Victoria Victorious: The Story of Queen Victoria

by Jean Plaidy

  And now it was Vicky's turn.

  I was glad to see Mama there looking so splendid in violet-colored velvet trimmed with ermine, and white and violet silk. Trust Mama to wear royal colors! I could not help recalling how, at the time of my wedding, we had not been good friends. How everything had changed! Albert had taught me—and perhaps Mama as well—to be more tolerant, and how much happier we were now that we were good friends! Mama's great delight was in the children; she loved them dearly and when they were naughty she used to beg that they should not be punished because their crying hurt her so. How different she had been with her own daughter! I shall never forget the sudden sharp jab of the holly I had been forced to wear under my chin.

  I kept Arthur and Leopold beside me. I had impressed on them the solemnity of the occasion and the necessity for good behavior. They were very impressed.

  Then I saw Vicky come forward between Albert and Uncle Leopold, and Fritz looking pale and agitated but very tender.

  It was moving to see those two dear young people now married, walking down the aisle to the strains of Mr. Mendelssohn's “Wedding March.”

  Then back to Buckingham Palace, and we stepped through the celebrated window while below the crowds cheered wildly.

  It was a wonderful day of mixed emotions. Later the young couple drove off to Windsor for a few days' honeymoon.

  THE DAY FOR Vicky's departure was fast approaching. I was not looking forward to it because I knew how heartbreaking it was going to be to say goodbye to my daughter. I knew that at times I had wished she had not been a third party at those cozy dinners; but all the same she was my daughter; and the fact that she was now married seemed to bring her closer to me. I began to worry about the sort of life she would have in Prussia. She had been rather spoiled at home; I wondered whether her new family would be as doting as we—or rather Albert—had been.

  The children wept bitterly and loudly when it was time to say goodbye and I tried to hold back my tears. Albert looked wan and ill and really heartbroken. He was going with them to Gravesend where they would embark. He must be with his daughter for as long as he possibly could.

  As the carriage drove away it began to snow, and I watched the flakes through a blur of tears thinking how alarmingly quickly time passed, and that my little daughter was now a married woman.

  When Albert came back from saying goodbye I could see he was really stricken.

  I tried to comfort him, to tell him that I shared his sorrow; but he did not believe that. He would remember my petty jealousy of my daughter. He believed that the great sorrow was his. He would like to shut himself away to mourn, but I would not let him do that. He looked so ill I must share his sorrow.

  I went to his room. He was at the table writing and I knew to whom. There were tears on his cheeks. I went to him and put my arms about him, and looking over his shoulder read:

  My heart was full when you laid your head on my breast and gave vent to your tears. I am not of a demonstrative nature and therefore you can hardly know how dear you have always been to me and what a void you have left behind in my heart; yet not on my heart for there assuredly you will abide henceforth as you have done till now, but in my daily life which is ever more reminding my heart of your absence.

  It was the letter a lover might have written, and Albert loved Vicky… deeply… perhaps more than he had ever loved anyone else.

  I would not think of that. Vicky was gone; and Albert was my husband. I would comfort him. I would share his sorrow.

  “Oh Albert,” I said, “let us comfort each other.”

  And we clung together weeping.

  I WAS WRITING to Vicky every day. I felt there was so much she ought to know. She wrote in return but not so frequently. She was romantic. No doubt she thought that marriage was all bliss; she would have to learn about the shadow side. I hoped she would not do that too soon.

  I wanted confidences. I longed to help. I would have liked a detailed account of every day of her new life. How were they treating her, those Prussians? Did they appreciate the honor that had come to them through marriage with British royalty? Were they giving her the respect due to her?

  Vicky wrote back a little guardedly. She loved Fritz and that made everything all right. She was not sure what the Prussians thought of her. They did think she was rather small.

  “Small!” I cried in indignation. “She is taller than I, and I am not a dwarf!”

  I did feel she needed to be warned. I wrote to her telling her that even the noblest men could be self-centered when it came to marriage. Women were expected to be submissive to them and sometimes that could be humiliating.

  I was disturbed when I heard that Vicky was pregnant.

  “It is far too early,” I said.

  Albert was so disturbed that he went to Prussia at the end of May to assure himself that she was all right.

  He came back less worried. Vicky was well and looking forward to the birth of the child, which was due in January.

  In August, Albert and I visited her. It was five months before the child was due and Vicky appeared to be in good health. It was good to be with her again though I should have liked to be there with her alone so that we could have shared confidences. It must have been the one time in my life when I had not wished for Albert's company.

  I told Vicky that I longed to be at her bedside when her child was born. I said, “It is a right which the humblest mother can claim.”

  “But you, dearest Mama, are not the humblest mother. You are the Queen.”

  I sighed and contented myself with giving Vicky advice, warning her—without alarming her unduly—of the ordeal that lay ahead. When I looked back over my own experiences I thought how humiliating it was. Why hadn't nature thought of a different way of reproducing the race? Why should there be times in a woman's life when she must feel like an animal…a cow for instance.

  When we returned I continued to write to Vicky daily; Albert told me that I should not do so.

  “Do you not see that you are tiring Vicky with this perpetual correspondence?” he asked. “She has enough to think of. She cannot answer your letters. She is being well cared for. She does not need your advice.”

  “I suppose,” I retorted, “you want to be the only one who writes to Vicky.”

  He sighed. “I have heard from Stockmar that if you go on writing these letters to our daughter, she will be ill. You must stop meddling with these trivialities.”

  “It is a very sad thing,” I replied, “when one writes in spite of fatigue and trouble to be told that it bores the person to whom one writes.”

  Albert assumed the patient manner and called me his dear child. “Vicky is trying to adjust to life in a country that is not of her birth. She is going through a difficult time. Please, my love, do try to understand.”

  “Do you think I don't understand? Do you think my thoughts are not with her every hour of the day?”

  And so it went on.

  But, of course, I did write less frequently to Vicky; but that did not stop my worrying about her.

  It was strange but I was closer to her now that she was absent than I had been when she was with me.

  In January, there was news from Prussia. Vicky had a son—Wilhelm—and hers had been a long and difficult labor.

  I wrote to her at once: “My precious darling, you suffered much more than I ever did. How I wish I could have lightened your burden.”

  I felt moved and angry that women should have to suffer so much.

  WE WERE SUDDENLY in the middle of a ministerial crisis due to the reverberations of the Orsini affair. This was because it was proved without doubt that the conspirators had actually hatched their plot in England. The French Foreign Minister, Walewski, sent a strongly worded note to Lord Palmerston demanding that foreigners rebelling against their own countries should not be given refuge in England. Palmerston's response was to introduce a rather weak Bill making conspiracy to murder an offense.

  Palmerston was still an
unpopular politician at this time and his enemies—those who sought his post—saw a good excuse for getting rid of him. I thought it was a good Bill but the verdict was that Palmerston was weakly giving way to his old friend Napoleon; and the Bill was defeated. Palmerston resigned, and I had no alternative but to summon Lord Derby, who was able to form a ministry.

  It was all very disturbing. Moreover we were anxious about Bertie. He was not doing as well under Mr. Gibbs as he had under Mr. Birch. The Press was always eager for stories of him; he was a favorite with them and there were hints that Albert and I were cruel to him. Why was the Prince of Wales not seen more in public? was continually asked. On the rare occasions when he had appeared he had won the people's hearts. Let them see more of him.

  Albert said that public approval would go to Bertie's head and make him more impossible than he already was.

  We decided—or rather Albert did in consultation with Stockmar— that Bertie should have a governor instead of a tutor. The governor's rule was to be strict and Bertie would not be able to leave the house without reporting to him. Colonel Bruce had been chosen because he was a man who was firm and would enforce the laws.

  Then it was thought that he should have a spell at Oxford or Cambridge. The Dean of Christ Church wanted Bertie to take up residence in the college but Albert would not hear of that. It would give him too much liberty. He should be in a private house with his governor watching every movement.

  Bertie disliked learning. I had to have a little sympathy with him. After all, when I had been young I had made excuses to escape from my books. It was something Albert could not understand. I feared my son was not unlike me. Perhaps he had inherited his unsatisfactory traits from me—certainly they did not come from Albert.

  There were other anxieties, too. We were constantly concerned that Leopold would fall and hurt himself and start to bleed. Alfred had expressed a wish to go into the Navy and then was heartbroken because it meant parting with Bertie.

  Children were a mixed blessing.

  Then I heard that Vicky was proposing to pay us a visit.

  It was wonderful to see Albert's joy. He had been looking quite ill lately, and I was really worried about his health. He suffered a lot of pain from rheumatism and that gave him a drawn look; he caught cold very easily and that was not good. I told him he worked too hard. We should take more holidays; he needed the sea breezes of Osborne or the clean mountain air of Balmoral.

  But he looked almost his old self when he greeted Vicky. She was different, grown up, a wife and a mother. There was an air of worldliness about her; she had lost that beautiful innocence; she had already undergone the dreadful ordeal of childbirth and had suffered greatly because of it—more than I ever had. Poor Vicky!

  Naturally I wanted to be alone with her, to have some of those little talks that can only take place between women; I wanted to know all the details of that terrible ordeal.

  Vicky had something on her mind, and it came out when she was with us both.

  “Papa, Mama,” she said, “there is something I have to tell you.”

  “My darling…,” began Albert alarmed.

  “Tell us, Vicky dearest,” I said. “It is about little Wilhelm.”

  We waited in trepidation.

  “Oh he is…very well. Otherwise…he is a perfect child…It is just…,” She bit her lips and looked from one of us to the other. “It is just that…well, it was a difficult birth. I don't know whether they told you how difficult. They thought I was going to die.”

  A look of anguish crossed Albert's face. I felt as he did. But she was here, she was with us. So it had not happened.

  “You see a difficult birth…a breech birth…His arm was dislocated when he was delivered.”

  “You mean he has…a deformity?” I asked.

  “It is just his arm,” she said.

  “Can nothing be done?” asked Albert. “We have had the best doctors and…nothing…But he is a perfect child in every other way.”

  I went to her and put my arms around her. Albert was staring straight ahead. I knew he was not thinking of little Wilhelm's arm but of his adored Vicky, who might not have come through her ordeal.

  HOW ALBERT ENJOYED those tête-à-têtes with Vicky. Sometimes I felt I was a little de trop and he would rather have had her entirely to himself. But that was nonsense of course. She was my daughter as well as his and I was the one who had suffered to bring her into the world. She was very sweet and loving to us both, more so with me than she had been at home. I thought: Being away has made her appreciate me more.

  Albert loved to talk to her confidentially—as though she were adult, which of course she was now. We told her of our worries about Bertie.

  “Dear Bertie,” she said, “he is all right at heart, you know.”

  “He is lazy,” said Albert. “He does not realize his responsibilities.”

  “He will manage when he has to bear them.” She gave me a loving look. “It is not going to be for years and years.”

  “Bertie is responsible now … as Prince of Wales,” said Albert. “He will not study.”

  “Some very good kings have been poor scholars,” Vicky reminded him.

  It was pleasant to hear her putting in a good word for Bertie.

  “You always overshadowed him, my dearest child,” said Albert. “Compared with you…”

  “He could do many things that I could not. He's at the university now and that must be quite a change for him. I must see him before I go. I shall go down and surprise him.”

  “I am sure it will be the most pleasant surprise imaginable,” said Albert.

  She did go and according to her it was a most enjoyable visit. According to Mrs. Bruce, the wife of the formidable Colonel, it brought out yet another deplorable trait in Bertie's character for with Vicky was one of the ladies she had brought with her from Prussia, one of her dearest friends, Lady Walburga Paget, who was a very attractive young woman.

  Mrs. Bruce had seen something quite subversive in Bertie's behavior toward Lady Walburga. He had been flirtatious and frivolous. Certain traits hitherto only suspected had been proved.

  Bertie was too fond of the opposite sex. Bertie would have to be watched even more closely.

  THIS LED TO further discussions on Bertie. “He should be married,” said Albert.

  “It would be the best thing possible,” I agreed.

  “As a matter of fact,” said Albert, “I have already given some thought to the matter.” Albert could always be trusted to see ahead of everyone. “I have consulted with Uncle Leopold and Stockmar and have, as a matter of fact, a list of princesses one of whom might be suitable for Bertie.”

  “A list!” cried Vicky. “Oh, do let me see it, Papa.”

  “By all means,” said Albert, and he produced the list.

  Vicky looked at it and smiled.

  “You will know some of them,” said Albert.

  “Yes, I have met a few.”

  “You must watch for us, Vicky,” went on Albert. “Report to us. See if you can select a bride for Bertie. If you approve I shall feel much happier.”

  “I see,” said Vicky, “that Alexandra of Denmark is on the list.”

  “She is the last one—I imagine an afterthought of Uncle Leopold.”

  “Well, of course,” said Vicky, “she is Danish. The others are all German and in Uncle Leopold's and Stockmar's eyes, the fact that the others are Germans puts them ahead.”

  We laughed with her. “You sound as though you know this Alexandra.”

  “I have met her. She is exceptionally beautiful. Very pleasant … unspoilt.”

  “Well,” said Albert, “let's keep her on the list.”

  “Let me have it,” said Vicky. “I will spy out the land.”

  “You realize this is a very serious matter, my dearest,” Albert warned her.

  “I do indeed. A marriage always is and the marriage of the Prince of Wales especially so.”

  Albert was very sad when
Vicky went back, but there were repeated pledges to meet again very soon. Fortunately she was not so very far away from us and frequent visits were a possibility.

  “That makes the situation just tolerable,” said Albert.

  Meanwhile there were the usual crises. There was a general election with the result that Lord Palmerston was Prime Minister for a second time. The Whigs had now become the Liberals and his government consisted of various elements—people calling themselves Whigs, radicals, Peelites, and followers of Palmerston—all united under the name of Liberal.

  Mr. Gladstone joined their party and became Chancellor of the Exchequer in the government.

  Palmerston was as energetic as ever. I heard he would sit listening to debates looking so serene that he might have been asleep; but when he spoke he would show that he had not missed a single relevant point.

  He had quite a liking for Bertie, and I was sure he was one of those who thought we were too severe with him. It was he who suggested that Bertie should visit Canada and America as representative of the country.

  Albert was taken aback. The idea seemed incongruous.

  “Not so,” said Palmerston with that slightly amused look he always seemed to bestow on Albert. “I think they will like him.”

  Disbelieving, we agreed. Albert said his governor, Colonel Bruce, should go with him so that he should continue with his studies.

  “There will be no time for that with the program I have prepared for him,” said the merry Pam. “The Duke of Newcastle will accompany him and the Prince will be very busy. There is no point in making such a journey just to study. That could be done at home.”

  Albert and I agreed at last, providing Colonel Bruce accompanied him.