QUEEN VICTORIA A Personal History

by Christopher Hibbert

  On that first day of her honeymoon she wrote to Lord Melbourne to assure him how 'very very happy' she was; she 'never thought she could be so loved' as she was by 'dearest, dear Albert'. And she told King Leopold that she was 'the happiest, happiest Being that ever existed'. Really she did 'not think it possible for anyone in the world to be happier. Her husband was 'an Angel'.15

  The Prince grew more and more tired as the days of the short honeymoon progressed; for, as Melbourne commented, it was quite 'a whirl'. The first evening was the only one they spent alone. On Tuesday there was a dinner party for ten. The Queen thought it a 'very delightful, merry, nice little party'; but the Prince was obviously still exhausted. The next evening she 'collected an immense party ... for a dance which she chose to have at the Castle'. This is 'a proceeding quite unparalleled,' Charles Greville wrote in high disapproval. 'Even her best friends are shocked at her not conforming more than she is doing to English customs, and not continuing for a short time in that retirement, which modesty and native delicacy generally prescribe and which few Englishwomen would be content to avoid. But She does not think any such constraint necessary ... Lady Palmerston said to me last night that she was much vexed that She had nobody about her who could venture to tell her that this [ball on Wednesday] was not becoming and would appear indelicate. But She has nobody who dares tell her, or She will not endure to hear such truths. [Lord] Normanby [the Home Secretary] said to me the same thing. It is a pity Melbourne did not tell her ... He probably did not think about it. '16

  Prince Albert had, in fact, already suggested before their marriage that 'it might perhaps be a good and delicate action not to depart' from what he had been told was the 'usual custom in England for married people to stay up to four to six weeks from the town and society'. Since this was so, he ventured diffidently, might they not retire from the public eye for 'at least a fortnight - or a week'?

  The Queen had replied to this suggestion as sharply as she had done when the Prince had proposed being allowed to choose his own household: My dear Albert, [she had written] you have not at all understood the matter. You forget, my dearest Love, that I am the Sovereign, and that business can stop and wait for nothing. Parliament is sitting and something occurs almost every day for which I am required and it is quite impossible for me to be absent from London; therefore two or three days is already a long time to be absent... I must come out after the second day... I cannot keep alone. This is also my wish in every way.17

  While refusing to prolong the honeymoon, the Queen was determined to make the most of the three days she had allocated to it. On the Wednesday evening she stayed up dancing until after midnight when she went upstairs to find her husband fast asleep. She woke him up and they went to bed. On Thursday there was another dance at which she bounced around the floor with Prince Albert in a lively, graceful galop.

  Late nights did not preclude early rising. On the morning after their first night together it was 'much remarked', so Greville said, 'that she and P A were up very early walking about [in fact, they were up at half past eight, and did not go out until the early afternoon] which is very contrary to her former habits. Strange that a wedding night should be so short; and I told Lady Palmerston that this was not the way to provide us with a Prince of Wales. '18

  The days, even so, the 'very, very happy days', were too short for the Queen. Prince Albert's 'love and gentleness' were 'beyond everything': to 'kiss that dear soft cheek, to press [her] lips to his' was 'heavenly bliss'. On her return to London, Melbourne commented that she seemed very well. 'Very,' she said, 'and in very high spirits.' She 'never could have thought there was so much happiness in store.'19

  She delighted in walking with her husband in the grounds of Buckingham Palace when he would tell her the names of the trees and flowers. She obviously loved it when he would display his affection for her as he came into her room, as Lady Lyttelton, a Lady of the Bedchamber, saw him do one day, his cheeks flushed after riding in the Park, taking her hand in his. She was so pleased that he always got up from the dinner table as soon as he could, requiring the other gentlemen to follow him presently, having finished their wine. He then joined her in the drawing room where he would play and sing duets with her, or occupy himself with double chess, leaving her to talk to Lord Melbourne. Sometimes they would all play games together. One evening the whole court 'took to playing spillikins and puzzling with alphabets'; another evening they 'learnt a new round game', and they 'all grew quite noisy over it' - it was called main jaune and they liked it better than mouche. When they played vingt-et-un or Pope Joan the stakes were never high, and it was rather tiresome always to have to remember to carry new coins so that court etiquette should not be broken by passing used money to the Sovereign, but the maids-of-honour, 'all wearing their badge of the Queen's picture surrounded with brilliants on a red bow, looked so cheerful when they were gambling and a haul of even threepence excited them.'20

  Once they played a letter game in which Melbourne was given the word 'pleasure' to guess. The Queen gave the Prime Minister a hint: it was a common word, she said. But not, said the Prince, 'a very common thing'. Melbourne suggested, 'Is it truth or honesty?' They burst out laughing.21

  Prince Albert could not fully share his wife's contentment. He confided in Baron Stockmar that he considered her 'naturally a fine character but warped in many respects by wrong upbringing'. She was wilful and thoughtless, and while kind at heart, given to outbursts of temper and moods of sulky pettishness. There could be no doubt that he loved her; but he was deeply concerned not only to be denied her confidence in what he termed the 'trivial matters' of the running of their households, but also by her strong disinclination to allow him to take any part in political business. He was not asked into the room when she was talking to the Prime Minister; nor did she discuss affairs of state with him, changing the subject when he tried to talk to her about political matters. Nor did she allow him to see the state papers which were sent to her by the various government departments, whereas he learnt from his brother that Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Kohary, the husband of Maria da Gloria, Queen of Portugal, was King Consort and as such vetted all her visitors before they were allowed to see her and then to do little more than to kiss her hand. The English, however, so Victoria reminded her husband, were 'very jealous of any foreigner interfering in the government of this country'.22

  'My impression,' Lord Melbourne told George Anson, 'is that the chief obstacle in Her Majesty's mind is the fear of difference of opinion and she thinks that domestic harmony is more likely to follow from avoiding subjects likely to create difference.'23 A greater obstacle, no doubt, was her reluctance to share her authority with anyone, even her adored husband.

  'The Prince ought in business as in everything to be necessary to the Queen,' King Leopold advised, 'he should be to her a walking dictionary for reference on any point which her own knowledge or education have not enabled her to answer. There should be no concealment from him on any subject.'24 There was concealment, though; and there was much resentment when Prince Albert presumed to offer his advice. When, for example, a box of official papers arrived labelled tersely, 'sign immediately', he suggested she show her displeasure at receiving such peremptory instructions by not signing for a day or two. She signed at once.25

  She was, in fact, prepared to limit the Prince's role as partner to what she herself ingenuously called a little 'help with the blotting paper'. He told his friend, Prince William of Lowenstein, 'In my home life I am very happy and contented; but the difficulty in filling my place with the proper dignity is that I am only the husband, and not the master of the house.'26

  There were other problems, too. He could not share his wife's passion for excitement, merriment and late nights. He preferred the peace of the countryside to the bustle of the town, and he liked to go to bed early. He told his brother that he sometimes wished he were back at Coburg 'in a small house' instead of living the life that his sense of duty had imposed upon him.27
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  When he was feeling tired or particularly frustrated, he became irritable over matters of little importance. Often he was seen to be asleep in the evening, and then the Queen would nudge him to wake him up, as Guizot, the French Ambassador, noticed her do at a concert soon after their marriage: 'Prince Albert slept. She looked at him, half smiling, half vexed. She pushed him with her elbow. He woke up, and nodded approval of the piece of the moment. Then he went to sleep again.'28 He was often bored in the evenings, constantly disappointed that he was unable to fulfil his ambition to bring scientific and literary people about the Court, to make it a more general reflection of the life of the country.29

  He was far from being a morose man: he did take pleasure in life, but his pleasures were far more restrained, less hectic than hers. He found it difficult to get used to the food and the climate in England, and a strain to have to speak English most of the time. The ordinary people of the country seemed quite happy to accept him; but the upper classes remained extremely wary of him, while several members of the old Royal Family were still openly antagonistic, the Duke of Cambridge making a ridiculous fuss when his Garter banner in St George's Chapel, Windsor, was moved a few inches to make way for that of the 'young foreign upstart'. The Duchess of Cambridge went so far as to remain seated when the Prince's health was drunk at a dinner.

  The quarrel between the Duchess of Cambridge and the Prince became more heated than ever when her son, that 'odious' boy as the Queen had described him, was rumoured to have made Lady Augusta Somerset pregnant. Prince George of Cambridge was a highly flirtatious though rather timid young man and Lady Augusta, eldest daughter of the Duke of Beaufort, a 'very ill-behaved girl, ready for anything that her caprice or passions excite her to do'. So there were some grounds for the rumour, false though it was, and Prince Albert firmly believed it to be true. Both he and the Queen refused to speak to Lady Augusta when she appeared at Court and ordered the ladies there not to do so either. And when solemnly assured that the stories were unfounded, the Prince's reply -that he supposed, therefore, 'they must believe that it was so' - left the Cambridges 'by no means satisfied' and the Beauforts 'boiling with resentment and indignation'.30

  The Prince was now more unpopular with the aristocracy than ever. His prudery, his obvious cleverness, his enterprise on the hunting field, his graceful accomplishment on the ballroom floor and as a skater on frozen lakes, his vigour as a swimmer, his talents as a musician and singer, all aroused dislike and jealousy rather than admiration. At dinner parties his competence, his conscientiousness, his intelligence and his honesty would alike be grudgingly conceded but then, as Baron Stockmar remarked, someone would be sure to add, 'Look at the cut of his coat, though, and the way he shakes hands' with his elbow held stiffly at his side. Even the way he rode a horse appeared determinedly, even arrogantly, German. With women, it was often observed, he was particularly ill at ease, concealing his shyness in their presence beneath a veneer of stiff formality or avoiding their eyes altogether as though aware of some grave fault of character that would not allow him to recognize their existence. When walking in the park at Windsor or in the gardens at Buckingham Palace, with his sleek greyhound at his heels, he would pass them by without a word. Later, in the drawing room, he would make it painfully plain that he was totally unmoved by their charms. He had 'never feared temptation with regard to women', he admitted to his secretary, having 'no inclination in that respect': such 'species of vice disgusted him'. The Queen was far from displeased by this obvious 'utter indifference to the attraction of all ladies'; but the ladies themselves naturally found his impassivity disconcerting, not to say demeaning; nor did the maids-of-honour like the manner in which the Prince walked out of the door in front of them and would not allow them to sit down in his presence: once when the pregnant Lady John Russell seemed to be overcome by fatigue the Queen whispered to her to sit down but took the precaution of placing Lady Douro in front of her so that the Prince should not notice this breach of etiquette.31

  Well aware of his unpopularity among the upper classes and at Court, Prince Albert felt increasingly homesick. And on the return of his father to Coburg after a brief visit to England the Queen found her husband weeping bitterly in the hall. Embarrassed to be found in so unmanly a state, he ran upstairs to his room. She hurried after him, anxious to comfort him; but he was, for the moment, inconsolable: she had never known her father, he reminded her, and her childhood had been a miserable one in comparison with the past with which he had had so suddenly to break.

  The Queen was moved by his nostalgia. 'God knows,' she wrote in her diary, 'how great my wish is to make this Beloved being happy and contented.'32

  Chapter 17

  ROBERT PEEL

  'I cannot understand how anyone can wish for such a thing, especially at the beginning of a marriage.'

  Within a few weeks of her marriage the Queen discovered herself to be pregnant; and this event was to mark a profound change in the Prince's career as Consort. The Queen, however, was dismayed. It was 'the ONLY thing' she dreaded. She was 'furious'. It was 'too dreadful', she told Prince Leopold. She 'could not be more unhappy', she confessed to the Dowager Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. 'I am really upset about it and it is spoiling my happiness; I have always hated the idea and I prayed God night and day to be left free for at least six months ... I cannot understand how anyone can wish for such a thing, especially at the beginning of a marriage." And if her 'plagues' were to be 'rewarded only by a nasty girl', she told King Leopold that she would drown it.2

  Shortly before the birth she was to consult Charles Locock, the obstetrician, who confessed to his friend, Lady Mahon, that he 'felt shy and embarrassed' but that she 'very soon put him at his ease'.

  She had not the slightest reserve & was always ready to express Herself, in respect to her present situation, in the very plainest terms possible [Locock confided in Lady Mahon who told her friend, Charles Arbuthnot, who, in turn, passed the account on to his friend, the Duke of Wellington]. She asked Locock whether she would suffer much pain. He replied that some pain was to be expected, but that he had no doubt Her Majesty would bear it very well. 'Oh yes,' said the Queen, 'I can bear pain as well as other People.'... Locock left Her Majesty without any very good impressions of Her; & with the certainty that She will be very ugly & enormously fat. Her figure now is most extraordinary. She goes without stays or anything that keeps Her shape within bounds; & that she is more like a barrel than anything else.3

  Dr Locock went on to say that there would be nobody at the delivery except himself, Prince Albert and a maid. Lady Mahon commented that no doubt the Queen would be very relieved at this privacy, 'upon which [Locock] remarked that he verily believed from Her manner as to delicacy, She would not care one single straw if the whole world was present.'

  For Prince Albert, the pregnancy was a blessing. First of all it was considered necessary to provide for the contingency of the Queen dying and leaving a baby as heir to the throne. A regency was required; and after some proposals that a council of regency or, at least, a co-regent, should be appointed, Parliament passed a Regency Bill entirely to the Prince's satisfaction and to that of the Duke of Wellington who had gained further favour with the Queen by declaring that the regent 'could and ought to be nobody but the Prince'.4

  'In the event of Victoria's death and her successor being under eighteen years of age, I am to be Regent - alone - Regent without a Council,' the Prince told his brother with the utmost satisfaction. 'You will understand the importance of this matter and that it gives my position here in the country a fresh significance.'5

  The next month when Parliament was prorogued he rode with the Queen to the Palace of Westminster and there sat in a chair next to her throne; in September his writing table was moved next to hers, both at Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle. That month also he was appointed a Privy Councillor. By then he had also been made a Freeman of the City of London and had made his first public speech as President of the Anti-Slavery
Society; and, although extremely nervous, he had delivered it very well. Lord Holland reported that it was 'now all the fashion to praise Prince Albert'; while Lord Melbourne remarked to the Queen, commenting upon the readiness with which it had been agreed that Prince Albert should be appointed sole Regent in the event of her death, 'Three months ago they would not have done it for him. It is entirely his own character.'6

  The Prince complacently reported to Stockmar that he was now 'constantly provided with interesting papers', and to his brother he wrote that he had 'come to be extremely pleased with Victoria during the past few months. She had only twice had the sulks ... Altogether she puts more confidence in me daily.'7

  A lingering source of trouble, however, was the continued and unwelcome presence of Baroness Lehzen who, now that she was no longer the most important person in the Queen's life, attempted to exert with all the more authority her influence over her. This influence was still profound, for although the Queen loved Lehzen she was also rather frightened of her and was reluctant to stand firm against what her husband took to be her gross importunities and reprehensible delight in gossip. Time and again when the Queen and Prince were alone together, the sharp nose of the Baroness would appear round the door and, with the smell of caraway seeds on her breath, she would summon the Queen away to some business connected with the household, the nature of which was not divulged to the Prince whose dislike of the woman - the 'old hag' as he called her, or, in allusion to the jaundiced appearance of her skin, the 'Yellow Lady' - began to deepen into an almost obsessive hatred. He knew that she had opposed his being appointed Regent in case of the Queen's death; he knew, too, that she had also opposed his being permitted to accompany her when she went to open the new Parliament and to sit beside her while she read the speech from the Throne. She told the Queen that her husband really ought to have no position of real power in the state, to fade into the background with no high official status, as she had done. Yet that hesitancy in his nature, which Stockmar had condemned, induced the Prince not to tackle the problem firmly but, as he himself put it, to 'remain on his guard, and patiently abide the result'. He was also, so Stockmar thought, inhibited by his concern not to provoke the Queen's anger which might bring on symptoms of that distressing, hereditary malady of mental derangement which had afflicted her grandfather, King George III, and, on occasions to a lesser degree, her uncle, King George IV. So, in the meantime, according to Stockmar, the Queen continued to be 'influenced more than she [was] aware of by the Baroness'.8