Queen Victoria's Matchmaking

by Deborah Cadbury

  Queen Victoria already had the matter in hand. Unknown to the artless Eddy his shrewd grandmother had her eye on the next candidate. After three fruitless years endeavouring to bring about a match for her grandson with first Alix of Hesse and then Hélène d’Orléans, the queen was prepared to broaden her search for prospective brides. During 1891 she alighted upon a most unlikely candidate, one known to the prince but long overlooked: Eddy’s impoverished cousin, Princess Victoria Mary of Teck, widely known as ‘May’ after the month of her birth. The queen told Lord Salisbury on 4 August 1891 that she would not send Eddy off to the colonies again merely to please her son and daughter-in-law. He must go to Europe where at least he might see princesses, and ‘even if he did not succeed in finding one, it might reconcile him to Princess May Teck’.26

  Within two weeks, the queen had the agreement of both her son and daughter-in-law. An ‘entirely confidential’ letter between the Prince of Wales’s private secretary, Sir Francis Knollys, to the queen’s private secretary, Sir Henry Ponsonby, reveals how rapidly Eddy’s future had been settled. Knollys told Ponsonby that of the three options that lay before the prince, both his parents were in agreement that their son must be reconciled to ‘Number 3’:

  1 The Colonial Expedition

  2 The European cum Colonial plan

  3 To be married to Princess May in the spring

  Regarding ‘No 3’, continued Sir Francis, ‘I think the preliminaries are now pretty well settled, but do you suppose Princess May will make any resistance? I do not anticipate any real opposition on Prince Eddy’s part if he is properly managed and told he must do it, that it is for the good of the country, &c &c.’27

  This just left the outstanding question of whether proposal ‘No 3’ fitted with the prospective bride and groom’s expectations of married bliss.

  For many seasoned observers in this high-stakes game of royal courtship, the princess in question in Knolly’s ‘No 3’ was a rank outsider, far down the list of potential brides for Eddy. This was for reasons beyond her control, which significantly blighted her chances: for Princess May was not a true blue-blooded royal princess. Her mother, Princess Mary Adelaide, Duchess of Teck, was of splendid royal lineage as granddaughter of George III and a first cousin of Queen Victoria. But May’s father, Prince Francis of Teck, from the German kingdom of Wurttemberg, was deemed insufficiently royal as the son of a mere Hungarian countess. On account of her mixed or ‘morganatic’ blood, the Duke and Duchess of Teck’s daughter, May, appeared doomed in love. She did not have the right pedigree for marriage into a royal line – unless perhaps to a younger son of some small and inconsequential kingdom – but was far too royal to consider anyone else, no matter how wealthy.

  As a ‘serene highness’ rather than the more elevated ‘royal highness’, Princess May had endured social events that were little more than marriage markets, where her personal assets were discussed and linked to princes way down the pecking order, such as the Prince of Naples, who May deemed ‘terribly short & not beautiful to behold’.28 Over the years there were one or two other royal suitors who for good reasons were struggling to find a match, such as Kaiser Wilhelm’s brother-in-law, Ernst Gunther, the Duke of Schleswig-Holstein, a prince dismissed by Queen Victoria as a ‘worthless’ and ‘wretched creature’ or simply ‘odious Gunther’. The queen was ‘much amused’ to learn that May turned him down ‘at once’, especially since the Kaiser’s wife, Dona, proudly insisted that her ‘charming brother’ would never stoop to making such a proposal.29

  It was not just Princess May’s pedigree that led to her being overlooked as a serious contender in the royal marriage market. An indefinable stigma attached to the Tecks, at least in part of their own making. Not only did May’s father bring no fortune, estate or Grand Duchy in tow, but what assets the Tecks did have at their disposal had been carelessly squandered by his spendthrift wife, who was unable to resist creating an extravagant royal lifestyle. The Duke and Duchess of Teck enjoyed a London apartment in Kensington Palace and a country home at White Lodge in Richmond Park courtesy of the queen, as well as a parliamentary annuity of £5,000 a year, but by the early 1880s they had run up very large debts. Their repeated appeals to relatives for help eventually fell on deaf ears. In 1883 the Tecks faced serious financial difficulties and were obliged to auction prized possessions and leave the country to escape their creditors.

  The night of their departure on 15 September 1883 had been a moment of disgrace not easily forgotten by sixteen-year-old Princess May. A small gathering of relatives came to see the Tecks’ departure at Victoria Station, with at least one of them, Aunt Augusta, Grand Duchess of Mecklenburg Strelitz, weeping uncontrollably. There were no scenes, no speeches; the family and a scattering of servants waited quietly on the platform in their travelling cloaks, putting a brave face on their humiliation, their possessions for the foreseeable future now contained in trunks around them. The screeching of the engines, the steam and grime, the lack of dignity of their position could only underline any qualms about their new itinerant life. Low as they were on the list of potentially desirable visitors to the gilded palaces of Europe, an uncertain future lay ahead.

  After a suitable absence of two years, Queen Victoria permitted the Tecks to return from abroad. Princess May’s mother devoted herself to numerous charitable works but the Tecks failed to become part of the royal inner circle. May’s parents continued to count against their daughter in the marriage market. The very idea of May’s mother, Princess Mary Adelaide, ‘haunting Marlborough House makes the Prince of Wales ill’, Arthur Balfour told his uncle the prime minister on 30 August 1890.30 Bertie had been heard to make unkind references to Mary Adelaide’s more than ample proportions, on top of which ‘Fat Mary’, as she was known, could also be wearyingly loquacious. True, she was popular with the public, an affable and colourful participant in royal duties, but nonetheless Bertie had no desire to see her making herself too comfortable in his London home. As for May’s father, Prince Francis, the Duke of Teck, Balfour’s understanding was ‘they hate Teck’.31 Whether this was on account of his inability to manage the family’s means or for some other reason is not clear.

  The seasons came and went with Princess May unable to find a suitable husband. Fast approaching the grand age of twenty-four, she appeared to be passed over. Her hopes of a good marriage had evaporated and May was resigned to a dutiful life, her hours filled with needlework and assisting in her mother’s charitable ventures. The first hint that May had brighter prospects arrived in January 1891 with an invitation to spend a few days at Sandringham. In spring a further boost to May’s chances came with a request for recent photographs from the queen herself. Finally, in October that year the Tecks received a message that could raise their fortunes to unimaginable heights. Queen Victoria required the company of the two oldest Teck children, Princess May and her brother, Prince Adolphus or ‘Dolly’, at Balmoral. Princess May was to join that elite and rarefied circle of princesses summoned to the queen’s favourite retreat for the royal scrutiny.

  Queen Victoria had studied May’s photographs and saw a young woman of pleasing appearance whose steady gaze and even features had potential. May did not have the arresting beauty of Ella or Alix of Hesse; her bone structure was not so delicately chiselled, her deep-set eyes were slightly too close together, and her hair was styled in the fashionable frizz of curls that Queen Victoria did not care for. But she was not unattractive and besides, far more important than her looks was her personality. Was she the ‘good sensible Wife – with some considerable character’, which even Bertie now agreed Eddy needed most?32 The queen was eager to decide this for herself and did not see the need to invite Eddy, his parents or even May’s parents to Balmoral – a point that rankled with ‘Fat Mary’. Mary Adelaide had not been invited to her cousin’s Scottish retreat for over twenty years.

  As Princess May and her brother Dolly sped to Aberdeen to meet their forbidding ‘Aunt Queen’ in early November 1891, May could
have little idea just how far the plans for her future had advanced over the summer – and in what unromantic terms. It had fallen to Bertie to inform his son of the delightful news of the decision about his marriage in a delicate father-son exchange skirting around the subject of yet another possible bride. If Eddy had any doubts about committing himself, his father cleared the matter up by informing Eddy that his duty lay in a proposal to Princess May. By 10 October, Knollys was in a position to inform Ponsonby that ‘you might like to know that so far the question of the proposed marriage is going on well. The Prince of Wales has been in frequent communication of late with his son on the subject and Prince Eddy is willing & I don’t suppose Princess May will make any real difficulty . . .’33

  But first the bride-to-be had to get through the queen’s vetting. Princess May arrived at Balmoral in the late morning on 5 November 1891 and she and her brother Dolly found themselves prominently positioned either side of the queen at luncheon. It was the start of an exhaustive inspection that took ten days under grey Scottish skies. If May herself wondered at the surprising invitation and the unnerving examination coming from this short, grey-haired empress with the eagle eyes and the mind of a lawyer, she took care not to show it. That very afternoon, when the queen returned from her drive with Beatrice, the queen asked May to join her for tea.

  The queen’s journal indicates that she was not displeased with her first impressions, finding May and her brother ‘both so good looking’.34 The next day also met with her satisfaction: ‘May looked so pretty and has charming manners.’35 By the third day, May was elevated to that exclusive circle of princesses favoured with an invitation to accompany the queen for her afternoon drive, on this occasion to Dantzig. Beatrice invariably announced which of the queen’s guests were selected for this rare honour. The carriage rides were a key part of the vetting, as the queen’s ladies-in-waiting were well aware. ‘One test was for her to be driven through the mountains in the Queen’s four-horse carriage, getting out now and then to admire an icy waterfall,’ observed Louisa, Countess of Antrim.36 The mountains were indeed ‘sprinkled with snow’, the air bitingly cold, but May politely considered it ‘a very pretty drive’.37

  On thorough inspection Queen Victoria ascertained that May had put her enforced exile abroad to good use, studying German and art and gaining a much valued European perspective. May’s strong sense of duty and respect for her parents was also apparent; there was much to discuss of her role supporting her mother with the household management and charitable responsibilities. May had the advantage of being older than previous princesses auditioned for the post. She appeared mature and steady; there was no waywardness, no impulsiveness or unwelcome revelations. The queen also saw in May a woman who held royalty in the highest esteem. Unlike her Hessian granddaughters, who had grown up welcomed into the inner fold and took for granted the long days at Balmoral waiting on the queen’s wishes, for May all this was a novelty. While the Hesse girls expected to marry for love, May had a deep sense of duty and a desire to do her best for the monarchy. Queen Victoria appeared to be opening a door onto an exciting vista as part of the inner circle and May was fully sensible of the honour.

  There is no indication in either Queen Victoria’s journal or May’s that the queen was tempted to reveal her exact purpose. If there was a transition from vetting to hinting at what might be expected of May and testing her reaction, neither made a record of it. The visit passed apparently uneventfully; there were the inevitable theatricals; hymn practice in the chapel; May played with Beatrice’s children, and her husband, Henry, taught her the mazurka. The queen felt comfortable enough to take Princess May to the retreat that meant most to her, Glassalt Shiel, a private lodge on Loch Muich. This ‘Widow’s House’, expanded after Albert’s death, set in the deep shadows of the surrounding hills, was for the queen a sanctuary within the sanctuary of her treasured Scottish retreat. It was mostly shared with her daughter, Beatrice, and the seasonal midges, but on one ‘fearfully cold’ day she invited May and her brother to lunch there.38 From this hideaway the queen confided her impressions of May to her daughter Vicky.

  ‘We have seen a gt deal of May & Dolly Teck during these 10 days visit here & I cannot say enough good of them,’ she wrote. May was ‘very pretty’ and ‘so sensible’ and ‘so vy carefully brought up’. 39 No doubt a little put out to find even May elevated above her own youngest daughter, Margaret, who once again appeared to be passed over, Vicky enquired whether the queen found May a little ‘shallow’?40 The queen had plenty of opportunities to consider such potential defects; on 8 November – a day which even the queen found ‘raw and dark’ – she took May out alone; two days later May was required to walk beside her in the pony chair.41 Perhaps a little insensitively, Queen Victoria replied to Vicky in glowing terms: May was ‘well informed’ and ‘a superior girl’. The queen took leave of May ‘with regret’ on 14 November having reached her conclusions – their parting overshadowed by a worrying telegram from Bertie saying that Prince George was ill with suspected typhoid.42

  Alongside reports of George’s illness, the papers began to speculate about Eddy’s match. ‘The queen delights to honour her [Princess May] on all occasions’, observed the Edinburgh Evening News. 43 The Derby Daily Telegraph concluded that Prince Albert Victor’s engagement ‘will shortly be formally announced’.44 It was presumed by all involved that May would accept the role if it was offered. After all, what other chance would she have of a marriage, let alone marriage to the second heir to the throne. As for Eddy, he was not required to fall in love with this paragon of virtue. For Queen Victoria, there was just one outstanding question: when would he propose?

  It was soon clear there was an unexpected hitch. The prospective groom had changed his mind. ‘It seems, oh dear no, the Duke of Clarence will not hear of it!’ the bemused Lady Geraldine Somerset wrote in her diary on 29 November, shortly after the queen had given her permission. ‘[He] Is immensely annoyed at its being universally talked of, declares he does not like her, & that he has no idea of being coerced & roundly declares it shall not be.’45 But Eddy was not a young man in possession of a strong hand.

  Just at this most delicate time, unfavourable reports reached the queen about her grandson. For so long his indulgent and powerful champion, she appears to have learned enough about Eddy in late November to change her attitude. Queen Victoria was sufficiently troubled to write to Princess Alexandra expressing great concern about her grandson’s rakish behaviour and ‘dissipations’. Whatever she learned caused such a furore that Knollys wrote despairingly in December 1891 to Ponsonby: ‘I ask again who is it tells the queen these things?’46

  So what were these unfortunate ‘things’ that caused such a rumpus behind the scenes in early December 1891? It is not possible to tell from the surviving records but press reports highlight at least two possibilities. First, there was the tragic case of a pretty chorus girl, Lydia Miller, who had been found dead on 4 October after taking carbolic acid. Some British papers, such as the Manchester Courier and Lloyd’s Weekly Newspaper, insinuated that the unfortunate woman had been Eddy’s lover: ‘the deceased . . . was the petite amie of a certain young prince’.47 The British press alleged that Lydia’s mysterious royal lover had been with her recently and the foreign press was still less inhibited, naming the prince directly. ‘Prince Albert Victor . . . is said to have had intimate relations with the dead girl’, reported the New Zealand Herald on 11 November 1891, at the very time that the queen had been feting Princess May in Balmoral. The Perth Daily News was equally explicit that the chorus girl ‘was the recipient of attentions of the Duke of Clarence and Avondale . . . although she was the nominal mistress of Lord Charles Montagu’.48

  The sad case of Lydia Miller was not the only scandal linked to the prince that autumn. One report in the New Zealand press claimed that the blackmailer, Maude Richardson, also resurfaced at this untimely moment. ‘The attachment he [Eddy] formed for Miss Richardson became so pronounced that i
t came to Her Majesty’s ears and she threatened at one time to cancel his engagement to Princess May’, claimed the Auckland Star. ‘Confronted at last with the alternative of losing May, the Duke of Clarence ceased his visit to Miss Richardson . . . She wrote to him threatening to cause a scandal if he discontinued his visits.’ The press reports of Eddy’s links to Lydia Miller and Maude Richardson remain unverified.49

  Whichever scandal reached the queen in the late autumn of 1891, Eddy woke up to the fact that he was in serious trouble. It fell to Bertie to have another painful conversation with his errant son, and he was in a position to inform his mother on 3 December 1891 that she could ‘make your mind quite easy about Eddy’. The prince ‘has made up his mind to propose to May’.50 Bertie knew exactly how best to stage manage the happy occasion, even advising Eddy against a visit to Windsor next month, ‘for the Tecks are there . . . as it would look as though all arranged affair’. He informed the queen that Princess May was invited to Sandringham in the New Year where ‘everything will I am sure be satisfactorily settled then’.51

  Whatever was said to the prince, he felt the need for speedy compliance with his parents’ and grandmother’s wishes. Suddenly he no longer saw the point of a prolonged courtship of May. Nor did he wait, as planned, for the New Year. The very day that Bertie reassured the queen of his son’s intention to propose in January, Eddy had a chance to meet May at the residence of the Danish ambassador to England, Christian de Falbe, at Luton Hoo in Bedfordshire.

  Princess May’s carriage approached down a curving driveway, neatly manicured lawns to either side. If the potential bride had any misgivings about the rumours she had read in the newspapers, she appears to have kept them to herself. The extraordinary prospect of one day becoming the Queen of Great Britain outweighed any niggling worries over the veracity of any tittle-tattle in the press. Through the window of her carriage the grand residence before her was a glimpse of the glamorous future that might lie ahead. The entrance way was a six-pillared portico, two stories high, and the long facade of the house ended in bow-shaped rooms, creating the impression of two towers as if this was a castle. Once inside the grand hallway, stately interiors stretched out before her, overlooking neat ornamental gardens to the rear. The guest book spoke of many distinguished visitors. If May was a little daunted, she kept her composure.52