The Queen’s House

by Edna Healey

  The Duke of Wellington prepared his plan of action, troops were concealed in the Palace and other critical places, and volunteer special constables were enrolled – among them, Louis Napoleon, the man who was so soon to become Emperor Napoleon III of France.

  In the event the demonstration fizzled out. Only half the men expected gathered on Kennington Common for the march on the House of Commons. The Chartist leader, Feargus O’Connor, realizing that the march would not be allowed, took the petition and his lieutenants to Westminster in three cabs.

  No one who attended the splendid ball in July 1848 would have guessed that in April the Queen had feared that red-capped revolutionaries would by now be dancing in Buckingham Palace, and that their leaders would appear in triumph on the new balcony.

  Of the improvements that were being carried out during these political troubles, the balcony which Prince Albert suggested has become important today. Royal appearances on the balcony are now considered the essential climax for victory celebrations, weddings and every great ceremonial occasion. Buckingham Palace has become the focal point for national celebration.

  After the opening of the Great Exhibition in 1851, the Queen stood there with Prince Albert to be cheered by the milling crowds in the Mall. It was a proud moment, the recognition of the Prince’s greatest triumph. Three years later in February 1854 they stood there again and were cheered on a more poignant occasion as they saw their soldiers off to the Crimean War.

  In the years between these two balcony appearances the prestige of the monarchy had dipped alarmingly. The Great Exhibition saw the high peak of Prince Albert’s career, and never had the Queen loved and admired him so much. He had shown immense courage and imagination in conceiving an enormous glass palace to display and encourage the art and industry of the world. It was built at a time when Europe was still reeling from the 1848 year of revolutions and counter-revolutions, when London was filled with dangerous political refugees.

  Unfortunately Prince Albert’s fame was all too fickle. In the following years leading up to the Crimean War he was subjected to an hysterical campaign against imaginary intrigues of the ‘Austrian–Belgian–Coburg–Orleans clique, the avowed enemies of England, and the subservient tools of Russian ambition’.73 Prince Albert was deeply hurt; Queen Victoria was enraged. On 4 January 1854 she informed the Prime Minister, Lord Aberdeen, that she intended to make Albert Prince Consort: she would have made him King had she been able. If she thought the people really believed the slanders she ‘would retire to private life … leaving the country to choose another ruler after their own HEART’S CONTENT’.74 The Prince’s enemies had gone too far: the government came to his support, and even Palmerston, who had whipped up the anti-Russian fever, now backtracked. Queen and Consort threw themselves into the war effort and were rewarded with enthusiastic cheers when the soldiers marched before the Palace on their way to Armageddon.

  On 28 February 1854 they rose before dawn to see ‘the last battalion of the Scots Fusiliers march past Buckingham Palace on the way to embarkation’ to the Crimean War. As the Queen wrote in her Journal,

  The morning was fine and calm, the sun rising red over the time-honoured towers of Westminster … the gradual, steady but slow approach of the Band, almost drowned by the tremendous cheering of the dense crowd following. The soldiers gave three hearty cheers which went straight to my heart. Carriages with ladies, sorrowing wives, mothers and sisters were there, and some women in the crowd were crying. The men were quite sober, in excellent order and none absent. Formerly they would have been all drunk! May God protect these fine men, may they be preserved and victorious! I shall never forget the touching, beautiful sight I witnessed this morning.75

  So many of those ‘fine men’ were never to return.

  On 27 February 1855 Queen Victoria wrote to Uncle Leopold that she had received at Buckingham Palace

  on Thursday twenty-six of the wounded Coldstream Guards and on Friday thirty-four of the Scotch fusiliers … Among the Grenadiers there is one sad object, shot dreadfully, a ball having gone through the cheek and behind the nose and eye and through the other side! He is shockingly disfigured but is recovered. I feel so much for them and am so fond of my dear soldiers – so proud of them! We could not have avoided sending the Guards; it would have been their ruin if they had not gone.76

  After the end of the Crimean War, in July 1856, Queen Victoria was able to ride out in all her military glory on her horse, Alma, wearing a gold-braided scarlet military uniform, to review ‘the largest force of Britishers assembled in England since the battle of Worcester’. Now she was royal indeed – the Queen of battles.

  The Queen and the Prince Consort were away from London for long periods during the early 1850s, but they still used the Palace from time to time for ceremonial occasions. Frieda Arnold, an intelligent German dresser to the Queen from 1854 to 1859, describes in her letters the penetrating cold of the Palace and the fog and filth of London winters. In the winter of 1855 she wrote:

  I have never been so cold in my whole life as I was for two days at the Palace. We arrived in bitter weather at this huge building that had stood empty for a long time; in spite of all the heating, the tomb-like atmosphere only disappeared after several days occupation … Although the palace is surrounded by parks every time I come into my room my table is quite black, my armchair is speckled with little black particles and my lovely shining candlesticks are quite tarnished in two days. One can never leave any article lying about, and even in the cupboards everything gets dirty.77

  The building of the new ballroom was delayed but Cubitt still kept an office in the Palace with a manager in charge of the minor works he was still undertaking. He was also working for the Queen at Osborne and was able there to discuss quietly with Prince Albert the plans for the next stage of Palace improvements. Prince Albert would have been perfectly prepared to proceed with work on the ballroom with the help of Cubitt and Gruner and without a professional architect. However, in April 1852 the Office for Woods and Forests in the Derby government appointed James Pennethorne as architect for the new wing.

  When the new ballroom suite was being planned, James Pennethorne was concerned with slum clearance in the Pimlico and Westminster area. He was working to improve sanitation there and to prepare the ground for the extension of the Palace. He was the obvious choice as successor to Blore for many reasons. It will be remembered that he was related to John Nash, had been trained by Nash himself and had then been at his expense set to work as a pupil of A. C. Pugin. For many years he had lived at Nash’s splendid house 14 Regent Street, and in 1824 Nash paid for him to study for two years on the Continent. A six-month course in draughtsmanship with Lafitte, Pugin’s brother-in-law, in Paris gave him not only excellent training as an architect but also an enduring interest in Roman triumphal arches, since Lafitte was at this time designing sculptural panels for the Arc de Triomphe. During his months in Rome, Pennethorne worked on a conjectural restoration of the Roman forum, which was much praised, and in April 1826 he was elected a member of the Academy of St Luke in Rome. So, at the time when Nash was designing the Marble Arch, he was receiving regular letters from James Pennethorne with careful drawings of his work in Rome. These must have had some influence on the impressionable Nash. Imagine Pennethorne’s pain now, therefore, as he drove to his work in Pimlico, to see the Marble Arch, their dream of Imperial Rome, demolished and removed. It must have been with particular pleasure that he agreed to continue Nash’s work in the Palace. He submitted designs, which were accepted, with his tender, in June 1852.

  It is difficult to know how much Pennethorne was responsible for the final success of the Ballroom. But he must have shown great tact and patience, since he was working under the shadow of the Prince Consort and Ludwig Gruner, not to mention Cubitt and the Office of Woods and Forests. After his death in 1871, James Pennethorne was remembered as a man of ‘retired and studious habits, admired for his kindness, spotless integrity and universal courtesy’.7
8

  In the decade between the mid 1840s and mid 1850s the appearance of Buckingham Palace had been transformed and took on the shape we recognize today.

  The ‘Palace Improvements’ were the creation of many hands and minds, and many voices were raised to counsel or to criticize. During that period the government had changed, as had the architects. But Prince Albert remained throughout the period deeply involved in all concerns. Had it not been for his drive and persistence the improvements would never have taken place. His busy mind could swing from the great international issues of war and peace, to modern devices for the Palace kitchens, from the Great Sanitation problem, public health and sewers, to fifteenth-century frescoes and the decoration of ballroom walls. He was particularly interested, at this period, in building work of all kinds: not only was he concerned with the enlargement of Buckingham Palace – he was also rebuilding Osborne House and, in complete contrast, was planning model dwellings for workers, to be displayed at the Great Exhibition of 1851.*

  Throughout the decade of rebuilding there was, however, one more important director of the improvement of the Palace – the great master-builder, Thomas Cubitt. A man of quiet authority, his opinion counted for more with the Prince Consort than almost anyone else’s. Throughout this period, Cubitt was the constant element in the decade of change. When in October 1846 he was appointed as the contractor he did so on his own, clearly stated terms. His firm alone was to carry out the work:

  I must however have it explicitly understood that I cannot enter into competition with other Tradesmen as to prices at any stage of the progress of the building, but that I must have assurance that I shall be allowed to carry out the whole Building to its completion.79

  He also insisted that he should be paid ‘as the work proceeds’ and that he should have ‘timely notice on all occasions of your intention to proceed with successive portions of the fabric’. A master-builder could dictate the conditions.

  Thomas Cubitt, born in 1788, was the son of a Norfolk carpenter. He was brought up in London in his father’s trade, and after his father’s death went on board ship to India as a captain’s joiner. On his return he started a business with his brothers, William and Lewis, as carpenters and builders. By hard work and sheer ability he built up a highly successful organization, mostly dealing in speculative building. By the 1840s Cubitt had transformed London – new squares and streets of pillars and porticoes rose at his bidding where before there had been marsh and squalor.

  Thine be the praise, O Cubitt

  … thine the hand …

  That caused Belgravia from the dust to rise …

  A fairer wreath than Wren’s should crown thy brow

  He raised a dome – a town unrivalled thou.

  So wrote a Mrs Gascoigne, one of Cubitt’s tenants.

  His success was due to his efficient method of contracting, a genius for organization, foresight and an insistence on work of the highest quality. He was a perfectionist and something of an autocrat, notable in committees for never speaking unless he had something to say. This was the man who for a decade, until his death, was an invaluable adviser to the Prince Consort at Osborne and Buckingham Palace and whom Queen Victoria always called affectionately ‘our good Mr Cubitt’. Tactful and courteous, he was never subservient, insistent that his Clerk of the Works ‘cooperate in the most cordial manner with the other officers of Her Majesty’s establishment, giving and receiving willingly friendly hints’.

  So during his work at Buckingham Palace he avoided friction with courtiers and architects alike. They sometimes murmured about his influence with the Prince Consort, but they knew his value. What impressed Prince Albert most was the clarity and firmness of his instructions: Stockmar himself could not have produced better memoranda.

  In June 1852, in his tender for the work on the Ballroom, he promised ‘that the work proposed shall not exceed the estimate of £45,000. That every care shall be taken to carry out the works in the most economical manner consistent with its purpose and an accurate account to be kept of all costs.’ He agreed to be satisfied with a profit of seven per cent, taking all the risks and responsibilities. The work was carried out under the direction of his Clerk of the Works, Peter Hogg, who also obtained permission to supply fixtures and fittings for the kitchens.

  In the end extra funds had to be provided to pay for the decorations, which were ‘so very elaborate, so highly decorated and so different from those of almost every other Building upon which the Builders are employed’.80 In fact Cubitt made very little profit out of this, his last work for Prince Albert.

  Blore had left no adequate plans for the new wing. In any case, Prince Albert had never admired his pedestrian work. Pennethorne submitted his own plans, but they appear to have been based on those drawn up by Cubitt and the Prince. The Prince himself, assisted by Gruner, intended to supervise the interior decoration of the new wing; Cubitt was to be responsible for the carcass. His workmen lined the walls of some of the rooms ready for painting, but he would have nothing to do with what he called ‘fancy painting’.

  Pennethorne had absorbed much of the spirit of Nash in his years of apprenticeship and later collaboration with him. So the exterior of the Ballroom at the south-west corner of the Palace follows Nash’s elegant lines. New kitchens and domestic offices were added below to serve the State Dining Room and supper room.

  Inside all was splendour. The vast Ballroom, 123 feet long, 60 feet wide and 45 feet high, was one of the largest in England. At the west end, the throne dais was designed as a magnificent setting for Queen and Consort. Their crimson thrones stood before a dramatic recess, the gilded Corinthian pillars supporting an arch embellished with sculptured figures and ornaments and surmounted by a crowned medallion showing Queen Victoria and Prince Albert in profile. On either side, seated figures represented History and Fame and before the arch two marble statues stood with musical instruments, symbolizing the cultural interests of Queen and Consort. Here they received their subjects in an elegant grandeur guaranteed to outshine emperor, tsar or shah.

  Facing them at the other end of the Ballroom a great organ with gilded pipes was set in another recess. Between them, suspended from the ceiling, shone twenty-one gas burners in glass chandeliers. On either side were ten tall bronze candelabra, each fitted with forty-three branches for wax candles. When they were all lit the heat was overwhelming.

  The structure of the room, strong but elegant, was designed by James Pennethorne, but the walls were decorated by Gruner under the direction of Prince Albert himself. This was the opportunity Prince Albert and Gruner had longed for – a chance to demonstrate the beauty of fresco painting and encourage its reintroduction. According to The Builder, in May 1856,

  the ceiling rested on a wide richly-decorated cove below which was an elaborate frieze. The upper part of each side wall was divided into thirteen compartments, seven of which were windows and the others filled with wall paintings representing the Twelve Hours. The lower part of the walls was covered with crimson silk brocade, and above the doors were sculptured groups by Theed.

  At night the effect was stunning. The seven windows, The Builder described,

  are the windows which at night are filled with gaslights from behind … six are surrounded by large borders and represent figures of the Hours, taken from sketches by Raffaele [sic] and executed about life-size by Professor Consoni at Rome.

  There were also ‘four cupids from Raffaelle’s [sic] frescoes at Farnese Palace’.81 Prince Albert’s passion for the Italian Renaissance at last could be fully expressed. When the room was lit for a ball, filled with flowers, sparkling with the jewels of hundreds of ladies, the effect was brilliant, as the memoirs of the period show.

  On 8 May 1856 the Queen held her first state ball in the new room. As she recorded in her Journal, it was a tremendous success, ‘the elegant toilettes of the ladies and numerous uniforms’ adding even more colour to the glowing room. Many of the officers were her heroes, returned from the C
rimean War, resplendent in scarlet, medals flashing. The diplomatic corps was well represented, taking up the whole of one side of the Ballroom. For the first time at a ball in the Palace there was comfort. Three tiers of seats on each side allowed ‘everyone to see and be seen’. The Queen herself danced six quadrilles, and Prince Albert, still graceful, though now a little stiff, partnered his Queen as he had done twenty years before. ‘It was truly’, the Queen wrote, ‘a most successful Fete and everyone was in great admiration of the rooms.’82

  Buckingham Palace, rebuilt and refurbished, was now ready to dazzle even the most splendid of foreign monarchs. On 25 January 1858 Queen Victoria had the chance to display the Queen of England in a worthy setting. On that day, her eldest daughter, Vicky, was married to Prince Frederick William of Prussia, who was to become Emperor of Germany. Princess Victoria had become engaged in September 1855. It was a marriage arranged by her parents, but the young pair were genuinely in love.

  The wedding took place in the Chapel Royal. They returned to Buckingham Palace, then, as the Queen wrote in her Journal, ‘we went with the young couple to the celebrated window at which they stepped out and showed themselves, we and the Prince and Princess [of Prussia] standing with them’. The banquet which followed was one of the most splendid ever given in the Palace, for, as the Queen wrote to the British Ambassador in Berlin, apropos of the German desire to have the wedding in Germany, ‘It is not every day that one marries the eldest daughter of the Queen of England.’83

  The Palace was decorated as never before. Chandeliers sparkled above the long table, heavy with crystal and gold plate. The immense mirrors reflected the thousand guests, brilliant in diamonds and pearls. The Queen, as her biographer Lady Longford describes, ‘smothered herself with diamonds and then with a contrariness which was so much a part of her, decorated her dress and hair with rustic flowers and grass’.84