by Jean Plaidy
They reached Buckingham Palace later that day, but how desolate it seemed there without the dear children. ‘I shall be glad to start on our journey,’ said the Queen. ‘I miss them so dreadfully.’
Sir Robert called and assured them that they need have no qualms. The political situation was good; there were no troubles looming on the horizon; they could take a holiday without any fears that they might be neglecting their duties.
‘Everything is in such good hands, Sir Robert,’ said the Queen. ‘We know that.’
It was a happy note to leave on and apart from the fact that the dear children had to be left behind the Queen could have been perfectly happy.
The crossing was rather rough, which did not suit dear Albert, but at least he had his wife to look after him this time and when it was over he quickly recovered. How enchanting to be in a foreign country where everything looked so different from how it did at home. The Queen was delighted with the peasant girls in caps and cloaks going to market with their brass jugs. To see these things for the first time was thrilling, but to observe them in the company of her dear Albert, who always saw everything so much more clearly than anyone else, was not only the greatest pleasure but a lesson in observation. Lehzen used to say that she missed nothing but, when they sketched together what they had seen, she was astonished at Albert’s powers of observation.
They were both happy to be met by the King and the Queen of the Belgians at Malines. Uncle Leopold welcomed them warmly to his country and was clearly very happy to see them together. He always reminded them that he had arranged their marriage when they were both in their cradles, and was pleased when Victoria said that they owed their happiness to him, which was true.
After accompanying them to Verviers Uncle Leopold and Aunt Louise took a fond farewell. Victoria wept at the parting but soon they were crossing the Prussian frontier and Albert was in his beloved Germany.
The King of Prussia met them at Aix-la-Chapelle and from then on they were entertained royally. Albert was clearly very happy to be back in Germany and the Queen shared his enjoyment. For the first time he could show her all those beauties which previously he had described to her with his eloquence or his sketch book. There was an elusive fairy-tale quality about these mountains and forests, which delighted her. She was completely happy, and she realised that perfect happiness for her was having Albert to herself. She loved the children dearly; she was going to do her duty by them; but the one person who meant more to her than the rest of the world put together was Albert.
And how pleasant were these dear German relations. She felt so much more at home with them than with the French.
Albert whispered that his heart was set on a Prussian alliance for Vicky. He wanted to see her Queen of Prussia. She agreed that there was nothing she would like better. Their favourite child would grace any throne, and since she could not have Victoria’s this would be the next best thing.
They visited museums and universities. The King was very proud of his kingdom, and eager to show it off; Albert told the Queen that he had already hinted to him that the two houses might be linked in marriage in due course and the King was pleased with the idea.
Albert was deeply moved to visit the places where he had passed such happy times before coming to England. They went to Bonn and met some of Albert’s old friends from his university days; a statue of Beethoven was to be unveiled and there were concerts in honour of the great musician; at the unveiling the Queen was secretly amused because when the statue was uncovered it had its back to her and Albert. Victoria caught Albert’s eye and they exchanged looks of amusement; how they laughed at the incident when they were alone. Albert was not only good, Victoria reminded herself, but also ready to see a joke.
The King gave a great banquet for them and made a charming speech in which he asked everyone to fill their glasses. He recalled the days when the British and the Germans had stood together at Waterloo, brothers-in-arms, and he wanted them to drink the health of Her Majesty, the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; he also wanted them to drink to her august consort.
When the Queen, overcome by emotion, rose and kissed the King on his cheek, there was loud applause.
What a wonderful experience to travel through Germany and see Albert’s emotion and delight in his own homeland. How his eyes sparkled at the sight of those forests and mountains, at the charming little castles which were dotted over the countryside. Best of all was arriving at Coburg; and there was Albert’s brother Ernest – now the Duke – waiting to greet them. Dear Ernest who looked so well and happy and whom she hoped was not straying from the paths of virtue as he had once. But this was not the time to think of such a thing. Here he was looking quite handsome – though not nearly so handsome as Albert – in full uniform, having travelled in an open carriage with six horses. Everywhere people lined the roads to cheer them – countrymen and buxom country girls in pointed caps and layers of petticoats. ‘So charming,’ whispered the Queen to Albert.
On the way they again met Uncle Leopold and Aunt Louise who got into the carriage and sat with them. Ernest alighted and a horse was brought for him. He rode along beside the carriage and, the procession following behind them, they came to the palace. As they approached, pretty girls in native costumes threw flowers into the carriage. How good of Ernest to arrange such a welcome!
And what a large family! The Duchess of Kent, who had been visiting her relations, was there to greet her daughter and there were more cousins and aunts than Victoria had ever known she possessed.
What a lot of chatter, embracing, exclamations of delight! The Queen’s emotions were always ready to be aroused; her eyes filled with tears as she kissed the relations who were hers as well as dearest Albert’s.
Ernest said that he had put Rosenau at their disposal because he knew that Albert’s birthplace was his favourite residence.
‘How wonderfully, wonderfully kind,’ cried the Queen.
And she too loved Rosenau. How could she do anything else? It was here that blessed being first saw the light of day. She wrote sentimentally of it in her journal.
How happy, how joyful we were on waking to find ourselves here at dear Rosenau, my Albert’s birthplace, the place he most loves. He was so happy to be here with me. It is like a beautiful dream.
And even as they awoke they were greeted by the voices of singers from the Coburg theatre whom Ernest had engaged to sing below their window.
Her eyes shining with joy, she insisted on Albert’s showing her the little room where he and Ernest used to sleep with their tutor Florschütz of whom Albert had talked to her so often.
‘Albert, what an enchanting view!’
‘I have never seen a finer,’ said Albert.
‘Oh, I can picture you so well … when you were no older than Bertie.’ She frowned slightly. ‘Oh, I do hope and pray Bertie grows up exactly like you.’
‘He shows no sign of it at the moment,’ said Albert grimly.
But they must not talk of unpleasant matters on such an occasion.
‘What are these little holes in the wall paper?’ she wanted to know.
‘Ernest and I made them when we were fencing.’
‘How interesting! And this is the table at which you used to sit. I can picture it all. How happy I am to be here! I was always a little jealous of everything that went before in your life. I wish that I had always been there.’
‘My dear love is inclined to be a little jealous.’
‘I should be terribly, Albert, if you ever gave me cause. Do you remember when I threw Miss Pitt’s flowers all over the floor?’
Albert remembered perfectly well.
‘And I never really have any cause to be jealous, have I?’
‘My dear love, how can you suggest such a thing. Of course you have not. You are my wife so how could I possibly care for any other woman?’
‘Of course not. I am stupid. You never do look at anyone else, but Lord Melbourne once said that men
who were perfectly faithful in their youth often became quite flirtatious in middle age.’
‘You did pay rather too much attention to Lord Melbourne at one time,’ chided Albert.
She admitted. ‘I have learned so much … thanks to you, my dear Albert. Poor Lord Melbourne.’
Albert was able to celebrate his birthday at Rosenau.
‘What a happy occasion!’ cried the Queen. ‘It is more than I could have hoped for. To celebrate your dear birthday here.’
Ernest arranged for the singers to begin the great day’s celebrations by chanting below his window and on this occasion there was a band. How wonderful to hear the march and O Isis and Osiris from The Magic Flute; and it was a beautiful day with the sun shining brilliantly. The previous day Victoria with Ernest and his wife Alexandrine had dressed Albert’s birthday table with flowers and laid all the presents on it.
What an enchanting way to begin a birthday with all the presents and the people from the surrounding country calling with flowers to greet Albert, whom they remembered as a boy.
There was one who came forward with a bouquet for Victoria and said when it was presented: ‘I congratulate you on your husband’s birthday and wish that he may live for many and many a year and that you may soon come back.’
With tears in her eyes the Queen said this was her fervent wish too.
What a perfectly happy day! ‘I have never been happier in my life,’ said the Queen earnestly. Then she remembered the children.
If they were here … But she knew in her heart, and she was too honest to pretend, no one no one could ever mean to her what Albert did.
He is my all, she said.
How sad to leave Rosenau! But it was time to begin the journey home. ‘I feel I have shared your childhood with you in some measure,’ she told Albert. ‘It makes me closer to you.’
Albert was deeply touched and called her his ‘dear little wife’.
If they could stay longer, if they need not go back to England and the squabbles between the Tories and the Whigs and the fears that that dreadful Disraeli would behave so badly that he brought his own party down, how happy she would be! It was like living in a paradise.
She sighed. ‘I must be thankful for such a perfect holiday.’
It was not quite at an end. She and Albert with Ernest and Alexandrine paid a visit to the Gräber Insel, an island on which were the family graves. They were taken to it by a boatman which made Victoria shiver a little because, she whispered to Albert, it was like Charon rowing them across the Styx. There were buried members of the House of Saxe-Coburg, and the flowers which grew on their graves were tended by a strange man, very old and gnarled, who lived there all alone.
Victoria gripped Albert’s hand firmly.
‘Are you cold?’ he asked.
‘No. As they would say at home: someone must be walking over my grave.’
‘This makes you morbid,’ said Albert. ‘My dear love is very easily affected.’
‘By death,’ she agreed. ‘I cannot bear to think of anyone I love being dead.’
Albert smiled at her tenderly, but she was glad when they left the Island of Graves.
And how fresh and beautiful the Thuringian forest looked after that sad island. The haymakers came running to wave to them as they passed and again Victoria was loud in her praise of the pretty costumes.
How poor Grandmama Saxe-Coburg wept when they said goodbye. She clung to Albert, calling him Mein Engel’s Kind. Poor, poor Grandma, who must be thinking that it might well be that she would never see Albert again. She was old and it could not be long before she was lying under a flower-covered grave on the Gräber Insel.
Sir Robert had warned them that if they paid a visit to Germany they must on their way back call on the King of France, who was already put out by the Russian visit, and would be more so, if after spending so much time in Germany, they did not call on him too.
At Tréport Louis Philippe was waiting to greet them as before and Victoria was gratified to discover that he had named a gallery in the château in honour of her last visit. In this gallery Victoria saw, among others, Winterhalter portraits of herself and Albert.
‘How very gracious,’ said the Queen.
Because a contretemps had arisen between the French and British governments concerning the marriage of the Infanta of Spain, Lord Aberdeen and Lord Liverpool had joined them in order to have discussions with M. Guizot, the French Foreign Minister. It was all very amicable but not nearly so happy of course as being with the dear German relations.
After a day and a night with the French the royal yacht set sail for England and at noon had arrived at the Isle of Wight. They drove to Osborne and to the great joy of both the Queen and Albert, Lady Lyttleton was standing at the door, Affie in her arms, with Vicky, Bertie and Alice beside her.
The children shouted with joy when they saw their parents and ran forward to fling themselves into their arms.
It was too much to expect that the prosperity with which the year had opened should continue. That summer had been the wettest in Ireland in living memory with the result that the potato crop was ruined. The terrible famine which followed was responsible for acute starvation and many deaths, and it was inevitable that the Corn Laws would have to be reviewed immediately. Lord John Russell announced that he was in favour of repealing the Corn Laws; but knowing that he had insufficient support to bring about the necessary reforms, Peel resigned.
When he called to see the Queen she received him with great sorrow, but even at such a time she remembered that similar occasion when she had feared to lose Lord Melbourne. How impulsive she had been then, how unconstitutional; and how differently she would act now. She did not want to lose Sir Robert and she made that very clear, but she was not childishly stubborn and emotional about it. It was a political issue and she must accept it as such.
Sir Robert suggested that she send for Lord John Russell, asking him to take on the Premiership.
This happened just before Christmas, when she would have been so much happier bringing in the yule logs and showing the children how Christmas was celebrated in dear Papa’s country. She and Albert would do that of course; but there was this tiresome matter to be settled first.
‘And if the government falls and we have the Whigs back we shall doubtless have that tiresome Lord Palmerston back in the Foreign Office.’
Albert agreed with her on that point. Palmerston was a tiresome man who was inclined to patronise Albert and treat him as a boy. Very different from Lord Aberdeen!
It was with relief that she received the news that Lord John declined the offer.
That impish Disraeli had laughingly said (and this was widely reported) that Lord John being in ‘no mood to accept the poisoned chalice handed it back to Sir Robert, who had no alternative but to take it back’.
So Christmas came with Sir Robert still in office. It was so like that other occasion, but how different she was. How much more dignified, how diplomatic and queenly.
There was one she had to thank for the change – that blessed being, Albert.
In the midst of this political upheaval the Queen became aware of the now familiar signs of pregnancy.
‘Oh no, no!’ she cried in irritation. ‘It is far too soon!’
‘It seems,’ she complained to Albert, ‘that I am no sooner delivered of one child than another is started.’
‘It is life, my love,’ said Albert calmly.
‘It is all very well for you to feel so serene about it,’ cried the Queen with a flash of temper. ‘You don’t have to suffer all the inconveniences culminating in that painful ordeal.’
Albert patted her hand and she was immediately contrite.
‘Oh, Albert,’ she said, ‘what a temper I have!’
Albert agreed gravely.
‘But it is tiresome, you must agree.’
‘It is married life,’ said Albert.
Even so, she thought, a queen did have a strenuous life and although it was
her duty to give the nation heirs she had already presented that exacting taskmaster with two sons and two daughters. Already the press was commenting on her growing family. There had been cartoons of an impoverished-looking John Bull, with patched coat eating a tiny bloater off a cracked plate shouting: ‘Hurrah. Another royal birth. I can pay for it with my income tax.’
It would have been most desirable to have at least a lapse of a few years now. She was still very young. Besides a family of four was adequate for her satisfaction and the nation’s purse.
She was feeling like this because during those months of pregnancy she was never well. Because she had discovered that she had the perfect husband did not mean that was the end of her violent temper. It still was ready to break out when she was provoked, and to rise in the morning feeling sick and depressed made it very ready to flare out, as her attendants had discovered. The Queen’s pregnancies were almost as much disliked by those around her as by herself.
A few days after Lord John had been unable to form a government and Peel was back in office the Queen invited Lord Melbourne to dine at the palace. He had been much in her thoughts lately because of the similarity of the predicament confronting Peel’s government and that of his own during the famous Bedchamber incident. She had neglected him lately, had not answered his letters for weeks at a time and was rather ashamed of herself.
Poor Lord Melbourne, she must not forget what a great friend he had been to her. Although she, being so impulsive and inexperienced, had attached more to the friendship than was really there, that was not his fault.
Lord Melbourne was delighted to receive an invitation. As he bent over her hand his eyes filled with tears, but somehow they did not move her as they had in the old days. She could only see the difference between this poor pathetic old man and the fine handsome witty Prime Minister who had called on her on the first day of her accession and for four years had seen her every day.
‘Dear Lord Melbourne,’ she said, ‘you are to sit beside me at dinner. I have arranged it.’