Victoria Victorious: The Story of Queen Victoria

by Jean Plaidy

  There were fifty-eight carriages, and at Temple Bar I was received by the Lord Mayor, Sir John Cowan, with the sheriffs and members of the Corporation of London. It was really a splendid occasion, and I had to confess that I was beginning to love such ceremonies, with myself the center of attraction and the people showing so vociferously that they loved me.

  But there was an angry note from Mama. She had not been given the right place at the dinner. Those who should not have been had been set above her. She must see me. It was cruel of me to shut myself away from my own mother. She was writing to me not as the Queen but as a daughter.

  I did see her and it was like being a child again in Kensington Palace. Mama showed clearly that she had forgotten that I was now the Queen. She was quivering with indignation. My treatment of her, my treatment of Sir John Conroy, was monstrous. I was ungrateful. I had forgotten all she had done for me. It poured out of her, all that I had heard so many times before, how she had given up everything for me, how my welfare had been her one concern.

  Before I entered the room I had been inclined to believe that I was a little harsh. I had made up my mind that I must see more of her. After all, she was my mother. But when I saw her like that, the old resentments came back, and my heart was hardened.

  I remained cool and calm and she went on, “You have been so gracious to the Dowager Queen. You have visited her; you have told her that now she is settling in Marlborough House to take any pieces of furniture from Windsor which she may like to have. Oh, you can't do enough for spotty old Adelaide. It is very different with your poor mother.”

  I said, “The Dowager Queen was always good to me. I have always been fond of her. She is very sad now, for she loved the King and she has lost him. I want to make her as happy as I can.”

  “You always turned to her. And you were against me…your own mother. Adelaide tried to turn you from me.”

  “She never did.”

  “All those invitations to balls…so that she could get you to marry George Cambridge.”

  “She thought I should live a normal childhood, that I should have some pleasure and be with other children. She knew that I was more or less a prisoner in Kensington.”

  “I never heard such nonsense. And the bastards… the FitzClarences…You have taken good care of them too.”

  I said, “They have never done me any harm. Aunt Adelaide treats them like her own children.”

  “Then more fool her! All these you go out of your way to favor, and your poor mother, who looked after you, who gave her life to you…”

  I said coldly, “Mama, you saw that I was fed and clothed, but your goal was to become Regent through me. That was why I was so important to you…not for my sake… but for your own. Always you pushed me aside—ridiculously often at ceremonies when people had come to see me. They called my name and you took it as homage to you. It never was. Nor to me either. It was to the Crown. Let us be fair. Let us be honest. I am now the Queen. I will not have Sir John Conroy in my household, and I will not be told by you what I must do. You have your apartments here, and I must ask you to keep to them unless you are invited otherwise.”

  I turned and went out of the room, leaving her deflated and bewildered.

  She could not now remain unconvinced that I was determined. I was of age. I was the Queen, and she must perforce obey me.

  Ten days later I opened Parliament.

  DURING THE FIRST session of that Parliament the Civil List came under discussion and to my joy I was voted £385,000 a year—£60,000 of which was for my privy purse. This was £10,000 more than had been allotted to my Uncle William and was most gratifying. I was now rich, but Lehzen had brought me up to be provident and I had learned that however much one had, if one were extravagant, that could not be enough. I should not be as my father had been and hoped that when I died I would not leave behind a mountain of debts as he had done. Certain debts of his were still outstanding and the first thing I should do was settle them out of my privy purse.

  As a Queen I should have great expenses but I had been careful ever since the days when I had saved up six shillings to buy the beautiful doll I coveted.

  Mama had received a further £8,000 a year.

  “Which,” Lord Melbourne told me, “has been granted solely for your sake.”

  “Oh, how good the government is to me!” I cried.

  “Well,” admitted Lord Melbourne, “there was some opposition. There are some very mean fellows about. And do you know, I believe our odious friend Conroy did all he could to stop your getting such a large amount.”

  “Oh,” I said, “he is a fiend.”

  “The transition has taken place merely by removing the letter r. How easily it is done.”

  I thought that was very amusing and typical of Lord Melbourne.

  It was soon after that that Lord Melbourne attempted to get rid of Conroy.

  “That man continues to importune and is a thorn in our flesh,” he said. “I think the best thing we can do is settle the matter.”

  “Nothing would please me more,” I said.

  “Well,” went on Lord Melbourne, “let us give him his pension of three thousand pounds a year and a baronetcy. That will shut him up.”

  “Is that not giving in to his demands?” I asked.

  “Sometimes it is better to make a compromise with the enemy. It saves a lot of trouble. We do not want this man creating trouble, do we?”

  “It seems to me a little…weak.”

  “Sometimes one has to appear weak to be strong.”

  That sounded very profound and at length I agreed, although I hated to see our enemy get what he had demanded.

  But that was not the end of the matter. Instead of being grateful that most of his demands had been met, Conroy stuck out for a peerage.

  “It is too bad,” I said. “Why should this man benefit from his evil deeds?”

  “We have much with which to concern ourselves. Let us get rid of him. I'll offer him an Irish peerage when one becomes available. That might get him out of the country.”

  “I should like to see him go.”

  “Then so be it. An Irish peerage…if I am Prime Minister… when one falls vacant. That should satisfy our rapacious gentleman.”

  Lord Melbourne was smiling to himself and the thought occurred to me that he could be thinking that if and when an Irish peerage was available he, Lord Melbourne, might not be in a position to bestow it; and that worried me so much that it drove all thought of John Conroy out of my mind.

  Christmas came. We spent it at Buckingham Palace and then left for Windsor. The days sped by and that glorious year was coming to a close. It had been the most exciting and happy year of my life.

  I had not realized before how very irksome it had been to be kept under such close restraint, and in my mind Kensington Palace would always be remembered as a prison by me. Perhaps that was why I was so enchanted by Buckingham Palace and Windsor.

  I was soon to be nineteen—no longer very young. I knew that I should have to consider marriage… but not yet. I thought of Albert who was clearly meant for me. Uncle Leopold was very anxious for our union; and of course Uncle Leopold was right. I remembered how charming Albert had been—quite handsome, but really rather serious. He was not merry like Lord Melbourne, who seemed to make a joke of everything. With Lord Melbourne one was constantly convulsed by laughter. I knew there were people who said I laughed too loudly and I opened my mouth as I did so, and that it was rather vulgar; but Lord Melbourne said it was the way to laugh. What was the good of restrained laughter; it made a mockery of the entire practice of laughing.

  He was so comforting; he always made me feel that my faults were virtues. I could discuss anything with him, and I could feel sure of a reply that would be amusing and comforting at the same time.

  Lehzen said I should guard my temper. It rose quickly and subsided very soon. But I should control it.

  I asked Lord Melbourne if he thought I was hot-tempered.

>   “Perhaps a little choleric,” he replied.

  “Choleric! I am passionate. I feel deeply… for the moment, and then I am good-tempered again, and sorry that I have been in the wrong. My Uncle George the Fourth was like that.”

  “Let us be thankful that you are not going to be like him in other ways.”

  He liked to talk about my relatives. He told me stories of them vividly and amusingly. I had never really known that Uncle Sussex went to find a bride for Uncle William and fell in love with her himself, until Lord Melbourne told me. I did not know the rather sad story of Maria Fitzherbert and how it was said that my uncle loved her till the end of his days and regretted not giving up the crown for her.

  He told these stories so wittily that, although I thought some of them a little sad, he soon had me laughing.

  What a wonderful year, which had brought me the friendship of Lord Melbourne!

  I always felt sad when he did not come to see me. He had so many engagements. I could not stop myself asking where he was going and I used to say how sorry I was he was not dining with me.

  He once told me that the Whigs were having a rough passage. It was devilish trying to make a ministry work on such a trivial majority. “It may be,” he said, “that we cannot hang on much longer.”

  “But you must. I, the Queen, command you.”

  “Alas, Ma'am, these matters are decided by the electorate…and since the passing of the Reform Bill we have all sorts and conditions deciding our affairs.”

  But I refused to have these wonderful days spoilt by such gloomy predictions.

  I wanted everything to stay as it was during that wonderful year.

  It was the 24th May of the year 1838—my nineteenth birthday had arrived…my first birthday as Queen, and of course it must be very specially celebrated.

  Mama threw a damper on the day by presenting me with a copy of King Lear. I had never greatly cared for that play, and I realized that she was calling attention to ungrateful daughters. How characteristic of Mama!

  But I was too happy to care very much.

  The Coronation was fixed for the 28th June and the festivities for that were to start before the great day so they coincided with my birthday.

  There was a wonderful state ball. People clamored for invitations. Lord Melbourne went through the lists of guests with me and he said that it was quite pushing and degrading for some of them to ask to be invited.

  It was so amusing sitting with him and ticking those who were suitable and crossing off those who were not.

  How I enjoyed that ball! I danced whenever I could—quadrilles and cotillions; but I could not of course try the waltz, because that would have meant dancing with someone's arm about my waist, which would have been quite improper. It would have to be a king or someone as royal as myself. It was irritating to have to sit with my aunts and watch others dance the most delightful waltz.

  Lord Melbourne was not present and that made me very anxious because I knew there was only one thing which would have kept him away. He was ill.

  I was very relieved next morning to have a note from him begging me to excuse his absence. He had been indisposed but was a little better that morning.

  I immediately wrote to him, begging him to take care of himself. I told him the ball had been a great success apart from one thing—his absence; and my anxiety would only cease when he called on me in person and I could satisfy myself that he had fully recovered.

  I was relieved when he did call on me and was his old amusing self.

  There were so many preparations for the coming Coronation.

  I confessed to Lord Melbourne that I was a little nervous.

  “Oh, you will like it very well when you are there,” he assured me. “There is great excitement throughout the capital. The whole of the country wants to see its little Queen crowned.”

  “I hope everything goes well.”

  “We shall see that everything goes well,” he replied firmly.

  And I knew that he would.

  It was wonderful to see Feodore again for she came over, with my brother Charles, for the ceremony. There was so much to talk about with my sister. I had heard about the children and it seemed to me that she was very happy; she was different from what I was—more amenable, which was admirable. Feodore would do what was decided to be right for her without complaint. I admired her very much, and it was a great pleasure for me to be with her again. I did not feel so warmly toward my brother because of the way he had tried to interfere over Sir John—and he had always been a friend of that man, which meant there must be certain vital matters about which we must be in disagreement.

  The presence of my brother and sister meant that I saw more of Mama than I had been doing recently. She was a little wary of me but she made an attempt to behave as though there had been no upset between us—and I did my best.

  I was not able to spend a great deal of time with Feodore for there was so much business to be done, including the preparations for the Coronation, and for most of the entire morning I was with Lord Melbourne going through state papers and having a little light amusing conversation in between.

  Parliament had voted me £200,000 for the Coronation, which was indeed generous as Uncle William had only been given £50,000 for his. I was sure I owed this generosity to my dear prime minister.

  There would be a royal procession to the Abbey and this had not happened during the coronation of the two previous monarchs.

  “The last time there was a procession,” said Lord Melbourne, “was in 1761 for your grandfather George the Third.”

  “Why are we going back to it then?” I asked.

  “This is the coronation to surpass all coronations. We have a pretty young girl as our sovereign, and I can assure Your Majesty that there is nothing the people like better than a pretty young queen. Naturally they want to see her.”

  “You are making me feel less and less nervous,” I told him; and so he was.

  I took great comfort that he would be there in the Abbey while I underwent this awesome ordeal.

  The great day arrived. I had had little sleep the night before. All through the previous days people had been crowding into London. They were camping in the streets and later I heard that there were four hundred thousand of them.

  At four o'clock in the morning, I was awakened by the guns in the Park. I could hear the people shouting to each other; and then bands started to play.

  At seven Lehzen was at my bedside.

  In spite of a lack of sleep I felt exhilarated and ready. I went to my windows and looked out. There were crowds in the Park and bands were playing and there were red-coated soldiers everywhere.

  Lehzen was fussing around with breakfast.

  “Now you must eat, my darling. I am not having you starting off on an empty stomach.”

  To please her I ate a little, but I was really too excited to think of food.

  Feodore came into my dressing room. She hugged me and was very emotional.

  “Dearest sister,” she said, “it has come at last … the day we were all waiting for all these years. What a future is yours! I wish you every happiness and joy.”

  “Wish for me to do what is right, Feodore,” I said.

  “I know you will.”

  I said, “I shall do what I think right, but will that be what truly is?”

  “I believe this will be a glorious reign,” said Feodore and she was too overcome to say more.

  Dear sister! How I wished that we could have been together over the years as we had been when I was little. So many thoughts enter one's head at such a time. I remembered her in Uncle Sussex's garden and how happy she had been; and that had been the end of our close association. They had stopped her making the marriage she wanted to; but she seemed happy enough.

  Marriage! That was something I did not want to think of yet. I had my coronation before me.

  It was ten o'clock when I left Buckingham Palace. We passed down Constitution Hill along Piccadilly
and down St. James's Street to Trafalgar Square. The crowds were denser than ever here. I supposed many of them wanted to see the square that had so recently been made a memorial for Lord Nelson. Our progress was slow. The people wanted to see me. They pressed forward on every side. Many of my German relations were there and they had gone on in advance. Most countries had their representative. The French had sent Marshal Soult. Lord Melbourne told me about his reception afterward most amusingly. He said, “The people cheered him madly as though they were so delighted to see him, which was strange as he had recently been one of our enemies.” Perhaps it was because of his magnificent uniform or more likely they were cheering him for giving us a chance to beat the French at Waterloo. However, Soult had a good welcome from the crowd, but when I appeared the tumult was at its height. I smiled and waved, and wiped the tears from my eyes because I was so touched by my dear people's loyalty.

  “Long live little Victoria!” they cried. “God bless our little Queen!”

  I thought then that Lord Melbourne was right and it was not such a disadvantage to be small. People seemed to like one for it. It made them feel protective. I was deeply touched.

  We passed through Parliament Street to the Abbey, and by that time it was eleven-thirty.

  I went into the robing room and put on my mantle. My eight train bearers were waiting for me, looking so beautiful, all dressed alike in white satin and silver tissue trimmed with silver corn-ears and small pink roses.

  The ceremony began and I became a little concerned because I did not know what was expected of me. I whispered to the Bishop of Durham, asking him what I must do, but he could not tell me because he did not know. It was very confusing. When I told Lord Melbourne afterward he said it was remarkably maladroit.

  As soon as the anthem started I was glad to retire to St. Edward's Chapel where I took off my crimson robe and kirtle and put on a little gown of linen, and over that I wore a supertunic of gold. My diamond circlet, which I had worn on my head, was taken off and I went bareheaded into the Abbey.