by Roland Perry
At 30 the prince consort looked 40, and a plump 40 at that. In the context of the era his condition was not unusual. Paunches, especially on statesmen, were admired; potbellies were physical evidence that the individual was prosperous as opposed to the lean look of those who could not afford to eat well. Smoking was also popular and assisting in keeping life expectancy for the average middle- and upper-class male to around 53. Author Michael Holyrood observed that through the course of the royal marriage Albert had ‘adapted himself body and soul to the role of the prince consort’. He sacrificed what was ‘original in his character to become the caricature of a worthy man’.Victoria, more for her energy, drive and position after a hectic decade, had ‘the ascendency’ over her husband.
‘Besides Victoria, he presented a painful contrast,’ biographer Strachey observed. ‘If only, by some sympathetic magic, she could have conveyed into that portly, flabby figure, that desiccated and discouraged brain, a measure of the stamina and the self-assurance which were so pre-eminently hers!’
Clark had recommended for Albert a simple, balanced diet, which next to his obsession about fresh air was paramount in his prescriptions for good health. Albert, the most disciplined of people in most walks of life, especially the moral and spiritual, ignored the medical recommendation and worked even harder on his ideas, big and small. One concept among many that he was dwelling on concerned workhouses—repositories of the poor, down-and-out and unemployed—where a great number of the inmates were old servants. He wanted men and women in domestic service to be protected from the whims of a single capricious master who might give the servant a bad reference.Albert planned a meeting of ‘worthies’ from business and government to aid all servants.They would guide them on gaining annuity schemes (early forms of superannuation and pensions) and other measures to improve their lives.
Lord Melbourne died on 24 November 1848. Albert showed little reaction to this after feeling that the former prime minister had stood between him and his wife early in their marriage. When Victoria mourned the man she had once had a crush on, Albert was scathing: ‘His aristocratic hauteur was suited more to the old regency days.’
‘Maybe,’ Victoria retorted,‘but he was so helpful to me.And he was a charming dinner companion.’
‘Not for me. And frankly he was a poor adviser to you on the economic conditions in the nation.’
Balmoral Castle became the royal destination. It was small compared to others, but it was adequate with its four quaint towers, granite walls, slit windows and high, pitched roof. Albert and Victoria were enchanted with the place and its people, the craggy outlooks and, most of all, the feeling that they were away from prying eyes in this remote paradise. The family went on hunting expeditions: the queen and her brood on ponies, while Albert joined the Highlanders ahead of them, stalking deer.They transformed from a German to a Scottish clan with ease and enthusiasm. Albert, true to form, attempted to conquer the language, buying a huge Gaelic dictionary and learning 30 words a day.Victoria, following her natural instincts too, tried to learn Scottish dancing.
‘How am I doing?’ she asked her instructor, who had come to the castle for special tuition.
‘Put it this way, dearie,’ he responded,‘you clearly and admirably go by the local dictum that “if it is worth doing, it is worth doing badly”.’
‘Oh, really?’ Victoria said,‘you’ll have to show me how to improve.’
‘You could start by being gentle.Try, my dearie, to dance like a lady.’
Victoria did not take offence. There was no kowtowing by the Scots. To her, they were all like Elphinstone at base: ‘never vulgar, never taking liberties, but so intelligent, modest and well-bred.’ They showed respect and kept their distance. But when they did comment, it was always with humour.
Later, over dinner with Albert, who had his dictionary at the table, she remarked:‘The Highlanders all seem to have a cheery outlook.They never appear dreary like the English, or maudlin like the Irish. I don’t find in them the stiffness and formality of the Germans, the frivolity of the French, or the dullness of the Dutch. The Scots seem to calibrate their mentality just about right, at least for me.’
‘You’ve been conditioned to a degree to the Highland attitude by knowing Clark.’
‘Not only him,’ she said, knowing her husband’s ambivalence and at times loathing for her physician. She would have had the chivalrous Elphinstone in mind.
‘I sometimes wonder if I have Highlander blood,’ she said.
Alfred nodded absent-mindedly, his face buried in the dictionary.
Balmoral became the most popular retreat for Victoria. The rustic idyll was conducive to her favourite leisure pursuits, including quality time with the children, and she recorded the happy, romantic atmosphere in her journal. She joyfully became more Scottish, stalking deer, eating bannock and attempting to comprehend everything the locals said in their delectable but often unintelligible brogue. She became fond of some of the Highlanders. One of them, a strapping young man with an insouciant manner, which she would not have put up with in someone at Buckingham Palace, attracted the 30-year-old queen. She mentioned him in her journal as ‘young J [John] Brown’ on 11 September 1849, just as she was informed she was pregnant again. Clark was more confident in his diagnosis, having attended to her so often in this condition.
Albert seemed to be feeling the cost of his expanding family. After William IV’s widow, Queen Adelaide, died in December, Albert had his eyes on her annuity of £100,000 and wanted half of it at least to come his way. He wrote two long letters in this pregnancy period to Russell in which he begged for an increase in his annuity from £30,000 to £80,000. Russell had no desire to face the Commons over this. He advised Albert to be patient, especially as the fine print of his claim expressed a desire for ‘the ordinary establishment and pursuits of an English gentleman’. These included ‘a Hunting Establishment, a pack of Hounds, a breeding Stud, Shooting establishment, a Moor or Forest in the Highlands of Scotland, and a farm’. Russell’s rejection of this saved Albert from himself after a decade of achievement in building up goodwill for him and Victoria. The consort had in mind taking advantage of the 1800 Crown Private Estates Act that allowed Victoria to behave like a private person and acquire property. But he would be doing it with public money.
Victoria was not troubled when she gave birth to Arthur on 1 May 1850. Clark noted with relief that her demeanour was the best he had ever experienced. Instead of railing against her fate, she was accepting and even tempered. Much of this may have been due to the surrounds when this familiar nine-month journey began. There was no tension, only freshness in the Scottish air outside and inside this more modest palatial abode.
Peace began to break out in most of the troubled countries of Europe. In nearly all cases, existing regimes managed to crush the rebellions and attempts to change them. Louis Napoleon, nephew to Napoleon Bonaparte, had emerged triumphant from the revolution and had been elected president of France. Victoria and Albert gave him their tacit approval once there was evidence that Napoleon was doing his best to bring stability to his country. The Pope was a temporary ‘casualty’ of the upheaval. He had fled Rome and was for a time a fugitive in Gaeta, central Italy. Prussia and Austria were still coming to terms with their problems as rebellion simmered. Albert showed his deeper allegiances by advocating, in a ‘violent and incorrigible’ manner, a German unionism. He insisted on ‘a new German Empire’, with the King of Prussia as its head. These views were not appreciated by prominent British leaders but Victoria did not intervene as he expressed these controversial comments.
Britain itself was tranquil. The public and government focus had turned to India where Sikhs in the Punjab were rising against colonial rule. Hundreds of officers and men had been killed since war began in 1848.Victoria, with her Elphinstone-inspired attachment to her exotic outpost, fretted with the families of army personnel stationed there. In January 1849 at the Battle of Chilianwala, the Sikhs were declared the uno
fficial winners based on the huge number of losses in the Anglo-Indian or British-controlled mixed army of Indians and British. There was more slaughter at Gujrat on 14 March. This time the Sikhs’ large number of casualties saw them viewed as the losers.They were pursued for 160 kilometres to Rawalpindi where they surrendered. In an effort to prevent any future uprisings in the region, the British paid off the most compelling and determined young maharajah, Dhuleep Singh, with £50,000. He was settled in Norfolk where he was encouraged to live the life of a country gentleman. The Punjab was then annexed by the East India Company. Victoria was given the maharajah’s magnificent diamond, the Koh-i-Noor, soon after Arthur’s birth. She adored the ‘gift’ more than anything else in her possession but showed it off in private only. Elphinstone understood better than anyone else that it was a contentious acquisition. He advised her not to wear it in the presence of Indians, especially proud princes.
22
PEEL AND WELLINGTON: IN TRANSITION
On 27 June 1850, Victoria was leaving Cambridge House in her carriage when a man leapt forward and struck her in the face with his cane.The assailant was set upon by a crowd, but it was a shock in several ways. The individual, Robert Pate, was an experienced army officer in the 10th Hussars, and was also a dandy.These were two species of Englishman expected to show allegiance to her majesty. It was less than two months after she had given birth and she was just about fit again when the incident happened, leaving her with ‘brown and green’ bruises, which would become scars on her neck.
Advisors suggested that she not go to the opera that evening. But again she ignored them, saying: ‘If I do not go, it will be thought that I am seriously hurt.’
The plucky Victoria was hurt more a few days later when it was learned that Sir Robert Peel had been thrown from his horse and seriously injured. He died on 2 July. Victoria was more concerned about her husband’s reaction to the death of a man for whom they had such high regard.Albert saw Peel as a second father or, more pertinently, the most important senior influence on him. Peel had been a mentor and had encouraged the social consciences of Victoria and Albert with such advances as the Mines Act 1842, which began the regulation of an industry that had seen men treated as badly as pack-animals; the reintroduction of income tax; the Factory Act of 1844, which had a similar intent and impact to that of the Mines Act; the repeal of the Corn Laws, which had been triggered by the Irish potato famine; other tariffs to protect workers; and the Maynooth Grant, where an attempt was made to conciliate with the Irish using a sizeable grant to a Catholic seminary.
Peel had done most to help Albert to persuade the headstrong Victoria to allow the monarchy to ride with changing British politics. Peel was a Tory with a vision of one nation, undivided. He brought Albert with him in his concern for the middle class, a desire for an expanded voting franchise, and a sincere concern for the working classes. Now Peel had gone, Albert was devastated.Victoria herself was upset but resigned more to it. She asked Clark to examine Albert. The royal physician thought the problem was his ‘mind . . .diet has been of no avail.’ Clearly, Clark did not have as much time for psychology as his patient. Most medical problems, he believed, could be cured by those open windows and the correct diet; most other illnesses were ‘in the head’ and therefore side issues.
Early in 1852, Elphinstone found himself out of a job as Lord Russell’s minority government of nearly six years fell over an issue of defence. Napoleon’s France appeared to be rattling the sabre.The British public and the press wanted defences shored up by more than tokenism. Russell believed he could simply bulk up the local militia. Palmerston, ever the thorn in someone’s side, had been dumped as foreign minister at the end of 1851, much to the delight of Victoria and Albert. He had his revenge by arguing in the parliament that Britain had to have a powerful national armed force.The parliament agreed with Palmerston. Russell’s tenuous Whig government had clung to power because its opposition—the conservatives—had been split between those who kept prices high by tariffs on imported goods (Protectionists) and Peelites. Peel’s more liberal stand would allow cheap imports into the country, particularly food that helped the poor.
Elphinstone was more than ever in support. He was against protectionism but very much for a strong national armed service. He had influenced Victoria on both issues to the point where she found herself supporting Palmerston, which until then had been anathema to her. Elphinstone believed Russell had been as effective as he could be with his Education Act 1847 (which Elphinstone had worked behind the scenes to support after his experiences in India); his improvement of the Poor Laws with the development of workhouses by Poor Law unions; his handling of the Chartist demonstrations; and his pushing through of the Australian Colonies Government Act, which had formalised the proposal for six new administrations in that country. Russell had also supported Albert’s creation of the Great Exhibition.
The first acts of the new conservative prime minister, the 52-year-old fourteenth Earl of Derby (alias Edward Smith-Stanley), were to make himself First Lord of the Treasury and leader of the House of Lords. Derby was well aware of Elphinstone’s work as lord-in-waiting, which ensured Victoria’s Whig sentiments were held and enhanced.The Scottish lord was his first target for dismissal from the queen’s court. Sixteen years after she had stopped a government forming because it wished to get rid of Whig ladies and men at court, Victoria was a far more experienced and therefore respected and powerful figure or, more accurately, figurehead. She knew that if she refused a prime minister’s dictates it would endanger not only the image of the monarchy, as it had in 1837, but its very existence. Victoria had no choice but to let Elphinstone and other Whig supporters go. She was embittered. It made her feel impotent, which was the intended consequence of reducing the power of the monarchy. Her hate for the Tories was never more pronounced. She hoped that Lord Derby would fail to form a government or, if he did, that he would last long enough to prove ‘his incapacity to rule’.
Victoria was pregnant again in mid-1852 and this helped take her mind off what she perceived as an appalling, achieve-nothing, weak government. Derby upset the very moral Albert with his choice of courtiers, plucked from among the ‘dandies and roués of London and the Turf’. The choices were the antithesis of the image Victoria and Albert wanted for the royal court. Albert lectured Derby about the damage they could do to the court’s image. Future appointments must not be near-bankrupts; they must have characters that would stand moral scrutiny. Albert spoke of the scandal concerning Lady Flora that had rocked the monarchy in 1839; he reviled Melbourne and his tendency to turn clichés on their head, especially to do with Albert’s pristine attitudes. He had never forgotten that Melbourne said to him: ‘damned morality will undo us all!’
Despite her contempt for Tories in general,Victoria kept an open mind. She at least appreciated Derby for listening to her views. He avoided her pet hate among her prime ministers by speaking fluently and clearly when explaining policy. She was drawn also to the new Chancellor of the Exchequer, Benjamin Disraeli, a descendant of Italian Sephardic Jews. He had Portuguese ancestry, delving back to Iberia before Jews were expelled in 1492. His ancestors had been forced to emigrate to Europe, wandering down the centuries to northern Italy, the Netherlands and finally England. His father, a literary critic and historian, imbued him with a love of the English language. He began studying law but switched to novel writing and politics after some financial setbacks.
Victoria at first had a few issues to overcome in dealing with Disraeli. She had maintained her juvenile preoccupation with looks, and he fell short. She was distracted by his appearance, which she stereotyped: ‘thoroughly Jewish-looking, a livid complexion, dark eyes and eyebrows and black ringlets. The expression is disagreeable.’ Victoria also took umbrage at his wife, whom she found ‘very vulgar, not so much for her appearance, as in her way of speaking’.
Nevertheless, she invited them to dinner because she liked conversation with him. Disraeli’s novels and his �
�curious notes’ on parliamentary debates had first attracted her. The output in both areas was ‘highly-coloured’. His language was ‘very flowery’ yet entertaining, and Victoria liked to be amused by the articulate, the humorous and the lateral-thinking. Disraeli’s attitude to her showed unerring respect and dedication.Yet he maintained a fearless individualism. He was not afraid to speak his mind but in such syrup-diluted phrasing that Victoria found his views digestible. She thought him funny, quirky and cerebral. Disraeli was the saving grace for her in an otherwise shaky, uninspired period of government.Victoria believed that the only advance in Tory thinking was for Derby to admit to her that support for protectionism was no longer good politics. Few in parliament and even fewer outside would vote for it.
After rebuilding Osborne House in the Italian renaissance style for £200,000, Albert and Victoria had been thrifty enough to scrape together another £31,500 for the freehold on Balmoral’s 7000 hectares after leasing it for four years, adding to another 2400 hectares they had already bought.The properties were bargains made cheaper by the well-practised yet unethical method of taking a leasehold, installing themselves and than making offers to buy freehold below the market rate. Landlords were hardly going to reject offers and frog-march the royal family off the property.Victoria and Albert were doing well with a nice private property nest-egg that they could leave to their children. Victoria further indulged her passion for jewellery, paying £2456 for a suite of diamonds and rubies, an emerald brooch and a set of stunning Australian opals.This was without Albert getting his demands for more money from the Treasury. These purchases were part of the couple’s building up of a considerable private estate, separate from the public crown. They were receiving the best possible free legal and investment advice on how to do this.
