by Theo Aronson
She certainly had a right to this title. Not only was she Europe's leading monarch but, being part Coburg and having married a Coburg, she was related to almost every royal family on the Continent. Her Coburg cousins or second cousins reigned in Belgium, Portugal and Bulgaria and had married, or would one day marry, into the ruling families of France, Austria and Italy. Her son's wives were related to the Russian, Danish, Greek and Dutch monarchies. She was even to be connected to that most outré of dynasties, the Bonapartes. Had Crown Prince Rudolf not shot his mistress and himself at Mayerling, his wife – Queen Victoria's second cousin, Princess Stephanie of Belgium – would have been Empress of Austria. A mad and beautiful female cousin, now locked up in a Belgian castle, had once been the Empress of Mexico. Yet another second cousin, the jewelled and perfumed Ferdinand of Bulgaria, dreamed of having himself crowned Emperor of a new Byzantine Empire, in Saint Sofia in Constantinople.
But even without these various collatoral ramifications, through the marriages of her direct descendants alone Queen Victoria could claim to be Europe's royal grandmother. Through ten of her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren she came to be linked to the majority of the reigning sovereigns of the Continent. Her eldest son was to succeed to her own throne as King Edward VII. Her eldest daughter was to become German Empress, the mother of Kaiser Wilhelm II. One granddaughter would be the last, tragic Empress of Russia. Another would become Queen Sophie of the Hellenes, the mother of no fewer than three Greek kings and one Romanian queen. Other granddaughters would be Queen Marie of Romania, Queen Maud of Norway and Queen Ena of Spain. Her great-granddaughters would become Queen Marie of Yugoslavia, Queen Louise of Sweden and Queen Ingrid of Denmark. And most of these, in turn, were to be the mothers and grandmothers of kings.
It was thus with justification that a disgruntled Hapsburg archduke could complain that 'the Coburgs gain throne after throne and spread their growing power abroad over the whole earth'. And that Bismarck could refer to Coburg as 'the stud farm of Europe'. In the years between Queen Victoria's Golden Jubilee and the end of the First World War, the old Catholic monarchies were completely overshadowed; it was the Protestant royalties, and more particularly those with Coburg blood, who led the field. From snow-bound St Petersburg to stifling Lisbon, from rain-lashed London to sun-drenched Athens, the Coburgs wielded their influence. The wagons-lits were forever carrying yet another member of the family to a foreign capital: the Orient Express took them to Sofia, the Star of the North took them to St Petersburg. Stiffly they stood amongst the potted palms on station platforms waiting for trains to transport them to weddings in Madrid, house-parties in Copenhagen, christenings at Potsdam and funerals at Windsor. The Queen's Coburg relations exchanged gossip in the orchid houses at Laeken, they were piped aboard yachts on the Tagus, they opened balls in the Hofburg. In swaggering cavalcades they passed along the streets of Brussels or Berlin or Bucharest.
Indeed, this last great flowering of Europe's monarchy was very much a family affair: a royal aggrandizement presided over by the plump and imperious Grandmama of them all.
2
If, to the world, Queen Victoria was the remote and illustrious Grandmama of Europe, to her grandchildren she was every bit as awe inspiring. To them, whether they were youngsters, or men and women on the threshold of middle age, the prestige of Grandmama Queen was almost overwhelming. 'They spoke to her,' testifies one of these grandchildren, 'with bated breath, and even when not present she was never mentioned except with lowered voice.'
To be taken to see their grandmother was an event of extreme importance in the lives of the children. 'I have so much to do and have suffered so much from my head lately that I fear that I cannot undertake to see you this time,' wrote the Queen imperiously to the mother of one such brood of royal children, 'but if you will send Girdlestone [the nurse] with the children by herself at half past ten on Wednesday I could find a few minutes to see them – which I long to do.'
Along wide, silent and deeply carpeted corridors, like a flock of 'well-behaved little geese', the children would be driven by their anxious nurses towards the Queen's apartments. No one spoke above a whisper. Even reprimands were delivered in hushed tones. 'Mind you curtsy at the door and kiss Grandmama's hand and don't make a noise and mind you are good,' would run the scarcely audible instructions. Soundlessly, one after another, double doors would be opened by low-bowing, liveried footmen; 'it was like passing through the forecourts of a temple, before approaching the final mystery to which only the initiated had access.' The last door would open and there, sitting at her desk in an old-fashioned, elaborately flounced black silk dress with a snowy widow's cap on her head, would be Queen Victoria.
To the children, the Queen might be awesome but she was never frightening. She was certainly not the ogre of popular imagination. In fact, the more perceptive amongst her grandchildren realized that she was just as shy of them as they were of her. On seeing them, the Queen would smile her timid smile and give a little shrug of her shoulders. A quick, nervous laugh always preceded her opening remarks. Conversation was halting and made up, for the most part, of questions about the children's behaviour. Any report of naughtiness would be met with mock exclamations of horror on the part of the Queen. Yet she never raised her voice; her air was one of tranquillity.
Her rooms fascinated the children. They were always sweet with the scent of orange flowers and, as the Queen insisted on open windows, never stuffy or gloomy. They were crammed, not only with furniture, but with innumerable paintings, portraits and ornaments. In all of these, Grandpapa – the late Prince Consort – figured largely. He was portrayed in oil paintings, water colours, prints, photographs, busts and statuettes. In general's uniform, in Garter robes, in a kilt, in plaid trousers, on a mountainside, at his writing table, in the garden, with his dogs or his horses or his children, with his little wife gazing rapturously into his face, the shade of Prince Albert dominated the room. But there was a great deal more to be seen: Landseer's wonderful pictures of dogs and deer and horses, photographs of people long since dead, a glass ball shimmering with different colours, 'all sorts of delicious queer little objects made of Scotch granite and cairngorm'. There was even a caged bullfinch who either screeched with rage or piped a gay little tune.
At Osborne or Balmoral, the Queen's grandchildren were more likely to see her out of doors. Sometimes they would be allowed to breakfast with her. Here, instead of carpets, the marvellously smooth, springy green lawns would muffle any footfalls. The Queen would be seated under a large ecru parasol tent, lined and fringed with green. All about, in nervous attendance, stood turbaned Indians, kilted Highlanders, liveried footmen and black-clad ladies-in-waiting. Dogs – collies, pomeranians, Scotch or Skye terriers – sprawled on the grass. The air would be pungent with the smell of coffee and of certain brown biscuits, imported from Germany, which the Queen might, or might not, offer to her grandchildren. As they often had difficulty in observing the obligatory silence or low-pitched conversation at the royal table, some of the children invented 'a kind of dumb talk'. This invariably led to fits of giggling followed by embarrassed explanations. The minute breakfast was over, the children would be packed off, the table cleared and the dispatch boxes brought out.
No less characteristic were the glimpses which the children would have of their grandmother out driving. Come wind, rain or sleet, the Queen would never miss her daily drive. 'I remember a morning when none of the family would accompany Grandmama Victoria in her little pony carriage,' recalled Princess Alice, afterwards Countess of Athlone, 'so, to my intense joy and pride, I was deputed and out we went, sleet pouring down on us, nothing daunted.'
Another of her grandchildren, the little girl who became the colourful Queen Marie of Romania, has left an even more vivid picture of the Queen taking her drive at Balmoral.
'There was a quite special thrill,' she writes, 'when from afar you saw Grandmama's outrider come trotting down the road ahead of her carriage. Grandmama neve
r drove without an outrider.
'Solemn-faced, in a livery as impeccably black and neat as the clothes of a bishop, mounted on a stolid dappled grey, groomed to the superlative perfection only English stables can attain, this forerunner of the Royal Presence would appear round the bend of the road. Trot, trot, trot, trot, the very sound made your heart beat with expectation. That black-coated rider with a face that never smiled, never in fact expressed anything but almost magnificent reliability, was more uniquely royal and effective than any flare of trumpets or bright-coated military escort could have been. Trot, trot, trot, trot, and here was Her Majesty's carriage drawn by greys as superbly sleek and well-bred as the one who had heralded their coming; and seated within the open barouche, a wee little old lady with an exquisitely old-fashioned hat and antediluvian, sloping-shouldered mantle, back, with sometimes a touch of white. Nothing showy about her, no attempt at effect of any kind, the whole turn-out simple, unadorned, but what a thrill the passing of that simple carriage gave you.
'Trot, trot, trot, trot, deep curtseys, the waving of hands and handkerchiefs, smiles on every face, a responding smile from the little old lady in the carriage – only just a glimpse – but how the memory remained with you. Trot, trot . . . a diminishing sound. You stood staring after the carriage, the horses, the outrider, trot, trot . . . fainter, fainter . . . till it died quite away . . .
'Grandmama Queen!'
Although the Queen might only rarely be seen by her grandchildren, she was the dominant presence in their lives. No important step could be taken without the consent of the little old lady in black. She had to know about their education, their travels, their health and their personalities. 'In a way she was the arbiter of our different fates,' wrote one of her granddaughters. 'For all members of her family her "yes" and her "no" counted tremendously. She was not averse from interfering in the most private questions. She was the central power directing things.'
Her cross-examinations were dreaded by the younger generation. 'I like Balmoral for about a fortnight,' complained one of the princesses, 'but I honestly think that longer than that is rather an ordeal as the everlasting questions and the carefulness of one's replies is extremely fatiguing . . . .'
Yet, for all her insistence on having her say, Queen Victoria was no virago. On the contrary, she was exceptionally kind, sympathetic and understanding. One could always go to her in trouble. So sentimental herself, she was quick to respond to a romantic situation. Her grandchildren might stand in awe of her tremendous presence but on important issues they always found her tolerant, broadminded and far from prudish.
This compassion was well illustrated during the course of a scandal that set the small German courts a-quiver during the late 1890s. A young and unmarried royal duchess was discovered to be pregnant. The father of the child was a footman who, owing to some antiquated rule at the Grand Ducal court, had had the nightly task of bringing the lamps into the girl's bedroom. The parents, horrified at what they considered to be their daughter's plunge from grace, lost no time in turning her out. Queen Victoria was no less horrified at their lack of sympathy. 'It is too awful and shameful and almost sinful to send the poor Baby away,' wrote the Queen. 'I hear from a reliable source that the family have forbidden that poor unhappy girl's name ever being mentioned in the family . . . I think it too wicked.'
It was in the matter of her grandchildren's marriages, of course, that the Queen's influence was most clearly felt. On these she had very definite, and very sensible ideas. For one thing, she would never insist on marriage for the sake of marriage. 'Moretta has expressed a strong wish not to marry now,' she wrote to her grandchild Moretta's mother on one occasion, 'and I own – I think you should let it alone for the present. Let her see people – but pray don't force it on, for if she has no inclination, if she don't like anyone, it would never do . . . don't force or press her to marry for marrying's sake; that is dreadful.'
Such advice was rare in the courts of Europe.
Although she was always well enough pleased if a member of her family made a brilliant match, Queen Victoria was never one for talking anyone into a politically or dynastically advantageous marriage. In fact, the longer she lived, the less she cared about great foreign matrimonial alliances. In the case of her eldest children, they had led to endless friction. By the time her younger children, and her grandchildren, were ready for marriage, she always preferred a suitable match to a spectacular one. 'Great marriages do not make happiness,' she once warned her eldest daughter. In the face of considerable opposition the Queen allowed her daughter Louise to marry a commoner – the Marquess of Lorne. To her protesting eldest son, the Prince of Wales, she explained that marriage to some foreign prince would cause nothing but 'trouble and annoyances and unhappiness, and which I never would consent to'. What good, nowadays, were these 'great foreign alliances'?
Once, when a handsome young prince, having been refused permission to marry a suitable princess, married a beautiful singer instead, the Queen's daughter Vicky cried out that he had been 'driven to despair'. Victoria's comment was more sensible. 'Perhaps they love one another,' she answered.
Queen Victoria never shared the horror of the leading Continental royal families of marriage with a member of a morganatic branch. The German imperial family was appalled when the Queen sanctioned the marriage of not only one, but two, morganatic Battenberg princes into her own family. Both the German Empress and her son, the Crown Prince, wrote to the Queen to express their reservations. Victoria was furious. How dare they address her in that tone? How could they refer to the Battenbergs as not being Geblüt – pure-bred – as though they were animals?
'If the Queen of England thinks a person good enough for her daughter,' she quoted one of her Ministers as saying, 'what have other people got to say?
For indeed, if the Queen was ready to allow her children and grandchildren to ally themselves to Europe's less important and less pure-bred royalties, she was still extremely conscious of her own status as Europe's leading sovereign. Hers was still, she would claim blandly, 'the greatest position there is'. When her son Prince Alfred expressed a wish to marry the only daughter of Tsar Alexander II, Queen Victoria insisted that the Princess come to England for inspection. The Tsar did not see why she should. Why, suggested the Empress of Russia to the Queen's daughter Princess Alice, could the Queen not come to Germany and inspect the girl there? Princess Alice, in full agreement, passed the message on to her mother. The Queen exploded.
'I do not think, dear Child,' wrote the Queen to Princess Alice, 'that you should tell me who have been nearly twenty years longer on the throne than the Emperor of Russia and am the Doyenne of Sovereigns and who am a Reigning Sovereign which the Empress is not – what I ought to do. I think I know that. The proposal received on Wednesday for me to be at Cologne . . . tomorrow, was one of the coolest things I ever heard . . . I own everyone was shocked.'
Although Queen Victoria was not bigoted in this matter of her children's and grandchildren's marriages, it was very rarely that any of them married outside the charmed circle of European royalties. Some of their partners might be minor royalties but they were royalties all the same. To Queen Victoria, royalty was a race apart. It was inevitable, therefore, that with a family as large as hers, the Queen's descendants would be scattered throughout the palaces of Europe and that some of them, at least, would sit on thrones. She might have been able to ensure that her younger daughters married tame, uncommitted princelings who were content to live in England; she could hardly control the marriages of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren to the same extent.
Thus there was carried, into the courts of late nineteenth-century and early twentieth-century Europe, something of the atmosphere of Queen Victoria's England. A flock of English or half-English princesses introduced into the royal families of the Continent the taste, the ideas, the morals, the language and the way of life of Victoria's court. Into these foreign palaces they brought, sometimes quite literally, a breath of
fresh air. They built homes that looked like Mayfair mansions or Tudor manor houses; they had them fitted with bathrooms and lavatories ('these really necessary affairs' as the Queen called them); they filled them with chintz-covered furniture from Maple and Liberty; they kept the vases full of flowers and the windows open. One could hardly believe, boasted Princess Alice to Queen Victoria on moving into her newly-built home at Darmstadt, that one was in Germany; 'the house and all its arrangements are so English'.
'The house would enchant you just now,' wrote Queen Victoria's daughter, Vicky, of her own daughter's improvements to her villa at Bonn, 'it is just like a pretty English country house . . . All in such good taste.'
In these cosy, chintzy, convenient houses, they tried to lead as English a life as possible. The day started with a hearty breakfast and, instead of having to change into full evening dress for dinner at four in the afternoon followed by a gargantuan tea at eight at night, the family sat down to luncheon in the middle of the day and to dinner in the evening. English manners were considered de rigueur. 'But my dear,' exclaimed the Queen's granddaughter, Princess Ena of Battenberg, to her husband, King Alfonso XIII of Spain, on the morning after their wedding, 'you're dipping your toast in your tea!'
The children were brought up in the English fashion – simply, strictly and according to the maxim that they should be seen and not heard. They were fed on baked apples and rice puddings. Every nursery was presided over by that ubiquitous symbol of imperial Britain – the English nanny. There was a Mrs Orchard at Darmstadt, a Mrs Lorne at Athens, a Miss Green at Bucharest. (Sir 'Chips' Channon, in later years, claimed that all European royalties spoke English with a slight cockney accent from having been brought up by English nannies.) English was the language in which the German Empress Frederick wrote to her daughters – Princess Sophie of Greece, Princess Victoria of Schaumberg-Lippe and Princess Margaret of Hesse. English was heard in the Winter Palace in St Petersburg, in the Neues Palais at Potsdam, in the Palacio Real, Madrid. 'I am English by education and English is my language,' claimed the German princess who was the last Tsaritsa of Russia. And when Queen Olga of Greece asked one of her granddaughters why she prayed in English, rather than Greek, the little girl replied, 'I have arranged it with God. I told Him I liked to talk to Him in English best, and He said: "Please yourself, Marina!" '
