I resume: my ninth pregnancy, though it came of such happy circumstances, and though the issue was so happy, was not in itself a tranquil time. I found myself more ‘fidgety’ (as Albert called it) even than usual, to the extent, I discovered afterwards, that Clark and Albert had great fears for my sanity – that old bugbear of the Hanoverian Inheritance! Indeed, Clark had told Albert some time previously that if I had another child I might well lose my reason, and it is not surprising, therefore, that Albert found my abominable outbursts of temper more trying than ever.
I had provocation. To be carrying a child, with all the discomforts, humiliations and disadvantages it entailed (and at thirty-seven one does not carry as easily as at twenty) is enough, without having to deal with one’s own teenage children at the same time, particularly when one of them is engaged to be married. I worried a great deal about Vicky, who was only fourteen when Fritz offered for her. We agreed she should not be married until she was seventeen, but that was still very young. Vicky was mature for her age, and had mental abilities far beyond most adults, but one cannot help thinking of one’s child as a child, whatever its age, and to be throwing one’s daughter to the wolves of matrimony at such a tender age is very hard. Also the Prussian connection was unpopular in the country in general, and Prussia itself I regarded as a very backward country, especially in maternity, childbirth and child-rearing. So I had deep reservations about committing my darling child to such a fate – and certainly had she and Fritz not been so very much in love there would have been no question of it.
But there was another, selfish reason for my ill-temper. Once we had agreed to Vicky’s betrothal, we felt that we could not very well go on treating her as a child, but ought to admit her into our company on adult terms. Albert, too, wanted to give her special lessons, in German history and in statecraft, for he was depending on her very much to further his plans for German unity, and since she was far Fritz’s superior in intellect it would have to be her who taught him and not vice versa. So from six to seven every evening Vicky and Albert had their session; and afterwards she joined us at dinner and spent the evening with us. This was very pleasant in its way; but Albert was away from me all day long as it was, immersed in his affairs, and our diners à deux were very precious to me, the only time I had alone with him. Now instead of those precious, tender hours, and the glorious freedom of intimate talk with the soul I loved best in all the world, I had a teenage girl beside me (and one who was in love, moreover, and had developed a devastating talent for turning any conversation round to her beloved) in front of whom one could not be wholly frank and unfettered. And instead of having Albert’s attention to myself, I had to share it with Vicky, whom he adored, and whose intellect he admired. He often addressed a great deal more of his conversation on those evenings to her than he did to me.
It is unpleasant to have to note such weaknesses in oneself, but honesty forces me to do so. I adored Vicky and was proud of her, and dreaded losing her; but at the same time I wanted my husband to myself now and then. Add to this the aches and miseries of pregnancy, and it is hardly surprising that I sometimes lost my temper. But when Albert accused me of wanting to be rid of her he was speaking out of his own lost temper (and he had quite a temper, though he generally kept a good hold of it) and it was very far from the truth. Once the baby arrived, I felt instantly better, and the rest of the time before Vicky’s departure passed happily. The delivery was easier than any before, and I felt better and stronger than with any of the others; and all my sufferings were amply rewarded when I heard my darling say, with that special tenderness in his voice, ‘It’s a girl!’ He was so glad to have another girl. We had sons enough to cover all the constitutional eventualities: girls, in Albert’s mind, were for pleasure, and with the prospect of losing Vicky in less than a year’s time, he was going to have a vacancy for a new favourite.
Baby was a good candidate for the post. She was lively and quick and full of impishness, and it was impossible to be stern with her, for she made us laugh so much with her droll sayings and the funny things she did. She spent more time with us, I think, than did any of the others when they were little, and since most of her own brothers and sisters were also much older than her, she developed a peculiarly adult way of talking, which coming from the chubby, rosy little thing that she was, was irresistibly funny. When she did something naughty, like knocking something over, or touching something she had been forbidden to touch, she had a way of looking across at you and saying, ‘Oh dear, oh dear!’ which sounded so funny in a baby’s voice that it quite disarmed you. One day she came downstairs to us shaking her head mournfully and saying over and over, ‘Oh dear, oh dear, Baby’s been so naughty, poor Baby!’ We never did find out what she had been up to.
She adored Albert from the beginning, and her greatest delight was to come down to his dressing-room and watch him shave and dress. While this private performance was going on she would ply him with impossible questions. ‘Papa, why wasn’t I at your wedding? Was I too little?’ ‘Papa, was Lot’s wife the same salt that I have on my chicken?’ ‘Papa, where does the flame go when you blow out the candle?’ Albert did his best to answer her fully, sometimes sitting down and taking her on his knee if the explanation was to be a long one. (From him she picked up the habit of calling people ‘my dear’ and of interspersing her sentences with a little pursed-lipped, considering ‘zo’.) Sometimes I told him he was wasting his time answering her so fully, for she asked whatever questions came into her head just to get his attention, often without really wanting an answer. But he said, ‘One never knows how much goes in and stays. I would not give her short change, for this little head is full of thoughts, and it must have proper sustenance.’ And he tapped it tenderly with his fingertip, for she was sitting on his knee at the time. ‘Is that not so, my dear?’ Full of thoughts it was, more by a long way than we were ever made party to! One day she said to one of my ladies, ‘I had such a funny thought this morning, but it turned out to be an unproper thought, so I would not let it think.’ I’m afraid she ‘got away with’ a great many things through sheer impudence, combined with drollery.
Often when she was bustling along the corridor bent on some mission of her own and was told she must come and have her hair brushed or her hands washed for luncheon, she would cry sternly, ‘No time, no time, I must write letters!’ and continue on her way. That was Albert, of course – busier than ever, as Baby grew up and held out for her share of his fractured attention. I am so glad he had her, and that she so often made him laugh; for he loved to laugh. His delightful chuckle was the thing people most often remembered about him. I am glad too that she had him. When I see her now, my good, dutiful Benjamina, a serious, dignified, handsome woman, a mother herself now and – ah, alas! – a widow, it is hard to realise that she is the same Baby that Albert swung deliciously back and forth in his table-napkin, or who brought him a page from a sketching-book saying gravely, ‘I drawed a picture of a d’raff today, but I don’t believe in it.’ When Albert died, something of Baby died too, and in a little while the naughty, lively, impudent thing, always running everywhere, interfering in everything, graceful and light as a butterfly, chattering constantly like a running stream, had turned into a solemn and thoughtful child. She seemed to inherit as a gift from beyond the grave her father’s selflessness and devotion to duty; and indeed in later life the only time she ever defied me was when she insisted on marrying Liko. But she was right to do so, for in marrying him she brought me a son-in-law to charm and lighten my sad sufferings and weary hours. His death has been a grievous loss to me, more almost than the loss of my own sons; for he brought a quality of lightness and sparkle to our lives, like a draught of champagne. Without him now there are no more party days.
15th November 1900
ALIX TO luncheon yesterday, and shouting at her quite wore me out. But I slept well last night and felt distinctly better this morning, and was able to enjoy my egg and coffee and white bread at breakfast for the first
time in two weeks. The death of our darling Christl quite ‘knocked the stuffing’ out of me and it has been pitiful seeing how calm and brave poor Lenchen has been about it. We will feel it all so dreadfully when everyone else’s sons start to come home, and not our dear boy. But at least the fog has now cleared away, and the lovely autumn colours are to be seen again in the Great Park, the last of the leaves, and the great sweep of coppery bracken, which is cheering. My poor old appetite has been quite deranged lately, but after this morning’s better start, Reid seems pleased with me, and says that as there is nothing actually wrong with me, no disease, I should be better by and by.
To return to 1857 – there were terrible news out of India that year: mutiny among the native troops, murders of Europeans at Meerut and Delhi, the hideous massacre at Cawnpore, the siege of Lucknow. As soon as the news of Meerut reached us, Palmerston sent for good old Sir Colin Campbell, hero of Waterloo and the Crimea, who set sail for India the very next day; and every child knows how he and the 93rd Highlanders (the Ladies from Hell, the Russians had called them) relieved Lucknow, marching up in a cloud of dust to the sound of the pipes playing ‘The Campbells are Coming, Hurrah!’
The mutiny was over by the end of September. Everyone in England felt terrible rage over the appalling acts that had been carried out during the uprising, and a deep desire for revenge; and dreadful reprisals were carried out by the officers and administrators on the spot, which I cannot bear to write about. But when things were quiet again the truth had to be faced that India had grown too large to be ruled effectively by the East India Company. Combining commercial requirements and those of government had never been easy, and in the last twenty years the territory of India had doubled through annexations. It was time for John Company to hand over the reins. The following year, on August the 2nd, I gave the Royal Assent to the Act which brought India under my direct rule; and Governor-General Canning (known as Clemency Canning, because he had tried to stop the reprisals at the end of the Mutiny) became Viceroy.
The principles by which we were to rule India were set out in a Proclamation, which Albert wrote to my instructions. First, I wanted it clearly stated that I had no intention of interfering with any of the native religions and customs, for I was very much against that proselytising, interfering sort of governance that holds everything cheap but our own homegrown ideas. I knew how much comfort I derived from my own faith, and had no desire to take that same comfort away from anyone else. So I said that my servants in India would be directed to act scrupulously within my orders, and leave the native customs alone as long as they were peaceful.
Second, I wanted it made clear that I meant to relieve poverty in India by the introduction of railways, canals and telegraphs, but that these would be introduced solely to benefit the population, and not to exploit them for profit; and finally, I wanted it stated that my assumption of rule, though rendered necessary by the horrors of the bloody civil war, was made in a spirit of reconciliation. Nothing could excuse the atrocities against innocent women and children, but the peaceable inhabitants, who had always been friendly to us, should be shown the greatest kindness: they should know that there was no hatred of a brown skin, and that the Queen desired nothing but to see them happy, contented and flourishing.
I have always taken the liveliest interest in the governing of India ever since, and have done everything in my power to ensure that the people were ruled as we would have wished, in their place, to be ruled. ‘We can never keep our ’old upon Hindia by force of harms alone,’ one Member of the Commons famously pronounced; and I agreed with him. I have no time for racial hatred or cruelty to supposedly ‘inferior’ races. The subjugation of one colour or creed by another was never in Nature’s plan, I am sure. Since we took over the rule from John Company, I have always had one or two Indian attendants in my suite, and have found them to be excellent servants, and absolutely trustworthy. (Sadly, though, I have had to struggle against that horrid prejudice in my own Household, and even in my own family. I have even had to give instructions that my Indian servants are not to be referred to as ‘the black men’, which I would have thought ordinary civility would have prevented.)
Disraeli later came to believe that ‘one could only act upon the opinion of Eastern nations through their imagination’, and for that reason in 1876 he steered a Bill through Parliament to change my title to Empress of India. A hard job we had to get it through – opposed as we were by all sorts of petty minds, too mean and greedy themselves to impute any higher motive to anyone else. (I never forgave Gladstone for opposing the Bill in such vituperative terms – horrid, vulgar old man!) But Disraeli and I proved right, and India, the brightest jewel in England’s crown, has shone brighter than ever since those dear, good people have been able to think of me as their Empress Across the Sea. The new title was proclaimed in Delhi on the first day of 1877, and that evening I gave a banquet at Windsor to celebrate the occasion. I wore all my Indian jewels, and when Arthur proposed the toast to ‘The Queen Empress’ it was one of the proudest moments in my life.
Later
I SPENT the evening looking through old photographs, and came across the daguerreotype taken on the morning of Vicky’s wedding to Fritz, so I have brought it to my room with me, to look at again: Vicky and me facing each other and Albert between and behind us. Dear, sweet Vicky, with her eyes cast solemnly down, looks so pretty in her wedding gown of white moiré silk, and absurdly like me (except for the prettiness, of course). She is wearing my wedding lace for a veil, held with a crown of white roses and myrtle, and she is trying not to cry. Albert looks at the camera, stern and noble in full dress uniform, beautiful to me, though I can see it isn’t one of the best pictures of him; and as for me, you can hardly see me at all, for I was trembling so much my image is quite blurred. Only a diamond tiara tells you who it is!
Vicky’s seventeenth birthday came in November 1857, and there was no putting off any longer: her wedding day was set for the 25th of January 1858, and as I said to Albert when we woke that morning, it felt exactly like taking a poor innocent lamb to be sacrificed. He was a little pale himself, but told me briskly not to exaggerate; but of course as a man he had no idea of the physical trials and dangers she would have to face in marriage – and since I did know, it seemed a peculiarly horrible thing to be doing, to be thrusting her, however willingly on her part, towards them. Besides, she was going to Prussia, and though I knew Fritz was everything good, kind and liberal, I had no opinion of the rest of his family, or of the Court and the Government in general. Prussia was backward, and her politics reactionary. Everything would be a trial to Vicky, and at the time of her life when she would most need her mother to confide in, I would be far away and unable to come to her.
Still, there was no going back. As soon as I was out of bed I wrote a little note about the solemnity of marriage, and had it sent along to Vicky, together with a very pretty book, The Bridal Offering, which I thought would comfort her. I had arranged that we should get dressed together so that we should have those last tender moments as mother and daughter together, and very peaceful and lovely it was. Vicky arrived looking quite composed, and quietly happy. ‘Are you not nervous?’ I asked. ‘I am marrying Fritz,’ she said simply, ‘so there is nothing to be afraid of. Did you not feel like that when you married Papa?’ And I remembered how I had felt that nothing Albert did could ever frighten or harm me, and I nodded. I was far more nervous on her behalf than I had been on my own. ‘I pray your own marriage will be as happy as mine has been,’ I told her. She put her hands between mine in the gesture of fealty, and said gravely, ‘I hope to be worthy to be your child.’ I was too moved to be able to speak.
When we were dressed, we sat side by side to have our hair dressed, and then Albert came in to fetch us for the daguerreotype. He met my eyes in the looking-glass and smiled.
‘You look very handsome,’ he said. ‘It is hard to tell which is the bride and which the bride’s mother.’
‘That is not
very flattering to the bride,’ I said, but managed a smile. I was wearing a tiered gown of lilac and silver, which I did think became me. As Vicky rose and turned away from the glass, Albert took the opportunity to stoop and kiss my bare shoulder. ‘My wife has beautiful shoulders,’ he whispered, the old incantation.
Vicky was married in the Chapel Royal at St James’s, just as I was, and it affected me deeply to see my own darling Flower kneel on the same spot where I had knelt eighteen years before, and dedicate her life to a man. Dear, kind Fritz wore the uniform of a Prussian general, and spoke his vows in a trembling voice, looking as though he did not know what to do with so much happiness. My sons looked handsome in kilts, my daughters innocent all in white, and my beloved husband, standing beside me, had such difficulty in holding back his tears that it was fortunate he had nothing to say in the ceremony, for I’m afraid the effort of speaking would have broken him down. Afterwards the couple came hand in hand up the aisle to our good friend Mendelssohn’s Wedding March (the first time it was used on such an occasion), and Vicky’s face was so calm and bright, serious and yet completely happy, that I could have no regrets in allowing the marriage. When we returned to Buckingham Palace she and Fritz went out on to the balcony and received a wonderfully warm reception from the crowds below; and then we went in to the wedding breakfast, where the couple, seated opposite their four parents, were entirely hidden by the gigantic wedding-cake.
I, Victoria Page 48
