We Two: Victoria and Albert

by Gillian Gill

  Family pride and personal ambition were Prince Leopold’s prime motivators, and the calculations he had made when promoting the Kent marriage in 1819 still held good. The fat little girl baby with the runny nose whom he at last took in his arms in the icy Devon cottage where her father had died stood a reasonable chance of being Queen of England one day, and she was half Coburg. The gratitude of monarchs is a very valuable commodity, so it made sense to Leopold to invest in this niece’s future. He certainly had the time and money to play the role of darling uncle for a few weeks a year.

  And the financial aid Prince Leopold gave to his widowed sister cost him remarkably little. The prince assumed none of his brother-in-law Kent’s debts: Queen Victoria settled these as one of her first orders of business after ascending the throne. As to the not inconsiderable debts that the Duchess of Kent incurred between 1820 and 1837, these too were settled not by her brother Leopold but by her daughter once Victoria became queen.

  The fifty thousand pound annuity he was given by parliament when he became Princess Charlotte’s husband was almost the whole of Prince Leopold’s fortune. Thus the three thousand pounds he allotted his sister for a few years came from the British taxpayer, not the Coburg family. Furthermore, Leopold did not give up his parliamentary stipend when in 1831 he went off to Belgium to be king. Instead his agent Stockmar negotiated a settlement with the English government whereby the new king would repay his debts, maintain his English property support his English charities, pay his English servants and pensioners, and then generously give the remainder of his appanage back to the British exchequer.

  To the outrage of the British government and public, the king’s expenses turned out to account for most of the fifty thousand a year for a great many years. Until the end of his life, King Leopold was able to come to England regularly and to offer Claremont to deposed members of European royal families without digging into his own pocket. The debts he claimed to have run up in England between 1818 and 1830 turned out to amount to a whopping eighty-three thousand pounds, and the king declined to give an account of them. So much debt was puzzling for a man known to be extremely careful with expenses and an excellent money manager. The accumulated payments to his sister may well have been bundled into the declared debt. If so, the English taxpayer paid twice for the financial support that King Leopold claimed to have so generously afforded the Kents.

  IF HIS INITIAL motivation was less than altruistic, Prince Leopold’s occasional watchful presence and his brotherly influence on Victoria’s mother were undoubtedly important factors in the girl’s early childhood. Though she saw her uncle quite rarely, Queen Victoria remembered that her happiest times as a child were spent at Leopold’s country estate at Claremont or at the seaside hotel his money paid for. At Claremont she was agreeably spoiled by Louise Louis, her dead cousin Charlotte’s old dresser, who greeted her like the Second Coming. She enjoyed the fact that Leopold talked to her seriously, as if she were a grownup, and she used to weep when she had to leave her “Dearest Uncle.”

  In her London home too, Victoria, until age ten, had a measure of her uncle’s protection. Even when abroad, by letter and through Stockmar, Leopold kept in touch with the Duchess of Kent’s affairs. When he returned to England, it was in no small part to see his niece Victoria. With each passing year, the odds on her succeeding to the throne of England improved, and Leopold set out to charm the child and command her affection just as he had once charmed and won the affection of his wife, Princess Charlotte. He succeeded. Queen Victoria herself declared in later life that her uncle Leopold was the only father she had ever known and that she adored him. Leopold probably loved Victoria as much as he was capable of loving anyone, and the bond between the two proved strong and lasting.

  However, by 1827, when Victoria was eight, Leopold and Stockmar were spending more and more time in Europe, first negotiating the possibility that Leopold would become king of the new kingdom of Greece, and finally settling him on the equally new throne of Belgium. The dream Leopold had long entertained of one day becoming regent in England for his niece Victoria faded before the reality of being king in his own right. From 1831 King Leopold was fully occupied defending Belgium against the furious Dutch, warding off the power of France, keeping the rival Belgian political factions in check, forging dynastic alliances for Coburg family members, and beginning a new Belgian dynasty with a new teenaged wife. There was little time to worry about his niece in England.

  Victoria never bore them a grudge, but her uncle Leopold’s departure for Brussels and the simultaneous disappearance of Stockmar to Coburg were a disaster for her. She was now left to the tender mercies of her mother’s right-hand man, the newly minted baronet of the Guelphic Order of Hanover, Sir John Conroy.

  JOHN CONROY WAS a career adventurer, expert manipulator, and domestic martinet. An Irishman born in Wales, he had small means, some ability, and mighty ambition. He believed he could trace his ancestry back to the ancient kings of Ireland.

  He made his career in the British army during the Napoleonic wars but, to the disdain of fellow officers, steered clear of battles. Conroy moved up the ranks by marrying Elizabeth Fisher, the tall, handsome, vacuous daughter of his superior officer, Major General Fisher, whom he served in various administrative capacities in Ireland and England. When General Fisher died suddenly in 1814, Conroy entered the Duke of Kent’s household through the good offices of Bishop Fisher, his wife’s uncle, who had been Kent’s tutor. This seemed like a step up. Though the duke was not known for paying the members of his household, he promised Conroy advancement in his military career. As it turned out, the Duke of Kent was the last man to get favors out of the army bureaucracy at Whitehall, and when he died, Conroy was still a captain. With a tiny Irish estate and a minor civil servant’s sinecure on which to keep a wife, a mother-in-law, and a growing family, Conroy needed to find a new source of revenue fast.

  Conroy was with the Kent family in the Devon cottage when the duke died. Named an executor to the duke’s will, he at once established himself as a useful man, devoted to the interests of the duchess. Victoire of Saxe-Coburg had always relied on men to run her life for her. When Emich Charles of Leiningen, her first husband, died, she quickly fell under the control of Leiningen’s steward, Herr Schindler. Now she came under Conroy’s dominance, leaning on his strong right arm, weeping on his manly shoulder, and allowing him to worry about the money for her.

  Conroy was especially valuable in the duchess’s German-speaking household in the early days because he was a native speaker of English. Hitherto the duchess had resisted all efforts to teach her the language, but Conroy succeeded where the Duke of Kent and Prince Leopold had failed. Though always happier in German and French, the Duchess of Kent could henceforth pass muster at dinner parties and court ceremonies in her adopted country.

  The Duchess of Kent brought Conroy with her to Kensington Palace. There he unearthed a gold mine in the shape of King George IV’s aging spinster sister, Princess Sophia. This lady, once beautiful and full of longing, had had a disastrous liaison with one of her father’s less prepossessing courtiers, which resulted in the birth of an illegitimate son. This secret shame prevented Sophia from ever marrying, and her son, once he came to adulthood, was a constant thorn in her side. John Conroy charmed Princess Sophia and won her complete confidence. He took over control of her affairs, had no trouble facing down the importunate son, and made Sophia a regular part of the Duchess of Kent’s social circle. In return for Conroy’s gallant company and filial care, Sophia became Conroy’s spy, reporting in detail on what was said and done at Kensington Palace in his absence and at the Court of St. James’s, where she had access to the private society of her brother kings, George IV and William IV. She also gave him money and estates that enabled Conroy to live like a rich man.

  By the time Leopold was installed in Belgium, Conroy and his family, though maintaining an agreeable suburban London residence, lived to all intents and purposes at nearby Kensingt
on Palace, and traveled with the duchess as part of her household. Conroy served as the duchess’s comptroller, but he was also her secretary and interpreter, her public relations officer, her counselor, her confidant, and her political agent in dealings with King, court, and parliament.

  Cynical men of the world like the Duke of Wellington were sure that Conroy was the duchess’s lover. They were probably wrong, but Conroy had a familiar way of dealing with her that the Court of St. James’s observed with shock and distaste, so violently did it flout every rule of royal etiquette. According to Conroy’s biographer Katherine Hudson, Conroy lived in a convenient fantasy world in which he and his family were royal too. Against all the evidence, Conroy believed that his wife, Elizabeth Fisher Conroy, was an illegitimate daughter of the Duke of Kent. He was thus Princess Victoria’s brother-in-law, and his children were her nieces and nephews. He once mystified Victoria by saying that his daughters were as high as she.

  Leopold underestimated Conroy Busy and blinded by aristocratic disdain, he saw Conroy as his English agent and believed what Conroy told him. He failed to see how effectively Conroy was controlling the flow of information in and out of Kensington Palace, how thoroughly Conroy had taken control of the duchess’s affairs. Only gradually was it borne in upon the king of the Belgians that the lowly Conroy had ambitions that paralleled and might frustrate his own.

  Both exceptionally ambitious men who saw the child Victoria as a tool in their own advancement, Conroy and Leopold had much in common, but only Conroy understood this. As a result, Sir John was able to exploit the blind spot of a king who prided himself on his astuteness. It was only after Victoria became queen that King Leopold started referring to Conroy as a “Mephistopheles” and comparing his influence over the Duchess of Kent to “witchcraft.”

  People in England had no trouble figuring out Sir John Conroy. Great men like the Duke of Wellington, Lord Charles Greville, and Lord Melbourne wondered to each other how the Duchess of Kent could be deceived by such an obvious blackguard. But the duchess connived in her own deception. Victoire of Kent was a traditional man’s woman: sociable, pliant, not very bright, but convinced of her own importance. When she was put down, when her needs were not met, like a spoiled lapdog she showed her teeth. The more Conroy annoyed her English relatives, the more she liked him.

  The duchess had no desire to see her brother Leopold regent in England. She had enjoyed being regent in Germany in her first husband’s tiny realm, and she intended to be regent in England in the happy event that her daughter succeeded to the throne as a minor. As the years went by, as the dynastic odds for Victoria improved, as her own social and financial situations rose, the duchess became increasingly imperious. After her brother-in-law William came to the throne, she was livid when Prime Minister Wellington refused her demand for the status (and the income) of a dowager Princess of Wales. As Victoria edged closer to the throne, the duchess also became more and more envious, reminding her daughter that if the Duke of Kent had lived, she, not Victoria, would have been Queen of England after William IV’s death.

  The duchess liked Conroy, she was comfortable with him, and she viewed business, especially financial business, as a male preserve. Conroy seemed all efficiency to her, and, since he was her man, she assumed that his interests and ambitions dovetailed with her own. She tolerated Conroy’s presumption and paid no attention to his financial dealings. She and Conroy were, for at least eight years, an effective team.

  It is one of the oddities of history that Victoria Regina et Imperatrix (Queen and Empress), the woman who launched a dozen dynasties and put fear into the hearts of courtiers and children alike, spent her youth in thrall to a man who had no legal authority over her, a man who was neither nobleman nor kinsman—a man she loathed.

  That Dismal Existence

  …

  HE FIRST YEARS AFTER THE DEATH OF THE DUKE OF KENT WERE VERY difficult for his widow, but his child, Victoria, was happy. Cold, dirty, drafty vermin-ridden Kensington Palace was the only home she had ever known, and, since she was rarely taken to her uncle’s court, she had no sense of being a royal poor relation. The ups and downs in her dynastic status affected her mainly because they made her mother unhappy and Sir John Conroy cross.

  Victoria as a little girl did not know that she was likely to inherit the throne of her uncle George IV. She was always addressed as “Princess” and certainly understood that she was part of the royal family of England, but the possibility that she might one day be queen was carefully kept from her. This unawareness shaped her sense of self in crucial ways. Unlike George IV, who became Prince of Wales virtually at birth, Queen Victoria did not move out of the cradle convinced of her own supreme importance. As princesses go, she was not especially vain, self-absorbed, and inconsiderate.

  At first baby Victoria was nestled in a cocoon of love and attention spun by her mother, her nurse Mrs. Brock, her mother’s lady-in-waiting Baroness Späth, and old Louise Louis at Claremont. For the most part, the child was allowed very little contact with her father’s kin. However, two of her uncles, the dukes of York and Sussex, used Kensington Palace as their business address, so they did manage to see something of their Kent niece.

  Uncle Sussex, Queen Victoria recalled in some reminiscences she set down in 1872, was a very tall man with a loud voice, a weird toupee, and a room full of clocks. Though he was kind, she found him rather alarming. Uncle York was shy, and he won her affection by buying her a donkey and treating her once to a Punch-and-Judy show. When Uncle York died in early 1827, she was very sad.

  Victoria was often naughty and temperamental, but so frank and clear-sighted that she disarmed her elders. After one stormy episode, the Duchess of Kent admonished her daughter, “When you are naughty, you make me and yourself very unhappy.” “No, Mama,” retorted the feisty tot, “not me, not myself, but you.”

  As Victoria moved out of infancy, her constant companion and best friend was her half sister, Princess Feodora von Leiningen. Twelve years separated the two, but they still had much in common. Like Victoria, Feodora had lost her father when she was very young. Her early years in the small German town of Amorbach had few luxuries, but she and her older brother Charles were the center of their mother’s life. Then the widowed Victoire von Leiningen married the Duke of Kent and became pregnant with her third child. When the Duke of Kent decided his baby must be born in England, Feodora was separated from her brother and her home, carried off to a new country, and immersed in a new language. As a teenager, she was forced to adapt as best she could to the bewildering reversals of fortune her mother endured.

  Beautiful and talented but poor and unimportant, the big sister watched as her mother, her old friend Baroness Späth, even her governess Lehzen, all became engrossed in the little sister. It is a tribute to both sisters that they became friends and not enemies. Feodora must have often felt envy and resentment, but she had a generous nature as well as a lovely face. She became her little sister’s ally and best friend as well as her shadow. Though the two were parted young and were rarely together as adults, their friendship was never broken. One of Victoria’s first acts as queen was to send much needed money to her sister in Germany. Over the years, Victoria amply repaid the love, protection, and sympathy that Feodora gave her when she was little.

  From Feodora, in a sense, Victoria inherited the most important person in her life as a child: her governess, Fräulein Louise Lehzen. When Victoria turned five, her grumpy but devoted nurse, Mrs. Brock, was dismissed, and Lehzen (as she was always known in the duchess’s household) took over the little girl’s care. Victoria found it “a sad ordeal” to lose Brock, and at first she feared her new governess, a severe, buttoned-up, intelligent woman who could put the fear of God into little girls as ably as any nun.

  A German pastor’s daughter, Lehzen came to England in 1817 with the Duchess of Kent as the Princess Feodora’s governess. In 1824 she was in her midthirties. Even for a nineteenth-century governess, the terms of Lehzen’s em
ployment were severe. She had no regular time off, and there is no record that she had any friends or interests outside the ducal household. The duchess even forbade the governess to keep a diary since in the past such documents had proved damaging to royal employers. Lehzen obeyed. In the eighteen years she was with the Duchess of Kent’s household in England, Louise Lehzen reportedly never took a day off.

  A foreigner of humble origins without personal resources, Lehzen was wholly dependent upon her employer. The Duchess of Kent confidently assumed that she could buy the governess’s gratitude and loyalty for a few pounds a year and the privilege of living in a palace. She expected Lehzen to give unselfish devotion to her temperamental child.

  What she did not expect was that Lehzen would love Victoria as her own, care for her passionately and intelligently, and thereby win Victoria’s love in return. Louise Lehzen became Victoria’s mother in all but name, and by the time of the princess’s accession, Victoria had taken to calling Lehzen “Mother” in private. Whereas the Duchess of Kent became increasingly greedy for money and power, the governess was both principled and disinterested. Her ambitions were for Victoria, not for herself. Sensing this, the child gave respect, affection, and trust in return.

  Lehzen took secret strength and satisfaction from the fact that she was educating a Queen of England. Her idea of what that queen should do and think was very different from her employer’s. Where the duchess and Conroy envisaged Victoria as a meek little maiden, obedient to their wishes, Lehzen wanted a strong, informed woman, a second Queen Elizabeth. Beneath her dowdy black clothes, Louise Lehzen was a fiery soul, nourished on the literary masterpieces of the Sturm und Drang movement. At Amorbach Castle, her recent home, Goethe had written Hermann und Dorothea, and Schiller had written Wallenstein. Lehzen once told a member of Conroy’s extended family that she “could pardon wickedness in a queen, but not weakness.”