The Queen's Husband

by Jean Plaidy

  ‘I do. I shall tell Albert that that is how it shall be.’

  Oh, yes, there was no doubt that she enjoyed her sessions in the blue closet with Lord Melbourne. If Albert were present – as she really believed he hoped he might be – it would not be quite the same. She did not want change and these delightful encounters could be spoilt by the fall of Lord Melbourne’s government, his replacement by Sir Robert Peel, and the intrusion of Albert.

  ‘Albert,’ said the Queen, ‘we shall make no announcement. The news will be known soon enough.’

  ‘I think this is not good,’ said Albert seriously.

  ‘Oh, my dear love, Lord Melbourne and I have decided that it would be most undignified to mention the matter yet.’

  Albert was silent.

  ‘Albert, you are not sulking?’

  ‘Sulking? Why should you think that?’

  ‘Well, clearly because you wish an announcement to be made.’

  ‘Oh, I understand by now that my wishes are of no account.’

  ‘How can you say such a thing?’

  ‘Because it is true.’

  ‘But you know, Albert, I always wish to please you.’

  Albert raised his eyebrows. ‘No, I did not know this. In fact I thought the opposite. So much that I wish is ignored.’

  ‘Now you are being difficult.’ The royal temper was beginning to rise.

  ‘If being difficult is stating the truth then that is so.’

  ‘Albert, where are you going?’

  ‘I am going out.’

  ‘But we are in the middle of a conversation.’

  ‘This conversation is over.’

  ‘I do not consider it so.’

  ‘But you must realise that it is. I wish an announcement to be made. The Queen and her Prime Minister do not. Therefore the matter is settled.’

  Albert clicked his heels, bowed and went into his dressing-room.

  ‘Albert!’ she called; but he did not look back. ‘Come here. Come here at once.’

  He did not answer. So he thought he could go out when she wished to speak to him. She strode to his door. The key was in the lock on the outside. Triumphantly she turned it. Now he would not be able to go out. That would teach him to ignore her.

  She waited. Soon he would try the door and come out. She saw the handle turn slowly. Now he knew that he was locked in. She expected him to hammer on the door, to demand to be released, to beg to be released perhaps. But there was silence from the other side of the door.

  She waited; she put her ear to it. She could hear nothing, but she promised herself she soon would.

  She sat down on the settee in the adjoining room where the quarrel had taken place. Very soon he would begin to agitate and then she would tell him that she would let him out if he promised to be good.

  Good! It seemed a strange thing to ask Albert to promise. He was good. In fact his only fault was that at times he seemed to forget that she was the Queen. As she and Lord Melbourne had agreed it was certainly very difficult to uphold one’s royalty in the family.

  What a long time he was! She was growing impatient. She went again to the door, and listened. There was not a sound, so she retired and sat down again. Still nothing happened. Furiously she turned the key and opened the door. She gave a gasp of surprise for Albert was seated at the window, sketching the view.

  ‘Albert!’ she cried. ‘What are you doing?’

  He turned to smile at her. ‘It is such a pleasant view from this window.’

  She felt uncertain how to act. ‘I thought you were going out,’ she said.

  ‘The Queen commanded otherwise.’

  She turned away angrily but a few minutes later she was back.

  She looked at the sketch and said: ‘It’s very good.’

  ‘I will present it to you when it is finished,’ said Albert with a smile. ‘It will be a memento of the day you locked me in my room.’

  ‘Oh, Albert!’ she cried, full of contrition, ‘that is something I don’t think I shall want to be reminded of.’

  ‘Why not?’ he asked; and she noticed how beautifully blue his eyes were and she loved him dearly and she wished that there did not have to be these upsets.

  She threw herself into his arms.

  ‘Why,’ she said, ‘do there have to be these storms?’

  Albert held her tenderly and replied, ‘Well, at least it is not long before the sun comes out.’

  She thought that was such a clever remark and that it was wonderful of Albert to be so calm although it did exasperate her now and then.

  But the announcement was not made and it was as the Queen and Lord Melbourne had decided.

  On her twenty-first birthday one of Albert’s gifts to her was a very fine bronze inkstand.

  ‘At least,’ he said, ‘I hope this will be of some use in your work.’

  ‘Oh, Albert,’ she cried, wilfully ignoring the implication, ‘it is beautiful, and I shall think of you every time I use my pen.’

  She was more affectionate on that day towards her mother than she had been for some time because Albert wished it. And since Sir John Conroy, who had been her mother’s Comptroller of the Household in the old days and whose name had been linked with that of the Duchess rather scandalously, had now gone away, it did seem easier. Although of course the Baroness and the Duchess would never like each other. There were too many old scores to be settled.

  ‘Twenty-one,’ she declared. ‘I feel very aged.’

  The incorrigible Lord Melbourne said he quite understood that and he was sure she would feel much younger when she reached the age of forty.

  There was of course a ball.

  ‘No birthday could seem like one without that,’ said the Queen. And how happy she was waltzing with Albert.

  ‘I don’t understand why you don’t enjoy dancing, Albert,’ she said severely, ‘because you dance perfectly.’

  She noticed with pleasure that he did not want to dance with anyone else. How adorable he was, so single-minded in his devotion! And when one considered the manner in which some men behaved, she was very fortunate.

  How she wished though that he enjoyed balls more. All through the evening he was glancing at the clock and he had hinted that in the next few months she would have to give up dancing. The thought depressed her, but she refused to consider it … yet.

  The day after her birthday Albert decided that he would have to take some action and he spoke to his secretary, George Anson, about his feelings. His position, he explained, was such an invidious one. He was completely shut out of the Queen’s confidence. The nearest he had been to sharing that confidence was by being allowed to use the blotting paper on her signature. It made him very unhappy. He felt that the marriage would be a failure if the Queen would not allow him to share her confidence.

  Mr Anson thought that the best thing that he could do would be to have a word with Lord Melbourne.

  ‘That will be no good,’ said Albert. ‘I believe it is on Lord Melbourne’s advice that there is this barrier between the Queen and myself.’

  ‘I believe Lord Melbourne to be very eager for the Queen’s happiness and this can only be if she remains happy in her marriage. If Your Highness will allow me to give him a hint of your feelings I am sure some good will come of it.’

  With some reluctance the Prince agreed and as a result Lord Melbourne decided to approach the Queen.

  When they were next in the blue closet he told her that he had something to say which was of a personal nature and he trusted she would forgive the meddling of an old man whose greatest concern in life was her happiness.

  Those tears, which had always deeply moved her, were in his eyes and she cried: ‘My dearest Lord M, but of course I know that you are the best and most faithful friend I ever had!’

  ‘It is about the Prince.’

  ‘Albert!’

  Lord Melbourne nodded. ‘He is not entirely happy, you know.’

  ‘Not happy! Why, Albert is perfectly happy. H
e loves me as I love him. What more does he ask?’

  ‘He asks a little more.’

  ‘But what?’

  ‘He feels shut out of your confidence.’

  ‘But that is quite wrong.’

  ‘Perhaps not entirely so. He complains that he knows nothing of what is going on in the country.’

  ‘But that is state business.’

  ‘Well, he is the Queen’s husband. He is hurt because you talk of nothing but trivialities with him.’

  ‘Nothing!’ cried the Queen hotly. ‘He says nothing.’

  ‘Well, in a manner of speaking,’ said Lord Melbourne soothingly. ‘You know, there is no reason why you should not discuss affairs with him.’

  The Queen was silent for a few moments, then she said: ‘He might disagree and want things done differently from the way I … we … have decided they should be done.’

  ‘There is no harm in the Queen’s husband expressing an opinion.’

  ‘I am afraid that if he did not agree there would be quarrels.’

  Lord Melbourne looked at her quizzically. ‘The Prince has a very mild temper.’

  ‘But I have not.’

  ‘Then it would be in Your Majesty’s hands to preserve the harmony of married life.’

  ‘So you think that I should discuss state affairs with Albert?’

  ‘I think you might very well discuss anything with him.’

  ‘Perhaps I have been a little indolent,’ said Victoria. ‘There are so many things I would rather talk of with Albert than state affairs.’

  ‘A little sprinkling of state affairs will be the salt that adds the savour to the domestic potage.’

  Within a very short time Albert discovered that he had won the first skirmish, and, although Victoria preferred to talk of love and cosy domestic affairs rather than politics, he was no longer completely shut out.

  There was further disagreement with Albert over Mrs Caroline Norton, whom the Queen decided to receive at Court.

  Mrs Norton’s presence revived an old scandal which had concerned Lord Melbourne. A year before Victoria’s accession the Hon. George Norton decided to sue for a separation from his wife Caroline and bring an action for damages against the man he accused of seducing her. That man was Lord Melbourne.

  Fortunately for the Prime Minister the case of the Hon. George Norton v. the Lord Viscount Melbourne for ‘criminal conversation’ had produced a verdict for the defendant and Lord Melbourne had surprisingly emerged to continue as Prime Minister – something which it seemed few men could have accomplished.

  The Queen, who was aware of the details of the case, wished to show her absolute trust in Lord Melbourne. Thus when Lady Seymour asked to be allowed to bring her sister, Mrs Norton, to Court, Victoria was willing to receive her.

  ‘Not to have done so,’ explained the Queen to her husband, ‘would have been a condemnation of dear Lord Melbourne, and that I would never tolerate.’

  ‘It seems a strange thing that Lord Melbourne should have been involved in two unsavoury affairs,’ commented Albert.

  ‘Lord Melbourne is a brilliant man and such men have many enemies … wicked enemies. I know Lord Melbourne very well, perhaps better than anyone else, for he has been my constant companion since I mounted the throne and I say he is quite incapable of a dishonest act.’

  ‘That may be,’ said Albert, ‘but the Queen must be beyond reproach and if she receives people to whom scandal has been attached this could arouse comment.’

  ‘Then there must be comment,’ cried Victoria, her eyes flashing. ‘I would never condemn the innocent.’

  Albert explained patiently that it was not a matter of condemning the innocent, but that no breath of scandal should attach to the Queen.

  ‘There will always be scandal where there are wicked people to make it; and since to refuse audience to Mrs Norton would be construed as meaning that I suspected Lord Melbourne, I shall certainly receive her.’

  And that was the end of the matter. She slipped her arm through Albert’s. ‘Dear, dearest Albert, you are so good yourself that you are inclined to be just a little severe with other people. Leave this to me. You need have no part in it.’

  ‘As in so many things,’ said Albert sadly. But he was hopeful. There was a change; and Lord Melbourne, on whom the Queen set such store, was not his enemy after all. He was even being very helpful.

  He could believe sometimes that he was moving – though very slowly – in the right direction.

  Lord Melbourne thanked the Queen for receiving Mrs Norton.

  ‘Your Majesty’s overflowing kindness is an example to all,’ he said, with the inevitable tears in his eyes.

  ‘Dear Lord Melbourne, it was the least I could do for a lady who has been so wronged. Albert was against it, but then Albert is so good that he does not always understand how easy it is for some people – who are less conventional in their behaviour – to find themselves in awkward situations. To tell the truth, Lord M, I sometimes wonder how I can live up to Albert’s goodness.’

  ‘Your Majesty has the kindest heart in the world,’ said Lord Melbourne. ‘And kindness is a much higher quality than moral rectitude.’

  ‘Oh, Lord M, do you really think so?’

  ‘I am sure of it. And I am sure the recording angel will agree with me.’

  ‘Lord M, you say the most shocking things.’

  ‘If they bring a smile to Your Majesty’s lips I am satisfied.’

  It was such good fun to be with Lord Melbourne, though the Opposition was giving them a great deal of trouble over the China policy, he said, and then there was the bill for the union of the two Canadas. He could see that trouble was looming in Afghanistan and he was not sure what would come out of that.

  ‘That dreadful Sir Robert Peel, I suppose.’

  Lord Melbourne raised his beautifully arched eyebrows, which she used to admire so much, and still did, of course. Lord Melbourne was a very handsome man but no one had quite the same breathtaking beauty as Albert.

  ‘Oh, he’s a good fellow, you know.’

  ‘He’s a monster.’

  ‘All men, in a manner of speaking, are monsters who don’t agree with the Queen and her Prime Minister – but apart from that they can be damned good fellows … Your Majesty will forgive my language.’

  She bowed her head with a smile; but even then she thought: Albert would be shocked if he had heard the Prime Minister say damned in the presence of the Queen.

  Yet how she had always loved Lord M’s racy conversation! And if Albert ever joined them in the blue closet there would have to be a stop to it.

  Lord Melbourne then went on to tell her that Lord William Russell’s Swiss valet, Benjamin Courvoisier, had confessed to murdering his master. It was an intriguing story because the valet had come into his master’s bedroom in Norfolk Place, Park Lane, stark naked so that there would be no blood on his clothes. He had borrowed from the Duke of Bedford’s valet a copy of Jack Shepherd by the author Harrison Ainsworth and this had apparently inspired him. His motive was robbery as he wanted to get back to Switzerland.

  Lord William always slept with a light by his bedside and someone from the opposite window saw the naked figure in the bedroom from across the road. He didn’t come forward to give evidence because he was a well-known General and was spending the night there with a lady in society.

  ‘How very shocking!’ said Victoria.

  ‘Well, that is the way of the world,’ replied Lord Melbourne. ‘Courvoisier has confessed. I doubt you will hear the story of the General and his lady friend, but it is being well circulated and the considered opinion seems to be that there is some substance in it.’

  How very, very shocking! she thought. But she was glad to hear of it. Lord Melbourne did bring her all the little titbits of gossip which were so enlivening.

  But she could not talk to Albert of them. He certainly would not approve.

  They were going to Claremont. It would be good for her, said Albert,
to get out into the fresh air more; he was going to be very strict with her, he told her playfully. They were going to rise early and retire to bed early; they would walk in the beautiful gardens; he would teach her something about the plants and birds – of which she was abysmally ignorant; they would sketch together; he would read aloud to her and they would discuss the book afterwards; they would sing duets together and play the piano. It seemed a delightful existence.

  ‘Dear Albert,’ she said, ‘how careful you are of me.’

  ‘But of course, my love, it is my duty.’

  ‘Oh, Albert, is that all?’

  ‘And my pleasure,’ he added gently.

  So to Claremont, but there were too many memories and even Albert could not disperse them.

  She told him about dear Louie whom she had met there in her childhood. ‘She had her own special curtsy and she was very much on her dignity until we were in her room alone … just the two of us, and then I was no longer the Princess Victoria, but her visitor. She used to make tea and we would sit drinking it while she talked of the old days, mostly of Princess Charlotte.’

  ‘Yes. Uncle Leopold has told me so much about Claremont. It is an enchanting place.’

  So more walking, playing music, retiring early and rising early; it was all as Albert wished, and Victoria was not sorry for the change. But the place seemed haunted by Charlotte. Here Charlotte had given birth to the still-born child who should have been ruler of England; and Charlotte herself who was first to have been Queen, died also.

  Louie was also dead. Sometimes when she went into her old room Victoria would imagine her coming out of the shadows to give that special curtsy to Victoria, the girl who had taken the place of Charlotte in her heart.

  This had been Uncle Leopold’s home and he wrote to her telling her how pleased he was that she was staying for a while at Claremont where she must, whether she wished it or not, be reminded of him. There, he reminded her, she had spent many happy days in her childhood. It had been a kind of refuge for her. He knew that she had been a little plagued at Kensington and how she had benefited from that respite she had enjoyed at Claremont.