by Emily Hahn
“Have you been privately married?” he demanded.
Lady Flora was flabbergasted. She scarcely had time to deny it when the physician rushed ahead to explain and accuse. He was brusque, probably all the more brusque because he was embarrassed. He asked the question, he said, because her figure had excited the remarks of the ladies of the palace. “To my emphatic denial,” wrote Lady Flora, “he became excited, urged me ‘to confess,’ as ‘the only thing to save me,’ stated his own conviction to agree with that of ‘the ladies,’ that it had occurred to him at the first and that ‘no one could look at me and doubt it,’ and remarks even yet more coarse.”
The poor woman seems to have rallied swiftly to self-defense, though perhaps it would have been better to grow angry instead of merely protesting that the swelling had lately gone down. She offered as evidence of this the fact that her dresses had become less tight.
“Well, I don’t think so,” said Sir James. “You seem to me to grow larger every day, and so the ladies think.”
Sir James in retrospect gave in vindication of his stubbornness the significant state of Lady Flora’s health, which did not appear bad. Apart from the pain in her side, he argued, she seemed quite well, and was able to carry out her normal duties, which fact fitted in perfectly with the theory of pregnancy. Anyone, he insisted, might have made the same mistake.
The two accounts differ more in tone and degree of detail than in substance. Sir James always claimed to have been gentle and as delicate as a man could be. Lady Flora said he was rude and coarse. Sir James said that he put his next suggestion—i.e., an examination to settle the argument—in the most tactful possible way. Lady Flora said he couldn’t have been worse; he assured her that nothing but a medical examination would satisfy the ladies of the palace, and if she refused he would have to tell Lady Portman on her. (The implication was that the Queen would then be sure to share Lady Portman’s opinion.) Sir James said Lady Flora refused to allow the most rudimentary form of examination; that he wished merely to put his hand upon her abdomen with her stays removed, and that she flatly refused. Lady Flora in her accounts never mentioned such shameful things as stays. “I said, feeling perfectly innocent, I should not shrink from any examination, however rigorous, but that I considered it a most indelicate and disagreeable procedure, and that I would not be hurried into it.”
Sir James makes much of her request for time. What was he to think, he asks pathetically, when the woman would not send immediately for the other doctor she chose to be present, and submit then and there to an examination? The hostile ladies were constantly at his elbow, nagging him; Lady Flora seemed to be playing for time; the thing was obvious, or seemed so.
Lady Flora now recollected her duty to her mistress. What, she asked, did the duchess have to say to all this? Sir James admitted that the duchess did not as yet know anything about the business. But he had greater authority on his side, and he felt quite confident of his position. Lady Flora, retiring with at least some honors of the battle, was soon dashed to discover that the Queen herself was taking a hand in the matter: “… it was her Majesty’s pleasure, that I should not appear until my character was cleared by the means suggested.…”
She held a hasty consultation with the duchess, who wanted her lady of the bedchamber to go on refusing to submit to an examination. But Lady Flora realized nothing else would ever settle the matter, and next day, after summoning another physician, Sir Charles Clarke, the disagreeable ceremony took place, “in the presence of my accuser, Lady Portman, and my own maid.” It was on Lady Flora’s insistence that Lady Portman was there. The examination didn’t take very long, nor was it as brutal or as public a proceeding as the victim’s terse description would imply. Medieval would be a better adjective.
The grim little party met in the antechamber to Lady Flora’s chamber. Lady Flora and her maid retired to the bedroom and called to Sir Charles when she was ready. Properly chaperoned by the maid, he did what was necessary. He came out in a very short time, declared that Lady Flora was not pregnant, and evidently added that furthermore she could never have been pregnant because she was virgo intacta. Then he requested Sir James to come in and see for himself. Sir James hung back, protesting that Sir Charles’s word was enough. Sir Charles insisted—wisely, it would seem—and Sir James, consenting, was convinced.
It looked like a complete victory for Lady Flora, who composed herself to receive apologies all round. That evening Lady Portman offered her share. “She acknowledged that she had several times spoken a great deal to the Queen on the subject, especially when she found it was her Majesty’s own idea.” She added, however, that it had been her duty to behave as she had done, and that she would have done the same no matter who had been the suspicious party. Lady Flora replied stiffly that what surprised her was that anyone who knew her people could have believed such a thing. She forgave Lady Portman, though she could not promise ever to forget. She looked around expectantly then, waiting for some sign of remorse from Lady Portman’s august mistress, the Queen. Was there to be no retribution?
Strangely, nothing of the sort seemed to be forthcoming. It was then that Lady Flora wrote to her brother and he came pelting to town. In the interim nothing happened save that the Duchess of Kent discharged Sir James Clark from his post as her physician. Clark remained, however, physician to Her Majesty. Could the Queen really think, demanded Lord Hastings, that the affair was finished?
There seemed so much to do, so much to resent, so many people to call out, that he scarcely knew where to begin. He consulted his good friend Lord Winchelsea, who said he should first demand from Melbourne himself an explanation of the business, so Hastings immediately wrote off to the Prime Minister.
Melbourne tried to dismiss the matter in genial, careless fashion. It was nothing to get excited about, he implied. He himself knew little about it, merely that Lady Tavistock had told him something, upon which he had desired the ladies of the court to be quiet, himself not placing any belief in it.
Hastings would not be soothed so easily. He wanted audience of Her Majesty herself, he declared, to express his horror and disgust at the whole of the transaction, and to ask who were the originators of the plot. Melbourne expressed grieved surprise at such crass intentions. Should not the business be kept as quiet as possible, he said, for everyone’s sake? Had not enough harm been done? Consider the youth of the Queen! Consider the delicacy of the affair! If Hastings must do something, said Melbourne, let him go and talk it all over with Wellington, like a good chap. Wellington was leader of the Government’s opposition.
Hastings accordingly tried to find Wellington, but the duke was not at home.…
On February 26, Hastings was still in London, still trying to get satisfaction. His confidence in Melbourne as arbiter had long since waned. Melbourne, he knew, was a friend of Lehzen’s; if Lady Flora’s suspicions were correct and Lehzen was at the bottom of all this, Melbourne’s do-nothing policy was explained. If it wasn’t Lehzen—— But Melbourne must be forced to do something in any case. Hastings determined to corner the wily Premier. He wrote a crisp letter with a threat in it. He had now waited in town seven days, he pointed out, hoping to see the Queen, but there had been as yet no word from the palace. If he did not get a reply by the next morning he would have no recourse but to publish all correspondence pertaining to the business. “I repeat, that the whole business has been base and cruel, and reflects dishonour and discredit to all concerned in it, from the highest to the lowest; and I cannot find words sufficiently strong to convey the sense of my disgust and contempt for the conduct of all who have figured in this business.”
He could not believe, he continued, that the Queen would have behaved as she had done without the “baneful influence” which surrounded the throne. Wellington, whom he had managed at last to interview, advised him to leave matters “for the sake of avoiding the painfulness of publicity.” It was a time-worn argument, one feels, which seldom failed to frighten people away from c
ourses which might be awkward for the Throne, but Hastings refused to be frightened. On the contrary, he twice repeated his threat: he would seek publicity rather than shun it if Her Majesty continued to ignore his demands. The public could draw its own conclusions as to who had behaved badly.
That did it. Melbourne replied immediately, without taking advantage of the twelve hours’ grace Hastings had allowed him. The Prime Minister’s manners seemed mysteriously to have improved too; he sounded much friendlier, not nearly so stuffy as he had been before. He was much disturbed. He hadn’t realized Hastings was waiting for an audience with the Queen; in fact, he wasn’t sure, even yet.… Was Hastings waiting? Was all this necessary?
Hastings replied briefly, ignoring the plaintive tone of Melbourne’s letter. Yes, he was waiting.
Lord Hastings had his way, and saw Victoria. It is doubtful what he expected to gain from a personal audience with the Queen. In later years she would have known how to awe and placate an angry man on such a subject, but she was then a very young woman, whose opinions depended upon her advisers. The formal apology she made had to be accepted for exactly what it was worth, and no more. She made no offer of a public gesture. As a loyal subject Lord Hastings could not claim to be other than gratified with her gracious behavior, but he was determined to get more satisfaction than that out of the formidable setup at Buckingham Palace before he was through. Inevitably the story of his sister’s ordeal was spreading through London in all the grotesque variations malice could contrive. Still, for the moment he had done all he could. On the surface everything at the palace was well. He had seen his sister, as he said, “reinstated in her proper place at the Royal table.” One can well imagine the anxious politeness with which she was being treated on every hand by ladies who a week before had wanted her stoned out of town.
Returned to Donington Park, Lord Hastings did not rest. (His influenza had long since been forgotten.) The rumor must be traced through all its devious paths, back to whatever villainous person had first sent it out. It was his bounden duty as a brother and a Hastings to avenge Lady Flora. Let’s see; what names had Melbourne mentioned? Lady Tavistock’s had been the first, had it not? Hastings sat down and wrote to the Marquis of Tavistock.
“From the length of time I have known you, from the respect and regard which I have ever entertained towards you as a man of the highest honour and integrity …”
He told Lord Tavistock what he had done to date about the business, and how he happened to be writing such an unpleasant letter. “… it is to know from her [Lady Tavistock] from whom this accusation first originated that I write to you, and that I may know what part each person has taken in the business. I think I know more about it than some persons imagine, but I will not act upon my suspicions only. That Lady Portman has taken a very active part in it, there can be no doubt, from the manner in which she sought my poor sister’s forgiveness, after having inflicted the deepest injury she could upon her.… Though my conscience acquits me of not having done all I can in the business, yet I know that my poor sister will have the painful ordeal to go through of every version which the public may give of this story, and that I myself must submit to the same, and am at this moment submitting to the same unfair judgment, till I publish everything connected with the business … (such determination I told Lord Melbourne, by letter, I had come to); and have only refrained from so doing in the hope that my poor sister might be spared the pain of the publicity of this matter. May I then ask, was not Baroness Lehzen the first person who originated this foul slander, and mentioned it to Lady Tavistock; and if she be not the individual, who was?”
Lord Tavistock replied immediately. Lord Hastings’s letter had annoyed him very much, he said, but he appreciated the spirit in which it was written. Himself, he had known nothing about the affair until after the worst had happened. He didn’t want to talk to his wife about it, because it would distress her greatly, and he was sure she had been influenced by only the best motives in speaking to Lord Melbourne. He added in postscript that he would not speak to his wife until he had Hastings’s reply, but he was evidently too agitated to refrain, after all, from speaking to her, and a second letter was sent off the next day, with the following report:
Lord Tavistock had had some conversation with his wife, without telling her about Lord Hastings’s letter, and the case so far as she was concerned lay in a nutshell. Lady Tavistock “was informed of the opinion that had unhappily been entertained” with respect to Lady Flora’s state of health, and was asked to speak to Lord Melbourne. First she thought of speaking direct to Lady Flora, but “this feeling was overruled … by considerations” which Lord Tavistock felt he need not go into. He had not asked his wife where she got her information, and, furthermore, he didn’t think she would tell him if he did ask. Of course she must take the responsibility of having mentioned the affair to Melbourne. Lord Tavistock earnestly hoped Hastings wouldn’t press him to do more than he had done. He was sure his wife wouldn’t tell. Anyway, she was not to be blamed; the physician had been just as wrong as anybody, and certainly Lady Flora’s appearance …
“It has been an unfortunate business,” summed up Lord Tavistock artlessly, “but I am persuaded that the best intentions prevailed.… Your feelings have been naturally roused and your suspicions excited, but after the danger you have lately witnessed of forming opinions rashly, I hope you will do nothing publicly, except upon the fullest consideration and with the best advice.”
To these extraordinarily maddening letters Lord Hastings retorted with what sounds like commendable restraint. (We do not know, of course, how many previous essays he threw into the wastepaper basket.) They were, he said, unsatisfactory. He was now writing to Lord Portman, and if he didn’t get any more out of him, he would publish all. He asked the two important questions once again: By whom was Lady Tavistock requested to name this business to Lord Melbourne? By whom was she informed of the opinion entertained of Lady Flora’s health?
Lord Tavistock was sorry, but Lady Tavistock wouldn’t tell and felt she had nothing to reproach herself with. After thinking it over and listening to rather a lot of conversation from her husband, however, she deigned to come off her perch long enough to write a statement repeating the ambiguous phrases she had already uttered.
There must have been agitated correspondence going on all this while between the Portman and Tavistock families, for the Portmans were well primed when their turn came round. It was as well for them; Lord Hastings was much stiffer on the subject of Lady Portman than he had been with Lady Tavistock; after all, she had been there when the actual insult was offered, and she had been vindictively insistent on its taking place. Lord Portman pointed out, more in sorrow than in anger, that immediately after the affair his wife had put off her departure from Buckingham Palace on purpose, waiting to face Lord Hastings when he rushed from the country in his sister’s defense, but that he had angrily refused to see her. If Lord Hastings now wished to interview Lady Portman, said Lady Portman’s husband, he would be glad to receive him either in town or at their country house.
To which Lord Hastings replied that he was still unwilling to put foot under the Portman roof. At any rate, what would be the use? “I only ask you to look at the garbled statements and the lies which daily fill the papers, and answer me as a man of honour and a gentleman … whether I have not a perfect right to inquire into Lady Portman’s conduct on this occasion; or am I to remain suffering the taunts and false statements of the world till April [when Parliament again convened], then only to be told by Lady Portman that she is sorry for what has passed, and no more?”
Like Tavistock, Lord Portman replied in dignified pain, but enclosed a formal statement signed by his wife.
Now Lady Flora’s mother joined in the fray. She wrote direct to the Queen, reminding her of the honorable records of Loudouns and Hastingses for many generations back. It was an excited, incoherent letter, the letter of a sorely shocked and wounded old lady, tacitly asking for public
vindication. “My husband served his country honourably … my own family … my grandfather … with so many claims on my feelings of old—although now unfashionable—aristocracy, it is impossible to suppose me capable of disrespect or want of loyalty towards your Majesty …” But nevertheless, the marchioness implied, something more than a private grudging apology from Victoria seemed to be indicated.
Melbourne replied for the Queen in lofty tone. “The allowance that her Majesty is anxious to make for the natural feelings of a mother upon such an occasion, tended to diminish that surprise which could not be otherwise than excited by the tone and substance of your Ladyship’s letter.” Her Majesty, he continued, had hastened to seize the first opportunity to apologize. What more could anyone want? Lady Hastings promptly told him what she wanted: that Sir James Clark be removed.
Melbourne went up like a rocket. “The demand which your Ladyship’s letter makes upon me is so unprecedented and objectionable, that even the respect due to your Ladyship’s sex, rank, family and character, would not justify me in more, if indeed it authorizes so much, than acknowledging that letter for the sole purpose of acquainting your Ladyship that I have received it.”
This exchange really threw the fat into the fire. Nothing, they felt, now prevented the Hastings family’s appeal to the public by the most direct possible medium, the press. They had long since taken advice of counsel, which was uncomforting: “the facts of the case did not afford any ground for legal proceedings on the part of Lady Flora Hastings and her family.” The ball was thrown to Mr. Hamilton Fitzgerald, lately arrived from Brussels with fire in his eye.
Having read his niece’s letter, as he later explained, he was at first disinclined to take the business seriously. Had not Lady Flora assured him that her brother had already done everything anyone could do, that her innocence was proved, that the public was sympathetic to her, and so forth and so on? Mr. Fitzgerald was fairly easy in his mind for the rest of that morning, but when he went out later in the day and began to make inquiries among his friends his composure evaporated.
