I, Victoria

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  ‘I think I should answer the letter straight away, do not you, Mamma? I know well that Sir Benjamin will not suit, so perhaps I should ask the King if the Dean of Chester might be named Privy Purse – just for the time being.’ I added this last as the thunderclouds gathered over Mamma’s face.

  ‘Absolutely not!’ She read the letter again, seeming fascinated by the horror of it. ‘Impossible! Outrageous! I have never in my life seen anything to equal it!’

  ‘It is very kind of my uncle to—’ I ventured; but Mamma cut me off.

  ‘Kind? Kind? It is a deliberate insult! Every feeling must be wounded! To pass over me at such a time, in such a way – your own mother, in whom the country reposes every confidence – and when I have sacrificed my whole existence for you! To suggest that I do not know what is right for my own child, when every moment of my life is devoted to my duties to her and to the country—’ She choked herself with emotion, and Conroy took up the theme for her.

  ‘Everyone knows, Duchess, that you are the very pattern of motherhood! Only an imbecile – or a malicious schemer – could think there could be two minds on the subject, between you and the Princess. Old Tarry Breeks is getting senile, and that’s the fact of it.’ (Tarry Breeks was a vulgar nickname for Uncle William, because he had been so long in the Navy. It was a measure of Conroy’s insolence that he would use it to my mother and before me.) ‘It’s the family illness coming on, you know,’ he added with a leer at me. ‘Remember how the old King ended up, dribbling and talking to himself? He’s senile, that’s what it is.’

  ‘Senile?’ Mamma cried. ‘No – he hates me, that’s all. And she encourages him. Why I put up with that woman—!’

  There was much more of the same, aimed partly at me but mostly at my uncle, with a side-stream or two of lava for poor Lehzen, as though she had anything to do with this. I watched the golden key disappear like mist, while the bars of my cage remained too, too solid. ‘Might I not have a private conversation with Lord Melbourne on the subject?’ I asked at last – a thin, vain hope. ‘He would be able to advise me what best—’

  ‘Certainly not!’ Mamma snapped. ‘What could he tell you that I cannot? Do you suppose your own mother does not know better what is good for you than a complete stranger?’

  ‘There’s no knowing what she supposes,’ Conroy said grimly. ‘Such whims and inconsistencies are a sign of immaturity, coupled with a weak mind – if not something worse. We must hope and pray it isn’t that – but whether or not, it’s plain such a little nodcock as her could never govern the country without supervision. I’ve always told you, haven’t I, Duchess, that she’s not up to scratch? Every day and every word she utters proves it more. Without us, she wouldn’t last a minute, and the country’d be in the devil of a stew.’

  I could feel the familiar tears rising, but I choked them down to ask, ‘What must I do then? I must reply to a letter from the King.’

  They exchanged a speaking glance, and then Mamma said, ‘I shall draft a reply for you. Leave me now – go back to Lehzen. I am quite overset by this. I think I have one of my headaches coming on.’

  I left them, feeling so miserable and agitated that I did not even go down to dinner that evening, though food was usually one of my comforts. Whether Mamma got her headache or not I don’t know, but I got one for her, and retired to bed early and exhausted.

  The next day there was a flurry of letters between Lord Melbourne and Mamma as she sought to discover how far the Government was involved with the offer, and how far it was Uncle William’s own plan. When finally I was called into Mamma’s presence, there was a letter – not a draft but a finished document – which I was told I must copy out and sign. I read it with dismay. It was in Mamma’s hand, but it was all Conroy’s doing. In his words I thanked Uncle for his offer, but said my youth and inexperience unfitted me to enter into the details of the subject (as if I had not thought about my future establishment! As though I did not understand the use of money a hundred times better than either of my gaolers!). I went on to declare that my only wish was to be allowed to remain as I was, under the care and protection of my dear Mother, and that, on the subject of money, I should wish any additional amount that was necessary to be given to her for my use, as she had always had command of my affairs and freely did everything I wanted.

  They made me copy it without amendment, and sign it, and send it. It was the only time I yielded on any material point; but afterwards I went straight to my room and had Lehzen witness a statement that the letter was not composed by me, and that I had signed it under duress.

  The King was not deceived, however. When he read the communication, he growled, ‘Victoria has not written that letter!’ He would have pursued the matter, but Lord Melbourne, as he confessed to me later, persuaded him not to. My dearest Lord M. told me, after I became Queen, that he had not the least idea of the misery and bullying I endured at Kensington, ‘otherwise there would have been a blow-up’. As it was, he warned the King that the Whigs were not doing well, and that another quarrel between him and Mamma, especially on such a point, would give the Tories useful material. He pointed out that Mamma was on strong ground, because in all respects except for succeeding to the Throne I would still be a minor until I was twenty-one; and that Mamma would be sure, if she were crossed, to appeal to public sympathy by portraying the King’s offer as a deliberate attempt to separate a helpless, tearful child from her devoted, self-sacrificing mother.

  Sir Herbert Taylor agreed with Lord Melbourne, and told the King that it was worth making almost any sacrifice to avoid another embarrassingly public quarrel in the royal family, and the King wearily agreed. ‘The fact of the matter,’ Uncle said, ‘is that the Duchess and King John want money. She has thrown off the mask – but I will defeat her.’

  We defeated her (or rather Conroy) together. My poor uncle was plainly ill by this time, but still for my sake, he hung on to a life which must have become tiresome to him, and in the midst of the quarrel over control of my purse my birthday arrived, Wednesday the 24th of May 1837, and I came of age. Now there could be no Regency; but Conroy still pinned his hopes on keeping control of me for another three years, keeping me in Mamma’s care as a minor, and forcing me to make him my Privy Purse and Personal Secretary. I think he had convinced himself by that time of his own lies – that I was backward, flighty, and even a little simple-minded.

  After the business of the letter to the King, I refused to talk to Mamma unless it was absolutely essential, kept myself apart from her whenever I could, and when in company with her spoke as little as possible to anyone. The tension was almost unendurable. I had thought my majority would solve everything, but the days that followed it were if anything worse. The King recovered a little towards the end of May, but then on the 2nd of June fell ill again. Conroy grew frantic, and together with Mamma and my brother Charles worked on me every hour, intimidating and bullying, cajoling and threatening, doing everything they knew to make me promise to give Conroy the appointment he wanted when I was Queen. Tossed and battered like a piece of flotsam on a stormy sea, I yet found the strength to stand fast by my refusal – thinking always of that gallant old man at Windsor, holding on for my sake as hard as he could with his twisted, painful hands to the last threads of his life.

  On the 14th of June the King was gravely ill, and although the Dean of Chester still came each morning, my outside lessons were discontinued. I remained in my room with Lehzen in hourly expectation of a summons, took my meals there, spoke only to her and the Dean. Beyond the door the old palace seemed to twitch and jump like a dog with fleas as Conroy, Mamma and Charles discussed endlessly what they might still do to further their cause. I learned later from Charles that Conroy had proposed locking me up and starving me until I agreed to make him my Private Secretary and Privy Purse, but Charles intervened, feeling it had gone too far; and speaking in German so that Conroy might not understand, he warned my mother earnestly against such an action. (Charles told me this later
to try to gain credit with me, but I doubt whether his opposition had any effect. If Conroy did not persist in that particular scheme, it was probably because he doubted Mamma’s resolution in carrying it through.)

  On the 17th of June, I am told, my poor uncle whispered to Sir Henry Halford, ‘Tomorrow is Waterloo Day, ain’t it?’

  ‘Yes, sir – the twenty-second anniversary of that glorious day,’ said Sir Henry.

  ‘I should like to last it out. Tinker me up, can’t you, Halford, to get me through it? I should like to see the Waterloo sun set.’

  Sir Henry did as he was bid. On the 18th, Waterloo Day, the Duke came to see the King, and brought to the bedside the tricolor which had been captured in the battle. By then approaching death had made the King almost blind. ‘Unfurl it and let me feel it,’ he whispered. He ran it through his hands, and a smile glimmered on his tired face. ‘Good, good. We trounced ’em all right, hey, what? By God, that was a glorious day, Duke!’

  England’s Hero murmured an agreement.

  The King turned his head on the pillow, seeking his face in the darkness which surrounded him. ‘Look after the gel, Duke!’ he whispered urgently. ‘See she gets fair play.’

  ‘I will do my duty to the country and crown, sir, as I have always done,’ said the Duke.

  ‘Aye, aye,’ said the King, comforted. ‘I know you will.’

  On the 19th in the afternoon, Ernst Hohenlohe, Feo’s husband (who was Queen Adelaide’s cousin and had been staying with her at Windsor) came to Kensington Palace to see me. In Mamma’s presence he told me that the King was sinking fast, and the Queen had been told that he could not last the night. I wept, for although his death would mean release for me, he had always been kind to me and I did love him, the good, brave old man. I had had precious few people to love in my life. Afterwards Ernst contrived to speak to me apart for a moment, to tell me that Queen Adelaide had sent me her love, and thought about me very often (how like her it was, to think to send me a message at such a time!).

  ‘But listen, Victoria,’ he added, speaking low and quickly, ‘there is something else – for you alone – Mamma must not hear!’ I checked my tears, and he went on, ‘The King bid me tell you, that he cannot hold on any longer, and that when you are Queen, you should send straight away for Lord Melbourne and tell him that you mean to keep on with him and his ministers. He says you may trust them, and they will protect you against Someone.’

  ‘Yes,’ I whispered – all I could manage to say, for my throat ached dreadfully with tears. Dying, he still thought of me, and of the country. He was a worthy king. I prayed I should be like him in that respect, and be as brave when my time came.

  He died during the night. I was not even able to say goodbye to him, or tell him that I understood and appreciated all he had done for me.

  26th March 1900

  I MUST have slept heavily that night, for I did not hear Mamma get up early in response to a summons from below: visitors had arrived at five o’clock in the morning and the porter had not wanted to admit them. Mamma was likewise unwilling to admit them to me: it was six o’clock before she came back into the bedchamber and shook me gently.

  ‘Wake up, child. You must get up, Victoria. The Archbishop of Canterbury is here and wishes to see you.’

  ‘The Archbishop?’ I said sleepily, sitting up.

  ‘Yes, and Lord Conyngham. Come, we must not keep them waiting.’

  I was wide awake then. A cold sensation settled in the pit of my stomach, for I knew what it must mean. I looked past her for Lehzen, and she was there, drawing back the drapes on one of the windows. Outside it was daylight, of course, for it was midsummer; I could see the pale morning sun slanting across the window and hear a thrush somewhere out of sight trying out his phrases. Mamma turned back the covers, and I slipped my legs out, shivering as my bare feet touched the floor, searching for my slippers with my toes. Lehzen came back and met my eyes, but there was nothing to read in her expression, neither agitation nor triumph. She took up my cotton wrapper from the end of the bed and held it out to me, and I turned and put my arms into the sleeves, and put it on over my nightgown, feeling her hands drawing the length of my hair out to hang loose down my back.

  ‘Come, child,’ Mamma said, and there was an edge to her voice – impatience? or perhaps apprehension. She took up the candle in the silver candlestick which she had put down to wake me, and took my hand and led me towards the door. ‘Lehzen – bring the vinaigrette,’ she said over her shoulder. ‘Just in case …’

  Just in case? But I should not swoon, I thought, not today – though I felt very apprehensive indeed, almost sick with it. I was about to experience something quite new, something no woman had experienced in more than a hundred years. It made me feel hollow – and yet excited, too, in a strange, tremulous way; an excitement that seemed to me just then somehow almost sinful – almost sensual. We passed through the anteroom to the backstairs, dark, steep and narrow, the stairs I had never been allowed to walk down unaided. Mamma held my hand tightly, and hers was as cold as a river-washed stone. I held up my white nightgown with my free hand and did not look at the steps of the staircase, though the candle-shadows flowed treacherously across them. There was no ghost of Amy Robsart here. I knew I could not fall. I was in the grip of a powerful force, which bore me towards the one meeting that could never have been prevented. My feet glided blindly and surely, hardly seeming to touch the ground.

  Near the door of the sitting-room I paused. The door was open, the drapes had been drawn back, there was sunlight in the room. Three male figures stood there, tall (all men were tall to me, who was less than five feet above the earth) and black, their legs looking endlessly long in their narrow pantaloons, their bare heads grey, their grave faces pale. The third man was Sir Henry Halford, the King’s doctor. He must have been with my uncle when he died, I thought.

  All this took no more than a second to absorb; and now I turned back, took the candlestick from Mamma’s hand (an automatic gesture, for it was not needed) and said, ‘I will go in alone.’ It was a short sentence, but my voice lifted triumphantly between its beginning and its end, and I saw realisation come into Mamma’s eyes that she had lost me; finally, at the last ditch. With one fleeting glance for Lehzen, I left them – as I now could, now and for ever more – and entered the chamber alone.

  The three men saw me, and in a graceful and terrifying movement like horses dying all three sank to their knees – grown men, kneeling before me!

  Lord Conyngham, the Lord Chamberlain, it was that spoke. ‘Madam, it is my sad duty to inform you that your uncle, the King, is no more.’ His voice wavered at that point, and I saw that there were tears on his face. ‘He breathed his last at twelve minutes past two this morning,’ he went on, ‘and consequently you are from that moment Queen of England.’

  The words struck me to the vitals like flame, like a sword of fire, and I thrust out my hand, my arm straight, like a messenger from God. Lord Conyngham took my hand and kissed it, and I felt the brush of his hastily shaven lips and a touch of dampness from his tears; and the knowledge became real, sank into my bones and became part of me. This dignified person, a marquess, the Lord Chamberlain, a grown-up man – was kneeling before me, me, and kissing my hand in homage. Now it would begin, my real life. I was free at last, Queen of England, and nobody would ever – ever again – make me do anything I didn’t want to do.

  27th March 1900

  I HAVE been looking at my journal for that day, the first day of my reign; and I see that every entry records how I did this and saw that person alone, and alone, and ALONE! From the time that I left Mamma at the sitting-room door until the moment when I went briefly to say goodnight to her at half past ten that night, I barely set eyes on her. It grieves me to think of it now, but if I had known then how much it pained her to be cast out from my presence, I should only have felt she deserved her punishment. As it was, I didn’t think of it at all. Conroy, of course, I would not permit to come near me; on
e of my greatest satisfactions of that crowded day was in dismissing him instantly from my Household. I could not, of course, dismiss him from Mamma’s; and that she retained him when she knew how much I hated him was a great factor in our continued estrangement for the next three years.

  What did the Queen of England do that day? She went first to her room and dressed – in mourning, of course, for Uncle William. The only black dress I had was an old one which had been dyed – not very successfully, I thought – for the last bout of Court-mourning, when Aunt Adelaide’s mother had died. How Mamma had resented putting on black for the mother of the woman she hated and despised! I think that’s why she dipped our dresses, rather than ordering new – for though we were always short of money, she didn’t normally mind spending on clothes. I was too excited that day, however, to care what I wore. When I was dressed I went to breakfast, for I was extremely hungry – pausing only to give terse instructions for my bed to be moved from Mamma’s room to a room of my own, along with my china, books and dolls. What did she think when she saw that evidence of our separation? I’m afraid the triumphant new Queen neither knew nor cared.

  I had breakfast with the good Dr Stockmar (Uncle Leopold had sent him over some weeks earlier to try to mend matters between me and Mamma, but without success), who gave me some very sound advice and steadied my nerves, which had begun to jump a little. After breakfast I took time to scribble two letters, one to Feo and one to Uncle Leopold (and how much I enjoyed signing the latter ‘your devoted and attached Niece, Victoria R!’) and then at nine o’clock I was ready for my first audience with my Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne.

  I received him alone, as I promised in my Journal ‘I should always do with all my ministers’. He bowed very low and kissed my hand, and then straightening up he looked down into my face and into my eyes with such a dear, direct, and comfortable look that I loved him from that very moment. I have always had the knack of judging people quickly, finding out in a single glance or a few words the true worth of their character and their ruling motives, and I am hardly ever wrong. I saw in that first look, felt in the first touch of his hand, that he was straightforward, honest, clever and good; and since he was, besides, an extremely handsome and attractive man, and I was a passionate young girl who had had hardly anyone to love, I gave him my heart on the instant – as indeed he gave me his.