The real fact was that although the Free Trade against Protection issue stirred many passions the Whig Government was tired, its Ministers jaded, its reputation low, and its Party organisation non-existent. The authority of Melbourne had long gone; it was a Ministry living on borrowed time, as it well knew, and now resorted to desperate expedients and calculations of opportunism as to the advantages of an early or later election that are the infallible indications of a Government in terminal decline.
Prince Albert saw this clearly; Queen Victoria found it difficult to accept. It was clear, even in Coburg, that the Melbourne Government, so long a-dying, was on the verge of breathing its last unlamented sighs, and both Albert and Stockmar were determined to avoid any repetition of the Bedchamber shambles. Stockmar wrote to him on May 18th:
. . . If things come to a change of Ministry, then the great axiom, irrefragibly one and the same for all Ministries, is this, viz: The Crown supports frankly, honourably, and with all its might, the Ministry of the time, whatever it be, so long as it commands a majority, and governs with integrity for the welfare and advancement of the country. A King, who as a Constitutional King cannot or will not carry this maxim into practice deliberately descends from the lofty pedestal on which the Constitution has placed him to the lower one of a mere party chief. Be you, therefore, the Constitutional genius of the Queen; do not content yourself with merely whispering this maxim in her ear when circumstances serve, but strive also to carry it out into practice at the right time and by the worthiest means.
Prince Albert was already carrying out every part of this advice. On his instructions, and with Queen Victoria’s knowledge,32 Anson had entered into secret discussions with Peel on May 10th to remove the possibility of any difficulty over the Ladies. Then, when the Government was defeated by one vote on June 3rd, Albert had been directly involved in the detailed discussions that had taken place in May on the very difficult question of whether Ministers should resign or Parliament – which had three years to run – be dissolved. But although the omens looked bad for the Whigs (a point on which Queen Victoria did not agree) there were members of the Cabinet who strongly favoured this course rather than resign.
The actual occasion for the Government’s fall had been the defeat on May 18th on that part of the Budget reducing the foreign sugar duties, which had prompted Peel’s motion of no confidence. To Melbourne’s horror, Palmerston and Russell now advocated the extension of the principle of reducing the duties on the import of sugar to the total abolition of the duties on the importation of foreign corn. To Melbourne, the Corn Laws were an essential feature of the Constitution, and the protection of English agriculture against foreign competition an article of the most profound faith. The idea of a general election on this issue – ‘the most insane proposition that ever entered the human head’, as he described the repeal of the Corn Laws – made him favour resignation. Russell and Palmerston were for dissolving at once, and retaining Office until the new Parliament. The Queen, who believed that the Whigs must win, and was not particularly interested in the Corn Laws, agreed with them. Parliament was prorogued on June 23rd and dissolved on the 29th.
The advice given to Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had been very contradictory, but the principal factor in Queen Victoria’s mind was that it was far preferable to sending for Peel. Her view, expressed to Melbourne on May 17th, and recorded in her Journal, was that ‘the Government would gain by a dissolution’; Melbourne was more doubtful. On the 19th she repeated her clear preference for an immediate election, and the majority in the Cabinet agreed. After Peel and the Conservatives had won the elections easily, and she had no choice but to send for him at the end of August, she felt very differently.
On June 11th Anson was the dismayed witness of an unpleasant scene between the Queen and her husband, whose immediate cause was the resignation of the Duchess of Bedford; her letter, significantly, had been sent to the Queen through Lehzen. Anson recorded:
‘The Q. said I always felt that you and Ld Melbourne had compromised me, & There you have it. I never wished to give up 3 Ladies. The P. said you must be very cautious & well reflect. The Q. said the Tories would say if she submitted to this that she had been vanquished & lowered before the world.
The P. said I fear the Ladies’ gossip again getting about you. The Q. on that burst into tears which could not be stopped for some time – & said she could Not force the Duchess to resign – they could not make her do that & that she would never appoint any Tories. 2 Ladies were more than any Minister ought to have given her.
The P. said, in this moment all shd be done to quiet you & get you over difficulties & it was shameful on the part of those who attempted to convert her mind. She said No – it was very well meant, Ld M. would not see that she was wrong in what she had agreed to but he would come round bye & bye – & nobody knew of the transaction & she therefore could act as she pleased.
In a moment of great excitement she said she did not know whether she should show to P. that letter. The P. added she might do that as she liked. The Q. after some reasoning of the Prince – the Duchess may resign but she must do bye & bye – or else it has the appearance of giving way.
On which the P. said on the contrary if she says she dislikes staying on with the Tories & resigns at once there is no appear-ance . . .
The Q. was the whole day much depressed & said it weighed heavily on her mind, & felt she had been over hurried & compromised by the P. and Ld Melbourne’.
Melbourne was studiously unhelpful. When Anson put to him the dangers of another Bedchamber Crisis ‘in its full force’ on June 12th Melbourne ‘said, Why not let it alone till the time for action arrives? I said the objection to that was that it kept the Q’s mind in perpetual agitation, when it ought to be perfectly calm, & that under existing circumstances this excitement might be attended by serious consequences’. In spite of Anson’s closeness with Melbourne, he found the Prime Minister indifferent to the serious possibilities, about which Albert was deeply concerned. So were the Tories, Lord Ashley warning Anson that ‘the Conservatives felt there was a great danger to be apprehended, to Sir R. Peel’s coming into office, from the Intrigues of the Baroness Lehzen who they felt was ready to plunge everything into confusion, regardless of, or perhaps blind to, the consequences for the Queen, they dreaded her violence & intemperance, they felt that she used an influence against them by misrepresentation & false reports, & thereby unfairly prejudiced the Queen’s mind’.
Had the Conservatives known that Lehzen was strongly supporting the Whig campaign their reaction would have been even more strong, but Ashley warned Anson that any repetition of the events of 1839 would ‘destroy the position of the Queen, & it would be impossible to foresee the effect of it upon the Country. He said he feared that Peel would be some time before he could place entire confidence in the disposition of the Queen towards him – that no man had ever been so deeply cut by the conduct of the Q. towards him than he had been, & if it had been proposed to him to take office 6 months after that intrigue he was certain that nothing wd. have induced him’.
To the dismay of Prince Albert and Anson, the Queen resolutely continued a copious private correspondence with Melbourne. Not discouraged by Lehzen, she felt she had been somehow tricked into a wrong decision, and faced the prospect of seven years of Peel and the Tories with unconcealed and articulate gloom. ‘What is to come hangs over me like a baneful dream’ she wrote to Leopold on August 3rd when the elections already showed a distinct reversal for the Whigs, and on the 24th, when the Conservative victory was assured she referred to ‘my present heavy trial, the heaviest I have ever had to endure’ and reproached Leopold for not condoling with her. Stockmar fully shared Albert’s admiration for Peel, but it took a considerable time before the Queen became reconciled to him. When she did, it was characteristically total, but the movement was slow and uneasy.
The elections contained their usual ingredients of bri
bery, intimidation, corrupt practices of all kinds, and much expenditure. Elections at that time were not for the squeamish or high-minded, and ‘the will of the people’ – very few of whom could actually vote – was strangely manifested. The Conservatives did well everywhere, but particularly in the English counties, where 22 seats changed hands, and the result was an emphatic victory for Peel and his confederation. Ministers awaited the recall of Parliament before resigning.
It was Prince Albert’s first experience of this turmoil, but his reactions were of amusement rather than censure. The election, he wrote to his mother-in-law, ‘empties purses, sets families by the ears, demoralises the lower classes, and perverts many of the upper, whose character wants strength to see them straight. But then, like other things, comes to an end, and so does not bring the body politic to ruin, as it might otherwise do’.
In spite of a series of successful visits in the late summer and early autumn, in which the young couple was genuinely surprised by public enthusiasm and warmth at a time of acute social difficulties and angry popular disturbance, Queen Victoria’s distress at the loss of the Whigs, her unwanted pregnancy, and the continued shadow of the unresolved Lehzen issue, made it a difficult period. She told Anson at dinner on October 2nd about ‘Sir R. Peel’s awkward manners which she felt she could not get over’ and his ‘ignorance of Character was most striking & unaccountable’, and a month later he found her still complaining about her new Prime Minister: ‘He could not even look at her with ease’. It does not seem to have occurred to her that he had been deeply wounded by her treatment of him in the past, that she had allowed herself to become publicly, personally identified with his opponents, and that he was very suspicious – and with very good cause – of the activities of Lehzen. ‘The Baroness is very mad just now’, Anson wrote on November 19th, and, on December 5th, ‘She has been moving her malevolent spirit with great activity lately’. Meanwhile, to the alarm of Albert, Stockmar, and Anson, Victoria continued her correspondence with Melbourne. In fact, their fears were groundless, and the letters were of no political significance, but the possibility of one going astray and falling into hostile hands, or the very fact of the correspondence becoming public knowledge made Stockmar tell Anson that he was ‘Very apprehensive that Evil will spring out of the correspondence carried on between the Q. and Ld M. He thinks it is productive of the greatest possible danger’. He was absolutely right to be so worried, but the letters, and the fact of their existence, were secure. But it was a nervous time for the Queen’s advisers and her anxious husband.
Her letters and Journal contain constant references to her low spirits at the loss of Melbourne and her forthcoming confinement – ‘very sad, and God knows! very wretched at times for myself and my country’, complained of ‘constant headaches’ and her ‘severe trial’, and even on August 30th reminded Albert how abominably the Tories had treated him over his annuity and in effect forbade him from seeing them ‘at all events for some time’.
Matters deteriorated further after the birth, on November 9th, of their first son, Albert Edward, from the beginning known as ‘Bertie’. It had been a difficult and painful confinement, Victoria was low and wretched – ‘Lord Melbourne entreats Your Majesty to pick up your spirits’, her alarmed mentor had written to her in August – and then Vicky became seriously unwell, to the point when Albert became desperately alarmed.
It is clear that the Queen was suffering from acute post-natal depression, not lessened by Albert’s anger at Lehzen’s insistence on having a major role not only in the new baby’s christening arrangements but in everything affecting the children. On December 26th Anson wrote of her mood on Christmas Day:
The Q. was not at all well again yesterday – being again troubled with lowness . . . The Baroness lets no opportunity of creating mischief & difficulty escape her – to keep an influence over the Nursery underlings is one of her great aims, which she succeeds in doing through the usual channels. I trust as another year closes we shall not be subject to her indefatigable meddling – & that she will not longer reside in the House.
Vicky’s illness was the event that caused the explosion, and its intensity can be recognised from Albert’s terrible note to Victoria on January 16th:
Dr. Clark has mismanaged the child and poisoned her with calomel and you have starved her. I shall have nothing more to do with it; take the child away and do as you like and if she dies you will have it on your conscience.
There is relatively little surviving correspondence between the couple, as they were so constantly together. The loss of their diaries is irreparable for their biographers, and only their very occasional separations give the evidence of their love. On August 28th 1841 Victoria wrote to Leopold that ‘I expect [Albert] back at about eleven tonight. He went at half-past eleven this morning. It is the first time that we have ever been separated for so long since our marriage, and I am quite melancholy about it’. But the Lehzen crisis was an exception to their sparse correspondence.
Viewed calmly in retrospect, far removed from the unhappy atmosphere of intrigue, jealousy, disappointment and tiredness that enveloped the participants and made life at Windsor and Buckingham Palace odious for all, it can be dispassionately observed that everyone behaved badly. Queen Victoria owed Lehzen much, and her husband should have been more solicitous of this fact and of her low spirits after her difficult confinement; Lehzen herself, by seeking the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall and constantly causing difficulties between husband and wife, sought too much, including total influence over the Royal children, which was bound to inflame Albert further; also, she exaggerated the value of her undeniable popularity at Court, ‘much beloved by the women and much esteemed and liked’, as Greville wrote; Victoria’s judgement, and her language to her husband, were alike injudicious; Anson’s role, as Albert’s vehement champion, was questionable. But, as in most power struggles – for this is what it was – many passions were aroused, and much folly was committed.
Fortunately in their distress, both Queen and Prince turned to Stockmar in January 1842. Albert wrote to him (January 16th) in considerable bitterness of Lehzen as ‘a crazy, stupid intriguer, obsessed with the lust of power, who regards herself as a demi-God, and anyone who refuses to recognise her as such is a criminal . . . I declare to you, as my and Victoria’s true friend, that I will sacrifice my own comfort, my life’s happiness to Victoria in silence, even if she continues in her error. But the welfare of my children and Victoria’s existence as sovereign are too sacred for me not to die fighting rather than yield them as prey to Lehzen’. The Queen was deeply upset, and wrote to Stockmar that ‘my tears flow always afresh. I feel so forlorn and I have got such a sick headache! I feel as I had had a dreadful dream. I do hope you may be able to pacify Albert. He seems so very angry still. I am not’. But Albert was very angry indeed, as his next letter to Stockmar (January 18th) dramatically reveals:
. . . Victoria is too hasty and passionate for me to be able often to speak of my difficulties. She will not hear me out but flies into a rage and overwhelms me with reproaches of suspiciousness, want of trust, ambition, envy, etc. etc. There are, therefore, two ways open to me: (1) to keep silence and go away (in which case I am like a schoolboy who has had a dressing down from his mother and goes off snubbed); (2) I can be still more violent (and then we have scenes like that of the 16th, which I hate, because I am so sorry for Victoria in her misery, besides which it undermines the peace of the home) . . .
The appalled Stockmar fully appreciated that the peace of the home had indeed been grievously undermined, and the ‘scene’ of the 16th had included Victoria accusing Albert of wanting to drive her out of the nursery and telling him that he ‘could murder the child [Vicky] if he wanted to’. Stockmar at once wrote to express his dismay and shock – ‘Language has not sufficient power to declare with what despondence he looks to the future if he allows for a moment that such violent emotions could be produced again from th
e same causes’ – and it was Victoria who was contrite; Albert ‘must not believe the stupid things I say like being miserable I ever married and so forth which come when I am unwell . . . Dearest Angel Albert, God only knows how I love him. His position is difficult, heaven knows, and we must do everything to make it easier’.
In her fury, and poor health, the Queen had hurled accusations at Albert that were cruel, deeply wounding, and hurtful to any husband, but particularly one in his difficult position. His emotions were those of bitter resentment and anger, but hers, after the initial storm, of genuine remorse and shame; ‘my being so passionate when spoken to’, she wrote to Stockmar, ‘this I fear is irremediable as yet, but I hope in time it will be got over. There is often an irritability in me which (like Sunday last which began the whole misery) makes me say cross and odious things which I don’t myself believe and which I fear hurt A., but which he should not believe’. At the end came this noble sentence:
Our position is tho’ very different to any other married couples. A. is in my house and not I in his. – But I am ready to submit to his wishes as I love him so dearly.
Thus did sunshine and happiness return after the storm. Bertie was christened at St. George’s Chapel, Windsor, on January 25th 1842. Lehzen was handsomely pensioned off to Germany, Victoria and Albert were totally reconciled, and although there were to be further difficulties, tempers, and strains in this marriage between two such determined young people nothing so serious or embittering was ever to cloud their marriage as this incident did. Both became more cautious and sensitive to each other’s feelings, and out of near-disaster there came a greater strength, a deeper mutual understanding, and an increased love. ‘Poor Lehzen’, Queen Victoria recorded some years later, ‘how ill everything went while she was here’. And, on another occasion: ‘I shudder to think what my beloved Albert had to go through . . . it makes my blood boil to think of it’.
Prince Albert Page 18
