Victoria: A Life

by A. N. Wilson

  While it would be an insult to omit the name Albert from the child’s list of names, it would also, of course, be a delicate matter of whether the sacred name could ever be used. The Queen spelt it out. ‘Respecting your own names, and the conversation we had, I wish to repeat, that it was beloved Papa’s wish, as well as mine, that you should be called by both, when you became King, and it would be impossible for you to drop your Father’s. It would be monstrous and Albert alone, as you truly and amiably say, would not do, as there can be only one ALBERT!’

  Bertie replied, ‘Regarding the possibility of my ever filling that high position, which God grant may be far, very far distant, I quite understand your wishes about my bearing my two names, although no English Sovereign has ever done so yet, and you will agree with me that it would not be pleasant to be like “Louis Napoleon”, “Victor Emmanuel”, “Charles Albert” etc.’57

  Meanwhile, over the Danish crisis, the Queen wrote to Vicky that ‘my heart and sympathies are all German’.58 In February, she wrote to Earl Russell, ‘How dreadfully we must all, but above all, the unhappy Queen, miss now the one wise, far-seeing, and impartial head, who would have guided us safely through these difficulties!’59 With great recklessness, King Christian laid claim to both Duchies, giving Bismarck the excuse he needed to occupy both. He had squared the Russians, and the armies which marched into Schleswig on 1 February were not only Prussian, but Austrian too. Fritz was there at the head of his cavalry regiment. The Queen deplored the war, especially when she realized that Bismarck had no intention of exploring the Augustenburg claims to Holstein. Both Duchies were to come under the heel of Prussia. ‘My prayers will be offered up for poor beloved Fritz,’ she wrote, but added, ‘I still disbelieve in war’.60 Two weeks later, she exclaimed, ‘Oh! If Bertie’s wife was only a good German and not a Dane! Not, as regards the influence of the politics but as regards the peace and harmony of the family! It is terrible to have the poor boy on the wrong side.’61 The bombardment of Sonderburg in March and April caused outrage in the British press, especially in The Times, but for Vicky, there was nothing ‘inhuman or improper’62 about it. An armistice was agreed by May, the Danes formally surrendered on 18 July 1864, and on 1 August, the Prussians took over the Duchies.

  The war had been a small thing when measured by other conflicts – for example, by comparison with the slaughter in the American Civil War which raged from 1861 to 1865. But as an historian of the crisis pointed out, it was ‘one of the important turning-points in the history of British foreign policy. It produced the most emphatic diplomatic defeat suffered by the Victorians and it precipitated their eclipse in Europe during the Bismarckian age’.63 The Prusso-Danish war had caught old Palmerston and Russell off guard. Palmerston believed that the attempts of minor German states to determine the future of the Duchies were as uncalled-for ‘as the Duke of Devonshire’s servants’ hall assuming to decide who shall be the owner of a Derbyshire country gentleman’s estate’.64 The words showed that he had entirely missed the significance of what had happened. Bismarck, by winning Schleswig-Holstein for Prussia, had not only established, beyond any question, the German destiny and the German future. He had also advertised to the world British impotence in Europe. Henceforward, Britain’s Empire might be expanding in Asia and Africa, but in Europe, the decline of British influence, which had begun with the follies of the Crimean War, would now accelerate.

  There was a vacancy for a lady-in-waiting, and in the course of the summer and autumn, the Queen looked about. She had already grown close to Lady Augusta Bruce, the sister of the late general who had been Bertie’s governor. In December, however, this much-loved personal friend of the Queen had married none other than Dean Stanley, now the Dean of Westminster – the same man who had accompanied General Bruce and Bertie on their tour of the Levant and made manful efforts to appreciate Mrs Henry Wood.

  Lady Augusta would remain close to the Queen, but marriage inevitably took her away, and from now onwards, Victoria found it comforting to surround herself with widows, who both sympathized with her plight and were less likely to abandon her. One very eligible figure was Lady Waterpark (Eliza Jane), recently widowed. (Lady Waterpark was to be the aunt of a future Prime Minister, Lord Rosebery, and the great-grandmother of the celebrated photographer Patrick Lichfield.)

  On 10 September 1864, writing to a lady-in-waiting, Lady Fanny Howard, the Queen spelt out the role’s duties. She did not mention the very necessary one, an ability to endure the cold. The Queen’s loathing of hot rooms, and her indifference to the cold, became unrestrained during her years of widowhood, and those who visited Balmoral, in particular, were always in danger of feeling cold. Lord Stanley when Foreign Secretary found her breakfasting out of doors on a September day which he considered colder than an October day in England, and he remarked, ‘Her love of exposure to the weather and her dislike of heat and close rooms, are almost morbid.’65 It was open to question whether the Queen even noticed that others around her were shivering. As for Lady Waterpark’s suitability as a lady-in-waiting, Victoria wanted to know:

  1st. Is Lady Waterpark’s health good?

  2nd. Can she walk & ride (that is at a fool’s pace in the Highlands, which I am ordered to do as I can walk but little).

  3rd. Will she be prepared to take part in society, that is as far as to be able to go to Drawing Rooms, & to appear regularly at the Household dinners etc.

  All these things have become doubly necessary since my misfortune, the Lady in waiting constantly representing me at dinner, & having also to chaperone our daughters. – Balls & Theatres she would be asked to go to. –

  She speaks French of course – I think it is necessary that Lady Waterpark should know and fully consider all these points before she undertakes the office, as it is unfair by the other ladies, as well as by me, that a new lady should come in, & then prove unable to perform these duties. Augusta Stanley being away, I thought it best to write to you myself. Ever yours affctly and sadly, V.R.66

  To Lady Waterpark herself, when she had accepted the role, Victoria explained that the dress code was widow’s black. ‘All those who are waiting on me wear the sable garb, which I think best suits our sad sisterhood.’

  Lady Waterpark’s husband, a former lord-in-waiting to Prince Albert, died in the previous year, and the Queen was ‘hoping that you may find it suitable to you, and not dislike to serve the poor broken-hearted Widow of one whom your dear Husband served as well as Herself in happy days. I think that we understand one another & feel that Life is ended for us, except in the sense of duty – This House [Balmoral] is a sad and solitary one bereft of its Master, & its joy and sunshine.’67

  Sad and solitary as Balmoral was, it was a place which always brought consolations. Victoria loved sketching, she found the Highland air refreshing, and the company of the unaffected Highland servants made a stimulating change from the stuffiness of Windsor and Buckingham Palace. In the happy days of marriage, she had already taken a great shine to John Brown, the gillie. By the end of 1864, Princess Alice, who had noticed that rides in the pony cart at Balmoral were almost the only things which made her mother half cheerful, recommended that they brought Brown to England. She put the idea to Dr Jenner and to Colonel Phipps, Keeper of the Privy Purse. They both agreed that it was an admirable idea. So it was, in December 1864, that John Brown came to Osborne House.

  From now onwards, Brown would be her constant companion. At Osborne, he brought in her private correspondence at 10 am, and took her for a morning ride. This was repeated in the afternoon. At Balmoral, he stayed with her while she did her correspondence and took it upon himself to post the letters. At Windsor, he would stand guard in the corridor outside her room, ‘fending off’, as one courtier put it, ‘even the highest in the land’.68

  The very qualities which others found irritating in Brown were ones which made him an ideal companion for Queen Victoria. He was humorous – not since the death
of Lord Melbourne had she had a companion who was genuinely funny. He was abrasive with pompous courtiers. Above all, however, he saw her primarily as a human being. He ‘protected her as she was, a poor broken-hearted bairn who wanted looking after and taking out of herself’.69 ‘It is a real comfort,’ the Queen told her uncle Leopold, ‘for [Brown] is devoted to me – so simple, so intelligent, so unlike an ordinary servant.’70 To Vicky, she could say, ‘I feel I have here and always in the House a good devoted Soul . . . whose only object & interest is my service, & God knows how much I want so to be taken care of.’71 There would never be a substsitute for her mother, or for Prince Albert; but Brown filled a gap.

  Needless to say, his abrasive manners irritated the regular servants and courtiers. The Queen used Brown to fetch members of the Household, and he often did so in a way which they regarded as ill-mannered. He fell out with General Charles Grey, the Queen’s private secretary, very early on. Grey’s daughter, the Countess of Antrim, recalled that he refused to accept the message from the Queen in Brown’s crude wording, and thereafter ‘the two men bore each other a grudge’.72

  On one occasion, Brown was sent to convey a dinner invitation to the lords-in-waiting who were waiting in the billiard room at Windsor to see whether or not they were to dine with the Queen. Brown merely opened the door and bawled out, ‘All what’s here dines with the Queen.’ Such manners were not liked. Sir Henry Ponsonby, who succeeded Grey and knew how to handle Brown, remembered one occasion when the Mayor of Portsmouth came to Osborne to invite the Queen to inspect a force of volunteers. Her refusal was no doubt couched in polite language, but when Brown returned to the equerries’ room, where he sat with Ponsonby, he merely said, ‘The Queen says saretenly not.’ He was frequently tipsy, and he gave whisky to the Queen. Her indulging his idiosyncracies enraged her servants and embarrassed her courtiers.The pair were soon exchanging gifts. ‘On one occasion, he produced a “dozen cheap egg-cups of gay and florid design”. To the complete surprise of her ladies, the Queen accepted the garish utensils with the delight she had usually reserved for Prince A’s little Geschenk [present], which he usually inscribed “Meiner theuren Victoria von Ihrem treuen Albert”. [To my dear Victoria from her loyal Albert.] The egg-cups were used every Sunday on the Queen’s breakfast-table until they were finally all broken years after Brown’s death.’73

  Though Prince Albert had never found much common ground with ‘Pilgerstein’, Queen Victoria discovered an admiration for the ‘dreadful old man’ in his latter days. Discussing international affairs with her elderly Prime Minister, she found Palmerston to be ‘wonderfully fair, pacific and moderate about Poland and Russia, also Denmark and even Germany’.74

  Palmerston, the older he grew, advanced in popularity with the electorate and with the public at large. Remaining to the end of his days a Whig aristocrat with eighteenth-century attitudes to his own personal behaviour, private wealth and sexual morality, he was nevertheless able to espouse the mood of the times, and to make his party, the Liberals, the driving force behind improving working conditions with a series of Factory Acts, and supporting progressive causes in a variety of Royal Commissions. The scandal in 1863, when Palmerston, aged seventy-nine, was accused of adultery with Margaret O’Kane, the wife of a radical Irish journalist, only increased his popularity with the public. As one jaunty ballad had it,

  Here’s jolly good luck to Palmerston,

  And although near fourscore,

  We hope that he may live in health,

  For twenty years or more75

  In the election during the summer of 1865, Palmerston won a comfortable majority for the Liberals. Then, on 18 October 1865, the inevitable news reached Balmoral. The Queen was spared the scurrilous rumour that her Prime Minister had died in flagrante, having one final fling with a maid on the billiard table at Brocket Hall. As a matter of fact, his end was seemly. Having suffered from cold and gout and a bladder and kidney infection, Pam sank into a calm silence, allowing himself to be nagged by an evangelical doctor, of the name of Smith, and by his nephew Lord Shaftesbury, into accepting Christ as his personal saviour. As they prayed by Pam’s bedside, they took his silence to be assent, and the Victorian statesman breathed his last surrounded by prayer. It was hardly surprising that an eighty-one-year-old man should have reached the end, but everyone recognized that with the old roué’s carcass was borne away an old way of doing politics which would never be replaced. A few months earlier, he had remarked to Shaftesbury that when he died, ‘Gladstone will soon have it all his own way, and whenever he gets my place, we shall have strange doings’.76 No one, when it happened, would be more aware of this than Queen Victoria.

  FIFTEEN

  ‘I COULD DIE FOR YE’

  IN THE LITTLE over three years which followed Palmerston’s death, there were four Prime Ministers – the Liberal Earl Russell (from October 1865 to June 1866); the Conservative Earl of Derby, who resigned through ill health in 1868, dying the following year; and then the two figures who would dominate the political life of Britain for the next decade – the Conservative Benjamin Disraeli, who was Prime Minister for most of 1868 (February to December), followed by the Liberal W. E. Gladstone.

  This rapid turnover of Prime Ministers was chiefly the result of the advanced age of the political top brass, but also because Britain was passing through a period of political turbulence. We speak of 1832, and the Great Reform Act, as the turning point of nineteenth-century politics. But in its way, 1867 was more revolutionary, for it was the Reform Act of that year which extended the franchise to the big industrial cities and paved the way for modern British politics. In addition to questions of the franchise, the political classes were faced with the cotton famine, the economic privations which overtook Lancashire during the American Civil War, when the production of cotton goods in Britain came to a virtual standstill; and with the beginnings of the Irish Fenian convulsions which would lead, within half a century, to Ireland leaving the United Kingdom altogether. So, much was going on during these years, and it was not surprising that the monarchy itself came under critical scrutiny. Nor, perhaps, was it surprising that, as far as European politics was concerned, British politicians found themselves out of their depth, nor that the Queen should sometimes have been in closer touch with the European situation than her politicians, with their English and Irish estates, and their parliamentary distractions.

  Palmerston had been just short of eighty-one when he died in office as Prime Minister; Russell was seventy-four when he took over, and admitted he was too weak to do the job; Derby nearly seventy. 1867, then, signalled a radical change in the political climate in Britain. Derby, arguably the cleverest man who has ever been Prime Minister, was the last great survivor from the reign of privilege. He saw Parliament as a representative body. He had been acutely conscious of the change in climate ever since the First Reform Bill of 1832, and he was largely responsible, with Disraeli, for making the Conservative Party electable after its years of dissolution, following the disastrous split over the repeal of the Corn Laws. Conservatism had to come to terms with the popular will, but Derby remained, to the end of his days, a man who had been fundamentally happy with government remaining in the hands of the governing classes, and with the voting at election time being restricted. Gladstone observed that Derby was ‘too much of a parliamentary politician to seek “the strength of public opinion”’.1

  It was Derby’s Government which oversaw the 1867 Reform Act. Before this Act, in a country whose adult male population numbered some 5 million, there were some 1 million voters. The Reform Act added 938,000 to the electorate. In most constituencies there was still some form of ‘rate’ determining that the voter should be a property-owner, or a taxpayer of, say, a minimum of £1 per annum. Yet, despite the objections of Tories such as Disraeli, the Government of Derby extended the franchise to include some working-class voters in the big industrial cities. Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham and Leeds
now had MPs to add to those of the Tory shires.

  It meant that there was going to be an inevitable shift of political emphasis. Instead of the political classes confidently knowing what was good for the electorate, they were now in a position of having at least to give the impression that they cared about public opinion. The rabble-rousing jingoism of Disraeli on the political right and the ever more radical populism of Gladstone grew out of the new electoral circumstances. The acerbic historian and disciple of Carlyle, J. A. Froude, remarked in 1874 that it was becoming assumed that the nation was wiser than its leaders.2 It was a radical shift. Diehards did not like it. True Blue figures such as Lord Cranborne, who resigned from the Cabinet in protest at the Reform Act, would do everything possible in later years to behave as if the old world was still in place, but Cranborne (who as 3rd Marquess of Salisbury rivalled Derby for title of cleverest Victorian Prime Minister) knew perfectly well what had happened.

  Lenin’s deep question – Who? Whom? – had slightly different answers in Britain after 1867. Only slightly different. The governing class went on governing until the First World War. The Duke of Omnium (the grandee at the centre of Anthony Trollope’s sequence of political fictions) was still in his castle. The Archbishops of Canterbury and York still lived with vast emoluments in three separate residences, as if they were dukes. But the wind had changed. All those with sensitive political antennae were aware of it, and it was their earnest wish that the Queen should become aware of it too.