The Queen's Husband

by Jean Plaidy

  ‘Is it a … cur …’

  ‘Curriculum? A very long word for nothing very much. Just a plan of what we are going to do together.’

  ‘Is it very hard?’

  ‘I don’t think you’re going to find it so.’

  ‘I’m not clever like Vicky.’

  ‘How do we know?’

  ‘They know.’

  ‘Ah, but we might surprise them.’

  ‘Might we?’

  ‘We can never be sure, can we?’ said the strange Mr Birch.

  Bertie laughed suddenly, not because it was very funny but because he was relieved. Something told him that he and Mr Birch were going to be friends.

  He was right. With Mr Birch lessons were not so difficult. He had a way of explaining things which made them amusing or interesting.

  In the first place he had said that they would take lessons alone. He had not come to teach the Princess Royal. As soon as Vicky was no longer there to show how much cleverer she was, Bertie became less stupid. He found he could give a wrong answer to Mr Birch and not be laughed at.

  He told him once how when they were in the gardens years and years ago and Mama had been telling them about flowers, he had asked if the pink was the female of the carnation. They had all laughed at him so much that he had been afraid to ask any more questions. This had come out when Mr Birch told him that he must always ask if he did not know.

  Mr Birch listened gravely. Then he said: ‘We all have to learn at some time. It is no disgrace not to know. You must always ask if you don’t understand anything. Never be afraid that I would laugh. There are so many things I myself don’t know. And so it is with all of us.’

  Yes, thought Bertie, Vicky did not know everything; nor did Mama; nor even Papa.

  He began to look forward to lessons. He ceased to stammer. He no longer wanted to throw books at windows. He was happy.

  Mr Birch had changed everything, and Bertie loved Mr Birch.

  Chapter XVII

  REVOLUTION

  A new year had arrived and by February alarming news reached the palace. The Queen, once more pregnant and expecting to have her sixth child in April, was terribly shocked to hear that France was in a state of unrest.

  Albert brought the news to her as she lay in bed resting because as usual pregnancy was irksome. Albert sat by the bed and said gloomily: ‘The revolution has begun.’

  ‘Albert. It can’t be.’

  ‘It is so, my dear. The mob is marching on the Tuileries.’

  ‘Oh dear. The poor King and Queen! What will become of them?’ She sat up in bed. ‘It is terrible, Albert. I picture it. Advancing now as they did before on poor Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. How dreadful! Poor dear Aunt Louise will be demented.’

  ‘It is a terrible thing to have happened.’

  ‘Perhaps it will pass. If the King is strong and has the Army with him …’

  Albert shook his head. ‘It is a sad thing to see a monarchy totter. All royal houses must deplore it.’

  ‘And to think I was so angry with poor Louis Philippe only such a short while ago. I can’t bear to think of what he may be suffering at this moment. Such terrible things can happen. A mob can be fearful. To think it was such a short while ago that he sent the doll and the soldiers to the children. Who would have thought this possible!’

  ‘It is well for all of us to remember that this sort of thing could happen at any time.’

  ‘Not here, Albert. Not in England.’

  Albert did not answer and she remembered what the people had been like at the time of the Flora Hastings scandal, and the stone that had been thrown at her carriage at the time of Flora’s funeral.

  Fearfully she awaited news from France. There was nothing comforting when it came. It was a repetition of that terrible revolution at the end of last century. At midnight the tocsins had sounded throughout Paris, the sign for the people to rise. It was almost exact in detail. The royal family were in flight. Victoria could picture them hurrying across the Tuileries gardens and she was imagining it happening in Buckingham Palace.

  ‘Louis Philippe must fight,’ she had told Albert. ‘He cannot run away.’ But the French King had the terrible memory of the disaster which once before had overtaken his family. He had no wish to suffer as they had and when he was presented with an act of abdication he immediately signed it. He was so fearful that he said to everyone who came near him, ‘J’abdique, j’abdique.’

  When the Queen heard she buried her head in her hands. She could not get out of her mind the picture of the mob’s marching on Buckingham Palace.

  The palace was alive with rumours. The French family had arrived, said some. They were smuggled into the palace. Others said they had been executed by the mob.

  ‘There are always rumours,’ said Albert.

  Lord Palmerston called. The Queen swallowed her dislike and received him immediately. Albert remained with her.

  Palmerston bowed to the Queen and gave Albert that benign smile which suggested he thought him a young man of no great importance, but since he was the Queen’s husband he would indulgently allow him to be present while business was discussed.

  ‘Your Majesty,’ said the Foreign Minister, ‘it seems certain that the King of France, if he escapes, will try to reach England. If Your Majesty wished to put a ship at his disposal the Foreign Office would have no objection, but I must warn you that if Your Majesty attempted to harbour royalists, the country might object.’

  ‘I don’t understand you, Lord Palmerston. Are you suggesting that I should turn my own family away?’

  ‘I am suggesting, Ma’am, that taking into consideration the state of the country at the moment – Your Majesty will have been made aware that there has been a certain amount of unrest in various areas – it would not be wise to make too great a show of supporting the royalist cause.’

  ‘Lord Palmerston, we are royal,’ said the Queen imperiously.

  Lord Palmerston bowed, smiling his superior smile as though he realised he must placate the children.

  ‘Ma’am,’ he said, ‘it is my duty – and I am sure Your Majesty would always insist that I should not shirk that – to warn you that there is unrest throughout Europe. A revolution in one country could spark off one in others. Like fire revolution can easily spread.’

  ‘Do you suggest that here in England …’

  Lord Palmerston as usual had no compunction in interrupting the Queen. ‘I suggest, Ma’am, that we should take every precaution that it should not happen here. Many of the small kingdoms of Europe are shaking at this moment, Ma’am. The success of the revolutionaries in France will inspire others throughout Europe.’

  Albert spoke then. ‘This is so,’ he said, and Victoria could see by the expression on his face that he was thinking of Ernest and Alexandrine in Coburg.

  The Queen was calmer.

  ‘Very well,’ she said. ‘At least I may offer my relations the means of escape.’

  Uncle Leopold was in a ferment of anxiety:

  I am unwell in consequence of the awful events in Paris. How will this end? Poor Louise is in a state of despair which is pitiful to behold. What will soon become of us God alone knows; great efforts will be made to revolutionise this country; as there are poor and wicked people in all countries, it may succeed.

  Against France we, of course, have a right to claim protection from England and the other powers. I can write no more. God bless you.

  Poor Uncle Leopold. What anxiety must be his! He was so near to France, so close to the French royal family. And Aunt Louise, what was she thinking?

  And from poor stricken Aunt Louise:

  My dearly beloved Victoria, I understand by an account arrived this morning, and which seems to be correct, that my unfortunate parents arrived in England before yesterday evening; but I don’t know where they are.

  There was a letter enclosed which Louise begged Victoria, if she were able, to give to her mother. Before sealing her letters Louise had heard that
her parents were in London.

  ‘I thank God from the bottom of my heart for their safety,’ she wrote. ‘In my agony I did not wish for anything else.’

  What terrible times! Poor Albert was very depressed and unhappy. She knew his thoughts were with Ernest in Coburg. He was picturing the mob marching on the palace there; he would see them with their greedy hands on the treasures of Rosenau.

  Lord Palmerston called on the Queen and in Albert’s company she received him.

  ‘Your Majesty will be pleased to hear that the King and Queen of France have arrived safely in England,’ he told her.

  The Queen said that the news was the best she had heard since this terrible revolution had begun.

  ‘I have a communication from a Mr Featherstonhaugh, our consul at Le Havre. When the King and Queen came to Le Havre he had everything ready for their embarkation. It was not easy. You will see that Mr Featherstonhaugh arranged for the King and Queen to have passports in the name of Mr and Mrs Smith and the King was disguised. It was necessary for him to shave off his whiskers, wear a casquette – a sort of cap – on his head, a coarse overcoat and a pair of goggles.’

  ‘The poor King!’ cried Victoria. ‘And the Queen … how she must have suffered!’

  ‘Mr Featherstonhaugh should be congratulated,’ went on Lord Palmerston. ‘By great ingenuity and at considerable risk to himself he smuggled the King and Queen on board. An hour after the steamer sailed gendarmes were at the quay waiting to arrest them.’

  ‘So they are safe!’ sighed the Queen. ‘Where can they go?’

  Albert said: ‘I suppose there would be no objection to their going to Claremont. It is almost a private residence.’

  Lord Palmerston bowed his head. ‘I think,’ he said, ‘that the royal French family might find refuge in Claremont.’

  It was so worrying. There were riots all over the country although these were not quite of the same nature as those which had occurred in France and other European countries. People at home, comforted Lord John Russell, were not quite so excitable as they were abroad, which was well. Revolutions never brought gain to a country, least of all to the people who created them. The trouble in England was mainly the risings of the Chartists, who wanted more privileges for the working classes. They were not satisfied with the Reform Bill and wanted more than had been granted them.

  ‘I never liked the Chartists,’ said the Queen. ‘And the thought of riots here after what has happened in France is very alarming.’

  ‘The situation here is under control,’ said Lord John.

  Albert was not so sure. He was very worried. His thoughts, of course, were far away in Germany.

  Then a fresh blow struck them. Albert came to the Queen holding the letter in his hand and he was in tears.

  ‘Albert, what has happened?’ cried the Queen.

  Albert could only shake his head and Victoria took the letter from him.

  ‘From Coburg,’ she said in some dismay. ‘Oh dear. Poor dear Grandmama … dead. My poor, poor Albert, I know how you loved her, and so did I.’

  ‘She was a mother to me,’ said Albert brokenly.

  ‘This is too much in addition to everything else.’

  ‘She was an angel on earth,’ said Albert. ‘Always good and loving to us all.’

  Victoria wept to think of that dear body lying under flower-covered earth in the Island of Graves which they had so recently visited.

  The days were uneasy. On one bleak March day news was brought to the palace that the Chartists had assembled in Trafalgar Square and were planning to march on Buckingham Palace.

  Very large, expecting her child to be born very soon, the Queen’s great concern was for the children.

  ‘Keep them happy in the schoolroom,’ she ordered. ‘They should not understand what this could mean.’

  Going to the window she could see the mob marching up the Mall. They were coming closer and closer to the palace. This was what had happened in Paris.

  She closed her eyes and thought: Is this the end then? Is this what I was brought up to, trained for? Albert was beside her. Dear Albert, still mourning for his grandmother, and anxious for his homeland!

  She waited in trepidation for disaster but nothing happened and Lord John called at the palace to tell her that the rioters had dispersed.

  ‘They had no real heart for it,’ he said. ‘They’ve too much sense.’

  Such alarms were terrifying though.

  She hoped they were not having any effect on the child.

  She remembered that it was Lord Melbourne’s birthday. She hardly ever saw him now because he spent most of the time down at Brocket. It was said that he had gone a little strange. She knew this was true because he imagined quite falsely that he was in financial difficulties. She herself had lent him money to help him over a difficult period, which did not in fact exist. She thought of him now and then, just a little guiltily, for in her domestic happiness she had been inclined to neglect him. But perhaps it was because she did not like to think of those extravagant entries in her diary when she was so devoted to him that she could not bear a day to pass without seeing him. She wrote to him:

  The Queen cannot let this day pass without offering Lord Melbourne her and the Prince’s best wishes for many happy returns of it in health and strength.

  She went on to write of the terrible revolution which had swept France and was threatening Europe.

  ‘Too gloomy a letter for a birthday,’ she finished, ‘and the Queen must apologise for it.’

  It cheered her a little to picture Lord Melbourne’s delight when he received it.

  Three days later she gave birth to a daughter. This was her sixth child.

  ‘We’ll call her Louise,’ she said. ‘I hope she doesn’t turn out peculiar, having been born at such a time. Aunt Louise will like the baby’s being called after her. Perhaps it will cheer her a little.’

  The confinement had passed off much better than the Queen had expected. The new baby was a placid, healthy child, rather like Alice. For two weeks Victoria did not leave her apartments in the palace and Albert carried her from the bed to her sofa. The march to Buckingham Palace which had petered out before anything violent happened seemed to have sobered up the trouble-makers. How she longed to be at Osborne with dear Albert and the children and forget all the unpleasant things that were happening in the world!

  But how could one forget the poor French family and dear Aunt Louise who must be suffering torment?

  Still she was feeling better and blustering March was over and April was here with a promise of the spring.

  She and Albert were going through their etchings together and Albert was telling her where she had quite succeeded when Lord John Russell was announced. As soon as he entered the Queen could see by the gravity of his expression that something was wrong.

  ‘I had better tell Your Majesty and Your Highness of my concern without delay. The Chartists are planning a big meeting to take place on the 10th and it is to be in London. The Cabinet fears they may mean trouble this time.’

  ‘Oh, how can they! I have just got up from childbed and they dare to do this?’

  ‘They consider only themselves, Ma’am,’ said Little Johnny. ‘We shall take every precaution at the palace, and we hope they can be halted before they reach it.’

  ‘Have they … threatened me … us?’

  ‘No, Your Majesty. They propose to march to the Houses of Parliament. But a mob can so easily get out of hand. I thought you should be warned. The Cabinet will discuss what measures can be taken.’

  The Queen bowed her head.

  When Lord John returned, Albert walked with him out of the palace while the Queen sat brooding.

  Was it coming, she asked herself, all the terrible things that had happened in France? She and Lehzen had studied history together, and she knew what had happened in France during the big revolution. She had shivered when she had read of the fall of the Bastille and the flight of the King and Queen to V
arennes, their capture, their bitter humiliation. She had felt so sorry for them because she had guessed what it must have meant for royalty to fall so low. But had she understood before? Now she could hear the shouts of the mob; she remembered them not so long ago when they had marched up the Mall. That was a rehearsal; the next would be the real thing.

  Revolution, the abolition of monarchy – that was the plague which was spreading across Europe!

  What of the new baby – but two weeks old? Dear little Louise! What sort of world had she been born into? What of Pussy, Bertie, Alice, Alfred and Helena? What terrible fate had befallen the Dauphin of France? Who could say? It was a miserable end and the more terrible for being so. What if such a fate were waiting for Bertie?

  She felt hysterical with terror and when Albert came back he found her weeping helplessly.

  ‘Victoria, you must be calm. You must not give way.’

  ‘It is very well for you,’ cried the Queen, suddenly losing control. ‘Have you just got up from bearing a child? Have you suffered nine months of discomfort? Oh, no, you have not. You are like every other man. It is a fine thing to have a family, you continually tell me. Very fine … for you. You don’t have to suffer.’

  ‘Victoria, for Heaven’s sake, don’t get so excited.’

  ‘Get excited, when the mob is coming to tear us all apart. They will attack me, not you. You do not count for much. I am the Queen.’

  In vain did Albert try to soothe her; she could only weep, and suddenly her temper would flare up and she would accuse him of heartlessness.

  It was like a return to those days when there had been quarrels between them. He knew that when she was in such a mood he should leave her to herself but then she upbraided him for his cynical indifference.

  Later that day Lord John called again at the palace and saw Albert. He said that the Cabinet had decided that it would be advisable for the Queen, the Prince and the royal family to leave for Osborne two days before the Chartist gathering was to be held.