung with red wallpaper; and that all the candles were replaced every day in the principal rooms whether or not they had been used, the candles removed being appropriated by the staff as a traditional perquisite. Nor was it only candles that were appropriated or mysteriously disappeared. At Windsor, in one single representative quarter, no fewer than 184 new brushes, brooms and mops were purchased together with twenty-four new pairs of housemaid's gloves, twenty-four chamois leathers and ninety-six packing mats. At any one time there were between three and four hundred dozen dusters 'scattered all over the Castle'.⁷

At Buckingham Palace drains were faulty; there were no sinks for the chambermaids on the bedroom floors; few of the lavatories were properly ventilated; the bells would not ring; some of the doors would not close; and many of the thousand windows would not open. The waste from a newly installed lavatory was discharged on to a roof outside the Queen's dressing room window.⁸ Yet officials and servants alike in the royal residences were far from poorly paid. In the first year of the Queen's reign - when in more modest households a domestic servant might earn about twelve pounds a year - the lowest of the four grades into which the Palace housemaids were divided received £15 15s. a year, the highest £45 10s. And these wages were increased by the Queen, who was always a tolerant and generous mistress to her domestic servants. Linen women received £60 a year, the First Page of the Backstairs £320; even the Fourth Page of the Presence, Second Class had £140. The Mistress of the Robes received £500 a year, the Lord Chamberlain £2,000.

Nor were their wages and perquisites all that the lower servants received, for they were paid, in addition, 2s. a day board wages, and when they became too old or ill to perform their duties they might expect a pension which in 1837 was between £30 and £40 a year for twenty years' service. Apart from their regular emoluments they were often also given tips by foreign visitors to the Castle and these were usually liberal. In 1842, for example, the King of Prussia left £500 for distribution and the share of a housemaid of the First Class was £5 15s. od. Tsar Nicholas I left £2,000, gave the Housekeeper a diamond parure worth another thousand pounds, and 'freely bestowed rings, watches and brooches'.⁹

Having, with Baron Stockmar's help, come to realize the immense waste of money involved in the running of the Royal Household, Prince Albert methodically set about its reform. The Master of the Household was made responsible for the co-ordination of the activities of all the departments involved; and excessive manning was reduced to such an extent that savings were made of some £25,000 a year.

Naturally the activities of the Prince, never the most tactful of men, did nothing to make him better liked in the Household, nor did they endear him to those outside it who were predisposed to dislike and distrust him. Caricaturists depicted him counting scrubbing brushes and ferreting for candle ends at Windsor where, it was said, he had given instructions that the servants must provide themselves not only with their own soap but with their own mops and brushes and that they must no longer be offered tea as an alternative to cocoa.¹⁰ Servants in the royal service had grown accustomed to their perquisites, official and assumed; while guests did not take kindly to being allowed only two candles in their rooms and on ringing for more being told by a maid, as Therese Tietjens was when she was summoned to Windsor to sing to the Queen, 'that the allowance to each room was just two candles and no more. "But," added the maid considerately, "there is no regulation which would prevent you cutting those two candles in halves and making four."'¹¹

As with candle ends so with lavatory paper. Sir Arthur Ellis, an equerry, was disconcerted to discover that the lavatories at Windsor were supplied with 'NEWSPAPER'.

With some order and economy imposed upon the household as well as upon the nursery and the royal farms, parks and gardens, life at Court assumed a quiet, dignified, respectable formality conformable to the Prince's taste.

On being presented to the Queen, gentlemen went down on one knee and raised the right arm with the back of the hand uppermost. The Queen would then lay her hand on theirs so that they could brush it with their lips. They must not speak. On rising they were required to bow to Her Majesty, then to His Royal Highness. Ladies, on approaching the Queen, had to drop the trains of their dresses which were then spread out behind them by attendants armed with wands. Having made their curtseys, they had to retreat several paces backwards, contriving not to fall over their trains as they gathered them up over their arms.¹²

The Queen, who ultimately became quite as inflexible as the Prince regarding the procedure to be observed at presentations, was most particular over the clothes to be worn: married ladies wore lappets; unmarried ladies wore veils; both wore a headdress of three white feathers. Anyone who wanted, for reasons of health, to wear a dress cut higher in the neck than was customary had to obtain permission to do so from the Lord Chamberlain. The permission was usually granted but the Queen insisted on the veils, lappets and feathers. A Mrs Sebastian Gassiot who, being unable to fasten her plumes in the usual way because ill health had obliged her 'to have all her hair cut quite short', wanted to know whether she might appear in a 'Dolly Varden cap with the plumes and lappets fastened to it', was told that the Queen, who had been 'much amused' by the request, had replied to it - 'decidedly no'.¹³

Gentlemen, if they were not entitled to wear a uniform, had to appear in court dress with a claret-coloured coat, knee breeches, long white stockings, and buckled shoes and sword, although later on in her reign old men were allowed to wear breeches which came down to the ankle and buttoned there. They were meant to 'give the same impression as stockings'.

The problem facing American Ministers abroad was settled by William Marcy, Secretary of State, who ruled that they should appear 'in the simple dress of an American citizen'. At that time the American Ambassador in London was James Buchanan, who later became President. Sir Edward Cust, the Queen's Master of the Ceremonies, told Buchanan that although the Queen would no doubt receive him whatever he wore, an ordinary suit would be disagreeable to her, so he appeared in a black coat and pantaloons, white waistcoat and cravat. The Queen greeted him with an 'arch but benevolent smile'.¹⁴

If the Queen's views on court dress called forth a good deal of satirical comment in the Press, her views on the uses and scope of the Court Circular aroused much more. Every day, in the most ponderous and humourless way, her own and her family's activities were recorded under this heading in the newspapers. Every time the Queen left Windsor for 'the Paddington Terminus of the Great Western Railway', every time she and the Prince 'promenaded in the pleasure grounds adjacent to the Castle', every time he went 'shooting in the royal preserves', every time she invited an honoured guest to 'partake of a collation', the facts were recorded and detailed.

'The Marmosets, pretty little dears, are in good health,' an apposite parody ran in a comic journal. 'The severe frost has not in any way injured the turtle-doves in the new dovecote. The tailless cats have been slightly affected owing to their having been indulged with a tete-a-tete on the Castle walls.'¹⁵ Sometimes there was no need of parody. Once 'Her Majesty was most graciously pleased during her stay at Windsor to enjoy most excellent health and spirits.' And later 'Her Majesty, attended by Viscountess Jocelyn, went riding in the Park on two ponies.'¹⁶

I don't know why [one of the Queen's maids-of-honour wrote home to her father in the 1840s], but the dullness of our evenings is a thing impossible to describe. The Queen and Ladies sit at the round table and make conversation; and Flora and I sit at our own table and work; and the Prince generally stays in the other room talking with the Gentlemen till near bed-time; then he comes in with one or two big-wigs who sit at the Queen's table, where they sit till she gives the move at half-past ten, then the other gentlemen make a rush, from the whist table or from the other room, and we gladly bundle up our work, and all is over.17

Visitors to Windsor Castle frequently complained of the lack of the 'sociability which makes the agreeableness of an English country house'. There was no room in which the guests could 'assemble, sit, lounge, and talk as they please'. The billiard room was so inaccessible it might as well have been in the town of Windsor; the library, 'although well stocked with books', was cold and unfurnished, 'offering none of the comforts of a habitable room'.¹⁸ If the 'most agreeable people in the world' were invited one hardly saw them, as the 'chacun chez soi system' was the fashion of the place.¹⁹

Of course, some guests preferred to be left on their own, to do as they pleased throughout the day until dinner time; and Lord Clarendon told the Duchess of Manchester that he always liked Windsor better than any other country house because 'One is left to one's own devices and nobody does anything to amuse one.'²⁰ But, for most, the lack of even the pretence of gaiety, the need to observe 'a continual air of deference and respect', was depressing and enervating.

At dinner, when the guests met for the first time during the day, a military band usually 'covered the talk', as Lord Macaulay discovered, 'with a succession of sonorous tunes'.²¹ He found himself next to a 'foreign woman who could hardly speak English intelligibly'.²² Lord Ashley found that the band was very necessary to fill up the long 'pauses of conversation'. Even during Ascot races when a splendid banquet was given in St George's Hall, which appeared 'very magnificent, blazing with gold plate and light', it was, Charles Greville thought, despite the splendour, all 'very tiresome'.²³ It could be particularly tiresome when the Duke of Wellington was one of the guests since he was so fearfully deaf and shouted so. "Very good-looking man,' he once bawled in Lady Lyttelton's ear, referring to the Tsar, Nicholas I, who sat immediately opposite and understood English perfectly. 'Always was so - scarcely altered since I saw him last - rather browner - no other change - very handsome man now. Don't you think so?' Lady Lyttelton felt compelled to shout an answer, 'Yes, very handsome, indeed.' On occasions the Duke would talk 'as loud as thunder' about some matter of delicate state importance which should have been mentioned only in Cabinet; and the Queen would blush 'over and over' and at last succeed in interrupting him by 'screaming out upon some other subject'.²⁴

After dinner there was sometimes a concert by the Castle band or by distinguished musicians invited to Windsor for this purpose. Occasionally there was an opera, the performers and orchestra being brought down to Windsor by special train and sent back afterwards. The performance was given in the Waterloo Gallery where the acoustics were not very good and where Francesco Tamagno, not having arrived in time to try out his voice there, once let himself go with such force that the Queen, who was as usual sitting in the front row, was quite stunned by the blast.²⁵

Occasionally, too, there was a play with a cast brought down from the West End. More often the play was performed, rather nervously, by members of the household and sometimes there was a presentation of tableaux in which all the members of the Royal Family joined and this was 'very wearying for the audience, who had to sit for two and a half hours with very long intervals between the tableaux'.²⁶

But boring as these performances usually were, it was better to have something to do after dinner, Charles Greville decided - having sat through a series of declamations by Mile Rachel in French which he could not understand - for otherwise there was nothing at all with which to occupy the evening. And getting through the evening was always the 'great difficulty in Royal society'.²⁷

The Queen was at her most contented when there were no guests whom she did not know very well to entertain; or when there were only a few close friends staying the night or, best of all, when she and Prince Albert were alone together. Later, after the birth of their children, she confessed to her eldest daughter that she begrudged the time she had to be with them, when she 'longed to be alone with dearest Papa'. The times spent with him were 'always her happiest moments'.²⁸

She described them in great detail, providing a vivid account of the early mornings when the wardrobe maid came into their bedroom at seven o'clock to open the shutters and, usually, the window too. The Prince, who slept in long white drawers enclosing his feet, would get up and put on his quilted dressing gown. He then went to his sitting room where 'his green German lamp was lit'.

'He brought the original one from Germany,' the Queen recorded, '& we always have 2 on our tables which everywhere stand side by side (& shall ever do so) & wrote letters, read etc. & at a little after eight ... he came to tell me [in German] to get up.' He usually brought with him letters which he had written in English for her to read through for him in order to check his spelling and grammar. After his last child was born and was able to walk and talk she went into his dressing room to watch him dress and see him put on the blue ribbon of the Order of the Garter which he always wore under his waistcoat. When she arrived to find him dressed already she would 'make dearest Albert laugh so by saying, "What a pity"!' The child 'stopped with him till he' came out of his room. He then walked down the passage to breakfast with her, holding her hand.²⁹

In the evenings when the Queen and Prince were once more alone together they often read to each other. 'I sit on a sofa, in the middle of the room with a small table before it, on which stand a lamp & candlestick,' she wrote contentedly, 'Albert sitting in a low arm-chair, on the opposite side of the table with another small table in front of him on which he usually stands his book.'

'I have been so happy there,' she wrote another day in the summer of 1843, when expressing regret at having to leave one royal residence for another, 'but where am I not happy now?'³⁰

The Prince seemed contented now, too, when there were no difficult guests or intimidating women to put him ill at ease. Long gone were the evenings when he would play double chess alone while the Queen talked to the Prime Minister, and the ladies and gentlemen of the Household were bored to death. The Prince now played more rowdy games and even joined in Blind Man's Buff with the ladies, made puns, invented riddles, took part in charades, danced the 'wildest, merriest' dances, played games with the children, gave them magic lantern shows, arranged presents for them on their birthdays in the 'present room', and once built a house for the Princess Royal with her wooden bricks, a house so tall that he had to stand on a chair to put the roof on and even then to reach above his head. 'Such a fall it made! He enjoyed it much the most.'

He was even capable of laughing at himself now and had a large collection of caricatures, some of which lampooned him mercilessly.³¹ One evening after dinner he showed some of these to the Queen and her ladies, 'running from one to the other, and standing over us to see how we laughed,' Lady Lyttelton wrote, 'and laughing so loud himself as to be quite noisy and boyish. But' - and there was so often this 'but' - 'his voice! It is sadly disenchanting.'³²

One evening the ladies and gentlemen of the Household danced 'the reel con amore which was very amusing', so the Hon. Georgiana Liddell, one of the Queen's maids-of-honour, said, and 'made the Queen laugh heartily'. On another evening, after quadrilles and Roger de Coverley, the Queen proposed that everyone who could dance at all should join in a country dance. 'The obedience was like the effect of a magical horn,' Lady Lyttelton thought. 'Lord Aberdeen [the Foreign Secretary in Peel's cabinet] looked more like a scarecrow than ever, quite as stiff as timber, and the countenance of Sir Robert Peel, so mincing on his legs and feet', was 'full of the funniest attempt to look unconcerned' while in reality he was 'very naturally, both shy and cross'.³³

But the Queen watched Albert, so beautiful, so kind, so good. He had the grace of a ballet dancer and once performed like one when the Queen was criticized for looking grumpy. She had been very tired, she said, and might have looked cross, 'What am I to do another time?' she asked him. The Prince advised her, so Lady Lyttelton said, 'to behave like an opera dancer after a pirouette, and always to show all her teeth in a fixed smile ... He accompanied the advice with an immense pirouette and prodigious grin of his own, such as few people could perform after dinner without being sick, ending on one foot and t' other in the air.'³⁴

In later years the Queen remembered with particularly wistful pleasure the evenings in her dressing room before she and Prince Albert went to bed. She pictured him leaning against the fireplace, 'talking over the company - and what had passed - such a pleasure; sometimes my maids would come in and begin to undress me - and he would go on talking, would make his observations on my jewels and ornaments and give my people good advice as to how to keep them or would occasionally reprimand if anything had not been carefully attended to ... He would then go to his dressing-room ... I undressed quickly - but alas! I dawdled and often read while my hair was doing afterwards...'³⁵

Chapter 19 ROYAL QUARRELS

In February 1841, six months before the formation of Sir Robert Peel's administration, the Queen and Prince Albert asked the Duke of Wellington - now considered by the Queen the 'best friend' that she and her husband had - to represent the Duke of Saxe-Coburg at the christening of their first child, Victoria.

'I was never so well received,' the Duke had recently written after a visit to Windsor. 'I sat next to the Queen at dinner. She drank wine repeatedly with me; in short, if I was not a Milksop, I should become a Bottle Companion.'¹ He went out of his way to please her. At a military review in Windsor Park he gave orders that the guns should remain silent until she had left the parade ground, knowing that she hated the noise of artillery. There would be no firing, he assured her; but some mistake had been made and no sooner were the words out of his mouth than 'bang went the guns all down the line!' It was so irresistibly funny that the Queen 'burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter'. But the Duke was furious; he positively 'blew up'; no one could appease him; and he gave orders for the gunners to leave the field immediately.²

He was more successful in his attentions to the Queen at a concert at Buckingham Palace. She had a bad cold and ran out of handkerchiefs before the performance was over. The Duke, who was sitting immediately behind her, noticed her plight; and, since he always carried a reserve supply in his pocket, was able to help her. 'I immediately slipped one of mine into her hand,' he related contentedly, 'then a second, then a third; and whispered I had a fourth at her service should she require it.'³

The Queen's daughter, Princess Victoria, behaved with great propriety and like a 'Christian' at her christening, so the child's father reported. 'She was awake but did not cry at all and seemed to crow with immense satisfaction at the lights and brilliant uniforms, for she is very intelligent and observing.'⁴

The child's mother, however, was in no such contented mood; for she was already pregnant again and exasperated and depressed as a result. 'What made me so miserable,' she later declared, 'was to have the first two years of my married life utterly spoilt by this occupation. I cld enjoy nothing, not travel about or go about with [my husband]. If I had waited a year ... it wld. have been very different.' As it was, she had to 'suffer aches and sufferings ... miseries and plagues'; she had to 'give up enjoyments', take 'constant precautions'. She felt 'so pinned down', with her 'wings clipped'. In short, the female sex was a 'most unenviable one'.⁵

A 'poor woman' was 'bodily and morally the husband's slave,' she complained. When heavily pregnant she felt more like a cow or a dog, a rabbit or a guinea-pig than a human being - women who enjoyed being pregnant were 'disgusting'. Besides, she got so depressed and ill-tempered, and then she had terrible quarrels with the Prince as, for instance, when he rebuked her for not paying proper attention when they were cataloguing prints together. She lost her temper on such occasions. He would leave the room; she would follow him 'to have it all out'. He would retreat to his room to write her a letter, pained and reasonable, which would exasperate her; and then, in the end, she would be filled with remorse and pity and resolve to curb that hasty temper which she so often lamented in the pages of her journal.

Twice in October 1841, she feared she was going to give birth prematurely, and for days on end she felt 'wretched ... low and depressed'. While quite fond of children she did not at all care for babies, when all they were capable of was what she called 'that terrible frog-like action'. An ugly baby was a 'very nasty object, and the prettiest was frightful when undressed'. She would certainly not breast-feed the object as her mother had breast-fed her.

The thought of having another of these creatures filled her with dismay and disgust. She gave birth to it on the morning of 9 November; and it was as she feared it might be. 'My sufferings were really very severe, and I don't know what I should have done, but for the great comfort and support my beloved Albert was to me during the whole time.'⁶ The baby, 'a large boy', appeared at twelve minutes to eleven and was, as the mother recorded, 'taken to the Ministers for them to see'. He was to be given the names Edward, after his grandfather, and Albert, after his father; and what a pleasure it was to his mother that he was to have that 'dearest name!'

For their part, the Ministers were delighted to see so obviously robust a baby, and so was the country at large. No heir had been born to a reigning monarch since the appearance of George III's first child, almost eighty years before; and this new birth led royalists to hope that the monarchy, which the young Queen was now making more respectable and popular, was secure from a decline into its recent disrepute. Salutes were fired, crowds gathered in the streets to cheer and sing 'God Save the Queen', and the Prime Minister made reference to the nation's enthusiasm in a speech at the Guildhall, which was decorated for the occasion with illuminated letters spelling 'God save the Prince of Wales'. The Times described the 'one universal feeling of joy which ran throughout the kingdom'. 'What a joy!' wrote the boy's grandmother, the Duchess of Kent, expressing a common opinion. 'Oh God, what a happiness, what a blessing!'⁷

The relief the Queen herself felt at having given birth to a prince did not for long revive her spirits. For although Prince Albert Edward, known at first as 'the Boy' and afterwards as Bertie, was as 'strong and robust a baby as you could hope to see', his sister, 'Pussy', so healthy at first, 'so strong and fat' in the summer, was now sickly and pale and losing weight, and this, so her mother said, 'fusses and worries me much'.⁸ In this anxiety she and the Prince had their first serious quarrel.

The source of the mischief was Baroness Lehzen who felt her position increasingly threatened by the Queen's deepening love for her husband and her reliance upon him. There were those who found the Baroness an agreeable and interesting woman; among them were Charles Greville, Lady Lyttelton and, at first, Baron Stockmar. Certainly there could be no question of her devotion to the Queen whose diary entries - which in earlier times the Baroness had read with the satisfaction they were no doubt intended to give - were filled with references to the love which Victoria felt for her and the gratitude she owed her for her protection and care during their days at Kensington. But Lehzen had become crotchety and ever more jealous, convinced that 'no one but she could take proper care of the Queen as she had done in the past', arousing suspicion by the close access she had to the Queen's private finances, hostility amongst Tories because of her outspoken support of the Whigs, and resentment in Prince Albert whom, in George Anson's opinion, she was 'constantly misrepresenting'. She exaggerated the Prince's every little fault', tried 'to undermine him in the Queen's affections and [made] herself a martyr, ready to suffer and put up with every sort of indignity for the Queen's sake'. With the Baroness, Anson concluded, 'we must always be subject to troubled waters'.

Anson wrote a memorandum of an interview he had had with the Baroness on 21 June 1842. He had gone to see her about an unbalanced army officer who had been making crazy protestations of love for the Queen. She had reported this to the Lord Chamberlain but had not let the Prince know of the officer's pestering as Anson thought she should have done. The Prince's conduct, she said, 'with great agitation and earnestness', had 'rendered it impossible for her to consult him. He had slighted her in the most marked manner and she was too proud not to resent it ... He had once told her to leave the Palace, but she replied he had not the power to turn her out of the Queen's house.'

Lord Melbourne agreed with her about this. The Prince had 'no right to ask the Queen to make such a sacrifice'; and if he were to say that he would go if the Baroness did not, the Queen might well reply, 'In this alternative you have contemplated the possibility of living without me. I will show you that I can contemplate the possibility of living without you.'

In his growing frustration the Prince raged with uncharacteristic passion against the 'crazy, stupid intriguer' who was 'obsessed with the lust of power', and 'regarded herself as a demi-God and anyone who [refused] to recognise her as such [was] a criminal'.⁹ 'Victoria, who on other questions is just and clear-sighted,' he complained to Stockmar, 'does not see this because she has never been away from [Baroness Lehzen] and, like every good pupil, is accustomed to regard her governess as an oracle. Besides this, the unfortunate experience they went through together at Kensington has bound them still closer, and Lehzen, in her madness, has made Victoria believe that whatever good qualities she possesses are due to her ... There can be no improvement until Victoria sees Lehzen as she is.' She would 'really be happiest without her'.¹⁰

The quarrel spread to the nursery which Lehzen proposed should be handed over to her control. The Prince, however, was convinced that Lehzen, the nurses and the doctor were all incompetent and that his little daughter's weakness was their fault. He said as much one day to a nurse who was spitefully impertinent in her reply. 'That is really malicious,' he complained to the Queen who, in turn, flared up in fury, accusing him of wanting to drive the child's mother out of the nursery and shouting that he could murder the baby if he wanted to. Endeavouring to control his own anger, the Prince murmured, 'I must have patience.'¹¹ He went down to his room where he gave vent to his anger in a passionately angry letter to his wife which he sent to Stockmar, asking him to send it on to her when he thought the right moment had come for her to receive it. 'Dr Clark has mismanaged the child and poisoned her with calomel,' the letter ran, 'and you have starved her. Take the child away and do as you like and if she dies you will have it on your conscience.'¹²

'All the disagreeableness I suffer comes from one and the same person,' the Prince wrote in another of his long letters to Stockmar, 'and that is precisely the person whom Victoria chooses for her friend and confidante ... Victoria is too hasty and passionate for me to be able often to speak of my difficulties. She will not hear me out but flies into a rage and overwhelms me with reproaches and suspiciousness, want of trust, ambition, envy etc. etc. There are, therefore, two ways open to me: (1) to keep silence and go away (in which case I am like a schoolboy who has had a dressing-down from his mother and goes off snubbed), (2) I can be still more violent (and then we have scenes ... which I hate because I am so sorry for Victoria in her misery... )'¹³

There was no doubt that these scenes did make the Queen miserable, and that she deeply regretted that she was 'so passionate when spoken to'. 'I feel so forlorn and I have got such a sick headache,' she told Stockmar after Prince Albert had stormed out of the nursery. 'I feel as if I had had a dreadful dream. I do hope you may be able to pacify Albert. He seems so very angry ... I don't wish to be angry with him.'

She feared that her flashes of temper were 'irremediable as yet, but [she] hoped in time [they] would be got over'. 'There is often an irritability in me which ... makes me say cross and odious things which I don't myself believe and which I fear hurt A., but which he should not believe ... like being miserable I ever married and so forth which come when I am unwell ... I have often heard Albert own that everybody recognised Lehzen's former services to me and my only wish is that she should have a quiet home in my house and see me sometimes ... I assure you upon my honour that I see her very seldom now and only for a few minutes, often to ask questions about papers and toilette for which she is the greatest use to me. A. often and often thinks I see her when I don't ... I tell you this as it is true, as you know me to be...'¹⁴

'Our position is very different from any other married couple. A. is in my house and not I in his ... Dearest Angel Albert, God only knows how I love him. His position is difficult, heaven knows, and we must do everything to make it easier. '¹⁵

It was made rather easier after the nursery had been reorganized. When Princess Victoria had been its only infant occupant it had been under the supervision of the widow of an admiral, Mrs Southey, a worthy, old-fashioned fogey who declined to make any concessions to modern ideas and still wore a wig. Although warmly recommended by the Archbishop of Canterbury, she had never been very satisfactory as Superintendent of the nursery and was even less so when there were two children to look after. She had not liked living at Windsor Castle, though she enjoyed gossiping in overheated rooms with Baroness Lehzen; and she went out too often, leaving her charges in the care of nursemaids inclined to squabble. She was not sufficiently firm or vigilant to ensure that the strict rules of the nursery were observed: that the two children must never be left alone for an instant; that no unauthorized person must ever be permitted to see them; that there must not be the slightest variation in the daily routine without prior consultation with the parents, who were to be regularly informed of the children's progress and any treatment recommended by their doctors. When consulted by the Queen - who complained that Mrs Southey was 'totally unfit' and that the children were 'quite left in the hands of low people - the Nursery and Nursery Maids [who] were vulgar and constantly quarrelling' - Lord Melbourne gave it as his opinion that the nursery ought to be entrusted to the care of a lady of rank who could command more authority, control the tantrums of the stubborn and wilful Princess, and report intelligently upon the development of the little Prince. This was also the opinion of Baron Stockmar who, with characteristic industry, provided the children's parents with a memorandum on the subject over thirty pages long, concluding that 'a Lady of Rank & Title' should be appointed in Mrs Southey's place. After discussions with various advisers, this most important post of Superintendent of the royal nursery was offered to one of the Queen's ladies of the bedchamber, Lady Lyttelton, eldest daughter of the second Earl Spencer, widow of the third Baron Lyttelton, and mother of five children. She was not well off and was thankful to have employment at Court where she was most regular in her religious observances, rather to the disapproval of the Queen who looked askance upon her High Church tendencies, all the more so because Lady Lyttelton's brother, George, an occasional visitor to Windsor, was a priest of the Church of Rome and Superior of the Order of Passionists.¹⁶

The choice of Lady Lyttelton as Superintendent was a highly fortunate one. She was a gifted woman; understanding, good-natured, calm and sensible. She had managed the occasionally flighty maids-of-honour with firmness and tact. Besides, she loved Windsor, greatly admired Prince Albert, and thought most highly of the Queen who never lied or dissembled and through whose 'extraordinary character' she detected a 'vein of iron'.

Lady Lyttelton considered that the Queen was unnecessarily anxious about her daughter, known to Lady Lyttelton as 'Princessy' and to the Queen as 'our fat Vic or Pussette', who was over-watched and over-doctored and 'always treated with what [was] most expensive'. 'Cheaper and commoner food and ways', in Lady Lyttelton's opinion, were 'often wholesomer'.¹⁷

'Princessy' did not take to Lady Lyttelton at first, screaming with 'unconquerable horror' when she arrived; and thereafter, though bawling less, treating her with a kind of irritable reserve which was finally overcome by Lady Lyttelton's patience and tact. With the little Prince there were no such problems. He continued to flourish, remaining constantly 'in crowing spirits' and in the best and calmest of tempers. When he was two years old Lady Lyttelton said that his 'worst crime' was 'to throw his cows and his soldiers out of the windows'; but this she considered was unlikely to 'furnish a dangerous precedent' for his future life.¹⁸

With peace in the nursery restored by Lady Lyttelton, who was in the Queen's opinion 'perfection', life became much easier for Prince Albert, all the more so when it was agreed that Baroness Lehzen must go. She had brought it upon herself, Stockmar thought. 'She was foolish enough to contest [Prince Albert's] influence, and not to conform herself to the change in her position ... If she had done so and conciliated the P., she might have remained in the Palace to the end of her life.'¹⁹ Having already succeeded in removing from the household the objectionable Pagets who, in his opinion, had gravely compromised the Court's moral tone and who had been prominent in Baroness Lehzen's support, the Prince had by now acquired what Stockmar termed 'unbounded influence'. He made arrangements, at the end of September 1842, for the woman's departure. She left England to live with a sister at Buckeburg with the generous pension of £800 a year.

The Queen, who gave her a carriage as a leaving present, felt that her departure was for 'her and our best' and was relieved when Lehzen herself said that her removal to Hanover was 'necessary for her health' and that, 'of course', Victoria did 'not require her so much now'. When the time came for her to leave, the Queen decided that rather than go to say goodbye, she would write to her which would be 'less painful'. 'I am much relieved,' she wrote in her diary, 'at being spared the painful parting [although] I so regret not being able to embrace her once more.'²⁰

On her future visits to Germany the Queen saw Lehzen upon only two occasions, but regularly and affectionately she wrote to her until she died at the age of eighty-six in 1870. Between the Queen and Prince Albert, however, her name was rarely mentioned after her departure and, when it was, the Queen was contrite, ready to sympathize with her husband and to take responsibility upon herself for the quarrels which her presence in the Castle had provoked.' I blame myself for my blindness,' she wrote in her journal. 'I shudder to think what my beloved Albert had to go through ... It makes my blood boil.'

She conceded, though, that Lehzen had been 'an admirable Governess'. 'I owed her much,' she wrote, 'and she adored me ... I adored her, though I also feared her ... She devoted her life to me, with the most wonderful self-abnegation, never ever taking one day's leave.' She did, however, the Queen added, get to be 'rather trying at the end'.²¹

The departure of Baroness Lehzen was a watershed in the Queen's life.

Chapter 20 OSBORNE

'Oh! If I could only describe our dear happy life together,' the Queen wrote in her diary at the beginning of November 1844. Even the prospect of having other babies did not so much daunt her now. Her only wish was that her 'great happiness' should last, her most fervent prayer that God would grant 'His protection of us together'. Two years previously, soon after Lehzen's departure, she had 'looked over & corrected' some comments she had made in her old journals which 'did not now awake very pleasant feelings'. The life she had led then 'was so artificial'. She was ashamed to remember some of the things she had done and said and written, the pain she had allowed Lehzen to inflict upon Albert, the 'unbounded admiration and affection' she had felt for Lord Melbourne in her need to cling to someone, her working herself up into something which Albert thought 'became at last quite foolish'. 'I thought I was happy,' she wrote. 'Thank God! I now know what real happiness means!'¹

Albert was all in all to her, 'such a perfection, such an angel'. She hated to be parted from him, regretted so much that he was always so busy that she could not see more of him; no one, she was to tell her eldest daughter, could be as blessed as she was with such a husband: he was her father, protector, guide, 'adviser in all and everything; she might even say her mother as well as husband'. She supposed 'no-one was ever so completely altered in every way' as she had been by her dearest husband's 'blessed influence'.² Her diary is filled with references to him, praise of his goodness, his kindness, his perfection - Albert playing the organ with a baby on each knee, Albert pushing the children round the nursery in a basket and playing hide and seek with them, helping them to chase butterflies and making them laugh by turning somersaults in a haystack. 'He is so kind to them,' their mother wrote contentedly in her journal, 'and romps with them so delightfully, and manages them so beautifully and kindly.' 'It is not every papa,' commented Lady Lyttelton after seeing him helping one of them to get dressed, 'who would have the patience and kindness to do so.'³

At Christmas time he could be seen building snowmen twice as tall as himself, playing ice hockey, driving a sledge across the snow and setting up a Christmas tree.[xix]

Each Christmas, the chandeliers were taken down in the Queen's sitting room at Windsor where trees, hung with candles and toffees, took their place; the dining room tables were piled high with food and on the sideboard stood an immense baron of beef. In the Oak Room there was another Christmas tree surrounded by presents for the members of the household, and on each present was a card written by the Queen. 'Everything,' so the Prince told his brother, 'was totally German.'

When Albert's father died Victoria abandoned herself to the grief her husband felt in recalling the days of his lost childhood, disregarding the manifold faults of the old reprobate who had plagued her with demands for money, and giving vent to an extravagance of uncontrolled mourning, 'all on the Prince's account', as Lady Lyttelton said.⁴

God has heavily afflicted us [she told King Leopold]. We feel crushed, overwhelmed, bowed down by the loss of one who was so deservedly loved, I may say adored, by his children and family ... You must now be the father of us two poor bereaved heart broken children ... I loved him and looked on him as my own father; his like we shall not see again. I have never known real grief till now, and it has made a lasting impression on me.5 

'My darling stands so alone,' she added in a letter to Baron Stockmar, 'and his grief is so great and touching... He says (forgive my bad writing, but my tears blind me) I am now all to him. Oh, if I can be, I shall be only too happy.'6 

She dreaded the thought that Albert would now have to go to Germany to help his brother see to their father's confused affairs. But, when he did go, he made his absence less unbearable by writing to her often and with real, if rather stilted, affection, beginning a letter, written on the day of his departure from Dover, 'My own dear darling, I have been here about an hour, and regret the lost time which I might have spent with you. Poor child! you will, while I write, be getting ready for luncheon, and you will find a place vacant where I sat yesterday. In your heart, however, I hope my place will not be vacant ... You are even now half a day nearer to seeing me again; by the time you get this letter you will be a whole one - thirteen more, and I am again within your arms. Your most devoted, Albert.'⁷

On the day of his return the Queen had the 'immense joy' of being 'clasped in his arms'. He himself wrote, 'I arrived at six o'clock in the evening at Windsor. Great joy.'⁸

Both the Queen and Prince had at this time grown fond of Windsor, despite its many disadvantages and occasional whiffs of noxious smells (although the Queen was in later years to dislike it much, describing it as 'prison-like, so large and gloomy', an 'undesirable and unenjoyable residence'). But it could scarcely be described as cosy, or, to use a favourite word of both the Queen's and Prince's, gemutlich.⁹ Nor could Buckingham Palace which, when King George IV rebuilt the less grandiose house his father had bought as a London retreat from St James's, had never been intended as a family home. The Queen complained to Peel of its 'total want of accommodation for our own little family which is fast growing up ... If [alterations] were to be begun this autumn [1845] it could hardly be occupied before the spring of 1848 when the Prince of Wales would be nearly seven and the Princess Royal nearly eight years old and they cannot possibly be kept in the nursery any longer. A provision for this purpose ought therefore to be made this year. Independent of this, most parts of the Palace are in a sad state and will ere long require further outlay to render them decent for the occupation of the Royal Family or any visitors the Queen may have to receive ... Something must absolutely be done during this Session.'

The Queen was supported in her views by Edward Blore, the architect employed by William IV to complete the work which had been started by John Nash for George IV but had been left unfinished at King William's death. Blore contended that there were no rooms in the Palace which could be converted into day and night nurseries except poky attics designed for use as servants' quarters. Moreover, the state apartments were inadequate and the kitchens a disgrace. Nor were there any suites suitable for distinguished guests from abroad. Indeed, Prince Albert was quite right to consider the whole Palace 'a disgrace to the Sovereign and the Nation'.¹⁰

Blore proposed enclosing Nash's courtyard by a completely new east front with a central balcony facing down the Mall and removing the Marble Arch which stood in front of the courtyard to a position at the top of Park Lane, where it remains today. It was estimated that this would cost £150,000 - a sum subsequently voted by Parliament - and it was hoped that at least part of this would be covered by the sale of the Marine Pavilion at Brighton.

The Queen had decided that the lack of privacy at Brighton was intolerable. During a visit there in the winter of 1845 the crowds 'behaved worse' than she had ever seen them do before, like 'a pack of ill-bred dogs', in the words of Punch, hunting their quarry 'to the very gates of the Pavilion'.¹¹ 'We were mobbed by all the shopboys in the town, who ran and looked under my bonnet,' the Queen complained, 'treating us just as they do the band, when it goes to the parade. We walked home as fast as we could. '¹²

Fortunately by then she and Prince Albert had found a place which would afford them the seclusion they could never hope to enjoy at Brighton or in London, or, indeed, at Windsor.

'During our usual morning walk,' the Queen had written one day in 1843, 'Albert & I talked of buying a place of our own, which would be so nice; perhaps Norris Castle might be something to think of.'¹³ She had been much taken with the Isle of Wight as a girl; and now that she could afford it, she thought how wonderful it would be to have a place there of one's own, quiet and retired. 'God knows how willingly I would always live with my beloved Albert and our children in the quiet and retirement of private life and not be the constant object of observation and of newspaper articles,' she told King Leopold; and later she made the same observation to one of her German relations: 'Every year I feel less and less desire for the so-called "worldly pleasures", and if it were not my duty to give receptions and banquets, I should like to retire to the Country with my husband and children. '¹⁴

The Isle of Wight seemed to offer an ideal sanctuary, secluded from the outside world, yet not too remote from London, in fact less than three hours' journey away by rail and steamer.

Sir Robert Peel encouraged the Queen and the Prince in their plans and brought to their attention a Georgian house overlooking the Solent near Cowes with some 800 acres. Here, at Osborne House, Prince Albert could be free from the circumlocutory delays and restrictions of the Office of Woods and Forests and of those 'other charming departments' which really were, as the Queen put it, 'the plague of one's life'.¹⁵ At Osborne he could look forward to becoming, as he told the Dowager Duchess of Coburg, 'partly forester, partly builder, partly farmer and partly gardener'.¹⁶

The estate belonged to a daughter of the Duke of Grafton, Lady Isabella Blatchford, who was asking £30,000 for it. This was considered too high; so the Prince gave Lady Isabella the impression that he and the Queen were not all that keen to buy it. He would, however, consider renting it for a year to see how they liked it. A figure of £28,000 was then offered and accepted. But then Lady Isabella changed her mind and demanded the original asking price. Eventually a figure of £26,000, excluding the furniture and farm crops, was agreed between the parties; and a further £18,600 was spent on additional farmland purchased from Winchester College. By the end of 1847 a total of £67,000 had been spent on an estate of 1,727 acres.¹⁷

Charles Greville, who went to Osborne House for a Council meeting four months after the Royal Family moved in, did not think much of it. 'A miserable place,' he considered it, 'such a vile house' that, before the meeting, 'the Lords of the Council had no place to remain in but the entrance hall ... Fortunately the weather was fine' so they walked about in the grounds. The Queen 'will spend first and last a great deal of money there,' Greville commented, 'but it is her own money and not the nation's. I know not where she gets it, but Graham [Sir James Graham, the Home Secretary] told me She had money. He also told me she is naturally inclined to be generous, but the Prince is fond of money.'¹⁸

Greville might think it 'very ugly'; but the Queen was entranced by Osborne House and its surroundings: it was 'so snug and nice' - a description, given in a letter to King Leopold, which Theodore Martin thought it as well to replace in his printed version with the more queenly 'pleasant'.¹⁹ 'It is impossible to see a prettier place,' she told Lord Melbourne, 'with woods and valleys and points de vue, which would be beautiful anywhere, but all this near the sea ... is quite perfection. We have a charming beach quite to ourselves. The sea is so blue and calm that the Prince said it was like Naples. And then we can walk about anywhere by ourselves without fear of being followed and mobbed.'²⁰ She could go down to the sea undisturbed:

Drove down to the beach with my maid [she wrote in her journal one summer's day in 1847] and went into the bathing machine, where I undressed and bathed in the sea (for the first time in my life), and a very nice bathing woman attending me. I thought it delightful till I put my head under the water, when I thought I should be stifled.21

In a letter to Peel she was equally enthusiastic: 'We are more and more delighted with this lovely spot, the air is so pure and fresh, in spite of the hottest sun which oppresses one so dreadfully in London and even at Windsor ... The combination of sea, trees, woods, flowers of all kinds ... make it, to us, a perfect little Paradise.'²²

She thought the original house, 'our dear little Home', 'all our very own', quite large enough; but Prince Albert did not agree.²³ So it was demolished and a much bigger house, an Italianate villa with two campanile - the Clock Tower and the Flag Tower - was built in its place. There was a central Pavilion for the Royal Family, a guest wing containing apartments for the Duchess of Kent, as well as rooms for visitors, and another wing for members of the Household who were also to be accommodated in cottages in the grounds. It was designed by Prince Albert himself with the help of his artistic adviser, the painter and engraver Ludwig Gruner, and the master builder Thomas Cubitt, a former ship's carpenter who had made a fortune building houses in Clapham Park as well as Belgravia (one of these George Anson's). The Queen laid the foundation stone of the new building with its much criticized stucco facades on 23 June 1845, and the family moved in just over a year later.²⁴

'Nobody caught cold or smelled paint,' Lady Lyttelton recorded. 'Everything in the house is quite new [much of the furniture, including the painted billiard table with slate legs, was designed by Prince Albert himself] and the dining room looked very handsome.[xx] The windows, lighted by the brilliant lamps, must have been seen far out to sea'; and, when the shutters were closed, the looking-glass fixed to their inner sides brilliantly reflected the bright light from the chandeliers.²⁵

As the Queen formally entered the house for the first time a Scottish maid-of-honour threw a shoe in after her in the traditional belief of her countrymen that this would bring good luck; and, after dinner that night, in accordance with a tradition of the country of his own birth, Prince Albert quoted two lines of German meaning 'entering a new house is a solemn thing to do'. 'It was dry and quaint', being a quotation from Luther, Lady Lyttelton commented on his rendition, 'but we all perceived that he was feeling it.'²⁶

From the beginning, the Queen loved Osborne, to which more land was eventually added until the estate extended to over 2,000 acres. She was to come here twice a year, from the middle of July until the end of the third week in August and for Christmas from 18 December to 23 February. She took great pride in the handsome rooms which owed so much to Albert's discernment and taste, the intertwined letters V and A which celebrated their ideal partnership, the arrangement of the pictures, of William Dyce's Neptune Entrusting Command of the Sea to Britannia which was placed at the top of the Pavilion staircase, and Winterhalter's Florinda, her birthday present to him (another riot of naked flesh, described by the Queen as 'splendid and delightful'), which was hung opposite their desks in her sitting room.[xxi]²⁷

She was delighted by the lovely grounds which the Prince had planned and drained, levelled and planted; the avenue of cedars leading to the main entrance like the approach to a Tuscan villa, the model farms, the children's garden plots. She loved it all the more because Albert liked it so.[xxii] It did her heart good, she said, to see how he enjoyed it all. He was so full of enthusiasm for the place and for 'all the plans and improvements' he meant to carry out. He was 'hardly to be got at home for a moment'. For the rest of her life she recalled with pleasure standing on the balcony outside her sitting room on summer evenings listening to the hiss and patter of the fountains and the song of the nightingales in imitation of which Albert used to whistle so well on their walks together through the woods. 'Never do I enjoy myself more or more peacefully,' she wrote, 'than when I can be so much with my beloved Albert - follow him everywhere.'²⁸

Chapter 21 TRAVELLING

It was the opportunity of being so much with Prince Albert that made her travels with him so enjoyable for the Queen. At Windsor Castle and Buckingham Palace he was so preoccupied with work that there were days when he seemed to have no time to spare for her. 'I have a great deal to do,' he had complained to his brother in November 1840, 'and hardly ever get out into the open air'; while, some two and a half years later, Stockmar described him as 'well and contented', but 'pale, fatigued and exhausted'. When he was away from the cares and the duties he imposed upon himself, however, the Queen could enjoy more of his company and attention and have him to herself for hours on end.

In the summer of 1843, four months after the birth of their third child, Princess Alice, the Queen and Prince Albert had gone abroad together for the first time. They had been invited to France by Louis-Philippe, King of the French, whose Foreign Minister and dominant figure in his Government was Francois Guizot, formerly French Ambassador in London and a warm advocate of closer Franco-British relations. Not only was it the first time the Queen had been abroad, it was the first time that any English sovereign had visited a French monarch since 1520 when Henry VIII met Francois I at the 'Field of the Cloth of Gold'.

The Queen and Prince sailed from England on 25 August in the royal yacht, the Victoria and Albert, which had been launched earlier that year and was commanded by one of King William IV's bastards, Lord Adolphus FitzClarence. The Prince, as usual, was dreadfully seasick; but the Queen relished the voyage. 'The sailor-gypsy life' at sea, she thought, was 'very delightful'. She enjoyed her breakfast with the King's son, the Prince de Joinville, who came aboard off the French coast. Despite his deafness, she found him 'an amiable, agreeable companion', 'amusing and full of anecdotes'. 'The good, kind' King was very pleasant, too. He was standing up in his barge, she said, as the royal yacht approached Le Treport and was so impatient to greet his visitors that 'it was very difficult to prevent his getting out of the boat before it was close enough. Then he came up as quickly as possible and warmly embraced me.' Assuring her repeatedly how delighted he was to see her, he helped her into the barge which was rowed ashore with the 'Royal Standards of England and France floating side by side over the two sovereigns' heads'. On the shore large crowds welcomed the Queen with shouts of 'Vive la Reine d'Angleterre.'¹

'We then,' the Queen recorded, 'got into a curious old carriage, a sort of char a banc with a top to it in which we sat with the King and Queen [ Marie-Amelie, daughter of Ferdinand, King of the Two Sicilies] and all the ladies of the family', including the Princess of Joinville, the Duchess of Orleans, and Louis-Philippe's daughter, Louise, Queen of the Belgians.²

It was a most uncomfortable journey to the King's residence, the Chateau d'Eu. Charlotte Canning, the Queen's lady-in-waiting, described the coach as 'a mixture between one of Louis XIV's time and a marketing cart from Hampton Court'. The driver almost overturned the unwieldy contraption as he was endeavouring to negotiate a gateway, and the passengers, in Lady Canning's words, were 'taken for some miles along a very narrow field road, in deep dust and over stones, and ruts and holes'.

Nor, when at last they arrived, did Lady Canning much enjoy her stay at Eu. Admittedly the dinner on the first evening, served at the early hour of seven o'clock, was excellent, but it was served oddly. The Queen, wearing what Lady Canning thought a most unsuitable dress of scarlet crepe de chine trimmed round the bottom with three rows of lace, did not know what to do with the 'great French loaf which was placed beside her on an untidy table with 'everybody's bread and crumbs and dirt' remaining on the cloth 'all through the dessert'.

The evening in general, like subsequent evenings, was 'dullish'. The French ladies were 'all rather tiresome' as well as 'dowdy'; while having to listen to Lord Liverpool, who accompanied the visitors from England as Lord Steward of the Household, talking incessantly 'in disagreeable French', was tedious beyond measure. After dinner one evening, in the middle of a performance by a man playing the French horn in a most eccentric manner, the King's son, the Duke of Montpensier, 'had the giggles and it caught from one person to another till all were in tears and the poor performer's sounds became stranger and stranger'. 'I kept grave very long indeed,' Lady Canning said, 'but my lips shook and some very deep notes vanquished me at last. I am very sorry for the poor man, but his back was partly turned and I hope he did not find out, and between each spasm every good-natured person called out "C'est etonnant! Merveilleux!"'

Whether or not Queen Victoria joined in the general merriment, Lady Canning did not say; but she did record the fact that a band of fifty men played under Her Majesty's window and 'almost deafened her'.³

For her part, however, the Queen enjoyed herself greatly. She felt as though it were a dream that she was at Eu, her 'favourite castle in the air of so many years', a fine chateau begun by Henry of Guise in 1578, enlarged by Mademoiselle de Montpensier in the seventeenth century and restored by Louis-Philippe. She got on very well with Queen Marie-Amelie with whom she was 'very merry and laughed a good deal'. Indeed, the whole French royal family was delightful: she felt 'so at home with them all', as though she were 'one of them'. It was so pleasant to be in 'a family circle with persons of [her] own rank with whom [she] could be on terms of equality & familiarity'. She felt 'so gay and happy with these dear people' and was, in Lady Canning's words, 'as amused as a child could be'. When she was obliged to leave Eu she did so 'with very great regret', recalling with pleasure the clear blue skies of Normandy, the meals al fresco or in large tents, the kind attentions of Louis-Philippe, who had English beer and English cheeses specially imported for his English guests, the sight of Albert swimming in the sea.⁴

Albert, also, had been charmed by his hosts. He did not much care for French people generally; but these, he told Stockmar, 'received us with a heartiness, I might say affection, which was quite touching'.⁵

Before setting out for France the Queen had been advised by the Prime Minister to take care that the visit did not 'get mixed, either in reality or in appearance, with polities', while the French King's daughter gave similar advice to her mother: 'My excellent father should be natural, patriarchal, without ceremony, as he is always,' Queen Louise had advised. 'But unless she begins the subject, which she certainly will not ... he should not enter into politics and avoid everything which could suggest he was trying to influence her.'⁶

The Queen was thankful that this advice had been followed, that, according to an official report, 'no exchange of views on political subjects took place', and the visit had gone off without any political differences to disturb the happy atmosphere.

Having returned to spend a few days with her children at Brighton, she and Prince Albert returned to the Continent in the royal yacht to stay with King Leopold. Prince Albert was seasick once more as a matter of course; but the Queen was unaffected by the choppy waters of the Channel and she could not help laughing, so Lady Canning reported, at the sight of Prince Albert, followed by Lord Liverpool, then Lord Aberdeen, the Foreign Secretary, 'all vanishing in haste'.⁷

Once again, Lady Canning did not enjoy herself during the few days the royal party spent in Belgium. To the Queen, on the other hand, they were a delight. It was 'such a joy' for her to be 'once again under the roof of one who [had] ever been a father to [her]'. She was taken to Bruges, and Ghent, Brussels and Antwerp; and everywhere she was met with 'cordiality and friendliness', even though her clothes came in for what Lady Canning considered to be well-deserved criticism. The bonnet she wore at Ghent 'would do for an old woman of seventy and her pink petticoat was longer than her muslin gown'.⁸ In Brussels, Charlotte Bronte, then studying French at M. and Mme Heger's school in the rue d'Isabelle, described her as 'very plainly dressed' as she drove through the streets, a 'little, stout, vivacious lady' of twenty-three.⁹

Little and stout though she was, she might at least, Charlotte Canning thought, have made some sort of effort to appear more elegant. Lady Canning had looked through her dresses while waiting for her in her cabin in the ship sailing for Ostend. 'They are decidedly very badly chosen,' she had thought, 'and quite unlike what she ought to have. Her dresser never ceased sighing and lifting up her hands and eyes all the time I looked at them and lamenting how little she cared about her dress.'[xxiii]¹⁰ Some of her clothing, indeed, was bought at Caley's, the drapers in Windsor High Street. One black silk dress was described by Lady Wolseley as being made 'anyhow and nohow'.¹¹

The Queen enjoyed staying in country houses in England with Prince Albert as much as she did travelling with him on the Continent. She asked for lists of proposed fellow-guests to be submitted to her; but she very rarely objected to a name. She was not always a welcome guest, however: when she paid a short visit to the Duke of Wellington at Walmer Castle with the intention of giving her children a taste of the bracing air of the Kentish coast after an outbreak of scarlet fever had prevented them going to Brighton, the Duke complained that he had had to 'pull the building to pieces' to suit her convenience and that when she arrived late - her carriage having got stuck in the Castle entrance - the place was a scene of the most utter confusion with trunks and baggage in every room and 'Abigails, Maids, Nurses of all ages and descriptions running about'.¹² The visit, however, was a success, even though the wind howled through the rattling windows. The Queen, so she claimed, formed quite an affection for the place.[xxiv] A subsequent visit by the Queen and Prince Albert to the Duke's country house in Hampshire, Stratfield Saye, was also a success. There were only nine guest bedrooms in the house and the reception rooms were by no means large. The Duke had protested that the house was quite inadequate to receive Her Majesty. But she 'smiled and continued to be very gracious but did not give a hint of postponing the Visit'. So 'bells had to be hung from H.M. Apartments into those for Her attendants, Walls broken through, etc.'. 'You recollect Poor Mrs Apostles the Housekeeper,' the Duke reported to Lady Wilton, 'I thought that she would have burst out crying while I was talking to Her of the Honour intended and the preparations to be made. She said to me, "My Lord, Your House is a very comfortable Residence for yourself, your family and your friends. But it is not fit for the reception of the Sovereign and her Court." I answered, "Very true."¹³

The Duke proved himself to be a most attentive host, showing the Queen to her room and returning to escort her down to dinner, where he amused her by helping her to the dishes himself, 'rather funnily giving such large portions & mixing up tarts and puddings, but being so kind and attentive about it'.¹⁴ After dinner he sat near to the Queen on the sofa where the conversation was 'certainly rather to the benefit of the whole society'. But he was 'very well and in very good spirits', she told her mother; and he went upstairs before her 'in the eveg: with two candles in his hand'.¹⁵

She had a 'nice little sitting room', a 'snug bedroom', and she and Albert both had dressing rooms. If she was to be critical, she had to confess that the Duke's central heating system made the rooms too hot. The Duke might have known that she would have found them so, her objection to warm rooms being well known: he confided in Lady Salisbury, he was 'never warm at Windsor, excepting in bed! '¹⁶

The Duke took Albert shooting and into the tennis court and the billiard room. Family prayers were said in the morning which had never been done before; and when, 'thank God!', the visit was concluded, the Duke attended 'Her Majesty on Horseback to the Borders of the County'.¹⁷

Some two years before this, in 1843, the Queen and Prince Albert had gone by train to stay at Drayton Manor near Tamworth, Staffordshire, a house in the Elizabethan style which Sir Robert Smirke had designed for Sir Robert Peel in the early 1830s.[xxv]

Still travelling by train, they went on to Chatsworth where the Duke of Devonshire, so Charles Greville said, 'would have willingly dispensed with her visit'. Nevertheless, 'all the people who have been at the Royal progress,' Greville continued, 'say there never was anything so grand as Chatsworth ... The Duke treats the Queen right royally. He met her at the station and brought her in his own coach and six, with coach and four following, and eight outriders. The finest sight was the illumination of the garden and the fountains; and after seeing the whole place covered with innumerable lamps and all the material of the illuminations, the Guests were astonished and delighted when they got up the following morning not to find a vestige of them left, and the whole garden as trim and neat as if nothing had occurred. '¹⁸

The Queen knew the house well, having been to stay there as a girl as well as during the elections of 1841, but on this later occasion there was something new and remarkable to see apart from the illuminations. This was a huge conservatory, 'the most stupendous and extraordinary creation imaginable', in the Queen's own words.¹⁹ Over sixty feet high and nearly three hundred feet long, 'the whole entirely of glass', it had been designed by the remarkable man who had organized the illuminations, Joseph Paxton, a farmer's son, appointed superintendent of the gardens at Chatsworth in 1826 by the Duke who was himself President of the Horticultural Society of London.

From Chatsworth, where, so the Queen said, she would have liked to stay on for another day, the royal party went on to Belvoir Castle in Leicestershire which had not long since been restored for the fifth Duke of Rutland after a fire.

The Duke had arranged a day's fox hunting for the Prince and 'to the surprise of everybody', so Greville said, 'he acquitted himself in the field very creditably. He was supposed to be a very poor performer in this line, and as Englishmen love manliness and dexterity in field sports, it will have raised him considerably in publick estimation to have rode well after the hounds in Leicestershire.'²⁰

The Queen was much put out that the Prince's dash and skill should have created such a stir. 'One can hardly credit the absurdity of people here, but Albert's riding so boldly and hard has made such a sensation that it has been written all over the country, and they make much more of it than if he had done some great act! It rather disgusts one, but still it has done, and does good, for it has put an end to all impertinent sneering for the future about Albert's riding.'²¹

The Queen would also have been annoyed had she known about the stories that were circulating in society about the possible reasons for her travelling about so much in England and abroad, rumours that she might have inherited a form of the mental disturbance which had afflicted her grandfather, George III. Charles Greville 'heard a whisper ... that the Queen had been in a restless state - always wanting to go somewhere and do something, and that it was thought advisable to let the excitement find a vent in these excursions. It is certainly remarkable that from the time Parliament broke up till now [December 1843] she has been, with only short intervals, in a constant state of locomotion, first in France, then in Belgium, then at Cambridge [where they stayed in the Master's Lodge at Trinity College and the Prince received the honorary degree of Doctor of Civil Law][xxvi] and now these recent visits.'²² At the beginning of 1844 Greville heard that it was 'reported in the City that the Queen's mind [was] not in a right state ... slight appearances [indicated] restlessness, excitement, nervousness'.²³

The travelling could not be resumed in 1844, first because of one of those frequent occurences of family mourning and then because of the Queen's pregnancy with her fourth child, Prince Alfred, 'Affie', who was born on 6 August. But in the summer of 1845 the Queen and her husband were free to go abroad again, this time once more to Belgium to see King Leopold and Queen Louise, then on to Bonn, where the Prince showed the Queen the small house where he had lodged as a student, then to the palace of the King of Prussia where the Queen was extremely annoyed, and made no attempt to disguise her annoyance, that her husband was not given the precedence she considered was due to him, the Archduke Frederick of Austria, an uncle of the Emperor, being placed above Prince Albert at a banquet at the Prussian Court. For days after this slight, so it was reported at home, the Queen remained grumpy. 'We hear of nothing but the dissatisfaction which the Q. gave in Germany,' Charles Greville recorded, 'of her want of civility and graciousness, and a great many stories are told which are probably exaggerated or untrue. It is clear, however, that the general impression was not favourable.'²⁴

Once they had crossed over the border into Coburg, however, the Queen's annoyance was forgotten in her pleasure at the reception she and the Prince were accorded by the crowds that lined their route to the town, this 'dear old place' as the Queen called it, as though it had been her childhood home as well as her husband's. 'If I were not who I am,' she wrote the next day after a visit to Albert's birthplace, the Rosenau, 'this would have been my real home, but I shall always consider it my second one.' She climbed the stairs to the small bedrooms which had been Albert's and his brother, Ernest's. The view was beautiful; the wallpaper, she noted, with her eye for such details, was 'still full of holes from their fencing'.²⁵

Regrettably their German hosts, in an effort to entertain their visitors, laid on a grand battue in the Thuringen Forest which Lady Canning described with strong distaste:

Three hundred men had been employed beating the woods for ten days to drive the deer [into a canvas enclosure] ... The shooters were stationed in different little turf forts, four or five guns together. Then a signal was given and an army of chasseurs instantly threw down the canvas wall ... Then everybody fired at the poor things who were driven in and out of the wood and up and down the hill till all were killed - it was a piteous sight, much the worse from the bad shooting, for most of the poor beasts were dreadfully wounded long before they were killed.26

The Queen also condemned the battue which, she maintained, was 'hardly real sport', amounting to 'a kind of slaughter'. But what distressed her quite as much was the fact that Albert was condemned in England for having taken part in it. The prestige he had won for riding so well to hounds in Leicestershire was largely dissipated by his massacring deer in the Thuringer Wald.

She herself was also much criticized at home.

Nothing can exceed the universal indignation felt here by people of every description at the brutal and stupid massacre of the deer which Albert perpetrated and at which she assisted [commented Greville].[xxvii] It has been severely commented on in several of the papers, and met by a very clumsy (and false) attempt to persuade people that She was shocked and annoyed. No such thing appeared and nothing compelled her to see it. But the truth is [added Greville] her sensibilities are not acute, and though she is not at all ill-natured, perhaps the reverse, she is hard-hearted, selfish and self-willed.27

Chapter 22 BALMORAL

Soon after the Queen and Prince Albert moved into their new house at Osborne they considered the possibility of buying another retreat, farther from London and far more remote. They had first been to Scotland in 1842, sailing from Woolwich to Edinburgh in the Royal George and staying with the Duke of Buccleuch and Queensberry, one of her aides-de-camp and Captain-General of the Royal Company of Archers, at Dalkeith Palace, Midlothian, and then with the Marquess of Breadalbane, a future Lord Chamberlain of the Household, at Taymouth Castle in Perthshire. They were enchanted by all that they saw as they travelled to Loch Leven and Scone, Stirling Castle and Linlithgow, the Prince constantly reminded of the Coburg he loved and missed: even the people of the Highlands seemed to him to look like Germans.¹

'Scotland has made a most favourable impression upon us both,' he told his grandmother. 'The country is full of beauty ... perfect for sport of all kinds, and the air remarkably pure and light ... The people are more natural, and are marked by that honesty and sympathy, which always distinguish the inhabitants of mountainous countries, who live far away from towns. There is, moreover, no country where historical traditions are preserved with such fidelity ... Every spot is connected with some interesting historical fact, and with most of these Sir Walter Scott's accurate descriptions have made us familiar.'²

Two years later, in the autumn of 1844, the Queen and Prince were back in Scotland as guests of Lord Glenlyon, shortly to succeed his uncle as sixth Duke of Atholl, at Blair Castle in Perthshire. Again they were enchanted by both countryside and people. The Queen was 'quite delighted' with Blair Atholl, Charlotte Canning said, and in such 'very high spirits, full of jokes and fun', while the Prince was 'in ecstacies'. 'We are all well,' he told the Dowager Duchess of Coburg, 'and live a somewhat primitive, yet romantic, mountain life, that acts as a tonic to the nerves, and gladdens the heart of a lover, like myself, of field-sports and of Nature.' Lady Canning disapproved of their going to a Church of Scotland service in the Kirk on Sunday when they might well have joined the 'poor little episcopal congregation'. This was also the view of the Morning Post which condemned the Queen for going to a service in the 'meeting-place of the Calvinists or Presbyterians, to whom Prelacy - the Prelacy Her Majesty has sworn to maintain - is the object of implacable hate and abhorrence'. But Prince Albert was perfectly satisfied with the Kirk, the service there being quite like what he had been used to in Germany.³

'I can only say that the scenery is lovely,' the Queen wrote in her diary, 'grand, romantic, and a great peace and wilderness pervades all, which is sublime.' 'Blair itself and the houses in the village looked like little toys from the great height we were on,' she continued, having climbed the hill of Tulloch, guided by one of Lord Glenlyon's servants in his Highland dress. 'It was quite romantic. Here we were with only this Highlander behind us holding the ponies, not a house, not a creature near us, but the pretty Highland sheep with their horns and black faces.' 'It was really the most delightful, most romantic ride and walk' she had ever had. Indeed, the whole short holiday had been a delight and the Highlanders she had encountered were such 'chivalrous, fine, active people'. When she got home she found it difficult to reconcile herself to being at Windsor again as she pined for her 'dear, dear Highlands, the hills, the pure air, the quiet, the retirement, the liberty - all'.4

Three years passed. Another child was born, the Queen's third daughter, Helena, to be known as 'Lenchen', on 25 May 1846. Then in the summer of 1847 the Queen was able to spend another holiday in Scotland to which she had so much been looking forward, this time as a guest of the second Marquess of Abercorn, Groom of the Stole to the Prince Consort, who lent the royal party a remote fishing lodge at Ardverikie on the shore of Loch Laggan, Inverness. Even though it poured with rain for much of the time, the Queen was again enchanted by Scotland and the Scottish people; and when they got home they decided they must have a place in the Highlands themselves.

They were encouraged in this decision by Sir James Clark, still the Queen's Physician-in-Ordinary, who had been born at Cullen in Banffshire and who, as author of 'The Influence of Climate in the Prevention and Cure of Chronic Diseases' and of a 'Treatise on Pulmonary Consumption', entertained a high opinion of the curative and prophylactic effects of pure fresh air, Highland air in particular. He was acquainted with Sir Robert Gordon who lived at Balmoral, a turreted castle of whitewashed granite with slit windows, a high-pitched roof and round towers with cone-shaped roofs. It stood not far from Ardverikie, where the air and climate were, in Sir James's opinion, particularly beneficial. Fortuitously, Sir Robert died suddenly over his breakfast table on 8 October 1847; and the Queen, pressed by Sir James Clark to do so, bought what remained of the lease from Sir Robert's brother, Lord Aberdeen, who had inherited it. She did so without having seen it but she was satisfied that it was presentable enough for their purpose by a set of watercolours commissioned from the Scottish landscape painter, James Giles, a friend of Lord Aberdeen.⁵

Early the following year the Queen and Prince went to see Balmoral, 'a pretty little Castle in the old Scotch style', and were not disappointed. 'All seemed to breathe freedom and peace,' the Queen wrote, 'and to make one forget the world and its sad turmoils.' The pure air was 'most refreshing', the soil 'delightfully dry', and all was 'so calm and so solitary', so reminiscent of the Thuringer Wald. It was 'wonderful not seeing a single human being, not hearing a sound excepting that of the wind, or the call of the blackcock or grouse'. And then the Highlanders were so intelligent and warm-hearted, so well bred, so polite without being in the least subservient.

She and Albert, she felt sure, could both be very happy and healthy at Balmoral; and so they were. Charles Greville, who went there in September 1849 to attend a Council 'to order a Prayer for relief against the cholera', painted a picture of the most perfect contentment. Leaving on a Monday by the five o'clock train, he spent the first night at Crewe, the second at Perth and arrived at Balmoral at half past two on Wednesday afternoon just in time for the meeting.

'I am glad to have made this expedition,' he wrote in his diary, 'and to have seen the Queen and Prince in their Highland retreat, where they certainly appear to great advantage. The place is very pretty, the house very small.' So small was it in fact that there were no sitting rooms for guests; and Ministers might well find themselves discussing state affairs with Her Majesty while she was sitting on the edge of their bed on which, as Lord Malmesbury discovered, they had to write their despatches, their secretaries being lodged three miles away. The billiard room had to serve also as a drawing room and the ladies had to keep moving about to dodge the players' cues.

They live here without any state whatever [Greville continued]. They live not merely like gentlefolks, but like very small gentlefolks, small house, small rooms, small establishment. There are no Soldiers, and the whole guard of the Sovereign and the whole Royal Family is a single Policeman, who walks about the grounds to keep off impertinent intruders or improper characters. They live with the greatest simplicity and ease. He shoots every morning, returns to luncheon, and then they walk and drive. She is running in and out of the house all day long, and often goes about alone, walks into the cottages, and sits down and chats with the old women. I never before was in society with the Prince, or had any conversation with him. On Thursday morning John Russell and I were sitting together after breakfast, when he came in and sat down with us, and we conversed for about three-quarters of an hour. I was greatly struck with him. I saw at once (what I had always heard) that he is very intelligent and highly cultivated, and moreover that he has a thoughtful mind, and thinks of subjects worth thinking about. He seemed very much at ease, very gay, pleasant, and without the least stiffness or air of dignity. After luncheon we went to the Highland gathering at Braemar ... We returned as we came, and then everybody strolled about till dinner. We were only nine people, and it was all very easy and really agreeable, the Queen in very good humour and talkative; he still more, and talking very well; no form, and everybody seemed at their ease. In the evening we withdrew to the only room there is besides the dining-room, which serves for billiards, library (hardly any books in it), and drawing-room. The Queen and Prince and her Ladies and Gordon [the Prince's equerry, Alexander Hamilton Gordon] soon went back to the dining-room, where they had a Highland dancing-master, who gave them lessons in reels. We (J. R. [Lord John Russell] and I) were not admitted to this exercise, so we played at billiards. In process of time they came back, when there was a little talk, and soon after they went to bed.6 

Everyone agreed with Greville that the Queen was in exceptionally good humour when she was in Scotland, a country superior to all others, in her opinion, there being, as a rather exasperated Lady Lyttelton said, nothing to compare with 'Scotch air, Scotch people, Scotch hills, Scotch rivers, Scotch words'. Lady Lyttelton added that she herself could 'never see, hear or witness these various charms'.⁷

Mary Ponsonby described the Queen as being 'so easy to satisfy' when she was in this country so beloved by her, 'so warmly genial', 'so completely charming'.⁸ Indeed, according to Lord Clarendon, the Queen was 'quite a different person' when in Scotland. She was always loath to leave it and its 'wild, simple and peculiar charms' in order to go back to Windsor, to return to the formal life she was required to live there. 'Altogether I feel so sad ... at the bitter thought of going from this blessed place,' she wrote to the Princess Royal, 'leaving these hills - this enchanting life of liberty - these dear people - and returning to tame, dull, formal England and the prison life of Windsor!'⁹

She relished her days out with Albert, setting off on ponies with the ghillies through the 'wildest and finest scenery', past burns with water 'as clear as glass', taking out her sketch book while Albert crept off to stalk stags or shoot ptarmigan, fishing for trout with him on the loch, entering the cottages on the estate with little presents for the women who spoke to her in their 'curious Highland English' which she liked so much, sitting down with them to share a simple meal and making purchases in the shape of butter and eggs, going up to the granite hut at Allt-na-Guibhsaich for a picnic above Loch Muich, attended by a lady-in-waiting, servants and ghillies, meeting women who did not know who she was, one who presented her with a bunch of flowers, another who offered her milk and a bit of bread.¹⁰

To their great pleasure the Queen and Prince were eventually able to buy the freehold of Balmoral with its 17,400 acres for £31,500 from the trustees of the Earl of Fife in 1848 and afterwards to extend the property by acquiring the adjacent 6,000 acres of the Birkhall estate, which was bought by the Duchy of Cornwall for the Prince of Wales, as well as by taking a lease of another neighbouring estate, Abergeldie. Then in 1852 they fulfilled their plans to build a completely new house, as they had done at Osborne.

The following year the Queen laid the foundation stone of the new Scottish baronial Balmoral Castle which Prince Albert had himself designed with the help of William Smith, an architect and builder from Aberdeen. It was, the Queen said, 'a beautiful' building, her 'dearest Albert's own creation', his 'own work, own building, own laying out as at Osborne'. His 'great taste' and the 'impress of his dear hand' was 'stamped everywhere'.

It was certainly eclectic in style, incorporating ideas gleaned in Germany and Bruges as well as from the turreted style of his Scottish baronial neighbours. In its design there was, as Lady Augusta Bruce, the Duchess of Kent's lady-in-waiting, observed with reticence, 'a certain absence of harmony of the whole'.

Since it was Albert's creation the Queen, of course, would have nothing said against either its architecture or its interior decoration. The whole place was 'charming', the rooms were 'delightful, the furniture, papers, everything perfection'.

The rooms admittedly were bright and cheerful, the large windows commanding lovely views; but many visitors were by no means favourably impressed by the general ambience of the place, the tartan curtains and tartan chair coverings, the tartan wallpaper and tartan carpets, the thistle motifs which were in such abundance that Lord Clarendon thought they would 'rejoice the heart of a donkey if they happened to look like his favourite repast, which they don't'.¹¹ Lord Rosebery was to say that he thought the drawing room at Osborne was the ugliest in the world until he saw the one at Balmoral. 'The ornaments are strictly Scotch,' Rosebery wrote, 'and the curtains and the covers are of "dress Stuart" tartan. The effect is not very pretty.'[xxviii]¹²

The owners of the place were as 'Scotchined' as their habitat: the Queen even came to adopt a kind of Scottish accent to suit her surroundings, once saying, as she sat down to dinner, what one of her ladies Queen Mary did, indeed, in the words of her biographer, 'make radical changes' at Balmoral, 'for she had inherited all her father's [Francis, Duke of Teck's] passion for re-hanging pictures and re-arranging rooms. One of her first steps was to have the panelling stripped and lightened, and it is now only in the back passages that one can find traces of the dark marmalade-coloured paint' (James Pope-Hennessy, Queen Mary, 1867-1953, 205). transcribed as 'I a doant know why the candles give noa light now, it is so daark."³ Her family had taken to wearing kilts; and Prince Albert, who had bought a huge Gaelic dictionary, had designed their own tartans, a white 'Victoria tartan' and a red 'Balmoral tartan'. The food served in the dining room had a distinctive Scottish bias: oatmeal porridge and smoked haddock were served at breakfast; and around the table during dinner marched Highlanders playing bagpipes, the loud skirls of which, so a maid-of-honour said, were enough to blow your head off. In time the place acquired its own distinctive, somehow Scottish smell, a 'special smell', described by one of the Queen's granddaughters as of a combination of 'wood fire, stags' heads, rugs and leather'.¹⁴

Lord Clarendon also complained that the house was so fearfully cold that his toes were frost-bitten as he was having dinner, while in the drawing room the two little sticks in the fireplace hissed at the man who was trying to light them and the Queen, thinking, Clarendon supposed, that they were in danger of catching fire, had a large screen placed between the royal nose and the unignited wood.

Tsar Nicholas II expressed the opinion that Balmoral was colder than the Siberian wastes; while Mary Ponsonby, like the Duke of Wellington at Windsor, was never warm there except in bed. Other guests were distressed to observe that the Queen, being notoriously impervious to cold herself, had the big windows opened on all but the iciest days and, here as elsewhere, had thermometers placed in all the principal rooms so that she could ensure that they never became what she herself considered overheated by the reluctantly permitted fires of beechwood, almost always beechwood since the Queen had 'the same rooted objection to coal as to gas'[xxix].15

The Marchioness of Dalhousie, who had become accustomed to the heat of India while her husband was serving as Governor-General there, 'never saw anything more uncomfortable' than Balmoral Castle, nor anything she coveted less. 'The Queen in her own house is far from a Constitutional Sovereign,' commented Lord Rosebery. 'She allows her family (at least, and I think the whole household) no fires at this time of year [September]."⁶

Ministers abhorred the place, not only because they wasted so much of their time travelling there when they were required to attend upon the Queen, but also because they were so uncomfortable when they did get there. 'Carrying on the Government of a country six hundred miles from the Metropolis' doubled the labour involved in being Prime Minister, Disraeli was later to complain, though not, of course, to the Queen herself who was deaf to all appeals not to spend so much of her time in Scotland.¹⁷

Lord Salisbury, who made 'no attempt to conceal his disgust with the place', was always 'heartily glad' to get away from it. Both he and Disraeli had to obtain doctors' orders to have their rooms heated to a reasonable temperature - while the Queen's Private Secretary, Sir Henry Ponsonby, was to lament, 'Every private house strikes me as comfortable, after the severe dreariness of our palatial rooms here.'[xxx]¹⁸

Chapter 23 THE PRINCE OF WALES

When the Queen laid the foundation stone of the new Balmoral Castle on 28 September 1853, her heir was eleven years old. The placid equanimity he had displayed in the earliest years of his infancy had not survived his fifth birthday. Lady Lyttelton, now known as 'Laddie', had had cause to complain of his being 'uncommonly averse to learning' and requiring 'much patience from wilful inattention and constant interruptions, getting under the table, upsetting the books and sundry other anti-studious practices'.¹

His father, neither then nor later, did not try to conceal the fact that Victoria, the Princess Royal, was his favourite child. When he came into the nursery, as he often did - once, to the Princess Royal's indignation, sitting in 'Laddie's' chair - his eye alighted upon her with pleasure; but in the contemplation of her brother his countenance became troubled and apprehensive. Edward's mother also seemed to prefer her sharp and quick-witted daughter to her difficult son and spent far more time with her. It was already rumoured in society that the Queen did not much care for her eldest son, that, as Charles Greville put it, 'the hereditary and unfailing antipathy of our Sovereigns to their Heirs Apparent [was] already taking root'.² Lady Beauvale was quoted as saying that the Queen had observed that the Prince was 'a stupid boy'. He began to stammer; and his sister teased him for it, imitating him, driving him to fury. One afternoon the two children had 'a tremendous fight' when brought down to their parents' room; so the next day they were brought down separately but, the one being taken into the room before the other was taken away, they fell to quarrelling again.

It was worse when other children were born and they, too, proved to be brighter than the Prince of Wales. By the time he was six he had already been overtaken by Princess Alice, who was not only more than eighteen months younger than himself but who was 'neither so studious nor so clever as the Princess Royal'.

The Queen could but hope that in time the boy would improve; and in the meantime she was not a neglectful mother, although, as Lady Lyttelton said, she was certainly a strict one, more ready to find fault than to praise. She was also determined to ensure that the children were never indulged and were given object lessons in the virtues of thrift and simplicity, that they were brought up 'as simply and in as domestic a way as possible' and that they grew to be 'fit for whatever station they might 'be placed in, high or low', since the 'bane of the present day was pride, vulgar, unchristian pride'. They had to make do with simple fare such as the boiled beef and semolina pudding which a member of the household once saw being carried up to the nursery; and the younger ones had to be content with clothes handed down to them from their older siblings who had grown out of them.

Strict though she was, she sometimes played games with the children, rowdy games like blind man's buff and fox-and-geese, and quieter ones like beggar-my-neighbour. She danced quadrilles with the Prince of Wales as her partner, and on summer evenings she went for little walks with him and helped him to catch moths. She watched him rehearse plays with his brothers and sisters under the direction of their conscientious father who made them 'say their parts over and over again'. Occasionally she would announce a special day's holiday and they would all go sailing or have a picnic. 'Children,' the Queen decided, 'though often a source of anxiety and difficulty are a great blessing and cheer and brighten up life.' She had to admit, however, that she found 'no special pleasure' in the company of her own children 'and only very exceptionally' did she find 'intimate intercourse with them either agreeable or easy'. On occasions she would play with them out of a sense of duty rather than inclination. When her husband was away 'ALL the children' [were] as nothing to her. It 'seemed as if the whole life of the house and home were gone'.

The two elder children were at first taught separately from the others, particular attention being paid to English, arithmetic, history, writing and geography, and an hour a day being devoted to both German and French. The Queen undertook to give religious instruction to her daughter, though not to her son, and to supervise her prayers. But she found it difficult to spare the time to do so, delegating this task to others who were told to ensure that the child had 'great reverence for God' but that she should be encouraged to feel 'devotion and love' for Him rather than 'fear and trembling'. As to whether or not the children should say their prayers kneeling or in bed, she consulted Princess Feodora, who considered it 'absurd that kneeling could have anything to do with making prayers acceptable to the Almighty'. So did Prince Albert, who considered kneeling to be a 'peculiar feature of English religiosity'. Lady Lyttelton, however, thought it was 'highly irreverent' not to kneel. So Prince Albert gave way since the children were to be brought up as Anglicans and therefore 'their prejudices must be those of the English Church'.³

If any alterations in the syllabus were considered necessary, or if any exceptional awards or punishments were proposed, the parents had to be consulted. Lady Lyttelton herself did not believe in the severe punishment of young children; but Prince Albert considered that physical chastisement was occasionally necessary to secure obedience. Even his daughters were whipped on his instructions and were subjected to lengthy admonitions with their hands tied together. At the age of four Princess Alice received 'a real punishment by whipping' for telling a lie. The Prince of Wales and his brothers received even harsher treatment.⁴

Doubts were expressed about the efficacy of this harsh treatment, not, however, by Lord Melbourne, who was deeply interested in flagellation, showed his mistresses pictures of women being beaten and seems to have given Caroline Lamb 'practical lessons upon whipping'. He himself had been flogged at Eton and thought he had not been flogged enough: it 'would have been better' if he had been 'flogged more', since the floggings had 'an amazing effect on him' and had been 'of no inconsiderable service'. But he advised the Queen not to set too much store by the whole process of education: it might 'mould and direct the character' but rarely altered it.⁵

Neither the Queen nor Prince Albert subscribed to this view; nor did Baron Stockmar, who, needless to say, provided them with long memoranda on the subject and gave them the alarming warning that the parents 'ought to be thoroughly permeated' with the truth that 'their position is a more difficult one than that of any other parent in the kingdom'.⁶

Insisting that discipline must continue to be strict, the parents believed that the children's syllabuses must remain exacting, particularly that of the Prince of Wales, so that 'the grand object' of his education might be fulfilled. This object, declared the Bishop of Oxford, one of those numerous experts consulted by the parents, must be none other than to turn the Prince into 'the most perfect man'.⁷

In furtherance of this ambitious scheme, it was decided that the Prince should be 'taken entirely away from the women', provided with a valet and handed over to a male tutor, Henry Birch - who was employed for this purpose in April 1849 at a salary of £800 a year - while still, in the Queen's words, growing 'truly under his father's eye and guided by him so that when he has reached the age of sixteen or seventeen he may be a real companion to his father'.

Birch found his charge extremely disobedient, impertinent to his masters and unwilling to submit to discipline. He was also exceedingly selfish and unable even 'to play at any game for five minutes, or attempt anything new or difficult without losing his temper'; and when he did lose his temper his rage was uncontrollable.⁸

He could not bear to be teased or criticized; and though he flew into a tantrum or sulked whenever he was teased, Birch thought it best, 'notwithstanding his sensitiveness, to laugh at him ... to ignore his dislike of chaff' and to treat him as boys would have treated him in an English public school. His parents thought so, too; and they caused him anguish by mocking him when he had done something wrong or stupid. 'Poor Prince,' commented Lady Lyttelton one day when he was derided for asking, 'Mama, is not a pink the female of a carnation?'⁹

Mr Birch did not disguise his belief that the policy of keeping the Prince so strictly isolated from other boys was one of the reasons for his tiresome behaviour. It was Birch's 'deliberate opinion' that many of his pupil's 'peculiarities' arose from the effects of this policy, 'from his being continually in the society of older persons, and from his finding himself the centre round which everything seems to move'.

But his father did not agree, considering it advisable to safeguard him as far as possible from the company of boys of his own age who might well corrupt him. It would be far better, Prince Albert thought, to concen- trate upon his son's education rather than upon his need for companionship. There were lessons to be learned every weekday, including Saturday. Holidays, except on family birthdays, were rare, though the Queen did insist that Sundays should, as Prince Albert put it, be treated as 'days of recreation and amusement'; and when Birch protested to Stockmar that he had never heard of a family in which games like cricket were allowed on a Sunday, the Queen, who had strong views on the question, protested that Sundays had 'always been treated as a holiday': she was set against 'the extreme severity of the Sunday in this country when carried to excess'. A tutor who took her third son, Prince Arthur, who had been born in 1850, to two church services on a Sunday was reprimanded for his zealotry. Similarly the Prince of Wales was enjoined to take Holy Communion only twice a year, even though the Prayer Book specified a minimum of three attendances.

When the Prince went away with his parents, Birch went with them. In August 1849 he accompanied the Queen and Prince Albert on a visit to Ireland and, dressed in a sailor suit, he was driven about the streets with them; but as soon as he got back to Vice-Regal Lodge or aboard the royal yacht, Fairy, he had to settle down to his books again. When he went with his parents to Balmoral, he was quickly disabused of the hope that he was to have a short holiday. His tutor thought a little deer stalking or some other outdoor activity 'such as taking the heights of hills' would not come amiss. But Prince Albert said that 'it must not be supposed that [the visit to Balmoral] was to be taken as a holiday'. The tutor was required to send regular reports on his pupil's progress to the boy's father, who was rarely comforted by what he read. The boy's German was quite good: by the age of five he could read a German book without much difficulty and carry on a conversation in German without undue hesitation, though this ability seemed to interfere with his mastery of English. Despite all the efforts of the actor, George Bartley, who was employed to give him elocution lessons, the Prince never altogether lost his slight German accent and to the end of his life there was a noticeably Germanic guttural burr in his pronunciation of the letter 'r'. His French was not as good as his German, and it was not until later in life that he acquired the accent and vocabulary on which he was to pride himself.

In his anxiety Prince Albert consulted the eminent phrenologist, George Combe, one of the seventeen children of a Scottish brewer, who, having examined the boy's cranium, 'pointed out the peculiarities of his temperament and brain'.

'The organs of ostentativeness, destructiveness, self-esteem, combativeness and love of approbation are all large,' Combe gloomily concluded. 'Intellectual organs are only moderately well developed.'¹⁰

'I wonder whence that Anglo-Saxon brain of his has come,' Prince Albert commented, on receiving Combe's report. 'It must have descended from the Stuarts, for the family has been purely German since their day.'

As time passed the Prince became increasingly dissatisfied with Mr Birch, who, conscious of the disapproval and resentful at being required to spend 'morning, noon and night in the company of a child' without holidays, offered to resign at once if his employers 'knew of anyone who would be more likely to succeed in the management of so young a child'. Relations between Birch and the parents were further strained by his wish to become ordained. The Queen, who had so strongly disapproved of Lady Lyttelton's High-Church views, thought that Birch's 'Puseyism' might well render him an unsuitable tutor once he had taken Holy Orders. She agreed to his remaining on condition that he promise not to be 'aggressive' in his religion, that he attend Presbyterian services when the royal family were in Scotland, and that he did not forswear 'innocent amusements' such as dancing and shooting. Although assured that Birch was 'plain straightforward Church of England', Prince Albert could not agree to his retaining his appointment should he be ordained. It was settled, therefore, that he would not respond to his vocation for the time being. He continued as tutor until January 1852 when, having entered Holy Orders, he resigned."

By then he had become attached to his charge and did his best to reassure the boy's father that his progress was not as disappointing as his parents were inclined to believe. Certainly his writing and spelling left much to be desired, but 'we must not forget', Birch reported, 'that there are few English boys who know so much French and German or know so much general information'. The pupil's regard for the tutor was reciprocated; and the Prince was much distressed by his father's refusal to keep him on. 'It has been a terrible sorrow to the Prince of Wales who has done no end of touching things since he heard he was to lose him,' wrote Lady Canning. 'He is such an affectionate dear little boy; his little notes and presents which Mr Birch used to find on his pillow were really too moving."² Birch's successor was Frederick Waymouth Gibbs, a rather staid, unhumorous, unimaginative, fussy and opinionated barrister of twenty-nine who had been a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. His mother being insane and his father bankrupt, he had been brought up with the sons of his mother's friend, Sir James Stephen, Professor of Modern History at Cambridge and grandfather of Virginia Woolf. He was to receive a salary of £1,000 'with any addition to that sum which Baron Stockmar [might] decide to be just and reasonable', and to remain with the Prince until his seventeenth birthday.

Gibbs soon learned that his task would not be an easy one. On his arrival the Queen summoned him for an interview at which, so he recorded in his diary,

She spoke a good deal about the Princes and bade me notice two peculiarities in the Prince of Wales. First, at times he hangs his head and looks at his feet, and invariably within a day or two has one of his fits of nervous and unmanageable temper. Secondly, riding hard, or after he has become fatigued, has been invariably followed by outburst of temper.13

He had been 'injured by being with the Princess Royal who was very clever and a child far above her age,' the Queen continued. 'She puts him down by a look - or a word - and their natural affection [has been] impaired by this state of things.'

The new tutor's early contacts with the Prince himself, however, were pleasant enough. The day after his predecessor's departure he went for a walk with both the Prince of Wales and Prince Alfred, and the elder boy, now ten years of age, politely apologized for their silence. 'You cannot wonder if we are somewhat dull today,' he said. 'We are sorry Mr Birch has gone. It is very natural, is it not?' Mr Gibbs could not deny that it was, indeed, very natural. Gibbs no doubt expected in his self-satisfied way that in time the Prince would develop the same kind of affection and respect for himself. But the Prince never did. On the contrary, he grew to detest him, and was soon as unruly and unpredictable as he had ever been in the worst days of Mr Birch.

The Prince's other tutors ventured to express the opinion that the boy was being overworked. On the orders of his father, who continued to believe in the efficacy of a sound boxing of the ears or a few sharp raps across the knuckles with a stick, there was no relaxation in the length and frequency of the boy's lessons which began at eight o'clock in the morning and ended at six o'clock at night, seven days a week.

Between his intellectual pursuits he was taught riding, gymnastics and dancing, and - under the instruction of a drill sergeant - military exercises. In winter he was taught to skate; in summer to swim and play croquet. He learned about forestry and farming, carpentry and bricklaying.

His tutors were instructed to ensure that he was exhausted by the end of each day, when a report upon his progress and conduct was submitted to his parents.

The product of this regimen was not an appealing child. The Prince of Wales's sense of frustration and inferiority, combined with the strain of exhaustion, led him not only to seek relief in outbursts of furious violence, but also to be aggressively rude to those few boys of his own age whom he was ever allowed to meet.

The Queen admitted in confidence to her eldest daughter that 'Papa ... momentarily and unintentionally [could sometimes be] hasty and harsh', but she did not question the necessity for severity with the Prince of Wales.

The Prince responded to this severity with fear as well as with violence. 'He was afraid of his father,' wrote Charles Wynn-Carrington, one of those few Etonians allowed into Windsor Castle, who did not find it surprising that this was so, for Prince Albert seemed to him 'a proud, shy, stand-offish man, not calculated to make friends easily with children. Individually I was frightened to death of him, so much so that on one occasion [when] he suddenly appeared from behind some bushes, I fell off the see-saw from sheer alarm at seeing him, and nearly broke my neck.'¹⁴ The Prince was never allowed to forget that he was being constantly and anxiously watched by his father, and that by others he was for ever being compared - of course, unfavourably compared - with him. The Queen once informed her son in one of many similar letters:

None of you can ever be proud enough of being the child of such a Father who has not his equal in this world - so great, so good, so faultless. Try ... to follow in his footsteps and don't be discouraged, for to be really in everything like him none of you, I am sure, will ever be. Try, therefore, to be like him in some points, and you will have acquired a great deal.15

Hard as he was kept at his lessons, there were occasional days of pleasure for the Prince. He afterwards remembered how much he had enjoyed going out hunting and deer stalking, fishing and shooting with his father, though hard as he practised he never learned to shoot very well. He remembered, too, the delight he had experienced at being taken with his brothers and sisters to the zoo and the pantomime, to Astley's Circus, and the opera at Covent Garden; the excitement when Wombwell's menagerie visited Windsor Castle, when General Tom Thumb, the American dwarf from Barnum's 'Greatest Show on Earth', came to Buckingham Palace; and when Albert Smith, who related so vividly his adventures while climbing Mont Blanc, gave a lecture at Osborne. He remembered also the plays which Charles Kean and Samuel Phelps put on at Windsor before presenting them in London at the Princess's Theatre and Sadler's Wells; and the performances at Balmoral of the marvellous conjuror, John Henry Anderson, the 'Wizard of the North' - of course, so the Prince confided to one of his father's guests, 'Papa [knew] how all these things [were] done'.¹⁶

The more practical part of the children's education, including the making of bricks and the erection of tents, took place at Osborne where their father, a knowledgeable gardener himself, arranged for them to have their own gardens, complete with shed and tools marked with their initials and suitable for their respective sizes. Here in neat rows in individual plots they grew vegetables as well as flowers; and nearby were shrubs, planted by the four eldest children, all with labels bearing their names painted by the Prince of Wales on outlines pencilled for him by one of his mother's ladies-in-waiting.¹⁷

Facing these gardens was a Swiss cottage similar to one in the grounds of the Rosenau, a wooden structure made from prefabricated parts and looking so authentic, as the Queen said, that one could 'fancy oneself suddenly transported to another country'. The foundation stone was laid on 5 May 1853 in one of those family celebrations dear to Prince Albert's heart, with all the children, including his third son and seventh child, the three-year-old Prince Arthur, heaping on mortar with a trowel and tapping the stone with a hammer. The two elder boys helped with the construction of the stone plinth, their father paying them wages and their mother - while not mentioning the handiwork of the Prince of Wales commending his younger brother, Alfred, who 'worked as hard and steadily as a regular labourer'.

In this cottage the girls learned to cook on the range in the brightly tiled kitchen, using a great variety of pans and utensils which, after use, were hung in neat, shining rows on the dresser. Upstairs, as well as a dressing room and a dining room, in which stood a piano, there was a small museum containing all manner of objects - shells, butterflies, pressed flowers, fossils - collected by the children, with the help of their father, and supplemented by donations (such as the scorpions, tarantulas and stick insects) presented by Lady Canning, their mother's former lady-in-waiting, by then Vicereine of India.¹⁸

Outside, there was a miniature earthworks constructed by the two elder boys under the direction of a young officer in the Royal Engineers, Lieutenant John Cowell, who was later to spend twenty-eight years as Master of the Household, even though he was 'rather too much of a John Bull', with 'unreasonable likes and dislikes', for the Queen's taste, and despite the fact that soon after his appointment he had earned her profound displeasure by presuming to criticize one of her Highland servants, Archie Brown.[xxxi]¹⁹

Chapter 24 PALMERSTON

'My relations with Her Majesty are most satisfactory,' wrote Sir Robert Peel soon after his appointment as Prime Minister in September 1841. 'The Queen has acted towards me not merely (as everyone who knew Her Majesty's character must have anticipated) with perfect fidelity and honour, but with great kindness and consideration. There is every facility for the despatch of public business, a scrupulous and most punctual discharge of every public duty and an exact understanding of the relation of a constitutional Sovereign to her advisers.'¹

For her part, the Queen could scarcely have been more content with Sir Robert's subsequent behaviour. She warmly supported his policies and strongly condemned those who opposed them. His decision to increase the grant to Maynooth, the training college for Roman Catholic clergy in Ireland, was eminently sensible, 'one of the greatest measures ever proposed'; and she blushed for the narrow-minded, bigoted Protestants who opposed it, 'so void of all right feeling, & so wanting in Charity'.² As for Mr Gladstone, who felt that he must resign over the grant since he had once written a book condemning subsidies to Roman Catholics, she quite agreed with the Foreign Secretary, Lord Aberdeen, who was alleged to have said to Gladstone, 'No one reads your book and those who do, don't understand it.'³

She also shared Peel's belief that the time had come to reform the Corn Laws, and was outraged by those in his own party, including the Duke of Wellington, Lord Stanley and Benjamin Disraeli, who would not support him. 'Oh,' she cried, 'for a little true, disinterested patriotism.' She well understood the truth that lay behind the popular riddle:

'Why are the Tories like walnuts?'

'Because they are troublesome to Peel.'4

They were troublesome to Prince Albert, too; and when the Prince appeared in the House of Commons to hear Peel speak, Lord George Bentinck rose to attack him for having been 'seduced by the First Minister of the Crown to come down to this House to usher in, to give eclat, and, as it were, by reflection from the Queen, to give the semblance of a personal sanction of Her Majesty to a measure which ... a great majority at least of the landed aristocracy of England, of Scotland and of Ireland, imagine fraught with deep injury, if not ruin to them'. The Prince never appeared in the House of Commons again, while the Queen expressed her fury with these diehard Tory gentlemen who 'did nothing but hunt all day, drink Claret or Port wine in the evening, & never studied or read about any of these questions.'⁵

Lord Melbourne, who condemned Peel's support of the free trade he had once opposed as being 'damned dishonest', was, the Queen thought, quite as bad as these gentlemen on the opposite side of the House. Indeed, Melbourne, in the Queen's opinion, had become rather tiresome of late, eating enormous dinners after breakfasts of grouse and mutton chops, living in a dirty house staffed by sixteen servants, talking to himself more loudly than ever and 'making fierce faces', upsetting himself with thoughts that filled his eyes with tears, believing himself to be on the verge of bankruptcy, though his fortune was still considerable, and applying to the Queen for money which she advanced to him and for a pension which she was advised not to grant. In October 1842 he had a stroke from which he never completely recovered.

Under the influence of Prince Albert, who entertained a low opinion of Whigs and was not a man to overlook the failings of Lord Melbourne, the Queen's attitude to her former much-admired mentor had already begun to change. Although no longer in office, Melbourne was reluctant to withdraw from her life; and an attempt by Stockmar and Anson to put a stop to his continuing correspondence with the Queen, and his offering of unsolicited advice, met with but little success.

While Melbourne described his time as the Queen's Prime Minister as the 'happiest part of his life', she wrote of the dream being past. She was sure she 'did not wish those times back' in the way that he did.

Earl Granville's son, Frederick Leveson-Gower, a fellow-guest at Chatsworth in 1843, was grieved to see them together: 'Lord Melbourne was so much broken in health that he was nearly in a state of second childhood. I believe he had not met Her Majesty since he ceased to be her Minister. Her manner to him was kind; still, he bitterly felt the change in the situation, and it was sad to see him with tears frequently in his eyes.⁶

Scarcely aware, as a young woman in her new-found happiness, of the depth of the grief which Melbourne, as an ill and lonely man, felt at his exclusion from her life, Victoria was not deeply moved by his death in November 1848. Certainly, as she said, she 'sincerely regretted' it, 'for he was truly attached to [her] and was a noble kind-hearted generous being', 'tho' not a good or firm Minister'.

Rereading parts of her journal which covered those years when she had been in thrall to him, she wrote, 'I cannot forbear remarking what an artificial sort of happiness mine was then, and what a blessing it is that I have now in my beloved Husband real and solid happiness, which no Politics, no worldly reverses can change.'⁷

Three years before Lord Melbourne's death, to the Queen's great distress, Peel had been forced to resign over a contentious Irish Bill, and, with a reluctance she took no trouble to conceal, she had had to send for Lord John Russell.

Peel had gone to Osborne to tender his resignation. He was 'visibly much moved', Prince Albert wrote, 'and said to me it was one of the most painful moments of his life, to separate himself from us'.⁸ To his friend, Sir Thomas Fremantle, however, two days after his secretary had been shot in the back by Daniel MacNaghten, a mad Scotsman, Peel declared that 'on every personal and private ground' he 'rejoiced at being released from the thankless and dangerous post of having the responsibility of public affairs'.⁹ Nevertheless, when Lord John Russell failed in his first attempt to form a government and Peel was asked by the Queen to withdraw his resignation, he did so without hesitation, feeling, as he told Princess Lieven, 'like a man restored to life after his funeral service had been preached'. The Queen had been suitably grateful to her 'worthy Peel' who, by agreeing to continue as Prime Minister, had shown himself 'a man of unbounded loyalty, courage, patriotism and high-mindedness'.¹⁰ Peel, however, did not survive for long: defeated in the House of Commons in the summer of 1846, he tendered his resignation for the second time and was succeeded as Prime Minister by Lord John Russell, who appointed Lord Palmerston Foreign Secretary.

Lord Palmerston at this time was sixty-one years old. The elder son of the second Viscount Palmerston, he had been born on the family's estate, Broadlands in Hampshire, and had passed much of his childhood in Italy - where he learned to speak Italian fluently - before going to Harrow, then to Edinburgh to board with Dugald Stewart, the philosopher, before entering St John's College, Cambridge and taking the degree of Master of Arts without examination as at that time noblemen were permitted to do. Vivacious, self-confident and even-tempered, walking into rooms with brisk and jaunty step, he was a handsome man, very attractive to women and well meriting his nickname 'Cupid'. At Windsor one night he had entered the bedroom of one of the Queen's ladies in the unfulfilled hope of seducing her. George Anson, putting a slightly different interpretation on Palmerston's visit, suggested that, having been accustomed to sleeping with another lady in that bedroom, he had 'probably from force of habit floundered in'. Whatever his motives and intentions, the Queen found it difficult to forget Palmerston's conduct, while Prince Albert found it impossible to forgive.¹¹

Before her marriage, however, when Palmerston had been Foreign Secretary in Melbourne's Cabinet, the Queen had been won over by Palmerston's charm and the trouble he took to instruct her in the intricacies and formalities of foreign politics, the supervision of which Prince Albert, like Baron Stockmar, was to persuade her to believe was 'peculiarly within the Sovereign's province'. Palmerston had taught her how to address her fellow sovereigns and how to end letters to them in her own hand, writing the appropriate endings for her in pencil so that she could write over them before the pencil marks were carefully rubbed out. He had also advised her as to what kinds of presents to give to these fellow sovereigns and to their most distinguished subjects. He gave her tutorials on foreign relations and provided her with specially drawn maps and an annotated Almanac de Gotha. She had found these lessons both instructive and enjoyable and Palmerston's company most agreeable: he was, she considered, both clever and amusing. After sitting next to him at dinner one evening she had told the King of the Belgians how 'pleasant and amusing' she had found Palmerston's conversation. They had subsequently had so much talk regarding Middle Eastern problems when she was pregnant with her first child that she had agreed the forthcoming baby would have to be called 'Turko-Egypto'. When Palmerston had left office upon Melbourne's resignation, the Queen had written of his 'valuable services', which he had performed in 'so admirable a manner' and which had 'so greatly promoted the honour and welfare of this Country in its relations with foreign powers'.

But slowly her attitude towards Palmerston had begun to change. In December 1839 he married Lord Melbourne's beautiful sister, Emily, whose first husband had been the fifth Earl Cowper; and the Queen, who disapproved of widows remarrying, had confided to an amused Lord Melbourne that 'somehow or other' she did not thereafter like Lord Palmerston as much as she had done in the past.

As Lord John Russell's Foreign Secretary he gave her constant cause for irritation. It could not be denied that the man was extremely knowledgeable and extraordinarily hard-working. Yet he was too impetuous in his determination to strengthen Britain, to assert the country's rights and maintain her influence, too prone to bluster and threaten, too highhanded. On occasions, he was astonishingly rude and undiplomatic. He sent despatches before the Queen had time to approve of them; he delayed sending boxes of papers for days on end and then sent so many at once that she could not get through them all; when obliged to do so he would apologize, blaming unnamed subordinates in the Foreign Office - over which he exercised what Charles Greville described as 'an absolute despotism' - and then carry on just as before.

The Queen was all the more annoyed at being sidetracked by Palmerston because not only had she been taught to believe by Baron Stockmar that it was the Crown's inalienable right to supervise foreign policy, but she believed also that Prince Albert had a far clearer grasp of the realities of foreign politics than any British politician, particularly such a politician as she now found Palmerston to be, with his insouciant, arrogant manner, his manipulation of the press, and his facile excuses. While she and Prince Albert were inclined to sympathize with the various monarchies of Europe, being related by blood or by marriage to so many of them, Palmerston was openly sympathetic towards the liberal movements striving to undermine them. Prince Albert's lengthy memoranda setting out his views on foreign relations were either completely ignored, or glanced at and set aside as though of no interest or account - a manifestation of disdain which the Queen found unforgivable. A case in point was the revolutionary movement for a united Italy. Whereas Palmerston could not regret the expulsion of the Austrians from Italy, as he told King Leopold, since their rule was 'hateful to the Italians', the Queen sympathized with the Emperor and felt ashamed of the policy which 'we are pursuing in this Italian controversy'. By the summer of 1848 she was so exasperated by what she took to be the overbearing conduct of the Foreign Office that she wrote to Lord John Russell to say that she was 'highly indignant' and 'would have no peace of mind' so long as Lord Palmerston remained at its head, the cause of 'no end of troubles'. Later, in September at Balmoral, she told Lord John that she could 'hardly go on with' Palmerston; she was 'seriously anxious and uneasy for the welfare of the country and for the peace of Europe in general'. Russell had to agree with her; yet, mindful of the undoubted fact that his Government could scarcely survive if Palmerston were to be dismissed, he assured the Queen that the Foreign Secretary was 'a very able man', 'entirely master of his office'.¹²

Europe was in turmoil that year. Twelve months before, the Queen had expressed herself as being 'very anxious for the future', while Prince Albert had written to Stockmar, 'The political horizon grows darker and darker.' Greece, Spain and Portugal were all 'in a state of ferment'. Now the Austrian Empire and Germany, as well as Italy, were in uproar too; while in Ireland the sufferings of the poor were, in the Queen's words, 'too terrible to contemplate'.

In France, King Louis-Philippe was forced to abdicate and to seek refuge in England where he and his Queen, having assumed the titles of the Count and Countess of Neuilly, were given shelter at Claremont. They, together with other refugees from France, were so welcomed and so generously treated by the Queen that the Government felt it necessary to hint that she might be in danger of antagonizing the provisional government of republican France. It seemed in April that revolution might break out in England, too.

Chapter 25 CHARTISTS

Radicals had long had cause to complain that the progress of reform in England was not proceeding fast enough. Lord Ashley's Factory Act of 1833 had limited the hours which children could be made to work and made it illegal to employ them under the age of nine in most textile mills, while the Mines and Collieries Act of 1842 had gone some way towards dealing with the exploitation of women and children in coal mines. But the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 had done little to ameliorate the miseries of the destitute who, by the abolition of outdoor relief, were obliged to seek shelter in workhouses as squalid as the one described in Charles Dickens's Oliver Twist. There was also widespread dissatisfaction with the Reform Act of 1832 which, while welcomed by the propertied middle class, was a profound disappointment to radicals and the militant working class. There was dissatisfaction also with the failure of attempts to develop trade unionism; and this general discontent ensured that unrest had continued throughout the 1830s and well into the 1840s and helped to increase support for the movement for political reform known as Chartism.

The movement took its name from a People's Charter drawn up by a group of radicals who demanded of the Government universal male suffrage, annual parliaments, equal electoral districts, voting by ballot, an end to property qualifications for Members of Parliament, and the introduction of salaries for them. Support for these demands was loudly voiced at meetings held both day and night all over the country. One such gathering at Halifax attracted a crowd of 200,000. 'It is almost impossible to imagine the excitement caused,' one Chartist wrote of these rallies. 'Working people met in their thousands to swear devotion to the common cause. '¹

The Queen, as an impressionable young woman, had been urged by Melbourne to believe that the country was in a far better state than some would have her believe and that, in any case, social reform was not to be encouraged. All change was likely to be for the worse and to be advocated by hypocrites. Why, look at Lord Ashley (later Lord Shaftesbury) and his concern for little workers: he disliked his own children! Discontent was being aroused by a few troublesome malcontents, particularly in Ireland. The Queen, who was inclined to pity 'the poor Irish' who had been so 'ill treated', had once been amused by Melbourne's flippant remarks, but in later life she refused to dismiss hardship with merriment. Influenced by Melbourne she had once referred to a Bill intended to set further limits upon the hours spent by workers in factories as 'undesirable'; yet after a later visit to a workhouse she felt she would like to devote her life to the poor and downtrodden.

When alarmed by the violence on the Continent in 1848 which threatened to overthrow the established order, she did, to be sure, talk of the 'insubordination of the poor'; and when told of a family that slept seven in a single bed, she commented in her matter-of-fact way that she would have chosen to sleep on the floor. But she was capable of being moved to pity and grief by distress; and she maintained, without undue exaggeration after Prince Albert's death, that 'more than ever' did she 'long to lead a private life tending the poor and the sick'. She was also generous in her charities and did not shrink from facing the unpalatable as Lord Melbourne had done.[xxxii] She was concerned that her children should show a sympathy for the poorer of her subjects. She was pleased when Prince Albert became President of the Society for Improving the Condition of the Labouring Classes; she encouraged him in his interest in Working Men's Clubs, Public Libraries and Reading Rooms, was proud of his designs for artisans' dwellings, two of which were built as models; and she encouraged him in his efforts to improve the lot and housing of the people who lived and worked on their estates at Osborne and Balmoral. If all the cottage property in the United Kingdom were to be kept in the same condition as that of Her Majesty and the Prince Consort, Sir Edwin Chadwick, the social reformer, declared, the death rate would be reduced by nearly one half.² After the Prince's death, the Queen remained faithful to his example. 'The Queen has been much distressed by all that she has heard and read lately of the houses of the poor in the great towns,' she was to write to the Prime Minister in 1883. 'The Queen will be glad to learn ... whether the Government contemplate the introduction of any measures, or propose to take any steps to obtain more precise information as to the true state of affairs in these overcrowded, unhealthy and squalid' houses.³

Yet there was always a firm line to be drawn between sympathy and charity for the poor and the kind of agitation proposed on their behalf by the Chartists, both those who were prepared to work within the law and those who advocated the use of violence in pursuit of their aims. 'I maintain that Revolutions are always bad for the country,' she declared, 'and the cause of untold misery to the people ... Obedience to the laws & to the Sovereign is obedience to a higher Power.'⁴

She feared that violence might be unleashed upon London when the Chartists announced that on 10 April 1848 a petition, listing their demands and said to contain almost five million signatures, would be presented to Parliament by 150,000 demonstrators marching to Westminster from Kennington Common.

Intimidated by the prospect of enormous crowds of menacing people marching through the streets, a number of noblemen summoned servants and retainers from their country estates to defend their London houses; while the Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of Wellington (whom Charles Greville on a visit to Apsley House found 'in a prodigious state of excitement' as he formulated plans to deal with the menace), advised the Queen and her family to leave for Osborne before the demonstration took place.⁵ The Queen had recently given birth to her sixth child, Princess Louise, and was suffering from what, in years to come, would be diagnosed as post-natal depression, from time to time dissolving into tears and clearly frightened. She readily agreed to go. Already the lamps outside Buckingham Palace had been smashed to shouts of "Vive la Republique!' and who could tell what might happen when immense crowds marched past on their way to the Palace of Westminster, organized by a leadership which Prince Albert described as 'incredible', having 'secret signals' and corresponding 'from town to town by means of carrier pigeons'?

On the morning of 8 April the Royal Family were driven to Waterloo Station which had been cleared of spectators and surrounded by special constables. As soon as they had all boarded it, the train steamed off for Gosport, the Queen lying on her sofa, worrying about the three-week-old Princess Louise, but no longer crying. 'I never was calmer & quieter & less nervous,' she told King Leopold without her usual strict regard for the truth. 'Great events make me quiet & calm; it is only trifles that irritate my nerves.'⁶

The Duke of Wellington arranged that the nine thousand troops called upon to deal with troublemakers should be kept out of sight, concerned that there might possibly be riots if they were seen, while 170,000 special constables were enrolled to ensure that the march did not get out of hand.

All the 'enormous preparations' were unnecessary, however. The day of the march 'passed off with surprising quiet' and the 'intended tragedy was rapidly changed into a ludicrous farce,' Charles Greville commented. 'Feargus O'Connor [the Irish orator and journalist, a leading figure in the Chartist movement] harangued his rabble, advising them not to provoke a collision, and to go away quietly - advice they instantly obeyed, and with great apparent alacrity and good-humour. Thus all evaporated in smoke ... But everybody rejoices that the defensive demonstration was made, for it has given a great and memorable lesson which will not be thrown away, either on the disaffected and mischievous, or the loyal and peaceful; and it will produce a vast effect in all foreign countries, and show how solid is the foundation on which we are resting. We have displayed a great resolution and a great strength, and given unmistakeable proofs that if sedition and rebellion hold their heads in this country, they will be instantly met with the most vigorous resistance, and be put down by the hand of authority, and by the zealous co-operation of all classes of the people.'⁷

The Queen expressed her profound relief that the workmen, misled by professional agitators and the 'criminals and refuse of London' ('such wanton & worthless men'), remained loyal after all. Five months later, in her speech from the throne at the prorogation of Parliament on 5 September 1848, after several Chartist leaders (whose meetings had been infiltrated by Government agents) had been arrested on charges of sedition, she declared, 'The strength of our institutions has been tried, and has not been found wanting. I have studied to preserve the people committed to my charge in the enjoyment of that temperate freedom which they so justly value. My people, on their side, feel too sensibly the advantages of order and security to allow the promoters of pillage and confusion any chance of success in their wicked designs.' Some four months later she wrote to King Leopold, 'I write to you once more in this old & most dreadful year ... But I must not include myself or my country in [its] misfortunes ... On the contrary I have nothing but thanks to offer up for all that has happened here.'⁸

Yet the Queen was more than ready to agree with Prince Albert that there were those amongst her people, poor and distressed, who were deserving of help. Within a fortnight of the collapse of the Chartist protest in April 1848, Lord Ashley was invited to Osborne where, during a walk in the grounds with Prince Albert, the condition of the poor was discussed. Some years earlier, the Prince had written to Ashley to congratulate him on a speech he had made denouncing the employment of young children in coal mines, and to assure him that the Queen supported him in his views for which she had the 'deepest sympathy'. Now Ashley urged him to demonstrate the interest which the Royal Family took in the welfare of the working classes by visiting such London slums as those by the river south of the Strand. This Prince Albert did; and afterwards at Exeter Hall he made a speech which the Queen had helped him to rehearse and in which he stressed the importance of the more affluent and better-educated classes of society supporting and contributing to plans to ameliorate the hardships of the less fortunate, calling upon the Government to care for those who were in no condition to care for themselves.⁹

The Queen considered it unlikely that the Prime Minister, who had opposed the Prince's visit to the slums, would respond with any enthusiasm to her husband's plea. Indeed, the more she saw of Lord John Russell, the deeper was her sorrow at losing her 'kind and true friend', Sir Robert Peel.

Chapter 26 'PAM IS OUT'

Lord John Russell, third son of the sixth Duke of Bedford, was an emaciated little man, not noticeably taller than his dumpy monarch who found him stubborn, opinionated and graceless. He would be better company, she said, 'if he had a third subject; for he was interested in nothing except the Constitution of 1688 and himself'.¹ Worse than this, he was either incapable or unwilling to curb the excesses of his tiresome Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston.

Month after month the Queen and Prince had cause to complain of Palmerston's behaviour, his continued habit of sending her drafts of his despatches after the despatches themselves had been sent, his agreeing to alterations and then taking no notice of them, the intemperate language in which some of them were framed, in one case so annoying the Spanish government that they expelled the British Ambassador from Madrid, in another wording a despatch which the Queen described as being 'unworthy of a gentleman'.² It made her feel ill, she told her doctor, to read such things. In January 1849 the tiresome man went so far as secretly to supply Garibaldi's rebels in Sicily with arms for use in an uprising against their legitimate sovereign, King Ferdinand II. It really was too bad, the Queen complained: it was she, after all, who had to bear the responsibility for such activities.³

She told the Prime Minister, not for the first time, that the day might well come when she would have to insist upon having the man dismissed. Could not some other appointment for him be found? Could he be sent to Ireland as Lord Lieutenant? Russell toyed with the idea, considering the possibility of offering him an earldom and the Order of the Garter as an inducement. But then Palmerston said he was willing to apologize fully for any problems he may have caused; and so he was still Foreign Secretary when the country was brought to the brink of war after the house of a Jewish merchant of Portuguese descent, Don David Pacifico, Portugal's Consul-General in Athens, had been burned down by an anti-semitic mob of Greek Orthodox rioters. Don Pacifico sent an absurdly inflated bill for damages of £80,000 to the King of Greece. The Greek government naturally rejected it; and, since he had been born in Gibraltar and was accordingly a British subject, Don Pacifico appealed for help to London.

Palmerston was quite ready to intervene and a fleet was despatched to blockade Piraeus and seize ships of a sufficient value to meet Don Pacifico's claims. This was too much for both France and Russia to tolerate. Palmerston had provoked another diplomatic crisis, though he seemed quite unconcerned by all the fuss. The Queen, who had given birth to her seventh child, Prince Arthur, on 1 May 1850, wrote in her diary a fortnight later, 'The levity of the man is really inconceivable.'⁴ She told Lord John Russell that he really must be forced to leave the Foreign Office.

The next month, however, Palmerston made his position virtually unassailable by a speech in the House which even the Queen felt obliged to describe as 'most brilliant'. For nearly five hours, 'without stopping for one moment even to drink a little water', he justified his actions with a peroration which delighted the nationalist sentiments of his countrymen and was worthy of a man who, after Prince Albert's death, the Queen decided had, 'with all his many faults, the honour and power of his country strongly at heart':

As the Roman in days of old held himself free from indignity when he could say Civis Romanus Sum, so also a British subject, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England will protect him against injustice and wrong.5

The debate lasted four days but the issue could not be in doubt. The week before, the Conservative leader, Lord Stanley, had moved a vote of censure on the Government in the House of Lords which had been carried by thirty-seven votes; now, in the House of Commons, Palmerston had ensured that the Government would survive; and so, by forty-six votes, it did.

The Queen, much as she could not help but admire the Foreign Secretary's speech, could not condone his actions. With Prince Albert to help her, she composed a memorandum to be sent to the Prime Minister setting out what was in future to be expected from Lord Palmerston, and making clear that if he 'arbitrarily altered or modified' measures to which the Queen had given her royal sanction she would 'exercise her constitutional right of dismissing' him. He was, she recognized, an 'able, sagacious, patriotic and courageous' man, but 'his modes of proceeding were often too violent and corrupt', while the language of his despatches 'was often less calculated to conciliate than to mortify and offend'.⁶

Lord John sent this memorandum to Palmerston who asked to be granted an interview with Prince Albert. The Prince was, as he confessed, moved by the demeanour of the Foreign Secretary who appeared before him 'much agitated' and with tears in his eyes. He undertook to mend his ways. He had promised to do so before, however; and neither then nor now did he do so.⁷

A month after Palmerston's interview with Prince Albert there arrived in London on a tour of Europe a retired Austrian general with a most unsavoury reputation. This was Julius, Freiherr von Haynau, known to the public in England as 'Hyena', a man who had suppressed nationalist uprisings in Hungary and in Brescia in Italy with notorious brutality and who was alleged to have had a woman flogged almost to the point of death. Soon after his arrival in London, where his evil reputation had been broadcast by Hungarian refugees, he visited Barclay and Perkins's Brewery. Immediately recognized by his martial bearing and by the prominent nose, deep-set eyes and enormous yellow moustache which had been featured in caricatures of him in the popular press, he was set upon by draymen who knocked 'the Austrian butcher' down, beat him with broom handles and dragged him along Bankside by his hair and whiskers. An apology for this degrading treatment of one of the Emperor of Austria's generals was drafted by Palmerston for despatch to the Emperor's Ambassador in London, but it was accompanied by some aspersions on the regime for which General Haynau had fought and a suggestion that he had been ill-advised to come to England at a time when he was likely to be unwelcome here. Sent this draft, the Queen asked for some alterations to be made to it, only to be told, as she had been so often told in the past, that the text had already been despatched.⁸ As though it were excuse enough for this breach of his undertaking not to send unapproved despatches, Palmerston assured the Queen that he had 'good reason to know that General Haynau's ferocious and unmanly treatment of the unfortunate inhabitants of Brescia and of other places and towns in Italy ... and his barbarous acts in Hungary excited almost as much disgust in Austria as in England'.⁹

The next year a leader of those Hungarian revolutionaries against whom Haynau had acted with such brutality, Lajos Kossuth, also arrived in London where he addressed several mass meetings, speaking in excellent English which he had taught himself in prison from a study of the Bible and Shakespeare.

The welcome accorded to this enemy of Austria - the 'stupid Kossuth fever', as she referred to it - exasperated the Queen; and, when she learned that her Foreign Secretary intended to receive the revolutionary, she threatened to dismiss him if he presumed to do so. The Prime Minister warned him not to be so provocative. Palmerston replied that he would not be told whom he could and whom he could not receive in his own house.¹⁰ But, as he had done in the past, he climbed down rather than be dismissed. 'Oh wonder,' wrote the Queen who had reason to believe that he had seen Kossuth anyway. 'Lord Palmerston yielded to the general will ... He lowers himself more and more.'¹¹

He had, however, survived only to make more trouble. Having first caused offence by officially receiving a deputation of radicals who thanked and praised him for his support of Kossuth and who referred to the Emperors of Austria and Russia as 'odious and detestable assassins', he then entangled himself with the politics of France where Prince Louis Napoleon, the Austrian Emperor's nephew, who had been elected President of the French Republic in December 1848, staged a coup d'etat at the beginning of December 1851 and later declared himself Napoleon III, Emperor of the French.

On hearing of this coup, the Queen wrote to the Prime Minister asking him to tell Lord Normanby, British Ambassador in Paris, to do nothing for the moment. Normanby was consequently instructed that 'nothing should be done ... which would wear the appearance of an interference of any kind in the internal affairs of France'.¹² When Normanby next called on the French Minister for Foreign Affairs, however, the Minister told him that he had heard from Count Walewski, Napoleon I's illegitimate son and the French Ambassador in London, that Lord Palmerston had already expressed to him the British Government's full approval of the French Emperor's coup d'etat.

The Queen, who had hoped that one of her Orleans relations might perhaps become King of France one day, was extremely angry when she learned of this latest example of Lord Palmerston's infuriating independence.

Lord John Russell agreed that this time Lord Palmerston had gone too far and must be required to resign, popular though he was in the country. It was no good his making the excuse that what he said to the French Ambassador was his own private view and not the Government's official opinion. His lack of 'decorum and prudence' was such that he could no longer be trusted with the Ministry for Foreign Affairs. The Queen and Prince Albert had been most concerned by Palmerston's friendly reception of the radicals who came to thank him for his support of Kossuth. But this fresh contretemps provided a more satisfactory excuse to get rid of him. Lord John offered him the Lord Lieutenancy of Ireland, an offer which he rejected with the observation that he could scarcely be considered lacking in 'decorum and prudence' since these were qualities which surely were required in Ireland as much as anywhere else.¹³

Palmerston is out! actually, really and irretrievably out [Charles Greville recorded in his diary on 23 December 1851]. I nearly dropt off my chair yesterday afternoon, when at five o'clock, a few moments after the Cabinet had broken up [Lord Granville, a favourite at Court] rushed into my room and said 'Pam is out, the offer of the F. Office goes to Clarendon to-night, and if he refuses (which of course he will not) it is to be offered to me!!... December 24th. To my unspeakable astonishment Granville informed me yesterday that Clarendon had refused the Foreign Office and that he had accepted it.14

'Our relief was great,' wrote the Queen in her journal, 'and we felt quite excited by the news, for our anxiety and worry during the last five years and a half, which were indescribable, was mainly, if not entirely, caused by [Lord Palmerston]. It is a great and unexpected mercy.'¹⁵

Chapter 27 THE GREAT EXHIBITION

'It was the happiest, proudest day in my life, and I can think of nothing else,' the Queen wrote of 1 May 1851. 'Albert's dearest name is for ever immortalized with this great conception, his own, and my own dear country showed she was worthy of it.'¹

At the beginning of the previous year, the Prince, as President of the Royal Society of Arts, had presided over the first meeting of the Commissioners for the Great Exhibition which had been conceived as a means of demonstrating that the progress of mankind depended upon international cooperation, that the prosperity of one country depended upon the prosperity of others, and that Britain's mission was 'to put herself at the head of the diffusion of civilization'.

The idea had been discussed in the summer of 1849 at a conference in Buckingham Palace attended by, amongst others, Thomas Cubitt, the builder, John Scott Russell, the civil engineer, who was Secretary of the Royal Society of Arts, and the versatile Henry Cole, soon to be the Society's Chairman. Cole was a remarkable and astonishingly versatile man. At one time or another an assistant keeper of the Public Record Office, closely concerned with the inauguration of the penny post, exhibitor at the Royal Academy, newspaper and magazine editor, writer of children's books, associated with the establishment of schools of music and cookery, ceramic designer, Secretary of the Anti-Corn-Law League, friend of the novelist Thomas Love Peacock, whose collected works he edited, and of W. M. Thackeray, Cole was a man not only of extraordinary resource and energy, but also of unfailing good temper. The Prince -making one of those rather heavily humorous plays on words which so much appealed to him - would say, when faced with some difficulty or delay, 'We must have steam, send for Cole.'²

The difficulties were, indeed, formidable. There were problems in finding a suitable site for the Exhibition: Battersea Fields, Regent's Park, Primrose Hill, the Isle of Dogs, Leicester Square, and the courtyard of Somerset House were all suggested before it was decided to settle upon Hyde Park, much to the displeasure of people whose houses overlooked it or were in the habit of riding there, as well as of The Times, which forecast that the whole of the park would become 'a bivouac of all vagabonds'. Kensington and Belgravia would be uninhabitable and the Season would be ruined. 'The annoyance inflicted on the neighbourhood will be indescribable ... We can scarcely bring ourselves to believe that the advisers of the Prince cared to connect his name with such an outrage to the feelings and wishes of the inhabitants of the metropolis.'³

Other Jeremiahs forecast food shortages caused by the crowds of foreigners who would come to see the Exhibition, as well as riots, robberies and an influx of 'bad characters at present scattered over the country' which would make it advisable for all 'wise persons residing near the Park to keep a sharp look out over their silver forks and spoons and servant maids'.⁴ Engineers, so Prince Albert told the King of Prussia in a facetious letter, had warned that the galleries would collapse killing the visitors beneath; doctors that the Black Death would break out again; 'theologians that this second Tower of Babel would draw upon it the vengeance of an offended God'.⁵

Henry Manning, the future Cardinal, who had been received into the Roman Catholic Church in April that year, did, indeed, condemn the project as a potential danger to faith and morals, while the King of Hanover, as ready to cause trouble in England as he had been as Duke of Cumberland in the past, warned the Crown Prince William of Prussia and his wife and son not to accept the Queen's invitation to 'this rubbishy Exhibition'. 'I am not easily given to panicking,' King Ernest added, 'but I confess to you that I would not like anyone belonging to me exposed to the imminent peril of these times. Letters from London tell me that the Ministers will not allow the Queen and the great originator of this folly, Prince Albert, to be in London while the Exhibition is on.'⁶ When it became known that, after 230 entries proposing ideas for the Exhibition hall had been rejected, a huge glass building, designed by Joseph Paxton, the superintendent of the Duke of Devonshire's gardens at Chatsworth, was to be erected in the Park, the alarmists became more vociferous than ever: the Crystal Palace, as Punch was the first to call it - 'a cucumber frame between two chimneys', in John Ruskin's description - would be blown down in the first strong gale; the galleries would collapse; hailstones and thunder would smash the glass; the sparrows in the tall elm trees which were to be enclosed in the edifice would spatter visitors and exhibits alike.[xxxiii]

The Prime Minister, concerned by talk of riots and assaults, consulted the Commander-in-Chief, the Duke of Wellington, who considered that soldiers, largely cavalry, should be employed but kept out of sight, as he had suggested at the time of the Chartist demonstration in 1848. But Prince Albert did not like this talk of soldiers: he argued that the presence of the military would not be in keeping with the tone and purpose of the Exhibition. So the Prime Minister suggested enlisting policemen from Paris. The Duke might as well have been asked to send for bashi-bazouks or Zulu warriors. He replied to Lord John Russell's proposition in a letter which made the Prime Minister hastily and apologetically explain that he was only trying to be helpful. 'I feel,' the Duke protested, 'no want of confidence in my own powers to preserve the public peace and to provide for the general safety without requiring the assistance of French officers.'⁷

Colonel Charles Sibthorp, the anti-Catholic, anti-Reform, ultra-Tory Lincolnshire landowner, who was Member of Parliament for Lincoln, forecast all manner of evils likely to result from a needless exhibition of foreign paraphernalia which was no less than an advertisement for free trade and all its attendant threats to landed society. The whole concept, Sibthorp declared in the House in his usual wild manner, was 'the greatest trash, the greatest fraud and the greatest imposition ever attempted to be palmed upon the people of this country. The object of its promoters is to introduce among us foreign stuff of every description.'⁸

The Queen dismissed all fears and prejudiced opinions out of hand. Like Prince Albert, she was greatly impressed by the proposal for a vast glass edifice almost two thousand feet in length and sixty-four feet high - containing 4,500 tons of iron and nearly 300,000 panes of glass, thirty miles of guttering, two hundred miles of wooden sash bars - which would provide space for some 14,000 displays from every corner of the world. Of course, it would withstand the noise and tramping feet of any number of visitors: it had been tested by three hundred workmen jumping up and down in the galleries, by soldiers marching heavily along the central aisle and trundling trolleys of cannon balls across the pine floor. The Queen made numerous visits to the Park to see the Crystal Palace - 'one of the wonders of the world' as she called it. When it was finished, she took her five eldest with her, and was amused and touched to hear the Duke of Devonshire exclaim in admiration and wonder, 'Fancy one's gardener having done all this.'⁹

The Queen, of course, took even greater pride in Prince Albert's part in it. 'I do feel proud,' she wrote, 'at the thought of what my beloved Albert's great mind has conceived.' On the day of the opening ceremony she left Buckingham Palace soon after eleven o'clock in a procession of nine state carriages.

The Green Park & Hyde Park were one mass of densely crowded human beings in the highest good humour & most enthusiastic [she recorded in her journal]. I never saw Hyde Park look as it did, being filled with crowds as far as the eye could reach. A little rain fell, just as we started, but before we neared the Crystal Palace, the sun shone & gleamed upon the gigantic edifice upon which the flags of every nation were flying.10

When she appeared in the building she found 'the Nave was full of people, which had not been intended, & deafening cheers and waving of handkerchiefs continued the whole time of our long walk from one end of the building to the other'. Wearing a small crown, she had her husband on one side of her with the Princess Royal - who had 'a small wreath of pink wild roses in her hair & looked very nice' - and, on her other side, holding her hand, was the Prince of Wales in Highland dress. Trumpets blared, organs and orchestras played, a choir of six hundred voices sang, a military band played the march from Handel's Athalia as they approached the canopied dais, and the 'myriads of people filling the galleries and seats around cheered and cheered'.

It was 'a day to live for ever', far more moving and exciting than her coronation. 'God bless my dearest Albert,' she wrote later. 'God bless my dearest Country, which has shown itself so great today! One felt so grateful to the great God, who seemed to pervade and to bless all.'

There were moments to touch the heart as well as stir the emotions. She saw the two old warriors, the Duke of Wellington and the Marquess of Anglesey, walking up and down a trifle unsteadily, arm in arm between the exhibits; the Duke, over eighty now, bent with arthritis, Anglesey limping on his artificial leg, both talking in the loud voices of the deaf as they did so often in the House of Lords. The Queen also saw what she took to be a Chinese member of the diplomatic corps, looking most picturesque in blue tunic and black-and-red cap, approach the royal dais to kowtow beneath the canopy. It mattered not at all that the supposed oriental envoy was, in fact, the captain of a junk moored in the Thames who charged a shilling a head for people to look over his strange craft. His obeisance appeared quite as sincerely meant as the cheers of the French visitors who shouted, 'Vive la Reine!' and as those of the crowds who acclaimed her and the Prince when they appeared together on the balcony overlooking the Mall after their return to Buckingham Palace.¹¹

The Queen went back to the Exhibition time after time, clearly fascinated by the extraordinary variety of the thousands of exhibits from forty different countries, the engines of every description, the jewels, including the largest pearl ever found and the Koh-i-Noor diamond which she had worn at the opening ceremony, the electric telegraph, the Persian carpets, the Indian silks, the Spanish mantillas, the Swiss embroideries, the German porcelain, the French Sevres, Aubusson and Gobelins, the leather goods and textiles, the china, glass and cutlery, the assorted clocks and watches, a knife with three hundred blades, a garden seat made of coal, a doctor's walking stick with the equipment for an enema in the handle, a machine which could turn out fifty million medals a week, another machine that printed 10,000 sheets an hour, a stuffed frog holding an umbrella, a collapsible piano, an alarm bed that threw its occupant out at the chosen time, a fine arts section displaying the works of living artists and of those who had died within the past three years.

Unusually for a monarch, the Queen took a particular interest in the machinery. 'Some of the inventions were very ingenious,' she wrote, 'many of them quite Utopian.' The Exhibition, she concluded, 'has taught me so much I never knew before - has brought me in contact with so many clever people I should never have known otherwise, and with so many manufacturers whom I would scarcely have met unless I travelled all over the country and visited every individual manufactory which I never could have done.'¹²

By the time the Exhibition closed to the strains of the National Anthem on 15 October, over six million people had visited it, including a woman of eight-four who had walked from Cornwall; and enough money had been made for the purchase of some thirty acres of land in South Kensington on which were built those museums, colleges and other institutions, including the Victoria and Albert Museum and the Royal Albert Hall, on and near to Exhibition Road, of which the Queen was to have due cause to be proud.

The whole enterprise had been 'a complete and beautiful triumph,' she observed with the utmost pleasure and pride, 'a glorious and touching sight, one which I shall ever be proud of for my beloved Albert and my Country ... The absurd reports of dangers of every kind & sort, set about by a set of people - the "soi-disant" fashionables & the most violent protectionists - are silenced.'¹³

On 9 July that year the Lord Mayor and the Corporation of the City had given a ball to celebrate the continuing success of the Great Exhibition. On their way to the Guildhall, the Queen and Prince were cheered as loudly as she and her children had been on their way to Hyde Park on the opening day; and, on their return from the Guildhall, they were greeted again by crowds of people who had waited for hours for their reappearance. 'A million of people,' the Prince told Stockmar, 'remained till three in the morning in the streets and were full of enthusiasm towards us.'¹⁴

Some five years before, having opened the new Royal Exchange, the Queen had assured King Leopold of her popularity: 'They say no Sovereign was ever more loved than I am (I am bold enough to say), & this is because of our domestic home, the good example it presents.' Now her beloved husband was at last taking some of his own share of the popularity which the monarchy enjoyed.

Chapter 28 'SCENES'

The Queen's happiness in her marriage was still on occasions darkly clouded by quarrels with her husband. No one doubted that she still adored him, that the tired-looking man, paunchy and pale though only thirty-two years old when the Great Exhibition closed, remained for her the paragon of beauty and goodness she had married. Yet she could fly into sudden rages with him, accuse him of all manner of faults and selfishness, of being indifferent to the distress and pain and disgusting degradation which she, as a woman, had to endure when bearing and giving birth to babies and which he, as a man, evaded.

Pregnancy followed pregnancy and with the pregnancies there came bouts of depression. Her 'poor nerves', so she had told King Leopold shortly before the arrival of Princess Alice in April 1843, 'were so battered last time' that she 'suffered a whole year' from it. Still, she had continued stoically, 'those nerves were incidental and I am otherwise so strong and well, that if only my happiness continues I can bear everything else with pleasure'.¹

An exceptionally violent altercation erupted soon after the birth of her fourth son and eighth child, Prince Leopold, on 7 April 1853. The birth itself had been rendered relatively easy by the presence of Dr John Snow, a Yorkshire farmer's son who had made a name for himself in London by his improvements in the methods of administering ether and chloroform as anaesthetizing agents. The Queen, who surprised medical opinion as expressed in the Lancet by agreeing to make use of so unconventional an anodyne, found 'that blessed chloroform ... soothing and delightful beyond measure'; and, when her next and last child, Princess Beatrice, was born in April 1857, she insisted that Dr Snow should again attend her.[xxxiv]

Soon after Prince Leopold's birth, however, as so often in the past, she suffered from post-natal depression and an agitation of nerves as upsetting as any she had undergone after previous births. The baby was not strong, so delicate, indeed, that his baptism had to be postponed: it was later discovered that he was suffering from haemophilia, a rare hereditary disorder characterized by a tendency to uncontrollable haemorrhaging after even the slightest injury.[xxxv]

Anxiety about the baby exacerbated the Queen's distress which her husband himself increased by treating her as though she were a wilful child. It was, in fact, as 'Dear Child' or 'dear, good little one' that he often addressed her in writing her one of those long letters, partly in German, mostly in English, which, having retreated from her presence, he composed when her hysterical outbursts became as insupportable to him as his infuriating Olympian calm was to her.

Dear Child [he wrote to her on 2 May 1853]. Now it will be right to consider calmly the facts of the case. The whole offence which led to a continuance of hysterics for more than an hour, and the traces of which have remained for more than 24 hours more, was: that I complained of your turning several times from inattention the wrong leaves in a Book which was to be [used] by us as a Register ... of prints ... This miserable trifle produced the distressing scene ... in which I am accused of making things worse by my false method of treatment. I admit that my treatment has on this occasion as on former ones signally failed, but I know of no other ... When I try to demonstrate the groundlessness and injustice of the accusations which are brought against me I increase your distress ... But I never intend or wish to offend you ... If you are violent I have no other choice but to leave you ... I leave the room and retire to my own room in order to give you time to recover yourself. Then you follow me to renew the dispute and to have it all out... Now don't believe that I do not sincerely and deeply pity you for the sufferings you undergo, or that I deny you do really suffer very much, I merely deny that I am the cause of them, though I have unfortunately often been the occasion ... I am often astonished at the effect which a hasty word of mine has produced ...

In your candid way you generally explain later what was the real cause of your complaint ... It appears now that the apprehension that you might be made answerable for the suffering of the Baby (occasioned by the milk of the Wet nurse not agreeing on account of your having frequently expressed a wish to have a Nurse from the Highlands of Scotland) was the real cause of your distress which broke out on the occasion of the Registration of the prints ...2

Over the years such quarrels would suddenly erupt. Months passed in complete harmony; and during these months the Queen would congratulate herself on her 'great progress', her efforts in 'trying energetically to overcome' her faults. How could she thank her dearest Albert for his unchanging love and wonderful tenderness? She had to acknowledge that she had 'little self control'. 'I feel how sadly deficient I am,' she confessed, 'and how over-sensitive and irritable, and how uncontrollable my temper is when annoyed and hurt... Have I improved as much as I ought? I fear not... Again and again I have conquered this susceptibility [to irritation] - have formed the best of resolutions and again it returns [to the] annoyance of that most perfect of human beings, my adored Husband.'³

After months of harmony, generally without warning and usually on some trivial pretext, there would be a furious outburst. The Prince would retreat; the Queen would follow him from room to room, upbraiding him; the Prince would find sanctuary at last; the Queen would be filled with remorse; letters between them would be exchanged. At such times, Sir James Clark felt 'uneasy'. 'Regarding the Queen's mind,' he wrote, 'unless she is kept quiet, the time will come when she will be in danger ... Much depends upon the Prince's management. '⁴

Alternately lecturing her as a father might have done, drawing attention to her faults and follies, and congratulating her on weeks of 'unbroken success in the hard struggle for self control', the Prince's letters charted the volcanic upheavals in a generally placid and contented relationship.

He considered it a 'pity' that she could 'find no consolation' in the company of her children, that she had a mistaken notion that 'the function of a mother [was] to be always correcting, scolding, ordering them about and organizing their activities'. It was 'not possible to be on happy, friendly terms with people you have just been scolding'. She must try to control her 'fidgety nature' which made her 'insist on entering, with feverish eagerness', into details and orders which, in the case of a queen, are commands to whomever they may be given. 'Like everyone else in the house', he made 'the most ample allowance for her state' when pregnant; but he could not bear her 'bodily sufferings for her': she must 'struggle with them alone - the moral ones [were] probably caused by them'. It would be better if she were 'rather less occupied' with herself and her feelings and took 'more interest in the outside world'. She must not make a display of her sufferings before him as if to say 'This is all your work'. Such accusations were not calculated to make him wish to take any steps 'towards reconciliation'.

He was not yet ready to forgive, that was not how he felt, he told her in one of their quarrels; but he was ready to 'ignore all that [had] happened, take a new departure', and 'try in future to avoid everything' which might make 'her unhappy state of mind worse'. He was trying to keep out of her way until her 'better feelings' returned and she had 'regained that control' of herself which she had 'again lost quite unnecessarily'. He had not said a word which would wound her, and had not begun the conversation, but she had followed him about and continued it from room to room. It was 'the dearest wish of [his] heart to save [her] from these and worse consequences, but the only result' of his efforts was that he was 'accused of want of feeling, hard heartedness, injustice, hatred, jealousy, distrust etc, etc.'

'I do my duty towards you,' he wrote in yet another letter, 'even though life is embittered by "scenes" when it should be governed by love and harmony. I look upon this with patience as a test which has to be undergone, but you hurt me desperately and at the same time do not help yourself.'

When one of these scenes was over and all was quiet and contented again, his letters would strike a different note: he had not realized the extent to which her nerves were shaken; he promised never in future to 'express a difference of opinion' until she was better; he had noticed 'with delight' her efforts to be 'unselfish, kind and sociable' and her success in being so. His 'love and sympathy' were 'limitless and inexhaustible'.

Chapter 29 CRIMEAN WAR

A few weeks after the birth of Prince Leopold, there was a riot in Bethlehem where a fight over custody of the Church of the Nativity had broken out between monks of the Roman Catholic Church supported by France, and monks of the Orthodox Church supported by Russia. Bethlehem was at that time within the immense and crumbling Turkish empire which, stretching from the Adriatic to the Persian Gulf, from the Black Sea through Syria and Palestine to the deserts of Arabia, was ready for conquest and division.

Turkish police, Tsar Nicholas I complained, had connived at the murder of those Orthodox monks who had been killed in the rioting; and within a matter of days a Russian army was marching towards the Danube on a crusade to protect the Holy Places from Islam. Notes, memoranda, despatches and threats flew from St Petersburg to Paris, from Constantinople through Vienna to London, and crackled uncertainly over the electric telegraph.

By October 1853 Turkey was at war with Russia. England for the moment remained neutral. And then on 30 November the Russian Black Sea fleet under Admiral Nachimoff sailed out of Sebastopol, found a Turkish flotilla off the south shore of the Black Sea at Sinope and sank its every ship. Nearly four thousand sailors were lost, and many of them, so it was widely reported in the press, were shot by Russian gunners as they floundered in the water.

British opinion was outraged by what was commonly referred to as a 'massacre' and a massacre perpetrated by a Russian fleet when Britannia ruled the waves. Those voices previously crying caution and restraint were stilled by shouts for the destruction of Sebastopol. No one listened to talk of Turkish atrocities any more.

Lord Aberdeen, who had taken over as Prime Minister after the resignation of Lord John Russell's successor, the Earl of Derby, did not want war. Nor did Lord Clarendon, his Foreign Secretary. But Lord Palmerston, now Home Secretary and a more influential man than either of them, was a strong Russophobe; and Lord Aberdeen felt obliged to give way to Palmerston's views which were shared by The Times, by the country at large, and by the Queen who, a few weeks earlier, had doubted that England ought to go to war for the defence of 'so-called Turkish independence', but who concluded that she was now bound to do so.

On 27 March 1854 war was therefore declared on Russia, France having done so the previous day; and British soldiers went marching down to Portsmouth with their bands playing and the shouts and cheers of the crowd in their ears, while the Queen, with Prince Albert and their children, stood on the balcony of Buckingham Palace, appearing 'much affected', bowing and smiling 'most graciously', waving them goodbye.

But in the xenophobia which so frequently attacks countries upon declaration of war, the popularity which Prince Albert had briefly enjoyed at the time of the Great Exhibition was swept away. All the old prejudices against his stiff formality, his foreign clothes and rigid handshake, his prudish morality, his supposed misogyny, his Germanic tastes, his assumption of regal authority, his unwarranted interference in military affairs, were once more aired in the press and in the houses not only of the rich and aristocratic, but increasingly in those of the middle classes. It was said that he was sympathetic towards the Russians, that he attempted to persuade the Queen to be so too, and that he adopted a highly unconstitutional role at the audiences with Ministers which he regularly attended with her. It was even rumoured that he was involved in some traitorous activity for which he was to be sent to the Tower. Lord Derby said thousands of people gathered there to watch His Royal Highness go in, while some said it was certain he would have been sent there had not the Queen announced her intention to go with him.

It was also rumoured that the Prince spoke German more often than English and that he and the Queen always conversed in his native tongue, a story that she strongly denied. 'The Prince and Queen speak English quite as much as German,' she protested, and she went on to deprecate 'that continual and unbounded dislike (in England) of foreigners and everything foreign which breaks out continually, and is very painful to the Queen - whose Husband, Mother and all her dearest relations and friends are foreigners'. Both she and her husband took these aspersions on the Prince 'greatly to heart'.¹

'In attacking the Prince, who is one and the same with the Queen herself,' she wrote to the Prime Minister, 'the throne is assailed, and she must say that she little expected that any portion of her subjects would thus requite the unceasing labours of the Prince.'

At the end of January 1855 the Government agreed to act. In Parliament, Ministers affirmed their complete trust in the Prince and their gratitude for his hard work in furthering the interests of the Queen and the country. Their declaration of trust was echoed in the House of Lords by Lord Derby.

The Queen was delighted by this 'triumphant refutation' of all 'the atrocious calumnies' and 'mad delusions' that had been voiced about the Prince: the position of her 'beloved lord and master', she reported to Stockmar, 'had been defined for once and for all'.

Neither the Prince nor the Queen provided any valid excuse for adverse criticism of their behaviour during the war. The Prince occupied himself with formulating detailed plans - rejected by the Government - for the raising of a force of fifteen thousand foreigners, and with writing memoranda, letters and papers of all kinds so voluminous in number that they now fill some fifty volumes in the Royal Archives. The Queen, often accompanied by her husband, reviewed regiments and naval squadrons on their departure for the Dardanelles. She set an example by knitting woollen socks, mittens and scarves. She wrote letters of condolence to the bereaved, and this she found 'a relief, since she could express 'all that she felt'. She inspected hospitals, including Chatham Hospital where, so she complained to Lord Panmure, the Secretary for War, the wards were 'like prisons' or 'robbers' dens', the beds being so closely packed together that there was 'hardly space to walk' between them. The sight of the wounded, she wrote, 'such fine, powerful frames laid low and prostrate with wounds and sickness on beds of suffering or maimed in the prime of life, is indescribably touching to us women who are born to suffer and can bear pain more easily'.² She spoke to each man in turn, questioning them about their wounds, and had intended 'to make some kind of general speech', but she was 'so agitated that it all stuck in [her] throat'.³

She offered the royal yacht as a troopship, money to buy artificial limbs for disabled soldiers, and pensions for the wounded. She urged that they should all be told that 'no one' took a warmer interest in them or felt more for them than she did. She took a particular interest in the quick distribution of medals, a subject which is mentioned in almost every one of her letters to Lord Panmure during the three months before she was able to award them herself to her wounded Guards. 'At first I was so agitated I could hardly hold the medal,' she recorded of this occasion. 'Many of the privates smiled, others hardly dared look up ... Many said, "Thank you, your Majesty", and all touched my hand, the first time that a simple Private has touched the hand of his Sovereign and that - a Queen! - I am proud of the tie which links the lowly brave to his Sovereign. Nothing could exceed the good manners of the men.'⁴

'Day and night' she thought of 'her beloved troops'; and this was quite true. 'What an awful time!' she wrote in her journal. 'I never thought I should have lived to see & feel all this. If only there was more reliable news from the front. If only,' she exclaimed, 'one knew the details!' She did hear of a victory on the Alma river, 'and never,' she wrote, 'in so short a time, has so strong a battery, so well defended, been so bravely & gallantly taken'. Then came news of the heroic charge and destruction of the Light Brigade under the command of the brave and dreadful Lord Cardigan, then of the fearful losses suffered in the battle fought on 5 November 1854 in the fog at Inkerman. 'The victory is no doubt a very brilliant one,' she wrote. 'But I fear dearly bought... what suffering from cold and what privations are already being endured ... The Russians lost in killed, wounded and prisoners, 15,000!! The Guards, however, lost fearfully! The anxiety and uncertainty increase sadly.' It was all so 'heartbreaking'.⁵

She 'never regretted more' that she was a woman and could not go to war with her brave soldiers who were suffering such appalling hardships. 'I assure you,' she told Princess Augusta, 'that I regret exceedingly not to be a man and to be able to fight in the war. My heart bleeds for the many fallen, but I consider that there is no finer death for a man than on the battlefield.'⁶ Particularly did she feel so in a war against the Russians who shamefully abandoned their wounded, did not bury their dead, and shot at 'our soldiers as they were tending' their own wounded men.⁷ Albert might not think so; but she agreed with General Bentinck, the Guards Brigade commander, that the Russians were 'so cruel and savage and fighting in a stupid, dogged way'. With enemies like these it was foolish of the Government to propose a Day of Humiliation and Prayer - prayer, perhaps, but humiliation, certainly not.

She envied Florence Nightingale who had gone out with thirty-eight nurses to organize a military hospital in Scutari. She herself would have liked to 'do so much good and look after the noble brave heroes whose behaviour [was] admirable. Dreadfully wounded as many [were] there [was] never a murmur or a complaint'.⁸

She sent Miss Nightingale a letter of warm thanks with an enamelled and jewelled brooch designed by Prince Albert; and after the war was over she invited her to Balmoral where, in the Prince's words, 'she put before us all that affects our present military hospital system and the reforms that are needed. We are much pleased with her. She is extremely modest.'⁹

So long as the war lasted, the Queen signed the commissions of every officer so that the 'personal connection between the Sovereign and the Army should be preserved'; and she was often to be seen, despatches in hand, studying maps of the theatre of war. General Canrobert, the French commander-in-chief, who met her in August 1855, said that she seemed as familiar with the allied positions in the Crimea as he was himself. Despite her grief at the losses her army suffered, her imagination was stirred by the drama and excitement of war, an emotion which her husband could not share. 'You never saw anyone,' said Lord Panmure to the British commander, Lord Raglan, 'so entirely taken up with military affairs as she is.'¹⁰ 'Whenever any instructions of any importance are sent to Lord Raglan,' she told Panmure, 'the Queen would wish to see them, if possible before they are sent.' She wanted to be 'told everything.¹¹

For this reason she invited Lord Cardigan, a notorious adulterer, to Windsor three weeks after his return to England to give her a first-hand account of the charge of the Light Brigade and of the general situation in the Crimea. He described the charge 'very simply and graphically - very modestly as to his own wonderful heroism - but with evident & very natural satisfaction'.[xxxvi] He repeated his account the next day for the benefit of the royal children and other members of the family.¹²

At the beginning of the war the Queen had had every confidence in Lord Raglan, a kindly, patrician officer who had served as an aide-de-camp to Wellington at Waterloo and had been close to the Duke ever since. She had written grateful and friendly letters to him. 'The Queen's letter is most gracious. It is impossible to be more so,' he had written home to his daughters upon his promotion to field marshal after the battle of Inkerman, 'and Lord Aberdeen's expressions towards me are most flattering. '¹³ But later everything had changed. The Queen's letters were still polite and gracious, but there was in them an undertone of accusation. Writing from Windsor on New Year's Day in 1855, she briefly acknowledged his previous letter, then, without further preliminaries, came straight to the purpose of her own.

The sad privations of the Army, the bad weather and the constant sickness are causes of the deepest concern and anxiety to the Queen and the Prince. The braver her noble Troops are and the more patiently they bear all their trials and sufferings the more miserable we feel at their long continuance.

The Queen trusts that Lord Raglan will be very strict in seeing that no unnecessary privations are incurred by any negligence of those whose duty it is to watch over their wants. The Queen heard that their coffee was given them green instead of its being roasted and several other things of the kind. It has distressed the Queen as she feels so conscious that they should be made as comfortable as circumstances can admit of. The Queen earnestly trusts that the larger amount of warm clothing has not only reached Balaclava but has been distributed and that Lord Raglan has been successful in procuring the means of hutting for the men. Lord Raglan cannot think how much we suffer for the Army and how painfully anxious we are to know that their privations are decreasing...14

Raglan replied at length; but the Queen was not satisfied; and when Lord Panmure sent her a copy of a highly censorious despatch he had written on behalf of the Government, categorizing the Commander-in-Chief's perceived failings, she expressed herself as being 'much pleased with it'. 'Painful as it must be to have to write or receive it,' she wrote to Panmure, 'the truth of everything stated there is undeniable.'¹⁵

At the end of the week the Queen wrote again to return the 'Morning State of the Army in the Crimea' which Panmure had sent her, and to agree with him in expressing 'astonishment at the meagre and unsatisfactory reports from Lord Raglan which contain next to nothing'.¹⁶ This reluctance of Lord Raglan's to use expressions of either enthusiasm or alarm, and his reliance on the bare figures of the 'Morning States' to give the Government the information it required, were a source of real anxiety to the Queen. Her patience, 'indeed she might say nerves', were 'most painfully tried' by it.¹⁷

By this time Lord Aberdeen had resigned as Prime Minister. Before war had been declared he had struggled to keep the peace, endeavouring, in the Queen's words, 'to obtain more from the Emperor of Russia than he is justified in hoping'. And, when war seemed inevitable, he suggested to the Queen that Palmerston would be a far better leader of the Government than he could hope to be. But the Queen objected: she would not feel safe with Palmerston.

'If it comes to being safe,' Lord Aberdeen observed, 'I fear Your Majesty would not be safe with me during war, for I have such a terrible repugnance for it.'

'This will never do,' said the Queen.

'I'm all for patching up, if we can.'

'This is unfortunate.'¹⁸

Lord Aberdeen struggled on for about a year until, in the early hours of 30 January 1855, the House of Commons divided on a heatedly debated motion, moved by John Roebuck, the radical Member for Sheffield, 'that a Select Committee be appointed to enquire into the condition of our Army before Sebastopol, and into the conduct of those Departments of our Government whose duty it has been to minister to the wants of that Army. '¹⁹

Sydney Herbert, the Secretary-at-War, in replying for the Government in the Commons, clearly implied that the whole responsibility for what was happening in the Crimea lay with that 'collection of regiments which called itself the British Army and not with the Government'. 'When you come to the staff,' he said, 'can you expect men who have not only never seen an army in the field but have never seen two regiments banded together, to exhibit an acquaintance with the organization of an army?'²⁰

The House was not impressed by this determined effort to shuffle the whole of the blame on the Army. Mr Roebuck's motion was carried by a two-thirds majority. The next day Lord Aberdeen resigned. The Government had fallen with 'such a whack', as Gladstone, Chancellor of the Exchequer, put it, that 'they could hear their heads thump as they struck the ground'.²¹

Although he was over seventy, Palmerston was the obvious choice as Lord Aberdeen's successor. But the Queen was determined not to have the rude old man whom she and the Prince, translating his name into German, called 'Pilgerstein' as her Prime Minister if she could possibly help it. Having consulted the elderly Lord Lansdowne, a former Lord President of the Council, she sent for Lord Derby; but he refused to take office. She even sent for Lord John Russell, whose resignation from the Government as soon as he had heard of Roebuck's motion had filled her with 'indignation and disgust'. Russell accepted, but he could not find sufficient support. So she was obliged to send for 'Pilgerstein'.

He was deaf and short-sighted, he dyed his hair and had 'false teeth wh[ich] w[ould] fall out of his mouth when speaking if he did not hesitate & halt so much in his talk'.²² But he still had much life and vigour and sound sense in him. And he knew a good deal about the Army. He had been Secretary-at-War when he was twenty-four, and he had worked hard and well in this appointment for nearly twenty years, though earning the dislike of practically all his colleagues and of everyone connected with the Horse Guards. 'It is quite extraordinary,' Mrs Arbuthnot had said, 'how he was detested.'²³

To her surprise and relief the Queen did not find 'Pilgerstein' nearly as troublesome and high-handed as she had expected. He was even quite accommodating: when he proposed that he should appoint Henry Layard, the archaeologist and outspoken liberal Member for Aylesbury, as Under-Secretary for War the Queen objected. Her cousin, the Duke of Cambridge, who had commanded the 1st Division without notable authority at the battle of the Alma, warned her that Layard's appointment would be most unpopular in the Army; while she herself objected to him on the grounds that he was not 'a thorough gentleman'. Evidently prepared to make amends for his tiresome behaviour as Foreign Secretary in the past, Palmerston gave way.

In her relief at finding him so accommodating, the Queen grew quite fond of him. Eventually, indeed, she and the Prince agreed that, of all the Prime Ministers they had had, Lord Palmerston was the one who gave the least trouble. 'He is most amenable to reason,' she added, '& most ready to adopt suggestions. The great danger was foreign affairs, but now these are conducted by an able & impartial man [the Earl of Clarendon] & that [Lord Palmerston] is responsible for the whole, everything is quite different.'²⁴ It was particularly gratifying to her that Palmerston came to have a very high opinion of Prince Albert's talents. 'I had no idea,' Palmerston declared, that he possessed 'such eminent qualities'. He was 'an extraordinary man'; how fortunate it was that the Queen had married 'such a Prince'. In July 1856 she was to reward her reformed and valued Minister with the Order of the Garter.²⁵

Chapter 30 NAPOLEON III

'His lovemaking was of a character to flatter her vanity without alarming her virtue.'

Soon after Lord Palmerston's appointment as Prime Minister, it was decided to invite Britain's ally, the Emperor Napoleon III, to make a state visit to England. He had announced his intention of going to the Crimea himself to take command; and in both London and Paris it was considered necessary to do all that could be done to prevent him undertaking a mission which would be as much of an annoyance to the British Army as it would to the French generals.

Before operations had begun in the Crimea, Prince Albert had been to Boulogne to see the Emperor and had dictated a memorandum about the visit to his secretary. Surprisingly, Napoleon spoke French with a German accent, the result of his having been educated at a gymnasium in Augsburg after his mother had been banished into exile upon the defeat of his uncle, Napoleon I, at Waterloo in 1815. Prince Albert found him humorous and lazy, rather quiet, not very well informed, but quite without pretence. His entourage was undistinguished and seemed afraid of him. He was certainly the 'only man' who had 'any hold on France, relying on the "nom de Napoleon". He does not care for music,' the Prince added with some disapproval, 'smokes a great many cigarettes [which the Prince refused], was proud of his horsemanship in which [the Prince] could discover nothing remarkable'.¹

The Queen - who had confessed that she was 'really upset' at having to part with her husband, though he was away for only three days - was reassured by her husband's report. She had heard other far less favourable accounts of the Emperor, and had been horrified when the French Ambassador, Count Walewski, had made it known that his master wished to marry the seventeen-year-old Princess Adelaide of Hohenlohe, daughter of Queen Victoria's beloved half-sister, Princess Feodora. Relieved beyond measure when Princess Adelaide refused the Emperor's offer, the Queen wrote to her half-sister:

Now that this terrible affair about our dear Ada has been decided by herself - I can write to you what I have felt ... Your dear child is saved from ruin of every possible sort. You know what he is, what his moral character is - (without thinking him devoid of good qualities and even valuable ones) what his entourage is, how thoroughly immoral France and French society are - hardly looking at what is wrong as more than fashionable and natural - you know how very insecure his position is - you know his age, that his health is indifferent, and naturally his wish to marry Ada [is] merely a political one, for he has never seen her ... I ask you if you can imagine for a moment anything more awful than the fate of that sweet innocent child.2

Ten days after this letter was written the Emperor announced that he was to marry instead a Spanish lady of twenty-seven, Eugenie de Montijo, who lived in Paris for much of the year. This, in the Queen's opinion, was a much more suitable match. The woman was beautiful by all accounts and, while not born or brought up to be an Empress, she was said to have charm and intelligence. When her engagement to the Emperor was announced, one of her admirers had committed suicide and she herself had attempted to kill herself when another suitor had proposed marriage to her sister instead of to herself. Yet, if she was an adventuress, so was he an adventurer. 'Had the lady been unexceptionable in character and conduct and had she been French,' Lord John Russell, at that time Foreign Secretary in Lord Aberdeen's Administration, had observed to the Queen, 'it would perhaps have been the best decision the Emperor could take. As it is, the character of the Court will not be improved, and the best part of France will keep away from it.'³

There were those who thought the English Court would have been well advised to keep clear of both the Emperor and Empress. But the Queen was determined to ensure that his visit to her country was a success. The day before their arrival she inspected the suite of rooms in Windsor Castle which had been prepared for them, noting with approval the new carpets, the regilded furniture, the bright colours, the embroidered monograms on the bed curtains, the dressing table on which her own gold toilet set was to be placed.

The next day, 16 April 1855, she awaited their arrival with anxiety. 'These great meetings of sovereigns,' she thought, were 'always very agitating'. But once the Emperor had walked into the Castle her nervousness began to disappear. She received him at the State Entrance while a band played the music of a song, made popular by the French Army, which had been written by the Emperor's mother, Hortense de Beauharnais Bonaparte, step-daughter of Napoleon I. 'I cannot say what indescribable emotion filled me,' the Queen recorded, having overcome her nervous apprehension, 'how much all seemed like a wonderful dream. I advanced and embraced the Emperor, who received two salutes on either cheek from me ... I next embraced the very gentle graceful and evidently very nervous Empress.' She then presented her two eldest children, first Vicky, the Princess Royal, who, 'with very alarmed eyes', made 'low curtsies', then Bertie, the Prince of Wales, whom the Emperor embraced.⁴

At dinner in St George's Hall - before which the Empress's high-spirited ladies could be heard laughing and shouting to each other through their open doors and across the corridors - the Emperor lost no time in bringing up the subject of his proposed visit to the Crimea, blaming his generals for their reluctance to assume the responsibility which he would take when he got there. But what a long way to go from France, the Queen observed, and what of the dangers when he arrived? As to that, he replied, there were dangers everywhere.

Dinner was followed by a ball in the Waterloo Chamber, tactfully known that evening as the Picture Gallery. And how it excited the Queen to think that she, 'the granddaughter of George III, should dance with the Emperor Napoleon, nephew of our great enemy, now my nearest and most intimate ally!'⁵ Making one of his rather heavy jokes, Prince Albert had said that he would have to see that the necessary precautions were taken in the crypt of St George's Chapel in case, upon the arrival of a Bonaparte as guest at Windsor, George III should turn in his grave.⁶

Over the next few days there were concerts and operas and military reviews, drives in the sunshine through the London streets to cheers for the Queen and cockney shouts of "Vive le Hemperor!', and a ceremony at which Prince Albert seemed to take 'longer than usual' to tie the Garter round the leg of the Emperor, who put his wrong arm through the Order's ribbon. With every hour she spent in his company, the deeper the Queen fell under the insinuating charm of her seductive guest. It had to be conceded that his appearance was far from prepossessing; his head was too big for a very short body; a small, black, rather disconcerting tuft of hair grew beneath his lower lip, a style of beard already known as imperial. Yet he went out of his way to please her, to flatter her, to address her in an excitingly bewildering manner that stopped just carefully short of outright flirtation. It was 'very extraordinary and unaccountable', she told Lord Clarendon with naivety, that he seemed to know so much about her. 'He even recollects how I was dressed,' she said, 'and a thousand little details it is extraordinary he should be acquainted with.' On hearing this, Clarendon said to himself, 'Le Coquin! He has evidently been making love to her.'⁷ His 'lovemaking was of a character to flatter her vanity without alarming her virtue'.⁸

The Emperor's voice was 'low & soft', his manner 'easy, quiet and dignified', 'so very good natured and unassuming and natural'. There was 'something fascinating, melancholy and engaging' about him which drew you to him. He made her feel that she was physically attractive to him in a manner to which she was quite unaccustomed; yet, at the same time, she felt that she could say anything she liked to him because, as she put it, 'I felt - I do not know how to express it - safe with him.'⁹

He was, indeed, she was soon to decide, a 'very extraordinary man with great qualities ... wonderful self-control, great calmness, even gentleness' and a 'great power of fascination... as unlike a Frenchman as possible, being much more German than French in character'. She might almost say he was 'a mysterious man ... possessed of indomitable courage, unflinching firmness of purpose, self-reliance, perseverance and great secrecy; to which should be added a great reliance on what he called his star and a belief in omens and incidents as connected with his future destiny'.¹⁰ He observed, for example, that the initials of his host and hostess and their guests spelled NEVA, the river that flows through St Petersburg, but what exactly this was intended to indicate he did not say."

The Queen was much taken also by the Empress, a 'charming lovable creature', so 'lively & talkative', so good-looking, so demure, so graceful, so elegant in her crinoline that even Albert admired her. 'Altogether I am delighted to see how much he likes and admires her,' the Queen wrote, 'as it is so seldom I see him do so with any woman."² The Empress and the Queen found they could talk to each other in the friendliest way, so the Queen was able to bring up the vexed question of the Emperor's proposed command in the Crimea and to suggest, as she already had suggested to the Emperor himself, that his life should not be endangered by such an adventure. She was able to make the same point at a meeting at Buckingham Palace following one at Windsor attended by Prince Albert, the French and British Ambassadors and various Ministers and generals, all of whom, as Lord Panmure said, 'seemed to arrive at one opinion as to the inexpediency of the Emperor's going' to the Crimea.

A few days later, after his return to Paris, the Emperor wrote to thank the Queen for her kindness and to tell her that 'in view of the difficulties' which he found there, he was on the point of abandoning his plans to take over the command of his army. He added that he was looking forward to welcoming the Queen and the Prince to Paris in August during the Paris Exhibition.

The Queen, too, was looking forward to this visit. Since the Emperor's departure, she confided in Stockmar, she had been able to 'think and talk of nothing else other than his visit to England'. He was such a 'wonderful and remarkable man ... The Prince, tho' less enthusiastic than I am, I can see well, shares this feeling. It is very reciprocal on the Emperor's part.'¹³

The Queen and the Prince and their two elder children, the Prince of Wales, then aged thirteen, and the Princess Royal who was fourteen, arrived in Paris at the Gare de Strasbourg on the evening of 18 August 1855, two days after the French army, acting independently of the British, had decisively defeated the Russians on the banks of the Tchernaya. The streets from the railway station to the Champs Elysees were lined with thousands of soldiers, amongst them a regiment of Zouaves in their splendid uniforms with baggy red trousers, friends, so the Queen noted, of her 'dear Guards'. As the crowds shouted their welcome, bands played and cannon roared in the darkening distance. The Queen felt 'quite bewildered but enchanted'. It was 'like a fairy tale, and everything so beautiful'.¹⁴

She was driven to the royal chateau of Saint Cloud, where the rooms prepared for her use had been redecorated in white and gold and the legs of a table which had been made for Queen Marie Antoinette had been specially cut short so that she could sit at it comfortably. There were Gobelin tapestries on the walls; beneath her balcony fountains played in the garden. She was 'delighted, enchanted': Paris was more 'beautiful' than any other city she had seen.¹⁵

She was taken to the Tuileries, the Palais de l'Elysee, the Hotel de Ville, to the Sainte Chapelle and Notre Dame, Malmaison, the Palais de Saint Germain and to the Louvre, marching from one treasure to the next, for once untroubled by the heat which made a member of the Emperor's suite declare that he would give everything, everything 'la Venus de Milo incluse, pour un verre de limonade'. Her determination to miss nothing led Lord Clarendon, the Foreign Secretary, to observe resignedly that no royal personage ever known to history rivalled her 'indefatigability'.¹⁶

She was taken to Versailles to luncheon at the Petit Trianon, that delightful little pavilion of honey-coloured stone designed for Madame de Pompadour, King Louis XV's entertaining mistress. She was driven through the city incognito in a fiacre, passing houses and cafes outside which people sat drinking and talking in the sunshine. She heard a voice cry out 'Celle-la ressemble bien a la Reine d'Angleterre', and was quite put out that she was not recognized. 'They do not seem to know who I am,' she said rather huffily. There was no mistaking her, though, despite the black veil that covered her face. As in Brussels, so in Paris, she was dressed as if in defiance of fashion. On occasions she wore an unsightly gown with a straw bonnet perched on her head, carrying a huge handbag, 'a voluminous object like one of our grandmother's', as General Canrobert described it, 'made of white satin or silk on which was embroidered a poodle in gold'. 'When she put her foot on the steps she lifted her skirt which was very short (in the English fashion I was told) and I saw that she had on small slippers tied with black ribbons which were crossed round her ankles.' At other times she appeared in a 'shocking toilette', a white flounced gown topped with 'a crude green' mantle, and, 'in spite of the great heat, a massive bonnet of white silk ... with streamers behind and a tuft of marabout [sic] feathers on top ... Her dress was white and flounced; but she had a mantle and sunshade of a crude green which did not go with the rest of her costume."⁷

The Emperor, however, contrived to appear quite impervious to the Queen's dowdiness. At a grand ball at Versailles at which the Empress appeared, tall and radiant in a white crinoline brilliant with diamonds, he went up to the Queen and murmured admiringly 'Comme tu es belle!' He danced a waltz with her, so she said, 'very quietly'. It was an extraordinary evening. There were flowers everywhere, hanging from the ceilings, draped across the looking-glasses, covering the music stands of the hundreds of musicians. The fireworks display, the most brilliant the Queen had ever seen, had for its finale a set piece of the towers and walls of Windsor Castle exploding into light. At the splendid supper afterwards, 'The whole stage was covered in,' the Queen recalled, 'and four hundred people sat down at forty small tables.'¹⁸

A most moving scene was enacted in the Hotel des Invalides where the ashes of Napoleon I, brought back from exile on the island of St Helena, lay in a coffin in the Chapel of St Jerome awaiting burial in the crypt. As thunder roared and rain poured down in the Place Vauban outside, the Queen was deeply moved by the solemnity of the occasion. She told the Prince of Wales to kneel down by the coffin; and the sight of the small boy paying homage in the candlelight to his country's former enemy as a band played 'God Save the Queen', brought tears to the eyes of the French generals in attendance. 'Strange and wonderful indeed,' commented the Queen. 'It seems as if in this tribute of respect to a departed foe, old enmities and rivalries were wiped out, and the seal of Heaven placed upon that bond of unity, which is now happily established between two great and powerful nations.'¹⁹

The Prince of Wales had never enjoyed himself more, even though Lord Clarendon, who had been instructed to keep an eye on him and tell him how to behave, thought his mother's severity was 'very injudicious'.²⁰ Certainly the boy was constantly asking questions while rarely giving his full attention to the answers; but his manners and behaviour were perfectly respectable, though on occasions rather pert and opinionated. One day, as they were riding together in a carriage, Clarendon had been obliged to contradict something the Prince had said; but the Prince, quite unabashed, had riposted, 'At all events that is my opinion.' To this Clarendon had sharply replied, 'Then your Royal Highness's opinion is quite wrong.' The rebuke had seemed to surprise the Prince a good deal.²¹

For most of the time, however, the Prince had been serenely happy, intoxicated by the sight of a city he was to grow to love, the pretty, beautifully dressed ladies in the Tuileries, the brilliant fireworks at Ver sailles. He hero-worshipped the romantic and mysterious Emperor to whom he had confided one afternoon, 'You have a nice country. I should like to be your son.'²² He adored the Empress Eugenie, too, and pleaded with her to let him and his sister stay behind in Paris for a few days on their own. The Empress replied that she was afraid that the Queen and Prince Albert could not do without them. 'Not do without us!' the Prince protested. 'Don't fancy that, for there are six more of us at home, and they don't want us.'²³

When it was time for them to leave, the Contesse d' Armaille noticed the way the Prince looked intently all around him at the Gare de Strasbourg 'as though anxious to lose nothing' of his last moments in the city. As for the Queen, she had also relished every minute of the visit, obviously 'delighted, enchanted, amused and interested' in all and by all that she had seen and done. She had made sure that it was a great diplomatic success, while returning to England with 'feelings of real affection for and interest in France'. Skittishly, she told the Emperor that she would come back next year as an ordinary traveller. Bag in hand, she would jump out of the train, catch a cab and arrive at the Tuileries in time for dinner.²⁴

The Princess Royal also had much enjoyed herself and, like her brother, she had conceived a passion for the Empress who was so elegantly dressed by the English-born fashion designer, Charles Frederick Worth; and, having seen for herself on her earlier visit to England that Queen Victoria had no dress sense, the Empress had had a number of dresses sent to Windsor for Vicky to wear in Paris, all made to the measurements of a life-size doll belonging to the Princess, and sent in parcels to Windsor addressed to the doll. Before Vicky left, she was given a bracelet of rubies and diamonds containing strands of the Empress's hair. The Princess, sent into 'ecstasies' by the present, burst into tears.²⁵

Chapter 31 THE PRINCESS ROYAL

'I must write down at once what has happened - what I feel & how grateful I am to God for one of the happiest days of my life!' the Queen wrote at Balmoral on 29 September 1855, soon after her return from Paris.¹ For days past she had been expecting to hear the news which so much excited her, since on the twentieth of the month Prince Frederick William of Prussia had asked Prince Albert if he might propose to the Princess Royal. The Queen had feared he might not do so, that he would not find her daughter sufficiently attractive: as Lord Clarendon said, she was 'always finding fault with her daughter's looks, and complaining of her being ugly and coarse'.²

Prince Albert had no hesitation in giving his permission for the proposal to be made. Long harbouring a distrust of France, he had consistently advocated closer ties with what he hoped would one day soon be a liberal Germany, unified under the leadership of Prussia. Besides, Prince Frederick - Fritz, as he was known in the family - was a pleasant, well-intentioned young man, 'unaffected and amiable' in the Queen's words and moreover (always a strong recommendation to her) handsome, as well as tall and broad-shouldered. Of course, Vicky could not marry until she was at least seventeen and that would not be for another three years; but there could be no harm in an engagement. Prince Frederick was twenty-four and had, he said, hoped that he would be able one day to marry Vicky ever since he had first seen her when she was no more than ten. At Balmoral that autumn of 1855, having made his hopes formally known to her parents, he said that his 'great wish' was to belong to their family by a marriage to their 'so sweet and charming, so clever and natural' eldest child. The Queen, overcome with emotion, could only squeeze Prince Frederick's hand, while Prince Albert assured him that they would give their child to him with 'complete confidence'.³ For the moment nothing was to be said publicly, only a few members of their families being told and no Ministers officially being informed other than Lord Palmerston and the Foreign Secretary, Lord Clarendon, both of whom warmly approved of a union which they thought 'politically of great importance'. The London newspapers and periodicals did not, however, all agree with them when the engagement became known. Prussia, a relatively insignificant power, and the Hohenzollerns, one of many 'paltry German dynasties', were unworthy of an English Princess.⁴ Moreover, Prussia had close ties with Russia and had shown no sympathy for England over the war in the Crimea. The Princess Royal might well find herself in a position in which devotion to her husband might be treason to her country. Punch wrote of a 'very suspicious looking eagle', a 'bird of ill-omen', having been seen hovering about Balmoral and having an eye on Her Majesty's dovecote.⁵

The eagle had fluttered rather than swooped down upon the dove during a ride on ponies to Craig-na-Ban. Fritz declared his love for Vicky, after having picked her a sprig of white heather which he said was an emblem of good luck. 'He began to speak of Germany', the Queen was told, 'his hope that she would come there and stay there ... She answered that she would be happy to stay there for a year; he added he hoped that always, always - on wh. she became very red - he continued, he hoped he had said nothing which annoyed her - to which she replied "oh! no," - he added might he tell her Parents, wh. she then expressed a wish to do herself. He then shook hands with her - said this was one of the happiest days of his life'.⁶

When Vicky rejoined her parents, Fritz, so the Queen said, 'gave me a wink, implying that he had said something to Vicky, and she was extremely agitated and nervous'. Later, in her room, the Queen asked Vicky if she felt the same about Fritz as he did about her. "Oh, yes," she said eagerly, with an indescribably happy look ... "I am very fond of the Prince." ... Albert came in to say that Fritz was there - & I took her in. She was nervous but did not hesitate or falter in giving her very decided answer ... He kissed her hand twice and ... she threw herself into his arms, & kissed him with a warmth which was responded to by Fritz again and again & I would not for the world have missed so touching and beautiful a sight ... It is his first love! Vicky's great youth makes it even more striking but she behaved as a girl of 18 would ... To witness that dear child's innocent joy - to see the happiness of two such dear, pure young Beings - is more happiness than I cd. ever have expected.'⁷

Prince Frederick's happiness was somewhat marred, however, by the Queen's insistence that when he and the Princess Royal were alone together - and this did not often happen - she herself should sit in the next room and the door between them should be left open. She later decided that perhaps she had been 'severer than she ought to have been'.⁸

While the Royal Family were at Balmoral that September, a telegraphic despatch arrived with news from General Simpson, who had succeeded to the command of the British Army in the Crimea on the death there of Lord Raglan. The message read, 'Sevastopol is in the hands of the Allies.'

Albert said they should go at once and light the bonfire which had been prepared when the false report of the fall of the town arrived last year, and had remained ever since, waiting to be lit ... In a few minutes Albert, and all the gentlemen, in every species of attire, sallied forth, followed by all the servants, and gradually by all the population of the village - keepers, gillies, workmen - up to the top of the cairn. We waited, and saw them light it, accompanied by general cheering. The bonfire blazed forth brilliantly, and we could see the numerous figures surrounding it - some dancing, all shouting ... Albert came down and said the scene [which he described as a 'veritable Witch's dance'] had been wild and exciting beyond everything - The people had been drinking healths in whiskey, and were in great ecstasy.9

It was a French victory, though, not an allied one. The British soldiers, mostly raw recruits or old soldiers whose nerve had long since been shattered, had come to a halt at the foot of the defensive works and, under intensive fire, had refused to go forward; while the French, whose losses were almost three times as heavy, seized and clung on to the Malakoff redoubt until the Russian commander decided he could no longer hold Sebastopol which was by then a smoking ruin.

When she heard the details of her army's failure and disgrace, the Queen expressed her deep regret that the war should end on so shameful a note, while Palmerston, well aware that France, having vindicated her military honour, now longed for peace, declared that he would rather continue fighting with no other ally than Turkey than agree to unsatisfactory terms. 'I own that peace rather sticks in my throat,' the Queen confessed, '& so it does in that of the whole Nation.'¹⁰

She liked to think of herself as a soldier's child; and while the peace negotiations were making laborious progress, she kept as closely in touch as she could with her army, welcoming home soldiers returning from the Crimea, visiting the wounded, reviewing parades of recruits. She attended a field day at Aldershot and found it 'so exciting', never having been 'so completely in anything of this kind before'. A few weeks later, she reviewed a parade of troops, appearing before them in a new military tunic of scarlet and gold, a crimson and gold sash, a blue skirt with white piping and a hat with a red and white plume and golden tassels, and looking far smarter than ever she did in civilian clothes. The following month she was in military attire again, sitting on a horse named Alma and reviewing the largest force of British soldiers 'assembled in England since the battle of Worcester' in 1651.

By then the protracted peace negotiations had at last been concluded by the Peace of Paris of 30 March 1856, a treaty so generally unpopular in England that the heralds who announced it in London were hissed at Temple Bar. Relations between France, whose army had so single-handedly secured the final victory, and Britain, whose military reputation had been so shamefully besmirched, went from bad to worse until, on 14 January 1858, there was an outrage in Paris which threatened to break them off altogether.

As the Emperor and Empress were driving to the opera on the evening of that day, three bombs were hurled at their carriage and in the explosion, which sent the glass canopy of the Opera House crashing into the rue Lepelletier, extinguishing all its lights, ten people and two horses were killed, the Emperor and Empress escaping with cut faces.

'The noise and cries were dreadful, as well as the rush of the crowd, many bleeding,' Queen Victoria wrote, having been told what had happened by Prince Albert's brother, Ernest, who was in the Emperor's box waiting for the performance to begin. 'The Empress's dress was splashed with blood from the wounded around her ... [She was] wonderfully composed and courageous, even more so than the Emperor. [She told the police, 'Don't bother about us, such things are our profession. Look after the wounded.'] They remained throughout the performance. '¹¹

Several attempts on the Emperor's life had already been made. 'You know,' he had said to his friend, Lord Malmesbury, when he had been in England three years before, 'I am neither fanciful, nor timid, but I give you my word of honour that three men have been successively arrested within fifty yards of me armed with daggers and pistols ... These men all came straight from England, and had not been twelve hours in France. Your police should have known it and given me notice.'¹²

He now had further cause for complaint, since the man responsible for this latest attempt on the Emperor's life was an emotionally disturbed Italian count, Felice Orsini, who had been welcomed in England as a champion of his country's freedom from Austrian control, a cause which he believed might be furthered by provoking a revolution in France that would spread to Italy.

The French were outraged to learn that not only had Orsini been greeted as a hero in England - where his published accounts of his life as agent of the revolutionary, Giuseppe Mazzini, had been widely read and admired - but also that the bombs which he and two accomplices had hurled at the Emperor's carriage had been manufactured in Birmingham. Count Walewski, the French Foreign Minister, complained of such dangerous men as Orsini being harboured in England, while there were calls from French army officers for an invasion of England to prevent such protection of revolutionaries in the future. Lord Granville observed, 'The accounts from France are very bad. A war with France would not surprise me.'¹³ Palmerston ignored the French Ambassador's letter; but his Government did introduce into the House of Commons a Bill intended to strengthen the law relating to conspiracy. Resentment in England about anti-British sentiments in France led to the Conspiracy to Murder Bill being defeated, however, and to the fall of the Government.¹⁴

Ten days before Orsini's attempt on the Emperor Napoleon's life, the Princess Royal had been married to Prince Frederick of Prussia in the Chapel Royal, St James's, where the Queen herself had been married. 'I felt as if I were being married over again,' the Queen wrote, 'only much more nervous.'¹⁵ So nervous was she, indeed, that in a daguerreotype of the bride and her parents taken before the ceremony her features were reduced to a blur by her trembling. She feared that she might break down in the Chapel. Once there, however, she recovered her composure; and, having noted that the bridegroom was very pale and seemed as nervous as the Archbishop of Canterbury as he waited at the altar, she was proud to see 'our darling flower' looking 'very touching and lovely with such an innocent, confident and serious expression' as she approached him, 'her veil hanging back over her shoulders, walking between her beloved father and dearest Uncle Leopold'.¹⁶

Afterwards, when the Princess went up to the Throne Room to sign the register, dry-eyed and holding her husband's hand, as Mendelssohn's 'Wedding March' was played on the organ, the Queen was 'so moved, so overjoyed and so relieved' that she felt she could have 'embraced everybody'. The next day, having watched her child acknowledging the cheers of the crowd from the balcony of Buckingham Palace - and having enjoyed the wedding breakfast even though the Princess was hidden from her view behind a gigantic wedding cake - she felt quite sad that 'all was over': it had all been 'so brilliant, so satisfactory'.¹⁷

That evening, after the bride and bridegroom had driven off for a brief honeymoon at Windsor Castle, where, on the first evening after dinner, they sat 'almost too shy to talk to one another', the Queen felt 'so lost without Vicky'. She was, therefore, much relieved to receive a letter from her to which she replied immediately, telling her how well she had behaved and how happy her parents were to think that she was now 'in other but truly safe and loving hands'. It had been difficult for the Queen, possessive as she was, to accept that she must now put her 'maternal feelings aside' if she was 'not to be very jealous'. It was an 'awful moment to have to give one's innocent child up to a man', knowing 'all that she must go through'.¹⁸

'That thought - that agonizing thought ... of giving up your own child, from whom all has been so carefully kept & guarded, to a stranger to do unto her as he likes, is to me the most torturing thought in the world,' she wrote to her daughter years later. 'While I feel no girl could go to the altar (and would probably refuse) if she knew all, there is something VERY DREADFUL in the thought of the sort of trap she is being led into.'¹⁹

Four days after the wedding, the parents had to say goodbye to their child. The prospect of parting on that 'dull, still, thick morning' made the Queen feel quite 'sick at heart'. The night before, when she and Prince Albert had gone with her to her room, Vicky had 'cried so much'; and her mother had said to her husband on their way back to their own room that it was 'like taking a poor lamb to be sacrificed'. 'It really makes me shudder,' she later told Vicky, 'when I look round at all your sweet, happy, unconscious sisters, and think I must give them up too - one by one.' Now, her 'breaking heart gave way'; and she wept helplessly as they stood at the carriage door. Vicky who, in her own words, loved her parents 'so passionately, so intensely', cried too, holding her mother in her arms; and there were tears also in Fritz's eyes.²⁰

The next day Vicky, who had told her mother that she thought it would kill her 'to take leave of dear Papa', wrote him a loving letter:

My beloved Papa,

The pain of parting from you yesterday was greater than I can describe. I thought my heart was going to break ... I miss you so dreadfully, dear Papa, more than I can say; your dear picture stood near me all night, it was a comfort to me to think that I had even that near me. I meant to have said so much yesterday, but my heart was too full for words. I should have liked to have thanked you for all that you have done for me. To you, dear Papa, I owe most in this world. I shall never forget the advice it has been my privilege to hear from you at different times, I treasure your words up in my heart...

I feel that writing to you does me good, dear Papa; I feel that I am speaking to you, and though the feeling that I cannot see you or hear your dear voice in return makes the tears rise to my eyes, yet I am thankful that this is left to me. Goodbye, dearest Papa -I must end. Your most dutiful and affectionate daughter, Victoria.21

That same day her father had written to her, his favourite child:

My heart was very full when yesterday you leaned your forehead on my breast to give free vent to your tears. I am not of a demonstrative nature, and therefore you can hardly know how dear you have always been to me, and what a void you have left behind in my heart: yet not in my heart, for there assuredly you will abide henceforth, as til] now you have done, but in my daily life, which is evermore reminding my heart of your absence.22

In the lessons he had given her after her engagement he had made it plain what his daughter's duty as the Crown Princess - and, no doubt, eventually Kaiserin - was to be the gradual liberalization of Prussia and the unity of the German states under Prussia and in alliance with the England which she loved. 'I feel I am serving you both,' she told her parents a few days after her arrival in what was to be her new home, 'and that I am proving my deep gratitude to you. In doing my duty here, and in imitating your great and glorious example, I may I hope be of real use to you.'²³

This is just what Otto von Bismarck, the future German Chancellor, feared. 'You ask me ... what I think of the English marriage,' he replied to a letter from General Leopold von Gerlach. 'The "English" in it does not please me ... If the Princess can leave the Englishwoman at home and become a Prussian, then she may be a blessing to the country ... But ... if our future Queen remains even only partly English, I can see our Court in danger of being surrounded by English influence.'²⁴

'Poor dear child,' the Queen wrote, 'I often tremble when I think how much is expected of her ... I do not like the idea now of our Child going to Berlin, more or less the enemy's den.'²⁵

She comforted herself by writing to her at least twice a week, and receiving in return letters which, nearly as long, arrived in England almost as frequently. In the years between 1858 and 1901, a total of almost eight thousand surviving letters passed between them.²⁶ The Queen's letters, affectionate, candid, detailed, are replete with unsolicited advice and occasional reprimands, as though her daughter remained the seventeen-year-old girl who had left home so soon after her marriage. 'You have not written me one single word, for more than a week!!' one letter begins. 'Now let this not happen again promise me and answer this.'²⁷ 'I asked you several questions,' another letter reminded her, 'and you have not answered one! You should just simply and shortly answer them one by one and then there could be no mistake about them. My good dear child is a little unmethodical and unpunctual.'²⁸

She must always be tidy in appearance and avoid loud laughter; 'remember never to lose the modesty of a young girl towards others (without being a prude)'; she should protest against the rude jokes of the King's brother, Prince Charles, 'or at least not speak to him, if he gets on such abominable subjects, but be very stiff and reserved'; she must avoid high-heeled boots and 'fearfully full sleeves - for God's sake take care or you will set yourself on fire'. Repeatedly, she is also warned against over-heated, unwholesome rooms, so bad for the health, and against being too lazy to look at thermometers and to open windows. Her mother hoped that she was 'not getting fat again' - 'do avoid eating soft, pappy things or drinking much' - and that she would consult an English dentist - 'German dentists are not famous and German teeth so bad.'

She was to take no notice of the 'extraordinary' German convention that pregnant women should not stand as godmothers; nor was she to follow the German custom of 'lying in a dressing gown on a sofa at a christening'; she must promise her mother 'never to do so improper and indecorous a thing ... Let German ladies do as they like but the English Princess must not.'

Vicky must not try to paint in oils - 'you remember what Papa told you on the subject. Amateurs never can paint in oils like artists and what can one do with all one's productions? Whereas water colours always are nice and pleasant to keep in books or portfolios.' Vicky must correct her careless spelling and her use of unnecessary capital letters as well as remember to number her letters properly. Also, when writing at her desk, she must sit up straight - 'remember how straight I always sit, which enables me to write without fatigue at all times.' She was 'almost angry' when her daughter referred to 'dear, dear Windsor' when she herself was in residence there and 'struggling with homesickness' for her 'beloved Highlands'. She could not, she said, 'feel the slightest affection for this old dull place, which please God shall never hold my bones, I think I dislike it more and more ... You don't say a word about all the affectionate speeches of those dear people at Balmoral, which I write to you about.'²⁹

In another letter she wrote of her surprise on learning that her daughter had been to see The Merry Wives of Windsor, she herself had 'never had courage to go to see it'. She had, she said, 'always been told how very coarse it was - for your adored Shakespeare is dreadful in that respect and many things have to be left out in many of his plays'. The Queen had also been surprised to read in one of her daughter's previous letters that she thought Ada, the daughter of Princess Hohenlohe, must be 'glad' at being pregnant again.

How can anyone, who has not been married above two years and three quarters rejoice at being a third time in that condition? [she continued, warming to a favourite and perennial theme] I positively think those ladies who are always enceinte quite disgusting; it is more like a rabbit or a guinea-pig than anything else and really it is not very nice ... Let me repeat once more, dear, that it is very bad for any person to have them very fast - and that the poor children suffer for it even more, not to speak of the ruin it is to the looks of a young woman - which she must not neglect for her husband's sake, particularly when she is a Princess.30

Chapter 32 INDIAN MUTINY

Hostilities in the Crimea had not long been formally concluded when news reached London of renewed fighting; this time in India, where for some time now unrest had been fostered by the agents of princes dispossessed by the British, and by agitators, troublemakers, fakirs, maulvis, and men who had cause to resent the rule of the subcontinent by the East India Company, the British Government's representative in the civil administration of India, which was also responsible for the armies of native infantrymen and cavalrymen, sepoys and sowars, maintained by the three Presidencies: Bengal, Madras and Bombay. Villagers collected to hear warnings of the designs of the firinghis (the foreigners who, so they were told, were bent on destroying their faith), and to listen to prophecies that the British would be forced to leave India in 1857, the hundredth anniversary of the defeat of Siraj-ud-Dawlah's forces by the East India Company's army under Robert Clive at Plassey. Sepoys were assured that the British were not invincible; that, following the Crimean War, Russia had conquered and annexed England; and that, since their country's population was less than a hundred thousand, the English could not - even if the Russians let them - reinforce their own regiments, known as the Queen's Regiments, in India. They were told that Lord Canning, the recently appointed Governor-General, had been sent out with the express purpose of converting them to Christianity, and that the widows of soldiers killed in the Crimean War were being shipped out to India where the principal land-holders would be compelled to marry them so that their estates would eventually fall into Christian hands. Sepoys were also told that the new cartridges issued for their rifles were greased with beef fat or pig fat and thus intended to defile them and destroy their caste.

These fears erupted into violence on 10 May 1857 at Meerut where men of a native regiment, the 3rd Light Cavalry, had refused to handle the new cartridges and had consequently been sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour, for ten years. After this punishment had been pronounced upon them at a parade of all the troops at Meerut, their uniforms were stripped from them, their boots removed and their ankles shackled. The next day the native troops mutinied; British officers and their wives were killed either by sepoys or by budmashes from the bazaar; and soon the uproar spread all over the Ganges valley: Delhi and nearby towns were seized by the mutineers.¹

The Queen, who had long been fascinated by India and proud of it as the 'jewel in her crown', was appalled to read reports of what was happening there. 'We are in sad anxiety about India, which engrosses all our attention,' she told King Leopold. 'I know you feel much for us all. There is not a family hardly who is not in sorrow and anxiety about their children, and in all ranks - India being the place where everyone was anxious to place a son!'

Her thoughts, she told Lady Canning, were 'almost solely occupied with India'; and she urged Palmerston and his Government to display a more urgent sense of the gravity of the mutiny. 'The Queen must repeat to Lord Palmerston,' she wrote soon after learning of the murders at Meerut, 'that the measures taken by the Government are not commensurate with the magnitude of the crisis.' She and the Prince, so he said, had to be 'constantly digging [their] spurs' into the Government's side.²

The Queen read of such tragedies as the massacre of the women and children at Cawnpore with horror: they made 'one's blood run cold'; they haunted her 'day and night'. 'The horrors' of Cawnpore 'surpass all belief, she wrote, '& it was a great mercy all were killed!' Yet, 'It shd. never have been made known, for that no good can be done any more, & it can only distract for life the unhappy relations'.³

She read with equal horror of the reprisals exacted upon the rebels, the mass executions, the firing of mutineers' bodies from the mouths of cannon, the cries for more and more bloody revenge, the disgraceful attacks upon Lord Canning, now derisively known in India as 'Clemency' Canning, who refused to give way to persistent demands that even harsher punishments should be imposed upon captured rebels, that, in the words of one Assistant Commissioner, they should 'all be shot like dogs'.⁴

'There is a rabid and indiscriminate vindictiveness abroad, even among men who ought to set a better example, which it is impossible to contemplate without a feeling of shame for one's own countrymen,' Lord Canning wrote to the Queen. 'Not one man in ten seems to think that the hanging and shooting of forty thousand or fifty thousand men can be otherwise than practicable and right.'⁵

The Queen was entirely in agreement with the Governor-General. She considered the shouts for a bloody revenge 'too horrible and really quite shameful'. There must, of course, be suitable punishment for the perpetrators of these 'awful horrors', but the 'greatest kindness' should be shown to the 'many kind and friendly natives' who had helped the British. 'They should know that there is no hatred to a brown skin - none; but the greatest wish on the Queen's part to see them happy, contented and flourishing.'

'Justice, and that as stern and inflexible as law and might can make it, I will deal out,' Canning told Lord Granville, Lord President of the Council. 'But I will never allow an angry or indiscriminate act or word to proceed from the Government of India as long as I am responsible for it.'⁶

In this spirit he firmly refused to agree to accept a petition suggesting that martial law should be proclaimed throughout Bengal; and, to the satisfaction of the Queen and the Prince, he passed a resolution to ensure that captured sepoys should not be punished without regard to the gravity of their offences. Such compassion seemed misplaced to most Europeans in Calcutta; they petitioned the Queen for the recall of the Governor-General who, they contended, was no fit person to deal with the monsters who had perpetrated the horrors witnessed in India. But the Queen was not impressed by the petition. She knew that Canning was well aware of the dangers of racial animosity and she recognized that stern justice for the rebels had to be tempered with understanding of their fears. 'I think that the greatest care ought to be taken not to interfere with their religion,' she told Lady Canning, 'as once a cry of that kind is raised among a fanatical people - very strictly attached to their religion - there is no knowing what it may lead to and where it may end.'⁷ She was entirely in agreement with the Governor-General and his supporters that what was needed now was a spirit of reconciliation, not retribution, and that the friendship of the Indian people was to be sought, not their enforced submission. After all, the rebellion had affected only a small part of the country and the mutiny had been largely confined to various regiments in Bengal; many disarmed sepoys had returned quietly to their homes; and thousands of Indian soldiers and camp followers had fought with the British, who could not have survived without their support.

On 1 November 1858, preceded by military salutes and followed by thanksgiving services and firework displays, a proclamation had been read out at every military cantonment in India. The document declared that the East India Company had been abolished, that the Queen and her Government now ruled India directly, that religious toleration would be observed and ancient customs respected, and that the Queen offered pardon to all rebels who had not taken part in the murder of Europeans.

She and Prince Albert had played a significant part in the wording of the proclamation. They had objected to certain passages in the Government's draft which seemed to them too severe and unsympathetic. They particularly objected to a passage which referred to the Queen's power to 'undermine native religions and customs'. The proclamation, Prince Albert decided, 'cannot possibly remain in its present shape'.⁸ 'Such a document,' the Queen wrote, 'should breathe feelings of generosity, benevolence and religious toleration.' It should endeavour to 'draw a veil over the sad and bloody past', to remove the fear of so many Indians that the British wanted to interfere with their religion, and endeavour to persuade them that the 'deep attachment which Her Majesty feels to her own religion, and the comfort and happiness which she derives from its consolations, will preclude her from any attempt to interfere with the native religions'.⁹

Within a fortnight of the proclamation of peace in India, the Prime Minister of Piedmont, Count Camillo Cavour, wearing dark glasses and carrying a passport in the name of Giuseppe Benso, crossed the French frontier and was driven to Plombieres to discuss with the Emperor Napoleon HI the reopening of conflict in Europe.

Having recovered from the shock of his attempted assassination, the Emperor had come to believe that Orsini's plot was a sign that the decisive moment had come for him to fulfil a long-held ambition 'to do something for Italy'. As a young man, he had belonged to the Carbonari, a secret society dedicated to the ultimate unity of the various kingdoms, duchies and republics into which Italy was then divided. He had risked his life fighting against the misgovernment of the Papal States. And it was as though his former doubts and speculations, concealed as always behind an atmosphere of contrived mystery, had suddenly been swept away by a brilliant vision of his preordained path.

He could find it in his heart to admire Orsini, and for a time considered the possibility of reprieving him. In the words of the British Ambassador in Paris, Lord Cowley, the Emperor was 'regularly bitten with this miscreant'. He had always remained a conspirator himself at heart and in Mazzini, Orsini's former master, he recognized a fellow spirit. So it was that he and Cavour came to be driving together in the hot sun at Plombieres, discussing war and the fate of Italy.

Cavour's master, King Victor Emmanuel II, was a squat man with enormously strong, thick legs and an immense moustache which swept up towards his little grey eyes in a ferociously intimidating crescent. Untidy in his dress and blunt in his speech, he was coarse in his habits. Detesting official banquets, through which he would sit glaring about him, his eyes rolling alarmingly, his hand on his sword, he preferred to eat huge peasant dishes of steaming ragout smothered in garlic and hot onions. His appetite for women was equally voracious and uninhibited.

As an ally in the Crimean War - in which his army had fought, on Cavour's advice, in order to obtain a say in the peace negotiations - King Victor Emmanuel had been invited to England in 1855. Charles Greville described him as being 'frightful in person, a great, strong, burly, athletic man, brusque in his manners, unrefined in his conversation, very loose in his conduct, and very eccentric in his habits'.¹⁰ But, although he was expected to behave as he had done in Paris - where he had terrified everybody and enquired of the Emperor as to the price of a dancer who struck his fancy at the Opera - he was on his best behaviour at Windsor. Indeed, he became quite a favourite at Court where the Queen seemed intrigued by him, though she was given a hint of what was to come when he told her that he did not like 'the business of a King'. He would become a monk if he could not make war; there was no need to worry about that, though: another war was inevitable.

Kings had to make sure that wars were just, the Queen observed. They would have to answer to God for men's lives.

Yes, one had to aim for a just war, the King conceded. But God would always pardon a mistake.

'Not always.'¹¹

He seemed like a character in an opera buffa as he showed the Prince of Wales his sword which, he told him, could cut an ox in half at a single stroke. The Duchess of Sutherland felt sure he could easily wield it for such a purpose. King Victor Emmanuel seemed to her to be the only Knight of the Garter she had ever seen who 'looked as if he would have the best of it with the dragon'.¹²

He took what seemed to be an unconscionable time before he consented to bend down when the Queen held up her face to be kissed; then, having planted a kiss upon her cheek, 'he began upon her hand, and bestowed upon it three kisses that resounded throughout the room'. When he was installed as a Knight of the Garter, he put forward one leg, then the other until 'at last he asked the Queen in his loud voice, "Laquelle?" She nearly let fall the Garter from laughing, the Prince was in fits and all the KG's at the table began to titter.'¹³

The Queen was in no such jolly mood, however, when she heard that, in accordance with the agreement reached at Plombieres in July 1858, Europe was to be 'deluged with blood', as her Foreign Minister, Lord Malmesbury, put it, 'for the personal ambition of an Italian attorney and a tambour major, like Cavour and his master'.

The conduct of King Victor Emmanuel, with whom she had felt herself to be on such good terms, and of the French Emperor, whom she had once so greatly admired, produced, so she said, 'universal indignation amongst all right-thinking people'. She believed that, although her people for the most part approved of the idea of Italian independence, they disapproved strongly of the Emperor of the French attacking another Empire 'without rhyme or reason'.

She and Prince Albert went to France again in August to meet the Emperor at Cherbourg, where the Prince was 'conscious of a change' in him and worried by the obvious indications that France was preparing for another war.¹⁴ There were hundreds of workmen labouring in the port where the breakwater was being extended, the harbour was being fortified and warships were under construction in the docks. The Queen could not but feel concerned about the identity of the enemy the Emperor had in mind, but he was unforthcoming, 'boutonne' and evasive.¹⁵

A year earlier, when he and the Empress had been guests at Osborne, their relations with the Queen and the Prince had been perfectly friendly. They had enjoyed a pleasant outing together to Carisbrooke Castle; and the Emperor had intrigued the Queen by his account of the strange powers of a spiritualist medium, Daniel Dunglass Home, the inexplicable phenomena of whose seances had so mystified guests at the Tuileries and at Fontainebleau.

Now the former, easy atmosphere had become clouded by suspicion. The Queen made it clear that she disapproved of the Emperor's liaison with Madame Walewska, the beautiful, ambitious, Florentine wife of the French Foreign Minister, while the French were suspicious of a gentleman-in-waiting in the visitors' entourage, a man who was suspected of being - and who, indeed, was - an officer in the Royal Engineers. The Emperor complained of his military and naval rearmaments being reported in English newspapers as intended for a possible onslaught on England: would not Her Majesty take steps to correct these misrepresentations in the London press? The Queen replied that, as a constitutional monarch, she had no power to do so.

On her return home, the Queen spoke to the Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston's successor, Lord Derby, about the Emperor's clear intention of going to war; but Derby did not seem much concerned. Prince Albert, whose distrust of the French was much increased by what he had seen in Cherbourg, was exasperated. 'The war preparations in the French marine are immense!' he told his mother-in-law. 'Ours despicable. Our Ministers use fine phrases, but they do nothing. My blood boils within me.'¹⁶

Prince Albert was still more disturbed when Cavour succeeded in provoking Austria to declare war and the Emperor Francis Joseph's forces were defeated by the French and Piedmontese at Magenta on 4 June 1859, then at Solferino three weeks later. By the Peace of Villafranca, Parma and Lombardy were ceded to France for subsequent cession to Piedmont.

Throughout the war the Queen and Prince had found themselves at odds with public opinion in their country. They saw the French Emperor as 'the universal disturber of the world' and the Emperor Francis Joseph as the legitimate ruler of those lands in northern Italy which had been dominated by Austria since the eighteenth century and which had been confirmed as Austrian by the Congress of Vienna after the Napoleonic wars. To make matters worse, the Government of Lord Derby - who had personally been much abused in the press for his supposed support of Austria - resigned in June 1859 after the introduction of a contentious Reform Bill; and the Queen, obliged to recall Lord Palmerston, whose support of the movement for Italian unity was well known, had also to accept the unappealing Mr Gladstone as Chancellor of the Exchequer and Lord John Russell as Foreign Secretary.

Chapter 33 THE GERMAN GRANDSON

Political problems and the war in Italy, England's unpreparedness for war herself, and the immense amount of work which Prince Albert undertook with such ceaseless assiduity that he could often be seen actually running down the corridors at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle with papers in his hands and files under his arm, had taken sad toll of the Prince's health. He looked increasingly worn; his trim figure had thickened; he had long been going bald; he wore a wig and fur-lined coat in winter in the rooms which his wife insisted on keeping so cold; and, before he could hold his pen, he had to warm his hand over the flame of his lamp.

He was Prince Consort now, having been granted that title by the Queen by letters patent in 1857; but the title had given him scant pleasure. As he told his brother, it should have been granted at the time of his wedding but prejudice against him had prevented that and now it came too late. In fact, it might not have come at all had there not been a fear that 'wicked people might later on succeed in bringing up the Prince of Wales against his father, and tell him that he should not allow a foreign prince to take a place before him'.¹

It was, however, concern for the happiness of his beloved daughter, whose presence he missed every day, which occupied his thoughts more than the possible future behaviour of his son. And in his anxiety about the child, and his longing for her responsive, affectionate, stimulating company, he came close to quarrelling again with his wife. Already before their daughter's marriage, following some difference of opinion about Prince Frederick, the Queen had received an angry and unjust letter, dated 5 November 1856:

Fritz is prepared to devote his whole life to your child whom you are thankful to be rid of - and because of that you turn against him ... This is not a question of bickering but of attitudes of mind which will agree as little as oil and water and it is no wonder that our conversation on the subject cannot end harmoniously and I am trying to keep out of your way until your better feelings have returned and you have gained control of yourself.2

Within a short time of her marriage Vicky was pregnant as she had much hoped to be.[xxxvii] It was an ambition which much distressed her mother who, when she learned of her daughter's pregnancy, wrote to say how the 'horrid news' upset her 'dreadfully'. 'I am so sorry about you,' she added a day or two later. 'It is well Fritz is not in sight just now or he would not have been graciously received.'³ 'I own I cannot enter into that,' she continued in the same vein when Vicky wrote to say how proud she was to be giving birth to an immortal soul. 'I think much more of our being a cow or a dog at such moments.'⁴

She wanted to go to see Vicky and to take her other daughters, Alice, by then fifteen years old, and Helena, twelve, with her. But there was opposition to this plan: 'Papa says that I should be fidgeting myself about your sisters all the time, which would be very unpleasant as it would take my mind from you.'⁵ There was also opposition to a suggestion that the two sisters might go to Germany later: Papa, who was 'very hard-hearted and a great tyrant on all such occasions', would not hear of it. It was disappointing, Vicky agreed; but her Papa was an oracle, she thought, and what he decided 'must be right'.⁶

Then there was trouble over the Queen's correspondence with her daughter. Before the Princess left home it was understood between them that letters would be exchanged most regularly as they were, indeed, to be. The Prince considered this correspondence excessive; and he told his wife so: it would be quite enough, he said, if she wrote no more frequently than once a week. So her mother wrote to her to suggest that when she next wrote to her father she should tell him what she herself wanted. 'Just tell him what you feel,' the Queen suggested, 'for I assure you -Papa has snubbed me several times very sharply on the subject and when one writes in spite of fatigues and troubles to be told it bores the person to whom you write, it is rather too much.' Nor was this all. Not only did his wife write too often, so did his daughter in reply: 'Papa says you write too much ... If you knew how [he] scolds me for (as he says) making you write ... He is sure you make yourself ill by it, and constantly declares (which I own offends me much) that your writing to me at such length is the cause of your often not writing fully to him.'⁷

By this time the Queen was further aggrieved by the Prince's insistence that her second son, Prince Alfred, although no more than thirteen years old, should go to sea after he had taken the usual navy examination; and for months on end she would be deprived of the sight of his 'dear face which shed sunshine over the whole house, from his amiable, happy, merry temper'.

I have been shamefully deceived about Affie [she complained to Vicky]. It was promised me that the last year before he went to sea, he should be with us, instead of which he was taken away and I saw but very little of him, and now he is to go away for many months [in the frigate Euryalus to the West Indies by way of the Cape of Good Hope] and I shall not see him God knows when!, and Papa is most cruel upon the subject. I assure you, it is much better to have no children than to have them only to give them up! It is too wretched ... I look forward with horror to the separation ... Two children in one year. It is horrible.8

The Queen found relief in her sadness at Prince Alfred's departure in the arrangements she was busily, not to say officiously, making for the birth of her first grandchild. She insisted that the prospective mother's layette as well as her nurse must be British. So must the nursemaids and the child's nanny, Mrs Hobbs being chosen for this post.

The Princess must also have British doctors, since, while 'German Oculists & even Surgeons were cleverer than British, there was 'not a doubt that in the particular line of childbirth & women's illnesses the English are the best in the World, more skilful & much more delicate'.⁹ The Queen therefore arranged for Sir James Clark to go to Germany, followed by another of her own physicians, Dr Edward Martin, as well as an English midwife, Mrs Innocent, having already required that her daughter's German physician, Dr Wegner, should be sent to England to be present at the birth of her own last child, Princess Beatrice, on 14 April 1857, so that he could see how well things were managed there.

If only she could be there herself, she told her daughter; she only wished she could 'go through' it all on her behalf and save her 'all the annoyance'. Now that she had got used to the idea she was, she said, delighted by the thought of being a grandmother at only thirty-nine: 'to look and feel young [was] great fun'. Yet, even so, the thought that she could not herself be in Germany to see her daughter through her confinement drove her 'almost frantic'. All she could do was give advice, which she did in letter after letter, urging her not to talk to her ladies about her condition and its consequences; they would only alarm her; but, of course, there was no need for alarm; she must not 'dread the denouement'; there was no need for that.¹⁰

As well as advice came parcels of medicines and baby clothes, camphor lozenges for insomnia, tincture for toothache, details of her own confinements, complaints about the selfishness of men 'who would not bear for a minute what we poor slaves have to bear', and warnings not to indulge in 'baby worship', 'since no lady, and still less a Princess is fit for her husband or for her position if she does THAT.' 'With your great passion for little children (which are mere little plants for the first 6 months) it would be very natural for you to be carried away by your pleasure in having a child.'¹¹

As her pregnancy advanced, the Princess felt sure it was not progressing as it should. The experienced Mrs Innocent thought so too. But Dr Wegner disagreed with them, though he was scarcely in a position to judge since his patient was too embarrassed to discuss her symptoms with him, communicating with him through her husband.¹²

Sir James, whose opinion might well have been considered unreliable in view of his faulty diagnoses years before in the case of Lady Flora Hastings, agreed with Wegner. So did another German doctor in attendance, Professor Eduard Arnold Martin.

The baby, a boy, the future Kaiser Wilhelm II, was born on 27 January 1859 in the Kronprinzenpalais, Unter den Linden, after the agonizing labour of a breech birth which necessitated the rotation of the child in the birth canal. Quantities of chloroform, administered by Clark, made the pain suffered by the eighteen-year-old mother scarcely more bearable. 'Vicky's pain, as well as her horrible screams and wails, became ever more severe,' the Crown Prince reported to his mother-in-law. 'However, whenever she was granted a respite from her suffering she would ask for forgiveness from everyone for her screaming and impatience, but she could not help herself. When the final stages of labour began, I had to try with all my might to hold her head in place, so that she would not strain her neck over much. Every contraction meant a real fight between her and me, and even today [29 January] my arms still feel quite weak ... With the strength of a giant, she was at times able to hold off 2 people, & thus the awful torture escalated until the moment of birth was so near that complete anaesthesia with chloroform was undertaken ... Vicky was laid at right angles on the bed; she let forth one horrible long scream, & was then anaesthetized.'¹³

The life of the child 'lay in the balance' for a time as he was slapped and slung about by the German midwife, Fräulein Stahl, who, in her own opinion, 'saved the Prince from the grave for which he had been intended' by ignoring court etiquette and the grumbles of the shocked doctors and slapping the child 'first softly then more vigorously, slap, slap, slap', until at last 'a weak cry escaped his pale lips'.¹⁴ Later it was noticed that his 'poor little left arm', which was to remain withered for the rest of his life, 'hung helpless at his side'.¹⁵

'My precious darling, you suffered more than I ever did,' the Queen wrote to her daughter, having received a report from Sir James Clark. 'How I wish I could have lightened [the pain] for you! '¹⁶

'I am so happy, so thankful he is a boy,' the Princess wrote in reply. 'I longed for one, more than I can ever describe ... You need not be afraid I shall be injudiciously fond of him, although I do worship him ... and I feel he is my own and he owes me so much, and has cost me so much. '¹⁷

By May, Princess Frederick had recovered sufficiently to make the journey to Osborne to see her parents who had missed her so much ever since she had left home. 'I can assure you,' her mother had written to her a few months before, 'that there is not an hour in the day, not a picture or any object of any kind which I look at - when I do not think of you. '¹⁸

The Princess was 'so very happy' to be at Osborne once again. When in Germany it had made her cry to think of the 'dear view out of the windows, the darling Swiss cottage', her little garden, the trees she had planted. And 'such happiness' it was, too, for her mother to have her daughter back at home for a time, 'to be at last together again'.¹⁹

In September 1860, eighteen months after the birth of her first grandson, the Queen and her husband went to Germany for a holiday. Overwhelmed by work and worry, the Prince had not been able to spare the time to go before, though he was longing to see his daughter again. He would also be able to see his grandson, Wilhelm, and another grandchild, Wilhelm's sister, Charlotte, who had been born without complications two months before. Moreover, he would have an opportunity of discussing the disturbing state of European affairs with his much missed mentor, old Baron Stockmar, who had recently left England for the last time and had settled in retirement in Coburg.

The Queen could hardly speak, she 'felt so touched' at the sight of her daughter who was in deep mourning for the Prince Consort's stepmother, the Dowager Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, who had died the day before.

'Our darling grandchild was brought,' the Queen wrote. 'Such a little love! He came walking in at Mrs Hobbs's hand in a little white dress with black bows, and was so good. He is a fine, fat child, with a beautiful white soft skin ... and a very dear face ... He has Fritz's eyes and Vicky's mouth and very curly hair ... such a darling, so intelligent ... We felt so happy to see him at last.'²⁰

A week later the Prince Consort, having gone out shooting, left his wife and daughter sketching near the Kalenberg castle while he returned to Coburg, making the excuse that he had people to see. Before he reached Coburg, however, the horses drawing his carriage bolted and were careering towards a closed railway crossing when he saw his danger and threw himself from the carriage, cutting his nose, arms and legs and suffering bruises. He was, however, not injured so badly that he was unable to go to help the coachman, to whose wounds he told the doctors to attend when they were hurriedly brought to the scene. The Prince's equerry, Colonel Henry Ponsonby, went to report the accident to the Queen who, carrying her sketches, was walking back towards Coburg with Vicky, much amused by a bossy peasant woman who told the Princess the skirts of her dress were getting dusty and why didn't she pick them up. The Queen rushed home and hurried up to her 'dearest Albert's rooms and found him lying quietly on [his valet's] bed with lint compresses on his nose, mouth and chin. He was quite cheerful, had not been in the least stunned.' But 'oh! God! What did I not feel!' she wrote that evening. 'I could only, and do only, allow the feelings of gratitude, not those of horror at what might have happened, to fill my mind ... I must thank God for having preserved my adored one! I tremble now on thinking of it ... The escape is very wonderful, most merciful! God is indeed most gracious.'²¹

Although he had not been badly injured, the Prince's nervous system, as his brother, Ernest, the Duke of Coburg, observed, was far more shaken than the Queen realized. When Baron Stockmar saw how deeply despondent the Prince had become, he said to the Duke, 'God have mercy on us! If anything serious should ever happen to him, he will die.'²²

The Prince himself had a premonition of death. Ten days after his carriage accident he went for a walk with his brother in the countryside outside Gotha and, 'in one of the most beautiful spots, Albert stood still and suddenly felt for his pocket handkerchief.' The Duke 'went up to him and saw that tears were trickling down his cheeks ... He persisted in declaring that he had been here for the last time in his life.'²³ He had expressed a similar despondency to the Queen at Osborne after planting some saplings which, he said, he would never see grow into trees. Why ever not, she had protested: he was only forty and that was not 'so very old'. No, he persisted mournfully, 'I shall never see them grow up.'

His melancholy persisted on his return home in November 1860. At Balmoral in early December he was 'seriously unwell'; and on the 5th the Queen reported in her journal that he was 'very weak'. The next day he wrote to tell Vicky that he had felt too ill and 'too miserable' to hold his pen the day before, suffering from violent sickness and bouts of shivering.²⁴ When he had recovered sufficiently to go back to his work, he told his daughter that he had been suffering from what he called 'the real English cholera'.²⁵

Scarcely had he recovered from that than he was ill again with swollen glands, 'inflammation of the nerves of the upper part of the cheek', and dreadful toothache which his dentist said was the severest attack he had ever known. His sufferings he described as 'frightful' and two operations performed by the dentist afforded no relief.²⁶ The Queen told Vicky that she wished she could bear it all for him, since, as she often said, women were born to suffer and bore it 'so much more easily'. 'Our nerves,' she said, 'don't seem so racked, so tortured as men's are.'²⁷ It was 'a most trying, wearing and distressing time', for she 'could not bear to see him suffer so much and to be so despondent and weak and miserable'. Nor could she disguise from her daughter her occasional exasperation with the gloom into which his concern for his health was inclined to sink him, the irritability to which overwork reduced him, as when, for instance, reading documents, letters and newspapers spread before him on a table after breakfast, he would dismiss any interruption with a curt, 'Store mich nicht, ich lese das fertig ('Don't disturb me. I am busy reading').'²⁸

Dear Papa never allows he is any better or will try to get over it, but makes such a miserable face that people always think he's very ill. It is quite the contrary with me always; I can do anything before others and never show it, so people never believe I am ill or even suffer. His nervous system is easily excited and irritated and he's completely overpowered by everything ...29 You say no one is perfect but Papa. But he has his faults too. He is often very trying -in his hastiness and over-love of business - and I think you would find it very trying if Fritz was as hasty and harsh (momentarily and unintentionally as it is) as he is!30

Chapter 34 DEATH OF THE DUCHESS

On 15 March 1861 the Queen went to see her 75-year-old mother at Frogmore where she had been suffering from intermittent attacks of erysipelas for several months. Her close friend and secretary, Sir George Couper, who had brought order to the chaos in which Sir John Conroy had left her affairs, had died a fortnight before and the Duchess was not expected to survive him for long.

She and her daughter had long since overcome the antagonism of earlier years. 'Poor woman,' Lord Holland had written at the beginning of the Queen's reign. 'The importance of her actions and opinions are gone by. She will count for little or nothing in the new court.' This was true and she had much resented it. She had often been told that her daughter was too busy to see her. 'This was neither a happy nor a merry day for me,' she had written on Victoria's birthday in 1837. 'Everything is so changed.' Her apartment at Windsor was 'very far from the room' to which her daughter had moved. There had been constant grumbles, 'unhappy scenes', 'extraordinary letters'. Lord Liverpool had told Stock-mar, 'It is a hard and unfair trial for the Queen, whose mind and health should not be exposed to such absurd vexation and torment... Although I should be very sorry to see Mother and Daughter separated, yet anything I am sure is better than the present state of things.' Her mother had 'seemed delighted', the Queen thought, when she had told her that she was to marry Prince Albert; but she had, in fact, complained bitterly that she had not been informed about the engagement earlier - why, even the Prince's valet had known before she did! This was not true, said the Queen. Then the Duchess had grown extremely grumpy when told she could not move into Buckingham Palace with her daughter and nephew, and had expressed her dissatisfaction with Ingestre House in Belgrave Square which the Queen had taken for her at £2,000 a year and which, so she complained, was too small. Upon the death of George Ill's daughter, Princess Augusta, she had grudgingly accepted not only Clarence House, St James's but also Frogmore House at Windsor.¹

Since then, relations between mother and daughter had slowly improved. The Queen had written to her when Sir John Conroy died in 1854 to say:

I quite understand your feelings on the occasion of Sir John Conroy's death... I will not speak of the past and of the many sufferings he entailed on us by creating divisions between you and me which could never have existed otherwise, they are buried with him. For his poor wife and children I am truly sorry. They are now free from the ban which kept them from ever appearing before me!2

'Yes,' the Duchess had replied, 'Sir John Conroy's death was a most painful shock. I shall not try and excuse the many errors that unfortunate man committed, but it would be very unjust if I allowed all the blame to be thrown on him. I am in justice bound to accuse myself ... I erred in believing blindly, in acting without reflexion... I allowed myself unintentionally to be led to hurt you, my dearest child, for whom I would have given at every moment my life! Reflexion came always too late, but not the deserved punishment] My sufferings were great, very great. God be praised that those terrible times are gone by and that only death can separate me from you My beloved Victoria.'³

Now death for the Duchess was coming and her daughter gave way to that heartrending, almost hysterical grief which her family and attendants had learned to dread. She had been overwhelmed with grief when King Leopold's Queen Louise died in 1850;⁴ the sudden death of Prince Albert's Private Secretary, George Anson, 'almost the only intimate friend he had in this country', made her 'wretched'.⁵ When Sir Robert Peel - a 'very bad and awkward rider', in Charles Greville's opinion - had died in July 1850 after falling from his horse on Constitution Hill, the Prince felt the loss 'dreadfully', while she herself deeply lamented the passing of 'our truest friend and trustiest counsellor'.⁶ The death of the Duke of Wellington in September 1852 had distressed her even more; and as the coffin of the 'GREATEST man this country ever produced', rolled by on its immense and unwieldy black and gold funeral car towards St Paul's, while bands played dirges chosen by the Prince, she 'wept unrestrainedly'; and she wept again when she saw the Duke's old groom leading his horse beneath the Palace balcony, a pair of Wellington boots reversed hanging from its side.⁷

But no death yet had called forth lamentations quite as desperate as her mother's. 'Oh, what agony, what despair was this,' she wrote, having knelt before her as she lay, breathing heavily, on a sofa in her room.

I kissed her dear hand and placed it next my cheek; but, though she opened her eyes, she did not, I think, know me. She brushed my hand off ... I went out to sob ... I asked the doctors if there was no hope. They said, they feared, none whatever ...

As the night wore on into the morning I lay down on the sofa, at the foot of my bed. I heard each hour strike. At four I went down again. All still - nothing to be heard but the heavy breathing, and the striking, at every quarter, of the old repeater, a large watch in a tortoiseshell case, which had belonged to my poor father, the sound of which brought back all the recollections of my childhood.8

Feeling faint and exhausted she went upstairs again and lay down 'in silent misery'. At half past seven she returned to her mother's room where she sat on a stool to hold her hand. The breathing grew fainter and fainter. 'At last it ceased ... The clock struck half past nine at the very moment ... The dreaded terrible calamity has befallen us, which seems like an awful dream ... oh God! how awful ... The constant crying was a comfort and relief ... But oh! the agony of it.'⁹

For days on end her emotions were in turmoil as she abandoned herself to 'fearful and unbearable outbursts of grief with an alarming intensity. 'It is dreadful, dreadful to think we shall never see that dear kind loving face again,' she wrote, 'never hear that dear voice again ... The dreadful thing, as I told Albert yesterday, is the certainty that the loss is irrevocable.' The day of her death was 'the most dreadful day' of her own life.¹⁰ She felt 'so stupefied', 'stunned'. 'The relief of tears' was great: they came 'again and again everyday.' 'I do not want to feel better,' she told the Crown Princess Frederick. 'I love to dwell on her ... and not to be roused out of my grief.'¹¹ Lord Clarendon thought that she was actually 'determined to cherish' it. 'She never ceases crying,' he told the Duchess of Manchester, '& always went morning and evening, to Frog-more [where her mother was buried] as if it was a satisfaction to feed her grief.' 'I hope this state of things won't last,' he added, 'or she may fall into a morbid melancholy to which her mind has often tended and which is a constant source of anxiety to P[rince] A[lbert].'¹²

She ate all her meals alone; she sat by herself in her mother's 'dear room', despite the awful stillness of the house. Going through the Duchess's papers, she was 'wretched to think how, for a time two people [Conroy and Lehzen] wickedly estranged us', and she was deeply moved to read how her mother and her 'beloved Father loved each other' and how much she herself was loved: it was 'too touching'.¹³

She took the Prince of Wales, who had arrived at Windsor, to see the 'beautiful peaceful remains' of his grandmother. But, embarrassed by his mother's excessive lamentations, he could not bring himself to behave as she wished; and she accused him of being heartless and selfish. Writing on paper with black edges which she considered insufficiently broad, her son replied that, 'since [his] sisters were sympathizing with her so warmly and affectionately', he had not liked to intrude, fearing that he would be in the way and believing that they would be 'a greater support' to her than he could possibly be.¹⁴

Prince Albert, who had himself been in tears on leaving the Duchess's room shortly before she died, could not comfort the Queen either. Having her work to do as well as his own, he was, as he said, 'well nigh overwhelmed' by business. He took the Queen to Osborne in the hope that she would recover there more quickly than at Windsor; but she was so nervous there that she could not bear to be with the children whose talk disturbed her so, none more so than the voice of the Prince of Wales.

Chapter 35 THE DISAPPOINTING HEIR

'The systematic idleness, laziness - disregard of everything is enough to break one's heart, and fills me with indignation.'

'Bertie continues such an anxiety,' the Queen had written to the Crown Princess Frederick in April 1859 when the Prince of Wales was seventeen years old.

I tremble at the thought of only three years and a half before us - when he will be of age and we can't hold him except by moral power! I try to shut my eyes to that terrible moment! He is improving very decidedly - but Oh! it is the improvement of such a poor or still more idle intellect. Oh! dear, what would happen if I were to die next winter. It is too awful a contemplation. His journal is worse a great deal than Affie's [Prince Alfred's] letters. And all from laziness! Still we must hope for improvement in essentials; but the greatest improvement I fear, will never make him fit for his position. His only safety - and the country's - is his implicit reliance in everything, on dearest Papa, that perfection of human beings.1

'I feel very sad about him,' she told her daughter on another occasion, 'he is so idle and so weak. God grant that he may take things more to heart and be more serious for the future.' He was such 'a very dull companion' compared with his brothers, who were 'all so amusing and communicative'. 'When I see [Affie] and Arthur and look at... ! (You know what I mean!) I am in utter despair! The systematic idleness, laziness - disregard of everything is enough to break one's heart, and fills me with indignation.'² Even his physique depressed her. She complained of his small head, his big Coburg nose, his protuberant Hanoverian eyes, his shortness, his receding chin, his tendency to fat, 'the effeminate and girlish' way he wore his hair.³

When he was created a Knight of the Garter in November 1858 she noticed how knock-kneed his legs appeared in court dress. Later she commented disapprovingly upon his 'pallor, dull, heavy, blase look'. His heart was warm and affectionate, she had to admit; but 'O, dear ... Oh Bertie alas! alas!'⁴

Part of the trouble was that she considered him to be a 'caricature' of herself; she saw her own failings magnified in him.⁵ So, in fact, had Baron Stockmar, who considered that the boy was 'an exaggerated copy of his mother'. But whereas she had tried to improve herself, he appeared incapable of the effort.

The Prince Consort expressed quite as deep a concern, particularly after receiving far from encouraging reports from Colonel Robert Bruce, the Prince's Governor, who had to admit that, while his charge could undoubtedly be charming, he was still far too prone to outbursts of temper, to egotism and to the adoption of domineering attitudes. He exaggerated the importance of etiquette and dress; had little or no respect for learning; possessed small powers of reflection and was 'prone to listlessness and frivolous disputes'. He took no interest in anything but clothes, his father lamented, 'and again clothes'. Even when out shooting 'he [was] more occupied with his trousers than with the game'.⁶

He was certainly 'lively, quick and sharp when his mind [was] set on anything, which [was] seldom ... But usually his intellect [was] of no more use than a pistol packed in the bottom of a trunk if one were attacked in the robber-infested Apennines.'⁷

The Queen was equally exasperated. 'Poor Bertie! He vexes us much.' 'There is not a particle of reflection, or even attention to anything but dress! Not the slightest interest to learn, on the contrary, il se bonche les oreilles, the moment anything of interest is being talked of.'⁸

To encourage his appreciation of art and to acquire 'knowledge and information', the Prince was sent to Rome immediately on his return from a visit to his sister in Berlin. Colonel Bruce was once more in charge of the party and was provided by the Prince Consort with a detailed itinerary together with the most exact instructions as to the Prince's behaviour and course of study. At the same time Bruce was instructed by the Queen to be present whenever the Prince talked to any 'foreigner or stranger'. It was 'indispensable that His Royal Highness should receive no foreigner or stranger alone, so that no report of pretended conversations with such persons could be circulated without immediate refutation.'

Having failed to derive much profit from his tour of Italy, the Prince was sent to Edinburgh for three months' intensive work before embarking on the next stage of his education, a period of study first at Oxford, then at Cambridge. The reports from none of these seats of learning did much to comfort the Prince's parents.

'Bertie's propensity is indescribable laziness,' the Prince Consort wrote to his daughter in Germany. 'I never in my life met such a thorough and cunning lazybones ... It does grieve me when it is my own son, and when one considers that he might be called upon at any moment to take over the reins of government in a country where the sun never sets.'⁹

Having so much to condemn and criticize, the Queen and Prince Consort were all the more surprised to learn that their son had done quite well in the first of the examinations which he was required to undergo at the end of each term. The Dean of Christ Church, who thought the Prince 'the nicest fellow possible, so simple, naif, ingenuous and modest', was 'quite satisfied' with the results.

The Prince Consort received further favourable reports about his son from Germany, where he was sent for part of his Easter holidays in 1860 and where the ageing Baron Stockmar was much impressed by the great improvement he detected in him. 'That you see so many signs of improvement in the young gentleman is a great joy to us,' his father replied to Stockmar's letter of commendation. 'For parents who watch their son with anxiety, and set their hopes for him high, are in some measure incapable of forming a clear estimate, and are apt at the same time to be impatient if their wishes are not fulfilled. '¹⁰

In the summer of that year the Prince of Wales was sent out to represent his parents in Canada and on that occasion they acknowledged the compliments paid to him with less grudging satisfaction, as they did the good reports they received of his behaviour and reception in the United States where, so Bruce said, he 'created everywhere a most favourable impression'.

His mother was delighted with these reports and, for once, gave him credit unreservedly. 'He was immensely popular everywhere,' she told Princess Frederick as the Prince was on his way home, 'and he really deserves the highest praise, which should be given him all the more as he was never spared any reproof.' The Prince Consort, too, was prepared to recognize that much of the credit for the resounding success of what King Leopold called this 'tremendous tour' must rest with his son,¹¹ though the Queen chose to suppose that 'when Bertie was received in the United States as no one ever has been received', this was 'principally owing to the (to me incredible) liking they have for my unworthy self'.'¹² The young hero arrived home and was welcomed at Windsor with warm congratulations. Although he was 'a little yellow and sallow' and his hair looked so fair when he stood next to Affie (who was 'very dark and very handsome'), the Queen thought that he looked well, had grown a little taller and was 'decidedly improved'. Yet she felt constrained to add, with more than a hint of disapproval, that he had become 'extremely talkative'. He had also taken, she later noticed, to lounging about with a cigar stuck in his mouth.

Soon after his return from the United States, the Prince was sent to the Curragh military camp near Dublin to gain some experience of army life. The experiment was not a success: he found it impossible to keep pace with the demanding programme his father had drawn up for him; and when his parents came to watch a review on the Curragh, all that the Queen could find to say of Bertie's part in it was that he did not look 'so very small'.¹³

For the Prince, however, his time on the Curragh had its compensations. There were several convivial and congenial young Guards officers at the camp; and one evening, after a noisy and rather drunken party in the mess, some of these persuaded a young actress to creep into his quarters and wait for the Prince in his bed. This was Nellie Clifden, a vivacious, cheerfully promiscuous and amusing girl who was also unfortunately most indiscreet. The Prince was much taken with her. On his return to England, he continued seeing her when he could, and, on one occasion at least, she seems to have gone to Windsor. Delighting in her company, the Prince felt more than ever disinclined to concentrate upon a subject to which his parents had urged him to lend his mind - his marriage.

The subject had first been broached soon after the Prince's return from America. But he had not been in the least responsive, maintaining that he was determined to marry only for love. When the Queen wrote to him about his duty to get married to a suitable bride, he replied to her, so she complained to Bruce, 'in a confused way'. Eventually, however, he agreed to consider marrying Princess Alexandra of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glucksburg, the daughter of Prince Christian of Denmark, a distant relative of the drunken, divorced King Frederick VII and recognized as his heir. Her mother was Princess Louise, daughter of the Landgrave William of Hesse-Cassel. There were thus two strong objections to this match which the Queen and Prince Consort had initially dismissed out of hand. In the first place, they much disapproved of the Hesse-Cassel family, whose castle at Rumpenheim near Frankfurt was said to be the scene of the wildest and most indecorous parties; and in the second place they were most reluctant to become entangled in the complicated question of the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, which had been ruled for years by the Kings of Denmark but which the Germans considered they had a good right to annex.

As opposed to these objections, however, Princess Alexandra herself was wholly unexceptionable. The reports of her from Copenhagen were enthusiastic. She was only just seventeen and still at school; but, though so young, she displayed a remarkable grace of movement and manner. And when the Queen saw the photograph sent to her by Walburga Paget, the German wife of the British Minister in Copenhagen, who had once been Princess Frederick's lady-in-waiting, she had to admit that Alexandra was, indeed,' unverschamt hubsch', 'outrageously pretty'. The Princess was not in the least intellectual and had rather a quick temper, but few other faults could be found in her. If she occasionally displayed a lamentable ignorance, she was never tactless; and if she was sometimes a little stubborn, she was never unkind. 'She is a good deal taller than I am,' the Crown Princess told her parents, 'has a lovely figure but very thin, a complexion beautiful as possible ... You may go far before you find another Princess like Princess Alix ... Oh, if only she was not a Dane ... I should say yes - she is the one a thousand times over.'¹⁴ So the Queen allowed herself to be convinced that Princess Alexandra must 'be charming in every sense of the word'. She seemed all the more desirable because not only was the Russian court also interested in her as a bride for Tsar Alexander's heir, but so was the Queen of Holland on behalf of the Prince of Orange. Evidently she was a 'pearl not to be lost'. 'May he be only worthy of such a jewel,' the Queen wrote to the Crown Princess, 'there is the rub. '¹⁵

The Prince Consort shared the Queen's high opinion of Princess Alexandra and when he heard that his brother, Ernest, Duke of Coburg, was raising objections to the match on the grounds that it would not be in the best interests of Germany, he wrote him a furious letter: 'What has that got to do with you? ... Vicky has racked her brains to help us to find someone, but in vain ... We have no choice. '¹⁶ To his son, the Prince Consort wrote, 'It would be a thousand pities if you were to lose her.'

So, in September, without marked enthusiasm, the Prince of Wales embarked for the Continent with General Bruce to see the girl whom his sister, having contrived a meeting with her at Strelitz, now described as 'the most fascinating creature in the world'. When the Prince met her at Speyer he gave his parents a report as flat and unrevealing as they had come to expect.

We met Prince and Princess Christian, and the young lady of whom I had heard so much ... I must ask you to wait till I see you, and then I will give you my impression about her. Princess Christian seems a very nice person, but is, unfortunately, very deaf. The Prince is a most gentlemanlike, agreeable person. After having thoroughly seen over the cathedral we lunched at the hotel and then proceeded here [Heidelberg].17

The Prince of Wales was little more forthcoming when he arrived home and reported in person to his parents at Balmoral. The Queen gathered that he was 'decidedly pleased with Pcss. Alix' and thought her face and figure pretty, but he 'seemed nervous about deciding anything yet'.¹⁸ 'As for being in love,' she added in a letter to her daughter, 'I don't think he can be, or that he is capable of enthusiasm about anything in the world ... Poor boy - he does mean well - but he is so different to darling Affie! '¹⁹ The Crown Princess had rallied to the Prince of Wales's defence when their mother had been particularly critical of him before the meeting with Princess Alexandra. She had been brave enough to write then: 'One thing pains me, and that is the relation between you and Bertie! ... His heart is very capable of affection, of warmth of feeling and I am sure that it will come out with time and by degrees. He loves his home and feels happy there and those feelings must be nurtured.'²⁰

The Prince Consort considered the whole situation thoroughly unsatisfactory; and he decided to put the whole problem down on paper in an effort to bring some clarity into his son's mind which, at the moment, appeared to be 'a little confused'. If the Princess and her parents were to be invited to England before the Prince made up his mind, he must 'thoroughly understand' that this would be in order that he might propose to the young lady if she pleased him on further acquaintance, and if she did not please him he must say at once that the matter was at an end.²¹

The Prince assured his father that he understood the position perfectly well, and agreed to do as he suggested. But he remained as unenthusiastic as ever; and the Prince Consort was quite baffled by the 'unsolved riddle' of his son's reluctance to marry since his time on the Curragh, as he had earlier expressed a 'desire to contract an early marriage' as soon as he was of age. The next month, however, the Prince Consort did solve the riddle at last; and he sat down to write to his son 'with a heavy heart upon a subject which [had] caused him the greatest pain' he had ever felt in his life, and which, so the Queen afterwards decided, proved too much for him to bear.²²

He had been forced to recognize that there could be no doubt of the appalling fact that the Prince of Wales had had sexual experience with a woman who was a known habituee of the most vulgar dance halls in London. Sparing her the 'disgusting details', the Prince Consort broke the news to the Queen, then wrote an enormously long and anguished letter to his son in which he elaborated the likely consequences of his terrible sin, the possibility that the woman might have a child by him or get hold of a child and pretend that it was his.

He was too heartbroken to see his son at present, he said, but he 'assured him that he would do his best to protect him from the full consequences of his evil deed'. The Prince must, therefore, confess everything.

The Prince did confess everything in the most abjectly apologetic and contrite manner. He declined to name the officers responsible for his degradation; and his father accepted his refusal as right and proper, telling him that it would have been cowardly for him to have done so. But everything else was admitted and regretted.²³ The Prince Consort was thankful to recognize that the letter displayed a sincere repentance, and he was prepared to forgive his son for 'the terrible pain' which he had caused his parents. But forgiveness could not restore him to the state of innocence and purity which he had lost for ever, having 'sunk into vice and debauchery'. An early marriage was now essential.

Two days after writing this letter of forgiveness and exhortation, on 22 November 1861, the Prince Consort went to Sandhurst to inspect the buildings for the new Staff College and the Royal Military Academy. It was a cold wet day and he returned to Windsor tired out and racked by rheumatic pains. The next day he caught a cold and this, combined with his continuing anxiety over his son, aggravated his insomnia. 'Albert has such nights since that great worry,' the Queen wrote anxiously. 'It makes him weak and tired.'

Ill as he was, however, he felt he must go up to Cambridge to talk to his son, to try to make him understand the disgrace he had brought upon himself and his family, and the urgent need to get married. He left on 25 November, feeling 'greatly out of sorts', having scarcely closed his eyes at night for the last fortnight. It was another cold, wet day; but he went out for a long walk with his son, who lost the way in his unhappiness and embarrassment so that when they arrived back at Madingley Hall, where the Prince was living, the Prince Consort was utterly exhausted. 'I am at a very low ebb,' he told the Crown Princess, a few days later. 'Much worry and great sorrow (about which I beg you not to ask questions) have robbed me of sleep during the past fortnight. In this shattered state I had a very heavy catarrh and for the past four days am suffering from headache and pains in my limbs which may develop into rheumatism.'²⁴

Chapter 36 DEATH OF THE PRINCE

'Dearest Papa... is not well, with a cold [and] neuralgia - a great depression,' the Queen confirmed to their daughter, 'The sad part is -that this loss of rest at night (worse than he has ever had before) was caused by a great sorrow and worry, which upset us both greatly - but him especially - and it broke him quite down. I never saw him so low. '¹

Soon after the Prince Consort's return from Madingley there arrived at Windsor the draft of despatches which caused him grave concern. A British mail steamer had been stopped by an American warship off the coast of the United States where the first shots of the Civil War had been fired at Charleston earlier that year, in April 1861. On this ship were two Confederate envoys representing the southern states which had seceded from the Union. These envoys, who were on their way to Europe, were seized and taken to New York, much to the indignation of the British people. The British Government proposed to seek reparation for this breach of international law in words so provocative that the Prince considered that they might well lead to war between Britain and the northern States. Ill as he was, the Prince got up at seven o'clock as usual after a restless night to write a memorandum for the Queen suggesting that a less truculent despatch be sent so that the Americans might be given an opportunity to release 'the unfortunate passengers' without loss of face. The Cabinet accepted the Queen's amendments as suggested by the Prince and war was averted. On her copy of the document the Queen later noted in the margin, 'This draft was the last the beloved Prince ever wrote. He was very unwell at the time & when he brought it to the Queen he said, "I could hardly hold my pen."'

It was a Sunday. He forced himself to go to chapel; but he could eat nothing either before or after the service, and, having gone early to bed, spent another sleepless night. The next day in her diary the Queen described herself as being 'terribly nervous and depressed'. 'My dearest Albert did not dress,' she wrote, 'but lay on his sofa in his dressing-gown ... He kept saying ... he should not recover! which we all told him was too foolish & [he] must never speak of it.' 'I do not cling to life,' he had once told her. 'You do; but I set no store by it ... I am sure if I had a severe illness I should give up at once. I should not struggle for life. I have no tenacity of life.'

Deeply distressed by the Prince's fatalism, the Queen was 'dreadfully annoyed' to receive a letter from Lord Palmerston in which he proposed calling upon the advice of Dr Robert Ferguson, a highly respected physician, who had attended Her Majesty at the birth of all her children. There was no need for further medical advice, she told Palmerston crossly: Sir James Clark was still in attendance; so was Dr William Jenner, 'a most skilful Physician', who had been appointed Physician Extraordinary to the Queen on the death in a railway accident of Dr William Baly, Sir James's colleague. The Prince had had 'a feverish cold the last few days, which disturbed his rest at night' but he had been 'similarly affected' before and there was every reason to hope that in a few days it would 'pass off'. 'Her Majesty would be very unwilling to cause unnecessary alarm, where no cause exists for it, by calling in a medical man who does not upon ordinary occasions attend at the Palace.'²

'Good kind old Sir James', concerned as he so often was for the Queen's mental state, assured her that 'there was no cause whatever for alarm - either present or future'. Yet, despite her letter to Palmerston, she was herself 'in an agony of despair', 'crying much', she recorded in her journal, 'for I saw no improvement & my dearest Albert was so listless and took so little notice and hardly smiled'.³

That night and the next he was 'utterly restless', wandering about from room to room, the Queen in tears in his wake. 'The Prince, when ill, is extremely depressed and low,' Sir Charles Phipps, his Privy Purse and Treasurer, reported to Palmerston, 'and the Queen becomes so nervous and so easily alarmed that the greatest caution is necessary ... I must tell you, most confidentially, that it requires no little management to prevent her from breaking down altogether ... The suggestion that it would be desirable to call in another Medical Man would I think frighten the Queen very much, and the Prince already is annoyed with the visits of the three who attend him. Sir J. Clark is here daily [alternating his visits with those to his wife who was dangerously ill at Bagshot Park, the house which had been lent to them by the Queen], Dr Jenner remains here permanently, and Mr Brown the Windsor Apothecary, who knows the Prince's constitution better than anybody also sees him ... The mere suggestion [of further advice] agitated the Queen dreadfully ... As cheerful a view as possible should be taken to her of the state of the Prince.'⁴

By 6 December he seemed so much better that the Queen was almost cheerful herself. He asked for the latest news; he looked over the plans of the house which his second daughter, Princess Alice, and her future husband were to occupy; he smiled fondly at his wife. 'I found dearest Albert quite himself,' the Queen wrote, 'so dear and affectionate when I went in with little baby [Princess Beatrice] whom he kissed, and he quite laughed at some of her new French verses, which I made her repeat.'⁵

The next day, however, her hopes of a recovery were dashed. A rash on his stomach developed, suggesting that he was suffering from typhoid fever, though his illness might well have been caused by cancer of the stomach. The Queen's journal entry for that day recorded:

I went to my room & cried dreadfully and felt Oh! as if my heart must break - oh! such agony as exceeded all my grief this year. Oh God! help and protect him ... I seem to live in a dreadful dream. My angel lay on the bed in the bedroom & I sat by him watching him & the tears fell fast.6

On Sunday, after a restless night during which he again wandered about in his dressing gown from one room to another with 'a strange wild look', his mood alternated between affection for the Queen, whose face he stroked, smiling and calling her by his pet names for her, Frauchen and Weibchen, and irritation and impatience, such impatience that when she tried to help in explaining something to Dr Jenner he 'quite slapped' her hand, 'poor dear darling'. When calmer he asked to be moved into the Blue Room, where the winter's sun was streaming through the windows, and for music to be played for him. A piano was brought up to the next room and there Princess Alice played Ein Feste Burg ist Unser Gott for him; and tears came into his eyes.⁷

His tongue was 'dreadful' now, 'dry and with a thick furred coat'. The doctors told Palmerston that they would like to call in further advice, even though the Queen was 'disinclined' to it and the Prince might well be alarmed. 'He is extremely low himself,' Sir Charles Phipps wrote. 'There is no doubt that the death of the King of Portugal [Pedro V, a young favourite cousin who had recently died of typhoid fever] not only grieved him very deeply, but would make him exceedingly nervous if he had any idea that his illness bore any similarity to that of which the King died. Any alarm or further depression might have a very injurious effect upon the Prince in his present state, and it will therefore require some tact and judgement to announce the arrival of fresh medical advice.'

It was decided, even so, that further opinions should be sought. So Dr Watson, a respected Physician Extraordinary to the Queen, was called in as well as Sir Henry Holland, although Lord Clarendon would no more have trusted Holland than he would have trusted Sir James Clark: neither was capable of looking 'after a sick cat'.

Soon after his arrival at the Castle, Dr Watson reported to the Prime Minister that the Prince was 'very ill': it was 'impossible not to be very anxious'.⁸ Nor had the Prince any doubt now as to just how ill he was. When Princess Alice told him that she had written to Vicky to say his illness had taken a serious turn, he said, 'You did wrong. You should have told her I am dying.'⁹

The next day, however, he seemed slightly better. 'He wanders frequently,' the Queen wrote, '& they say it is of no consequence tho' very distressing, for it is so unlike my own Angel ... Oh! it is an anxious, anxious time.' But, although confused, he behaved affectionately now towards the Queen who, going to him on the morning of 11 December, found him sitting up. 'He laid his dear head (his beautiful face, more beautiful than ever, has grown so thin) on my shoulder and remained a little while, saying, "It is very comfortable so, dear child." '¹⁰ She was so relieved by his apparent improvement that on the afternoon of Friday 13th she decided that she could go out for a walk.

But no sooner had she gone than Dr Jenner appeared in the room of the Queen's Bedchamber Woman, Lady Augusta Bruce, sister of the Prince of Wales's Governor, with the alarming report that 'such sinking had come on that he had feared the Prince would die in his arms'.¹¹

When the Queen returned he decided it was necessary to break to her the distressing tidings of what had taken place in her short absence. So Lady Augusta went down to the Queen's room. 'I was alone with her and most touching it was,' Lady Augusta told her sister. 'The words "The country, oh the country. I could perhaps bear my own misery, but the poor country" were constantly recurring. '¹²

After breaking down again in tears, the Queen - having struggled to compose herself as she usually contrived to do in his presence - returned to the Prince's room where she 'found him very quiet & comfortably warm, and so dear & kind'. He 'called her gates Frauchen' and kissed her 'so affectionately & so completely like himself. 'He folded his arms and began arranging his hair just as he used to do when well and he was dressing. These were said to be bad signs. Strange! As though he were preparing for another and greater journey. '¹³ She held his 'dear hands' between hers. He kissed her, then gave a piteous sigh, not of pain, 'but as if he felt he was leaving me, and laid his head upon my shoulder'.

The following morning she went to his room at seven o'clock as she usually did, having been given rather more favourable reports during the night.

It was a bright morning [she recalled when she could bring herself to think of it], the sun just rising and shining brightly ... Never can I forget how beautiful my darling looked lying there with his face lit up by the rising sun, his eyes unusually bright gazing as it were on unseen objects and not taking notice of me ... Sir James was very hopeful, so was Dr Jenner, & said it was a 'decided rally', - but that they were all 'very, very, anxious'. Sir H. Holland was very anxious. All constantly there or in the next room & so was I. I asked if I might go out for a breath of fresh air. The doctors answered 'Yes, just close by, for half an hour!' ... I went out on the Terrace with Alice. The military band was playing at a distance & I burst out crying and came home again ... Sir James was very hopeful, he had seen much worse cases. But the breathing was the alarming thing - so rapid ... I was crying in despair saying, how should and could I ever get on.14

The Prince of Wales had been sent for and he and the other children came into the room. He smiled at them but did not speak. The Queen bent over him and said to him 'Es ist kleines Frauchen' ('It is your little wife'). He bowed his head. She asked him if he would give her 'ein Kuss' and he did so. He seemed 'half dozing, quite quiet'.

'I left the room for a moment and sat on the floor in utter despair,' she continued. 'Attempts at consolation from others only made me worse.' Inside the room Princess Alice turned to Lady Augusta Bruce and whispered, 'This is the death rattle.' The Princess went to fetch her mother who, upon entering the room exclaimed, 'Oh, this is death. I know it. I have seen this before. '¹⁵

I took his dear left hand which was already cold ... and knelt down by him ... All, all was over ... I stood up and kissed his dear heavenly forehead & called out in a bitter and agonizing cry, 'Oh! my dear darling!' and then dropped on my knees in mute distracted despair, unable to utter a word or shed a tear! ... Then I laid down on the sofa in the Red Room, & all the gentlemen came in and knelt down & kissed my hand, & I said a word to each.16

One of the gentlemen, Sir Howard Elphinstone, Prince Arthur's Governor, described the scene - the Queen lying on the sofa, Princess Alice kneeling on the floor beside her, holding her in her arms, Princess Helena sobbing violently, the Prince of Wales standing in front of the sofa, 'deeply affected but quiet'. Elphinstone hesitated, unable to speak, until the Queen held out her hand to clutch his own and 'with a violent effort' brought out the words, 'You will not desert me? You will all help me.'

'I was deeply moved,' Elphinstone wrote in his diary, 'and answered a few words and retired, not forgetting to return the gentle pressure of the Prince of Wales's "Handdruck". The Prince was lying in the next room; his face calm, peaceful. He had gone without a struggle, but likewise without saying a word ... He died in the same room as King William IV ... About a week before he told Princess Alice that he would die ... He never even tried to rally from the moment the illness commenced ... And then in that feeble state recurred to him the scenes of childhood, which he wished to see again, to hear the birds twittering about the woods at Coburg, and be again in his warm-hearted home, away from the frigidity of England. '¹⁷