The Queen valiantly endeavoured to turn her son’s mind to more intellectual pursuits, but with less and less hope of success. While he was still Prime Minister, Gladstone had urged her Majesty to try to persuade the Prince to ‘adopt the habit of reading’ since the ‘regular application of but a small portion of time would enable him to master many of the able and valuable works which bear upon royal and public duty’. But the Queen had replied irritably, ‘She has only to say that the P of W has never been fond of reading, and that from his earliest years it was impossible to get him to do so. Newspapers and, very rarely, a novel, are all he ever reads.’
Gladstone had been invited down to Sandringham to talk to the Prince, who, though strongly opposed now to the Prime Minister’s Irish plans, had expressed himself as being ‘very glad to have an opportunity of discussing with Mr Gladstone the subject of some useful employment’. But the Prime Minister had not so much as mentioned the subject; and, since the Prince made no reference to it either, the opportunity had been lost.
So the months passed and the few duties found for the Prince remained either social, ceremonial or civic. He acted as host and guide to the Shah of Persia, who arrived in England to stay at Buckingham Palace in June 1873; he also entertained the Tsarevich, his wife and children at Marlborough House that same summer. In January the next year he went to St Petersburg to attend the wedding of his brother Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh, to the Tsar’s daughter, the Grand Duchess Marie; and in the spring he busied himself with arrangements for the Tsar’s state visit to England. From time to time he would leave London to open a building or exhibition in the provinces, to make a speech in some guildhall or assembly room, to inspect a factory at Birmingham, to walk round a building estate at Coventry, or to make a tour of the docks and pierhead, the Free Library and Museum, the Assize Courts and St George’s Hall at Liverpool. He performed such duties conscientiously, but without undue solemnity, sometimes adding zest to a rather tedious day’s work by playing one of those jokes he found so entertaining upon a member of his entourage. For instance, in Coventry, which he visited in company with the Marquess of Hartington and Hartington’s mistress, the Duchess of Manchester, he laid plans for the discomfiture of the somewhat pompous Hartington, who had recently extricated himself from an expensive affair with the delectable courtesan Catherine Walters, known as ‘Skittles’, a former employee in a bowling alley in Liverpool. The Prince asked for a bowling alley to be included in his tour of Coventry and arranged for the innocent Mayor to tell Lord Hartington, who could be relied upon to display little interest in it, that this unusual item had been included in the itinerary at the special request of his Royal Highness in tribute to his Lordship’s love of skittles.
By such means the Prince kept boredom at bay. But frustration at being excluded from any position of responsibility was not so easily assuaged and found expression in occasional fits of childish petulance or irritating insistence on airing opinions about problems whose intricacies he had neither the patience nor the discernment to grasp. Required by the Queen and the government to decline acceptance of the honorary colonelcy of a Russian regiment offered him by the Tsar, on the grounds that it would be contrary to precedent, he flew into a rage which his friends thought wholly out of proportion to the disappointment involved in being unable to add a new uniform to his already well-stocked wardrobe. At the same time he bombarded the Foreign Secretary, whose ministry was not concerned in the matter, with violent complaints about a new uniform for the army and, simultaneously, with exhortations to be ‘firm’ against Russia in central Asia. Granville commented sardonically to Gladstone that the Prince and the Duke of Cambridge (another selfappointed foreign affairs adviser) were evidently ‘men of iron’. The Prince’s own staff were sometimes equally exasperated by his invariable habit of altering at least ‘something’ in any draft prepared for him, either of a speech or a letter, even though the alteration was apparently ‘without any significance whatsoever’.
9
A Passage to India
Everyone here is fascinated with H.R.H. … and his amiable manners.
Unknown to both the government and the Queen, the Prince now began to plan an undertaking that would certainly not prove boring and was likely, for a time at least, to release him from all sense of frustration. His Household gathered what this plan was when the librarian at Sandringham was instructed to collect all the books he could about India.
When the Queen was approached, however, she did not think an Indian tour was a good idea at all. It was ‘quite against [her] desire’, she told the Crown Princess. There might be some political advantage, but not much; it was not as if there were any particular crisis in Indian affairs. Besides, even if Bertie’s health were up to the strain, he ought not to leave his family for so long; and there could be no question of Alix going. In any case who was to pay for it all?
‘Where is the money to come from?’ Disraeli also wanted to know after ‘our young Hal’ had induced his mother to give her assent to the scheme ‘on the representation that it was entirely approved by her ministers’.
He has not a shilling. She will not give him one. A Prince of Wales must not move in India in a mesquin manner. Everything must be done on an imperial scale etc., etc. This is what she said … [She also said] that nothing will induce her to consent to the Princess going and blames herself bitterly for having mentioned the scheme without obtaining on the subject my opinion and that of my colleagues.
In fact, the Prince had never suggested to his wife that she should accompany him; and Lord Derby, the Foreign Secretary, for one, was thankful that he had not done so. For not only would there be extremely difficult problems of protocol to overcome if she were to visit the courts of Indian princes; but, so Derby said, ‘ “Hal” is sure to get into scrapes with women whether she goes or not, and they will be considered more excusable in her absence.’
When she discovered what her husband’s intentions were Princess Alexandra was much put out, protesting, years later, that she would ‘never forget or forgive’ him for having left her behind. The Prince, himself, was much annoyed when he learned that his mother — who was already pestering him with advice about the food he should eat, the time he ought to go to bed each night, the way he must behave on Sundays — insisted on supervising all the arrangements including the composition of his suite. She had written to the Prime Minister with ‘positive directions that the detailed arrangements should be considered by the government as an official question’. ‘At the same time,’ so Lord Salisbury, Secretary of State for India, told the Prince, ‘the Queen was pleased to lay especial stress upon the number and composition of your Royal Highness’s suite as a matter of public importance.’ But it had been ‘entirely’ his own idea, the Prince protested, and it was only natural that he should wish ‘to keep the arrangements connected with it in his hands’. During an interview with Disraeli at Downing Street he ‘manifested extraordinary excitement’ as he angrily declined to make any alterations in the names he had chosen. He would certainly not leave his friends, the Duke of Sutherland and Lord Carrington, behind simply because the Queen disapproved of them. Nor would he withdraw his invitation to the boisterous Lord Aylesford, known as ‘Sporting Joe’, who was also going as his personal guest; to William Howard Russell, who was travelling as his honorary private secretary; or to Lieutenant Lord Charles Beresford R.N., who had been invited to go as one of his three aides-de-camp.
In face of the Prince’s obduracy, Disraeli felt compelled to give way, afterwards assuring the Queen that he would caution Carrington and Beresford in particular ‘against larks’, and that, apart from the Prince’s secretary, Francis Knollys, who was admittedly not always as well behaved as he might be, there could be no real objection to the other members of the suite. These included Prince Louis of Battenberg and the Duke of Cambridge’s son, Lieutenant Augustus FitzGeorge, as aides-de-camp; Lord Suffield as lord-in-waiting; Colonel Arthur Ellis, Major-General Sir Dighton Probyn V.C. and
Lieutenant-Colonel Owen Williams as equerries; Canon Duckworth as chaplain; and Joseph Fayrer as physician. Her Majesty would be represented by Lord Alfred Paget, her clerk-marshal; and Sir Bartle Frere would be in general control of the party, taking with him, as secretary, General Grey’s son, Albert. The Prince reluctantly agreed not to include the detachment of Life Guards for which he had asked, or a Russian liaison officer, on its being pointed out to him that, if he did, other countries would expect to be asked to provide liaison officers of their own. He was, however, to be attended by his stud-groom and valet, a page, three chefs, and twenty-two other servants as well as the Duke of Sutherland’s piper. In addition there was to be an artist, a botanist, and Clarence Bartlett, Assistant Superintendent of the Zoological Gardens, who was both a zoologist and taxidermist. The Prince’s French poodle, ‘Bobêche’, was to be taken, and also three handsome horses from the Sandringham stables. So as to accustom them to the sight of wild beasts and reptiles, the horses were taken regularly to look at the animals in the zoo.
Naturally there was trouble over the amount of money to be provided for the expedition as well as over its composition. Reynolds’s Newspaper, which attacked the whole ‘notion of Albert Edward, the hero of the Mordaunt divorce suit, the mighty hunter’, being interested in anything other than ‘pig-sticking and women’, protested that working-men were being robbed so that the Prince of Wales could enjoy himself. To loud cheers of support from a crowd of over 60,000 people in Hyde Park, Charles Bradlaugh said that the nation did not wish to prevent the brave, moral, intellectual future King of England’s going to India, ‘indeed they would speed him on a longer journey than that’. But they did object to having to pay for such a ridiculous jamboree. All over England similar hostile demonstrations were held. Outraged orators demanded to know why the country was being asked to pay for presents to Indian princes, while the gifts offered in return would become the Prince’s personal property. Banners and placards were waved in protest against the Indian visit, and during his travels that summer the Prince himself was made aware of the strong feelings which had once more been roused against him.
Even in royal circles people spoke slightingly of his mission. At Balmoral, after a Sunday morning service, Lady Errol, a Presbyterian attendant of the Queen, remarked to Henry Ponsonby how beautiful was the prayer which had been said for the Prince of Wales. ‘Well,’ Ponsonby replied. ‘I don’t know that it was a bad one, but I didn’t understand what he meant [by] “Oh bless abundantly the objects of his mission.” ’ Lady Errol replied, ‘Oh, all the good he may do.’ Ponsonby sharply observed, ‘The object of his mission is amusement.’ ‘Yes,’ agreed Lord Salisbury.
‘And to kill tigers. Perhaps he meant to bless the tigers.’
In spite of all the criticism, however, and in face of strong objection from the Radicals and many members of the Liberal Party, Disraeli persuaded the House of Commons to approve the expenditure of £52,000 by the Admiralty for the transport of the Prince’s suite to and from India and of a further £60,500 by the Treasury for the Prince’s personal expenditure including presents to Indian rulers. An additional £100,000 was subsequently contributed by the Indian government. Yet the Prince, supported by Bartle Frere and The Times, maintained that this was far from enough: the Indian princes would present their guest with gifts far more lavish than any that he would be able to afford to give them in return. And, as if confident that the amount of his allowances would be increased when the importance of his mission was realized, he spoke carelessly to his ‘creatures’, so Disraeli recorded, ‘of spending, if requisite, a million, and all that’. But although ‘a thoroughly spoilt child’ who could not ‘bear being bored’, he was also, in Disraeli’s opinion, ‘the most amiable of mortals’; and he soon reconciled himself to the amount which the Prime Minister had raised for him without further protest — and, in the event, did not exceed it.
Irritated by quarrels over the number and quality of his companions, over the amount of money to be allowed him, and over his official status in India — where the position of the Viceroy, so the Queen insisted, must on no account be prejudiced — the Prince was also piqued by the attitude of his wife, who, refusing to accept her husband’s explanation that this was an all-male party and that ‘it was difficult for ladies to move about’ in India, continued to complain bitterly about being left behind and appeared to Disraeli as though she were preparing to commit suttee. Albert Grey, who had equipped himself with a derringer ‘to save H.R.H. from assassination’, reported her as being ‘very miserable’, not only because she badly wanted to see India and was hurt at being left behind but also ‘because besides the not unnatural fear about his health — in its best day but flabby — there [was] the more uncomfortable dread of the fanatic’s knife about the sharpness of which he has received many warning letters’. The Princess was also very upset because the Queen refused to allow her to take the children to Denmark while their father was in India. Although she later relented, the Queen insisted that a decision given by the judges in the reign of George II gave her the right to prevent the royal children from leaving the country. Taking pity on the Princess, Disraeli consulted the Solicitor-General, who gave it as his opinion that the precedent was a bad one, that the Queen ought not to exercise it even if it existed, and that ‘to force the Princess to live in seclusion … six months in England [was] a serious matter’.
Refused permission to visit either India or Denmark, the Princess, in Dean Stanley’s opinion, looked ‘inexpressibly sad’. And, as the time drew nearer for his departure, the Prince seemed quite as miserable himself, confessing to Lord Granville that he ‘left England with a heavy heart and was so depressed in spirits on reaching Calais’ that, although he was cheered on his departure by thousands of people willing to show that antagonism to his expensive venture was far from universal, he ‘felt seriously inclined to return home instead of going on’. He continued ‘tremendously low’ in Paris, wrote Lord Carrington, who had ‘never seen him like it before’; and even after their arrival in Brindisi, where crowds on the quay greeted the Duke of Sutherland with shouts of ‘l’amico di Garibaldi’, he had still not recovered his spirits. At Brindisi he went aboard H.M.S. Serapis, a specially converted troopship with large square portholes, which was waiting to take him through the Suez Canal by way of Athens. It was ‘comfortable but not smart’, and the Prince went to his cabin looking ‘decidedly gloomy’. In fact, the whole party, so Lord Carrington told his mother, were ‘more like a party of monks than anything else’. There were ‘no jokes or any approach to it’. Georgina Frere was given similar news by her father. No shipload of pilgrims ‘were ever better behaved’, Sir Bartle told her; so far there had been ‘nothing which would have been voted out of place at Windsor Castle’. Lord Charles Beresford, a jocular Irishman, attempted to keep up the party’s flagging spirits, but there were no games of whist, ‘no sprees, or bear fights or anything’. The day after leaving Brindisi the Serapis began to toss in the swelling sea, and ‘several chairs were empty at dinner,’ Albert Grey recorded. ‘H.R.H. was the first to go and a suspicious smell of eau de Cologne outside his cabin told the tale.’ On recovery he was persuaded by Beresford to go up on deck and join the others, who were being weighed. Apart from Beresford himself very few of them were less than eleven stone. The Prince turned the scales at fourteen stone twelve pounds — which made Grey wonder how he would stand up to the heat of India.
At Cairo the Prince seemed rather less dispirited. He went out of his way to call upon the widow of the former French Ambassador to London whom he had met and liked when he was a boy — a fat, old, deaf lady whose conversation ‘became rather tiring in the hot weather’. And, resplendent in his new uniform of field marshal (a rank to which the Queen had raised him on her last birthday), he invested the Khedive’s son with the Order of the Star of India with such ‘dignity of manner and grace’ that Albert Grey thought that ‘every Englishman, had he been there, would have been proud of him’.
On the eve of the Prince’s thirty-fourth birthday, 8 November 1875, ‘to the tune of much gunpowder and brass bands’, the Serapis entered Bombay harbour between two lines of English battleships. The Prince stood on the bridge, acknowledging the cheers and bowing to each ship as he glided past it. He was met by the Viceroy, Lord Northbrook, by numerous less exalted officials and by about seventy Indian princes and their attendants. Also there to greet him were two one-armed British officers, Major General Sir Sam Browne V.C., inventor of the sword-belt, who was to take charge of the transport of the royal party, and Major Edward Bradford, the ‘head of the secret police in India’, who was to be responsible for its security.
Bradford insisted that the Prince must never be allowed to walk anywhere on his own and that at night at least one member of his suite must sit on guard outside his bedroom or tent. Unsure of the reception likely to be accorded him, the police were already keeping various possible troublemakers under surveillance and had imposed a censorship on some Indian journals. In fact there was no need for such precautions. A few derogatory comments did appear in the Indian press; one paper was published with black mourning bands round the edges of its pages; and a farce, Gayadananda, in which the Prince appeared in a particularly ludicrous light, was suppressed after a few performances. But, on the whole, the Indians were to accord the Prince a friendly reception and to make him feel welcome.
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