QUEEN VICTORIA A Personal History

by Christopher Hibbert

  She had at first refused to consider celebrating her fiftieth year on the throne in public, even though, apart from her grandfather, George III, only two other English monarchs, Henry III and Edward III, had reigned so long. She complained of rheumatism and backache and often felt unaccountably tired in the late afternoon. But the enthusiasm of the Prince of Wales, a master of the art of ceremony, eventually won her over, though she steadfastly refused to consider celebrating the event on the exact anniversary of her accession since that was also the day on which her uncle, William IV, had died; and she had always refused to perform any public duties which coincided with the anniversaries of the deaths of members of her family, almost all of which she remembered with distressing accuracy.

  By March, preparations for the Jubilee were well in hand. Medals were struck and coins minted; designs approved for presents of Jubilee brooches and tie pins; convicts were released from prison and sentences remitted; arrangements were made for ladies who had been innocent parties in divorce proceedings to be admitted to Court. There were foundation stones to lay and buildings to open in commemoration of the great event: in March the Queen went to Birmingham to lay the foundation stone of the new red brick and terracotta Law Courts designed by Sir Aston Webb and Ingress Bell; after this there was another foundation stone to lay, that of T. E. Collcutt's Imperial Institute in South Kensington. In May she was driven to the East End of London to open the Queen's Hall of the People's Palace in the Mile End Road where she was annoyed to hear a 'horrid noise', booing, she believed it was called, an unpleasant sound which was 'quite new' to the Queen's ears. She was assured that it did not reflect a general antipathy: socialists and the worst sort of Irish were responsible for it.2

  On the morning of 20 June, a fine, sunny day, she drove to Windsor Station after breakfast at Frogmore, then from Paddington to Buckingham Palace which was crowded with royal relations. At the Palace she wrote in her journal, 'The day has come and I am alone, though surrounded by many dear children ... God has sustained me through many great trials and sorrows.'

  At dinner that evening, a 'large family dinner', she sat between King Christian IX of Denmark and the Princess of Wales's brother, King George I of Greece. Opposite her was Leopold II, King of the Belgians, son of her beloved Uncle, who had died in 1865.3

  All these royalties and many others, among them her son-in-law, the Crown Prince Frederick, resplendent in a white and silver uniform, accompanied her the next day to a thanksgiving service in Westminster Abbey, she herself being driven in an open landau, facing her daughter-in-law, the Princess of Wales, and her daughter, the Crown Princess. The noise of the cheering was deafening. Lady Geraldine Somerset, lady-in-waiting to the Duchess of Cambridge, wrote of the 'masses and millions of people thronging the streets like an anthill, and every window within sight and every roof of every house, men hanging on the chimneys! There was never anything seen like it ... And their enthusiasm! The Duke ... told us he had never seen anything like the enthusiasm anywhere!! It was one continuous roar of cheering from the moment [the Queen] came out of the door of her Palace till the instant she got back to it: Deafening.'4

  She had been pressed to dress up for the occasion and wear a crown; but she had resolutely refused to do so, neither Ministers nor her family being able to change her mind, the Princess of Wales declaring that she had never been so snubbed when, as a 'special favourite' of the Queen, she had been asked to raise the subject with her.5 The Queen did, however, agree to put on something rather out of the ordinary after the Duke of Edinburgh, who had obtained leave from his duties as Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean, had said to her coaxingly, 'Now, Mother. You must have something really smart.'6 So she agreed to make some concession to the grandeur and celebratory nature of the occasion by donning a bonnet set off with white lace and diamonds and by wearing some of her many orders.

  On her approach to the Abbey the congregation - alerted by particularly vociferous cheers that greeted the appearance of the Queen of the Sandwich Islands and the driver of a water cart passing the nearby church of St Margaret - hastily put away their newspapers and the wrapping of their sandwiches.

  The Queen walked slowly up the aisle with the aid of her walking stick as the organist played a Handel march. She sat 'alone' thinking of her 'beloved husband, for whom this would have been such a proud day!' On her return to Buckingham Palace there was a late luncheon followed by a naval parade, then a gathering in the ballroom for the distribution of presents, then dinner for which she wore a new dress embroidered with silver English roses, Irish shamrocks and Scottish thistles, and after this there was a firework display which she watched from the Chinese Room, feeling 'half-dead with fatigue'.

  During the next few days there were receptions and garden parties, naval and military reviews, a visit to the Albert Hall which had been taken over for the occasion by the Royal Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals and the Battersea Dogs' Home, of which she was Patron, a tribute from the boys at Eton who sang the Eton Boating Song within the precincts of Windsor Castle and cheered her to the echo when she thanked them in her clear, melodious voice, and a special treat for tens of thousands of poorer children who were shepherded into Hyde Park where they were given buns and Jubilee mugs, sang 'God Save the Queen' ('somewhat out of tune', so Her Majesty thought) and watched in awe as an immense balloon rose into the sky and one little girl announced that the person in the basket was Queen Victoria being carried up to heaven.7

  The celebrations ended with an immense garden party which the Duke of Cambridge described to his mother:

  He gave us a full account, how very pretty it was, and well done and well managed; the Queen doing her part admirably again; she spoke to great numbers, going about a great deal, right and left.8

  Clouding the Queen's enjoyment of the celebrations was the presence of her grandson, Prince Wilhelm of Prussia. She had not wanted to invite him; but the Crown Princess had written to her to say that her son really 'ought to be present' as her 'eldest Grand Child'. 'He need only stay for a very few days,' she added. 'He has behaved very badly to you - and to us - but I fear it would only do harm in every way to appear to take more notice of his behaviour than it is worth! It is well not to give him a handle for saying he is ill treated! ... He fancies himself of immense importance & service to the State - to his country, thinks he is indispensable to Bismarck and the Emperor! As he has little heart or Zartgefuhl [tact] - and as his conscience & intelligence have been completely wharped [sic] by the ... people in whose hands he is, he is not aware of the mischief he does ... His staying away would only be used by the Party against you & Fritz & me!'9

  As it happened, Prince Wilhelm had already taken it for granted that he would be invited and, moreover - supposing that his father was too ill himself to travel - that he would represent his aged grandfather, the Kaiser, in London. Without consulting his father he wrote to the Queen to inform her of this arrangement. She was naturally much annoyed and when her son-in-law told her he was well enough to travel, she wrote to tell him how delighted she was, ending her letter: 'So fare well, beloved Fritz. God bless you and keep you for a very very long time to come in the best of health for the sake of the happiness and well-being of your country and Europe. Ever your faithful Mama, VRI.'10 To her grandson she despatched a brief telegram: 'Am delighted dear Papa is quite able to come. You will therefore only bring 2 gentlemen. '11

  Greatly irritated by this slight, Prince Wilhelm was even more outspoken than usual about his grandmother: it was 'high time the old woman died ... She causes trouble, more than one would think. Well, England should look out when I have something to say about things ... One cannot have enough hatred for England. '12

  The Prince's reception in England exacerbated his anger. 'Pr. W and the Princess [Dona, his wife] were received with exquisite coolness, with bare courtesy,' commented a German lady-in-waiting. 'He only saw his grandmother a couple of times, at Court functions. She was always placed behind the black Quee
n of Hawaii!! Both returned not in the best of tempers. '13

  Prince Wilhelm went straight to his grandfather to complain of his insulting treatment in London. He expressed his anger also to his father's court marshall who commented: Wilhelm 'opened his heart to me regarding his mother, and I saw that he hates her dreadfully. His bitterness knows no bounds. What will come of all this?'

  Chapter 51

  DIE ENGLANDERIN

  'That was a woman! One could do business with her!'

  It had been noticed before leaving the Abbey - when her sons and sons-in-law came forward to pay their homage to the Queen and to kiss her hand - that, as the Crown Prince Frederick took a step backwards having paid his homage, she held out her hand to him again, drew him towards her and for a moment held him in her arms.1

  A month before, on 19 May 1887, a telegram had been received from the Crown Princess who had asked her mother to send to Germany the English surgeon, Morell Mackenzie, an acknowledged authority on diseases of the throat, the second volume of whose authoritative work on the subject had been recently published. He was required to attend the Crown Prince who, having caught a severe cold the previous autumn, had since been troubled with a hoarseness of voice which his German doctors believed might be caused by a cancerous lump on his larynx. Before an operation to remove it was performed, however, a specialist's opinion was required. Mackenzie had left Harley Street immediately for Germany, preceded by a warning to her daughter from the Queen that, while Mackenzie was 'certainly ... very clever', he was greedy for money and honours and was disliked by others in his profession.2 In Germany, Mackenzie cut away a small part of the growth which, sent for analysis, proved benign. All thoughts of a major operation had, therefore, been abandoned; and soon afterwards, the Crown Prince had left for London to attend his mother-in-law's Jubilee celebrations. After the Jubilee the Crown Prince and Princess went to Scotland to stay near Balmoral at the Fife Arms, Braemar, where Morell Mackenzie again examined the Prince's throat and declared himself 'very pleased' with its condition. As though in reward for his encouraging diagnosis, the Prince wrote to his mother-in-law asking that Mackenzie be knighted. The Queen accordingly wrote to the Prime Minister with this request, adding 'he certainly saved the C. Prince's life & seems really to have cured him'.3 Lord Salisbury replied, 'There can be no objection to the bestowal of Knighthood on the doctor who saved the life of Your Majesty's son-in-law. Perhaps it might be well to wait till the cure is generally known to be quite complete.'4 Despite this cautionary advice Mackenzie was knighted a few weeks later.

  From Scotland the Crown Prince was taken, via London, to Toblach in the Tyrol where Mackenzie once more examined him and, with an optimism which proved to be unfounded, declared himself, according to the Crown Princess, 'not unsatisfied about Fritz's throat in the main'.5 From Toblach the Crown Prince went to Venice by way of Trent on the advice of Mackenzie who, so one of the German doctors declared, had 'developed a taste for "travel expenses" '6. Mackenzie's reports from Venice were rather less encouraging; but when his patient had been moved from there to Baveno on Lago Maggiore he was declared to be 'getting on very nicely', and he himself wrote to his mother-in-law to tell her that he was progressing quite well. At the beginning of November 1887, however, two days after he had moved again, this time to San Remo on the Riviera, an alarming swelling was discovered in a new place and Mackenzie now agreed with his German colleagues that their patient was suffering from cancer of the larynx.7

  Meanwhile in Germany, where all manner of reports were circulating about the behaviour of the Crown Princess, die Englanderin, including a rumour that she was having an affair with her court marshal, Count Gotz von Seckendorff, demands were being made that she should bring her husband home. Amongst the other attacks on her - which were described by her mother in a letter of protest to the British Ambassador in Berlin as 'shameful' - it was alleged that she was preventing an operation being carried out, preferring to risk the Prince's life rather than lose the chance of becoming Empress upon the death of her father-in-law, the Emperor Wilhelm I, who was himself expected to die quite soon. It was also suggested that, since the Prince was too ill to reign, the crown should pass to his son, Prince Wilhelm, when the Emperor died.

  Prince Wilhelm arrived in San Remo with the intention of taking his father back to Berlin with him. But his mother refused to allow her husband to be moved.

  'You ask how Willie was when he was here,' she reported to the Queen after her son's departure. 'He was as rude, as disagreeable as impertinent to me as possible when he arrived, but I pitched into him with, I am afraid, considerable violence, and he became quite nice and gentle and amiable (for him) ... He thought he was to save his Papa fr. my mismanagement!!. When he has not his head stuffed with rubbish at Berlin he is quite nice and "traitable" ... but I will not have him dictate to me, the head on my shoulders is every bit as good as his.'8

  The Queen was distressed to learn that her grandson had been persuaded that he should inherit the Kaiser's throne because his father was too ill to do so. It was a 'monstrous idea', she said. 'It must never be allowed - Fritz is capable of doing and directing anything and this must be stopped at once.' 'You have every reason to feel angry and annoyed,' she added in a subsequent letter when her daughter told her that her second son, Heinrich, was being as difficult as Wilhelm, maintaining, so she said, 'that his papa is lost through the English doctors and me ... He is quite dreadful in this respect!! He is so prejudiced, and fancies that he knows better than his Mama and all the doctors here ... He is as foolish as he is obstinate & pigheaded and ... becomes so rude and impertinent that I can really not stand it.'9

  On 10 March 1888 news reached San Remo that the old Emperor of Germany, Wilhelm I, had died and that, consequently, the Crown Prince was now the Emperor Frederick III. In a brief ceremony in the drawing room of the Villa Zirio, he took off his Order of the Black Eagle and, unable to speak, he drafted a note of thanks to Sir Morell Mackenzie for enabling him to live long enough to 'recompense the valiant courage' of his wife. As he placed the Order round her shoulders, she burst into tears.10 Years before, she had told her mother that there was no one as blessed as she was in having such a husband and that there were 'great trials or sorrows awaiting' her. Now that time had come.11 'Poor Fritz succeeding his father as a sick and stricken man is so hard!!' she wrote to her mother, 'How much good he might have done!'12

  'My OWN dear Empress Victoria,' the Queen replied, 'it does seem an impossible dream, may God bless her! You know how little I care for rank or Titles - but I cannot deny that after all that has been done and said, I own I am thankful and proud that dear Fritz and you should have come to the Throne. '13

  They were not to occupy it together for long; and the Queen had 'no words to express' her 'indignation and astonishment' at the thoughtlessness which their son, the Crown Prince Wilhelm, displayed in his eagerness to succeed to it. His mother had expressed the hope that her husband might be spared long enough 'to be a blessing to his people and to Europe'; but it was clear when the Queen went to see him at Charlottenburg in April 1888 that he had but a short time to live.

  Her Ministers had not wanted the Queen to go to Germany. Lord Salisbury warned her that Bismarck was 'in one of his raging moods' about the proposed marriage between the new Emperor's daughter, Victoria, known as 'Moretta', and Alexander of Battenberg, known as 'Sandro', a marriage which the Queen had at first promoted and the Chancellor had proscribed. Salisbury also warned her that there was likely to be trouble with her grandson, the Crown Prince Wilhelm, the impatient heir to the throne, who was now behaving in a more than usually obstreperous way. But the Queen had been determined to go. It was, she had insisted, a purely private visit. A telegram was despatched to the Empress: 'I shall bring my own matrass - leave it to you to say who I must see or not, besides my Grandchildren and Great Grandchildren, but beg not many.'14

  When her train arrived at Charlottenburg station, her daughter and all her daughter's children we
re there to welcome her. She was taken to the Palace where she was shown up to rooms once occupied by Frederick the Great; and, after she 'had tidied [herself] up a bit', she was conducted to the Emperor's bedroom. 'He was lying in bed,' she wrote, 'and he raised up both his hands with pleasure at seeing me and gave me a nosegay. It was very touching and sad to see him thus in bed. '15

  Afterwards, when she and her daughter were alone together, 'Vicky cried a good deal, poor dear'. 'Besides her cruel anxiety about dear Fritz,' she added, 'she has so many worries and unpleasantnesses', not least those occasioned by Bismarck's antagonism.16

  When the Queen herself had a conversation with Bismarck the next day, however, she found him surprisingly friendly, not at all like the monster whom Vicky had described as 'the most mischievous and dangerous person alive'.17 He had been much agitated before the interview, asking whereabouts the Queen would be in her room and would she be standing up or sitting; and, once in her presence, although the conversation was by no means contentious, he clearly found the old lady quite formidable, while she, for her part, had been 'agreeably surprised' to find him 'so amiable and gentle'. He came out of her room mopping his brow, according to her assistant private secretary, Arthur Bigge. 'Mem Gott! That was a woman!' he declared. 'One could do business with her!' Later, he modified this impression by telling a colleague that 'Grandma behaved quite sensibly at Charlottenburg'.18

  The next day the Queen returned to the railway station. Her daughter went with her and spent some time with her in her carriage. 'I kissed her again and again,' the Queen recorded in her journal that night. 'She struggled hard not to give way, but finally broke down, and it was terrible to see her standing there in tears while the train slowly moved off, and to think of all she was suffering and might have to go through. My poor child, what would I not do to help her in her hard lot. '19