We Two: Victoria and Albert

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We Two: Victoria and Albert Page 61

by Gillian Gill


  359 By December 1 The death of the prince consort was an important and dramatic event. It was observed by a number of people, several of whom left detailed accounts of what they had seen. Many letters—between the Queen and her various relatives, between the Queen and Lord Palmerston, between Palmerston and Sir George Phipps—are extant, and many have been published. Every book on Queen Victoria and Prince Albert gives an account of the prince’s death. I have relied especially on those by Woodham-Smith, Longford, and Fulford. Victoria continued to write her journal every day until December 13. The journal started up again after two weeks. In 1872, after several unsuccessful attempts, the Queen was finally able to give her own account of her husband’s last days, which, she says, were engraved upon her memory.

  360 “Albert is a little rheumatic This and subsequent quotations in this paragraph are from The Letters of Queen Victoria, 1837–1861, ed. Benson and Esher, vol. III, pp. 468–471.

  361 “You did wrong,” he commented Longford, p. 374.

  361 This was especially true This was not the view of contemporaries. Lord Clarendon famously remarked that Sir James Clark and Sir Henry Holland could not be trusted to look after a sick cat. Florence Nightingale remarks in her private papers that the prince consort could have been saved had he received proper nursing.

  Chapter 28: MOURNING A PRINCE

  365 Dissatisfied by such ephemeral tributes For my discussion here and below of the memorials and monuments erected by the nation, I am indebted to The Cult of the Prince Consort by Elisabeth Darby and Nicola Smith, New Haven and London: Yale University Press, 1983.

  365 the Earl of Oxford exclaimed Duff, Victoria and Albert, p. 297, citing Jerrold. Other sources ascribe this anecdote to the Earl of Oxford.

  367 In a private conversation Lytton Strachey, Queen Victoria, p. 186, citing the 1886 memoir of his years as Prussia’s representative in London, 1852–1864, by Carl Friedrich Graf Vitzhum von Eckstadt.

  368 This was the view “If there comes a real collision between the Queen and the House of Commons,” wrote Mary Ponsonby in 1878 to her husband, who was then Queen Victoria’s private secretary, “it is quite possible she would turn restive … and then her reign will end in a fiasco or she prepares one for the Prince of Wales; for I do think in a tussle of that sort, and I do hope and pray it should be so, that the People win the day” Mary Ponsonby, pp. 144–145.

  368 Jane Ely and Jane Churchill Duff, Victoria and Albert, p. 19.

  368 “I feel right well” “Biographical Sketch” of his father by Ernest Stockmar, introduction to Memoirs of Baron Stockmar, vol. 1, p. xcviii.

  368 Albert had been dearer to him Fulford, The Prince Consort, p. 273.

  370 “Oh! That boy Dearest Mama, p. 30.

  373 Then she took to sleeping The Princess Royal (Vicky) wrote to her husband from Osborne in March 1862: “Mama is dreadfully sad … always sleeps with Papa’s coat over her and his dear red dressing gown beside and some of his clothes in her bed! … [She is] as much in love with Papa as though she had married him yesterday … she feels the same as your little Fräuchen … and is always consumed with longing for her husband” (Hibbert, Queen Victoria: A Personal History, New York: Basic Books, 2000, p. 271).

  373 “I never dreamt Dearest Mama, p. 23.

  373 “I am alas! not old Nina C. Epton, Victoria and Her Daughters, New York: Norton, 1971, p. 102.

  373 Even in her first letter Letters of Queen Victoria, vol. iii, p. 473.

  374 The loneliness and longing Queen Victoria, in a letter to her daughter when Vicky was in despair over the death of her husband, volunteered that she had once been tempted “to put an end to my life here, but a voice told me for His sake—no! Still Endure.” Longford, p. 426, citing Kronberg Letters, October 2, 1888.

  374 “I can so well understand Dearest Mama, p. 35.

  375 “I am also anxious to repeat Benson and Esher, Letters of Queen Victoria 1837–1861, vol. III, p. 476.

  381 Hibbert, a scrupulous scholar Hibbert, Queen Victoria, chapter 42, “John Brown,” especially pp. 321–323.

  381 Longford declared Victoria R.I, p. 417.

  381 Hibbert drily confirms Thompson, Queen Victoria: The Woman, the Monarchy and the People, p. 77, and Hibbert, Queen Victoria, p. 497.

  383 Her harshest judgment Queen Victoria reportedly told Lord Derby that the prince consort “would die—he seemed not to care to live … He died from want of what they call pluck.” Longford, quoting Disraeli, p. 391.

  The Royal Collection © 2008, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

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  p. 1 top, RC407169; bottom, RC420416

  p. 2 top left, RC980015f60a; middle, RC 405128

  p. 3 top right, RC 407126; middle, RC 407376; bottom right, RC 408951

  p. 4 bottom left, RC 405830

  p. 4–5, RC 406903

  p. 5–6, RC 451255

  p. 8 top, RC 406819; bottom, RC 2922741

  TEXT

  p. 80, RCIN 605752 [detail]

  p. 183, RCIN 502063 [detail]

  p. 376, RCIN 405162

  © National Portrait Gallery, London

  INSERT

  p. 2 bottom left, NPG 2175

  p. 4 top right, NPG 941; middle left, NPG 3953

  p. 5 top right, NPGx28175

  TEXT

  p. 21, NPG 1530

  Bridgeman Art Archive

  INSERT

  p. 6 bottom, FC 12259

  p. 7 bottom, STC 61533

  The illustration on p. 275 first appeared in the Illustrated London News of April 26, 1856.

  Special thanks to Karen Lawson, senior picture library assistant at the Royal Collection, and to Matthew Bailey, assistant picture library manager at the National Gallery.

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  GILLIAN GILL, who holds a Ph.D. in modern French literature from Cambridge University, has taught at Northeastern, Wellesley, Yale, and Harvard. She is the author of Nightingales: The Extraordinary Upbringing and Curious Life of Miss Florence Nightingale; Agatha Christie: The Woman and Her Mysteries; and Mary Baker Eddy. She lives in suburban Boston.

  Copyright © 2009 by Gillian Gill

  All rights reserved.

  Published in the United States by Ballantine Books,

  an imprint of The Random House Publishing Group,

  a division of Random House, Inc., New York.

  BALLANTINE and colophon are registered

  trademarks of Random House, Inc.

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Gill, Gillian.

  We two : Victoria and Albert Rulers, partners, rivals / Gillian Gill.

  p. cm.

  eISBN: 978-0-345-51492-9

  1. Victoria, Queen of Great Britain, 1819–1901—Marriage.

  2. Albert, Prince Consort of Victoria, Queen of Great Britain, 1819–1861—Marriage.

  3. Queens—Great Britain—Biography.

  4. Princes—Great Britain—Biography. I. Title.

  DA554.G55 2009

  941.081092′2—dc22

  [B] 2009008919

  www.ballantinebooks.com

  Frontispiece and pages 15, 89, and 145: Art features details from

  Modern Times at Windsor Castle by Sir Edwin Landseer.

  The Royal Collection © 2008 Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II.

  v3.0

  Table of Contents

  PRELUDE TO A MARRIAGE

  The Years Apart VICTORIA: A FATHERLESS PRINCESS

  Charlotte and Leopold

  Wanted, an Heir to the Throne, Preferably Male

  The Wife Takes the Child

  That Dismal Existence

  The Kensington System

  Fighting Back

  Victoria, Virgin Queen

  ALBERT: A MOTHERLESS PRINCE

  The Coburg Legacy

  A Dynastic Marriage

  The Paradise of Our Childhood

  Training for the Big Race

  Together

  Victoria Plans Her Marriage


  Bearing the Fruits of Desire

  Whigs and Tories

  Dearest Daisy

  Albert Takes Charge

  The Court of St. Albert’s

  Finding Friends

  A Home of Our Own

  The Greatest Show on Earth

  Lord Palmerston Says No

  Blue Blood and Red

  French Interlude

  The Prussian Alliance

  Father and Son

  Problems in a Marriage

  “I Do Not Cling to Life as You Do”

  Mourning a Prince

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  NOTES

  ILLUSTRATION CREDITS

 

 

 


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