The Victorians

by Jacob Rees-Mogg

  Just the same, Albert provided early proof of his intention to create a role for himself and to bring energy and focus to his work. One significant indication of this was his agreement to become President of the Society for the Extinction of Slavery and for the Civilisation of Africa, which had been established in 1839. Then, as now, members of the Royal Family took on honorific roles to add lustre to an organisation and to help it attract wider support. Albert was clear that he wanted to be more than an ornament. At London’s Exeter Hall in June 1840, within a few months of marriage, he made an anti-slavery speech in front of several thousand people, including the greatest luminaries in the land.

  ‘I deeply regret,’ Albert said, ‘that the benevolent and persevering exertions of England to abolish the atrocious traffic in human beings … have not led to a satisfactory conclusion. I sincerely trust that this great country will not relax in its efforts until it has finally and for ever put an end to a state of things so repugnant to the principles of Christianity and to the best feelings of our nature.’ Sir Robert Peel responded to the Prince. These were honourable and courageous words and they showed Albert’s personal courage too, for he was not yet twenty-one years old and was moreover speaking in English, a language in which he was not proficient. Most importantly, it provided evidence to all observers that the new Prince Consort was there to work, and to show what he could do.

  At home too Albert was demonstrating a will to succeed. He wished to be the formal head of his Household, even if his wife was the formal head of the nation. At first, neither the Queen nor Baroness Lehzen acceded to his wish. Lehzen ran the Household and Albert complained he hated Lehzen, referring to her variously as a ‘hag’ and the ‘House Dragon’. His dislike of her was fully reciprocated so that although he was content in his marriage, ‘the difficulty in filling my place with the proper dignity is that I am only the husband, not the master in the house’. Matters soon moved in Albert’s direction. Within two months of the marriage, Victoria was pregnant and Parliament agreed, in a decided and rapid change of attitude to the Prince Consort, to pass a Regency Act. Under its terms, in the event of Victoria’s death Albert would act as regent until their child came of age. Meanwhile, his coolness under fire had already been noted and admired not least because in June 1840, in the first of many assassination attempts, he and the pregnant Victoria had been shot at by a gunman during a carriage ride on Constitution Hill and he acted with courage. Albert was building his position.

  All this took time and such a state of affairs must have been quite humiliating for a proud man who held a traditional view of manly duties and whose wife had promised to obey him in their wedding ceremony. In a sign of the tiny duties which, at the beginning of the marriage, were permitted him, the Queen recorded that ‘Albert helped me with the blotting paper when I signed.’ She remarked to Melbourne that Albert was keen always to discuss matters of state, while ‘when I am with the Prince I prefer talking on other subjects’. By November, Albert had received a key to state boxes of papers but this was a small first step rather than full entry into affairs of state. This entry came at last because Albert quietly made himself invaluable.

  Victoria’s close relationship with Melbourne had the effect of creating a prickly, almost hostile relationship with the Prime Minister’s opposite number, Sir Robert Peel. This led to the first and most serious constitutional row of her reign, when the Queen refused to allow Sir Robert, when offered the deal of forming a government in 1839, to substitute a number of Ladies of the Bedchamber. By convention such ladies were selected from the great Tory or Whig families, depending on who was in government.

  The situation rapidly became a crisis. Peel, deciding that he did not have his Sovereign’s confidence without this tangible sign of it, refused to serve as Prime Minister. The episode became known as the ‘Bedchamber Crisis’ and is the last time that a Monarch’s whim prevented a government being formed. When the same situation arose in 1841 following a General Election which had given Peel a majority, Albert recognised the greater constitutional dangers even if Victoria herself did not. He stepped in to make discreet contact with Peel to suggest a resolution. Albert’s arrangement was designed to save his wife’s face. Peel would indicate which ladies he would like to see depart, at which point the Queen herself would ask for their resignations. It would, in other words, not be Peel’s work but the decision of the Queen, maintaining her dignity but also ensuring her visible support for the government of the day which had just won an election.

  Albert’s developing role was also helped by Melbourne’s political defeat. The Queen had become so close to this Whig stateman that arguably there was little room for Albert to develop a political or constitutional role. With Melbourne now out of office Victoria was suddenly in urgent need of a private secretary, a confidant, a friend. Albert was there to fill the gap and Melbourne himself now recognised this fact and encouraged Albert’s promotion. The political stars were in alignment too, for Albert’s waxing role was further enhanced by his friendship with Peel, who became something of a father figure to him as Melbourne had been to Victoria. As Victoria and Melbourne had discussed the issues of the day while out riding so now Albert and Peel debated philosophy and German literature as they hunted together in Windsor Great Park. Albert now had what he had hitherto lacked: an English mentor. Peel also brought the young Prince into his political confidence. He began sending Albert confidential memorandums on the issues of the day such as a response to the 1834 Poor Law, which was not working especially well.

  There were dangers implicit in such a relationship. As Victoria’s close links with Melbourne had caused observers to frown, so Albert’s all-too-evident partisanship in favour of Peel caused occasional problems and sometimes Albert erred. This was especially noticeable during the repeal of the Corn Laws. The Prince’s appearance, in January 1846, in the public gallery of the House of Commons to listen to Peel’s opening speech in favour of repeal has been mentioned before and was a great error. At a time when politicians knew their history well, the Prince’s appearance would have been deeply shocking and it is little surprise that Lord George Bentinck attacked him for it. The Chamber of the House of Commons is forbidden to the Sovereign. The only one to have attempted an entry was Charles I when trying to arrest the five members. For the Queen’s Consort to visit and offer tacit support for the radical policy of Peel was a mistake that Albert would never repeat. He kept his support at a distance, confiding his thoughts to his diary and writing privately, often at considerable length, to Peel offering counsel and support.

  Albert’s influence grew, not by Royal command but because he demonstrated that he was an able and intelligent man, who was willing to put in the necessary work. If anything, Albert worked too hard. As her de facto private secretary, he provided notes for the Queen on all important papers. In both Buckingham Palace and Windsor, Victoria and Albert had their desks set side by side so as to be able to work together more conveniently. He drafted letters for her and filed all her papers with brisk efficiency in an almost cartoonish German stereotype. These papers, now a dauntingly voluminous archive, consist of hundreds of bound volumes detailing correspondence, meetings, even press cuttings. Such work must have been immeasurably time-consuming and those volumes illustrate Albert’s appetite for work. This may have been his nature but it also made him indispensable to Victoria. After all, she was a person who would never willingly delegate any aspect of her work, a tendency demonstrated later in the reign when she refused to pass on any part of her role to her heir, the future Edward VII. With Albert, she was willing and eager to work hand in glove for the very good reason that she loved and trusted him.

  There would be further battles in store, ones that Albert had to fight and win in order to assert his importance and position. The issue of courtly extravagance is a good example. This was a pressing and notorious problem but one to be handled delicately. As Peel noted, a measure of extravagance was in some ways expected. A great many people welcom
ed the sight of a generous and munificent Court, even if this generosity was taken to absurd extremes. All candles at Court were replaced daily, even unused ones, which were sold off as ‘palace ends’ with the money going to servants. Equally silly was the Red Room wine payment. This existed because wine had been served to the Guard in the Red Room at Windsor during the reign of George III and the payment continued even though the actual practice of serving wine had ceased.

  These and countless other minor frauds were carried on throughout the Royal Household, much to Albert’s chagrin. As long as Baroness Lehzen continued in charge, however, he was able to do nothing to stamp them out but when the opportunity arose to dispense with her services he seized the chance. Victoria gave birth to a girl, the Princess Victoria, in November 1840 and for some time the Household ran along as usual. In the spring of 1841, however, the child fell ill when her care fell to servants and physicians appointed by Lehzen and Albert soon became convinced of their incompetence. He pressed for change and for control over the situation. Victoria resisted but as Vicky’s health declined further, the Prince confronted his wife, declaring that if she persisted in her support of Lehzen and if Vicky died as a result, it would be Victoria’s responsibility.

  By now alarmed and fearing that their daughter would die, Victoria relented. Albert assumed charge of the nursery and Princess Victoria’s medical care and the child’s health improved. Soon after, Lehzen departed for Germany, retiring on the grounds of her health. She remained in touch with Victoria and was given a generous annual pension of £300, which she enjoyed for the remaining thirty years of her life. It is important to note that Albert wanted control not merely for its own sake, nor to assert his position, nor for the avoidance of the chronic waste and extravagance he saw all around him but to introduce what he considered healthier and more hygienic conditions for his child. Of the Royal couple’s nine children, all survived childhood. This was unusual in Victorian Britain.

  Not that Albert felt satisfied by being only a state adviser and domestic moderniser. In this context his presidency of the Society for the Extinction of Slavery was not an isolated example but should instead be seen as part of a pattern of major and expanding public endeavours. He became President of the Fine Art Commission, which was charged with the decoration and beautification of the new Palace of Westminster, following the fire that had destroyed the previous building in 1834. The Prince worked closely on this scheme with his friend and counsellor Robert Peel. The master vision for the building was to turn it into a treasure house of art as much as into a crucible of political life. Augustus Pugin worked to bring this master vision scintillatingly to life.

  The Prince played a key role in this great endeavour. The original idea was to create a palace of frescos chronicling British national life. The damp climate put paid to this founding vision, for the frescos would not adhere correctly to dank, chilly stone. Instead it was decided to paint the pictures in oils on fabric. It was understood that this would be an enormous national undertaking, of years’ duration. It is interesting to note that this aspect of the process of decoration, which was still underway when Albert died in 1861, then lost much of its impetus and was concluded as late as 2010 when the Armada paintings, based on sixteenth-century tapestries destroyed in the fire, were hung in the Prince’s Chamber within the Palace. One of them had been created in the nineteenth century but it is important to record that completion of the remainder was made possible only by means of a generous donation by the American philanthropist Mark Pigott OBE, who is worthily commemorated in one of the paintings.

  Prince Albert would continue to display this distinctively hands-on approach throughout his career. In 1852, upon the death of the Duke of Wellington, Albert succeeded to the mastership of the venerable Trinity House, a corporation dating back to 1514 which worked, and continues to work today, for the safety and welfare of mariners, among other charitable and maritime functions. Albert used his first speech at the corporation’s Annual Banquet to call for more charitable support for retired or superannuated warriors, and for greater preparedness for war. He noted that the United Kingdom did not operate conscription to its armed forces, unlike its continental neighbours. The clear implication of his speech was that this was a risk. The Trinity House speech demonstrates the growth of Albert’s advocacy and the development of his vision of his role over the intervening years. From questions of painting and beautification, he was offering opinions on issues at the very centre of national life and critical to the nation’s security and future. He was happy to adapt what seemed to be merely ceremonial posts to advance his ideas.

  The Prince Consort is perhaps best remembered, both in Britain and abroad, for his support of the Great Exhibition, that gargantuan demonstration of human culture and technology which ran for six glorious months in 1851. The ‘Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all Nations’ was the Exhibition’s official title. The cultural achievements and technological prowess of many peoples were on display beneath the splendid glazed roof of the Crystal Palace in London’s Hyde Park but this was pre-eminently a British showcase, a stage for British glory. It afforded the nation the opportunity to gaze at its own achievements and its own modernity and, what was even better, to have these achievements absorbed and wondered at by a collection of visitors and a new contemporary media.

  Without doubt, this was Albert’s dream and his vision made manifest.

  The idea that the Prince merely lent his support to the Great Exhibition falls far short of the truth. Without Albert’s drive and determination the Exhibition could simply not have happened, and, without the maintenance of this support, the multifarious difficulties encountered during the development phase could not have been overcome.

  The idea of an exhibition had grown in Albert’s mind over many years. As a child, he had taken pleasure in visits to the fairs of nearby Frankfurt. Later, he watched as the idea of ‘expositions’ of national industry took wing across Europe. In particular, he had along with a great many other people observed the success of the Paris Exposition, held on the Champs-Élysées in 1849. The news of the Parisian spectacle was carried to him by his friend Henry Cole, a leading light of the newly created Public Record Office. Cole was a man with quite as much energy as Albert himself and he is credited with everything from the introduction of a British reformed postal service and the creation of the penny post to the invention of the Christmas card. One of his prime interests was industrial design and with the backing of Albert as its first patron, he was instrumental in granting a royal charter and patronage to form a Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce. Three modest exhibitions followed in London in 1847, 1848 and 1849 and it did not escape the attention either of Cole or Albert himself that attendance at the last of these reached an impressive 100,000 people.

  Cole had delighted in the Paris Exposition but he noticed too the failure of its organisers to allow for foreign exhibition space which he saw as a golden opportunity. Back in London, he related to Albert his notion of creating an international exposition, one that would be a great deal larger, more complex and more ambitious than anything Paris could put together. Albert was especially attracted by this explicitly international dimension and taking Cole’s idea, he proposed that this new event would take place in 1851. It would be quite different, a vast exhibition, the largest the world had yet seen. A Royal Commission for the Exhibition of 1851 was put in place and now the scene was set.

  ‘Nobody,’ Albert declared, ‘who has paid any attention to the peculiar features of our present era, will doubt for a moment that we are living at a period of most wonderful transition, which tends rapidly to accomplish that great end, to which, indeed, all history points – the realisation of the unity of mankind.’ Albert’s pride and ambition were evident here for all to see but so was a sense of idealism. The Exhibition, his Exhibition, would bring the world into a greater and closer union, with Britain as that union’s focus and centre.

  The
scope of the exhibition decided on by Albert was amazingly ambitious. So too was its daunting time frame but Albert was not to be discouraged. To set the ball rolling, he sent Cole and John Scott Russell, who was the Secretary of the Society of Arts, travelling around the country to see what interest there might be in the project. Albert gave them a personal letter of introduction which inevitably opened most doors and Cole reported that 5,000 eminent people were willing to back the Prince’s idea. To put it into practice a Royal Commission was established and funds had to be raised. The financier Lionel de Rothschild, a scion of the famous banking family, was one of the treasurers, figures from a wide range of industries were commissioners and soon the funds were flowing in.

  It set to work quickly, as it needed to, for it was only formed on 3 January 1850 and fundraising steamed ahead as the House of Commons had resolved that the money ought to come from the voluntary contributions of individuals, rather than from the public revenue. The first subscriber was the Queen, who donated £1,000, Prince Albert £500, the Prime Minister, Lord John Russell, £100, Sir Charles Wood, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, £100 and many others, including Lionel de Rothschild himself, who gave £500, ten times more than the Governor of the Bank of England, who only managed £50.

  Fundraising, as it happened, would be the easy bit. As the opening day approached, the critics took to the warpath. The first proposed site for the Exhibition was Leicester Square, in the heart of London’s West End. This site was then judged too small and the venue was moved to Hyde Park, causing MPs to fret publicly about the fate of the park’s trees. The Ultra Tory Colonel Charles Sibthorp became an unlikely tree hugger, as he denounced the Exhibition scheme as ‘the greatest trash, the greatest fraud, and the greatest imposition ever attempted to be palmed upon the people of this country’. He disliked what he saw as its essential foreignness; he also, though the war over the virtues of free trade had been lost, voiced a fear that the Exhibition would be a catalyst for a flood of cheap imports that would damage the domestic economy.