I, Victoria

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  Lehzen and I soon learned to guard our tongues in her presence, for every word was reported back; but all our care could not protect us against the twist an ingenious mind could put on an innocent word or phrase. Moreover, she joined Conroy in treating Lehzen with such harshness and contempt that it was plain they hoped to make her so miserable she would leave of her own accord. They missed their mark, for Lehzen’s hide had been toughened by long exposure to Conroy’s insults; but I didn’t know that then. I was afraid, and I hated Lady Flora with all the hidden bitterness of the helpless.

  A new move in the campaign against me was now being planned. In the summer of 1835 Conroy told Mamma that as I entered on my seventeenth year I no longer needed a governess. My official governess, the Duchess of Northumberland, had proved a disappointment to Conroy since her appointment in 1832. He had wanted her name only, simply to confer status on the household, but she had shown a disconcerting desire to enquire into my well-being and to quarrel with the harshness of my regime. The Duchess and Lehzen should be sent away, said Conroy, and I should become my mother’s companion, with a Lady of the Bedchamber of my own. This lady-in-waiting must be Lady Flora Hastings. (I was too old for a governess, be it noted, but not old enough to choose my own attendants!)

  The scheme would need the approval of the King, and I had no way of knowing that it would have been angrily rejected by him: he and Aunt Adelaide liked and approved of Lehzen, and if she could endure the discomforts and humiliations of her post, she was quite safe in it as long as they lived. But isolated and ignorant as I was, I suffered agonies that year as I watched the manoeuvres in the campaign to rob me of her. I grew stonier and Lehzen grew grimmer, but the situation was not discussed between us. To the pains and trials of being sixteen were added these terrible anxieties, and all were shut away inside me, with no outlet except in my dreams, and the fits of hopeless weeping I indulged in in bed when Mamma was asleep.

  In the middle of all this came my Confirmation, on the 30th of July 1835. I knelt before the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Chapel Royal, St James’s, dressed in my new white lace gown and a white crêpe bonnet with a wreath of roses around it. My dear, good tutor, Mr Davys, assisted in the service, and I tried to concentrate my thoughts on the significance of this most solemn ceremony for which he had long been preparing me. It should have been a joyful and spiritual occasion, but I was in a state of nervous exhaustion by then. Uncle William had led me into the chapel, and when my hand trembled on his broadcloth sleeve, he had laid his own dry, large-knuckled hand over it and patted it reassuringly. But a moment later he had spotted John Conroy amongst my mother’s attendants, and with a mighty roar, like a goaded lion, he had ordered him out of the chapel.

  Conroy went, with a black and bitter look for my uncle which boded me no good; and when a few minutes later, the Archbishop began his address to me on the subject of my future responsibilities, miserable tears began flooding over my cheeks. I was right to be apprehensive: as soon as we returned to Kensington Palace, Mamma handed me a long letter – a favoured method in the Coburg family for delivering important but unpleasant advices. I read it in the exhaustion of tears: my attitude towards Lehzen, Mamma said, must change. I had now reached a period of my life that brought changes with it, and henceforward I must place my attendant at a distance. I must always confide first in my mother, who was devoted to me, and whose sacrifices on my behalf had been so numerous and so great. I was to remember that I was entrusted to the guidance and control of that affectionate mother until I reached the age of either eighteen or twenty-one.

  I wept on reading that letter, and went on weeping for a very long time. They meant to separate me from Lehzen. Papa had left me almost at birth; Mamma had abandoned me for John Conroy. Feo had gone away to be married, Uncle Leopold to be King of the Belgians. Even poor old Späth, who had loved me ‘not wisely, but too well’, had been punished for it and sent away. My uncle King was dead, I was not permitted to see Uncle William and Aunt Adelaide, I was allowed no friends but Conroy’s daughters who were his spies. There was only Lehzen whom I could trust, who had been with me from the beginning, who had never let me down. Prisoner that I was, she shared my cage willingly, and placed herself between me and the worst excesses of my gaolers. Without her I felt I could not survive.

  And here was a new idea in Mamma’s letter: the question of my majority. Royal persons came of age at eighteen, but here was Mamma hinting at twenty-one. I had been dreaming of freedom two years hence; was my prison sentence now somehow to be extended? Most of all, it was the thought of three more years of this existence which broke down my resistance that day and brought me to helpless tears.

  15th March 1900

  GOD KNOWS each of His creatures individually, and He will never send you more than you can bear. At that darkest hour, help was on the way to me, in the form of my uncle Leopold, who paid his first visit to England in four years in September 1835. Mamma and I were staying at Ramsgate for a holiday, and he came to us there, bringing with him his new young wife, Princess Louise of Orléans, the daughter of King Louis-Philippe of France. She was pretty, vivacious, gay and warm-hearted. I loved her from the first moment she put her arms round me, kissed me, and cried, ‘But it is so absurd that I am your aunt, when I am only seven years older than you! You shall think of me, if you please, as your elder sister, and then we shall be quite comfortable!’

  Dear creature! Who could not be at ease with her? She managed to combine a natural sagacity with the bubbling high spirits of a sixteen-year-old, despite the fact that she had borne her second son in the April of that year. She laughed, and talked, and took a great interest in everything I did, admired my drawings, and played draughts with me after dinner. And when I shyly proffered admiration for her exquisite toilette (she was the best-dressed, most elegant woman I ever knew) she took me up to her room and let me go through her wardrobe, trying things on.

  Women who have had a normal upbringing cannot imagine how this little attention thrilled me. No-one else had ever discussed clothes with me – I had no friends, and it was not a subject to interest dear Lehzen – or treated the topic as something delightful and amusing. But Aunt Louise chatted to me as if we were the same age, shook out her lovely Parisian gowns and held them up against me, told me what would suit and how I might make the best of myself.

  ‘Now this one, the white moiré – ah yes, you have the bosoms for it! I, alas, am as small as a child. It will look better on you than ever it did on me. You have very pretty shoulders, my dear: you should make the most of them. And look, this silk rose goes with it – in your hair – so.’

  ‘Oh, Aunt! How pretty!’ I gazed in the looking-glass at the smiling young woman who had for a moment replaced the sad child.

  ‘Do you like it? Then it is yours. Yes, yes, I insist! Ma chère, it is a trifle, not worth half so many thanks!’

  Thereafter a number of little exquisite items seemed to find their way from her boxes into mine: brown silk ribbons, a spangled scarf, a charming lace pèlerine, a pair of lavender gloves, embroidered slippers, a painted fan, a fur tippet. As I warmed before her charm and wholehearted interest, like a frozen kitten placed before a kitchen stove, I began to confide in her some of the deeply personal doubts I had about my appearance, which I would have been ashamed to own to anyone else, feeling they must be frivolous in someone in my position.

  But Aunt Louise did not think it frivolous to care about one’s appearance. ‘It is natural to love what is beautiful; and that love must come from God, don’t you think? The ugly toad and the little bird may be equally dear to Him, but we cannot help loving the pretty bird more. And I think it pleases God, ma chère p’tite Victoire, if we try to make ourselves more like the one than the other.’

  ‘Do you really think so?’

  ‘Bien sûr. We must all live together in this world, and it is right to make ourselves as agreeable to each other as possible, and not offend our neighbours with ugly clothes or untidy hair.’
/>   And there was more reassurance waiting for me from Uncle Leopold: he had come to Ramsgate for the express purpose of advising me. In the years of his absence we had corresponded regularly, but letters could be – indeed, in my case certainly were – read by other eyes, and Uncle had long been growing uneasy about the situation at Kensington, which he learned about from a variety of sources. Only by coming to me in person could he be sure we would have a completely private and frank conversation, and this duly took place on the second day of their visit, when he came to me quite alone and stayed with me talking for almost an hour.

  It was the most inexpressible relief to me. He confirmed my fears about John Conroy, but by exposing the man’s entire, petty and misguided plot to me, he took away a great deal of the terror with which I had invested him. I had made him a monster in my mind, with almost supernatural powers; Uncle Leopold showed me a greedy, ambitious, but fundamentally stupid man, plotting to advance himself through a weak, misguided, but fundamentally good woman. (It was then that I gained the insights into Conroy’s motives which I have given in this account of my childhood; and though Uncle Leopold could not then alter my hatred of both Conroy and Mamma, he laid the foundation on which I was later to be able to forgive her and come to love her again.)

  Best of all, he reassured me as to the future. ‘If you hold out against them, there is nothing they can do to force you,’ he said. And, ‘Trust Lehzen completely. She has the confidence of the King and Queen, and of the Government, and of me; and she is a shrewd and sensible woman. She will sustain you.’ And again, ‘I will always support you. I am on your side, and you may always look to me for help and guidance.’

  ‘I have complete confidence in you, Uncle,’ I said. ‘You are the best and kindest adviser in the world.’

  He looked grave then. ‘I hope I may be. You know at least that my advice is always impartial. My one wish is that you should fulfil the high position to which you have been called with the utmost integrity. It is a grave responsibility, Victoria. You must not allow your mind to be taken up by frivolous amusements. All pleasure is transitory except that which comes from doing one’s duty.’

  I thought guiltily about the pleasant evening I had spent last night with Aunt Louise, and how often our laughter had been heard over the draughts board. ‘I do study very hard, Uncle,’ I murmured in self-defence.

  ‘I know. You are a good child. But as I have frequently told you, these are hard times for royalty. You must fit yourself for government not only by preparing your character, but also your mind. Honesty, straightforwardness, absolute probity, dedication, diligence – these you must have. But you must also have patience, wisdom, and sound judgement. You will be called upon to make decisions: you must have the knowledge and sagacity to make them well.’

  I said nothing, thinking deeply about his words.

  ‘It is a heavy burden, my niece; but you will be strong enough for it. And I will always help you in every way I can. I emphasise these things now not to frighten you or cast you down – quite the opposite,’ I looked up, and saw that his stern gravity of expression had given way to kindness. ‘I wish you to see that the troubles you are suffering at the moment, heavy though they seem to you, are unimportant compared with the task ahead of you. One day soon you will be Queen of England, my child, and then these unpleasantnesses – the Conroys of the world and the deceitful webs they weave – will be as nothing. Your real life will begin, and this will seem but a dream – a bad dream, which dissolves at daybreak and is forgotten.’

  I stared into the empty air, seeing then, for the first time, a shape to my life, and a life beyond the wretched imprisonment and torment which had been my whole view until then. I wanted to be a good Queen, the best England had ever known. I felt filled with a spirit and a strength beyond my own.

  ‘I will do my best,’ I said.

  ‘I know you will,’ he replied gravely. Then he stood up, and I with him, and he took my hand and pressed it kindly. ‘You have a good vein of stubbornness in you, my dear. Use it wisely. Hold out against Conroy – but try to stay on good terms with your mother. It will not be for much longer.’

  Ah, but when you are sixteen, a year is a very long time, a hundred times longer than the same year when you are sixty. And when I had said goodbye to my dear uncle and aunt on Wednesday the 7th of October, and seen their boat steam away from Dover, I felt myself very alone again, and the prospect of returning to my prison with Conroy my gaoler filled me with despair.

  Five

  19th March 1900, at Windsor

  WHEN MY uncle and aunt left England we did not leave Ramsgate, for I fell desperately ill with typhoid. I did not leave my room for five weeks. I grew thin and pale, and so weak I could not sit up without support; and my beautiful hair – my one great attraction – which had been so long and thick one could scarcely take it in one’s hands – began to fall out in handfuls. As a last desperate measure to save it, Lehzen cut it almost quite off, which left me looking like a plucked crow – a most depressing sight. I was so very ill that eventually even Conroy was convinced I was not shamming, and tiptoed round the house with an expression of anxious concern which would have been touching, Lehzen said afterwards, if one had not known he was only worried about losing his investment.

  He showed his true colours when the crisis had passed and it seemed that I would not die after all. While I was still on my sick bed, thin and white as a peeled stick, he persuaded Mamma that it would be the perfect opportunity – while I was in a weakened state, you understand! – to coerce me into agreeing to appoint him as my personal secretary whenever I should finally become Queen. This was the measure of the man. Day after day he came up to my room, that hateful bully, and stood over me, hectoring me in his loud, coarse voice until my head ached and I trembled with exhaustion. Mamma added her softer pleas to his, and cut me with reproaches and accusations of ingratitude and unfilial coldness; but she did not see the half of it – how he worked away at me, wearing me down, telling me again and again that I must agree, tormenting me as he knew so well how to do.

  But I did not yield. Uncle Leopold’s words were fresh in my mind, and I knew that the one thing I must never do was to give Conroy any position in my Household. Once I was free of him, I would banish him from my court and send him as far away as it was in my power to do; all I had to do was to hold out for another few years. So even though he reduced me to tears every day, though I sobbed and turned my face into the pillow to escape the sight of him; though he thrust his hated face so close to mine I could feel his spittle on my cheek; though he called me names and threatened me with dire punishments; though at last he forced a pencil brutally into my fingers and commanded me to sign the paper he held before me – yet weak and sick as I was, I would not yield.

  I was a Hanoverian, and stubborn from birth. But now there was a core of iron in me, forged in the fire of That Man’s mistreatment of me. Did I say that my dear spaniel Dashy was the only thing I had to thank Conroy for? That inner strength of mine perhaps is another. What Conroy could not do to a convalescent girl of sixteen cannot be done. I will never be bullied, as various people later – Sir Robert Peel and Sir William Gladstone, for instance – have had good cause to know.

  We left Ramsgate at last on the 12th of January 1836. I was completely recovered from the typhoid, and was looking forward to going home. We stayed at an inn on the road overnight, and arrived at Kensington Palace on a bright though bitterly cold day, some three and a half months after we had last quit it. As I was about to go in, Mamma laughed and caught me back.

  ‘I have a surprise for you, Victoria,’ she said. ‘We do not go back to our old apartment. To see where we live now, you must go up two staircases.’

  I stared at her in astonished delight. ‘We have our new apartments after all?’

  ‘Yes, and all the alterations are done just as we wanted, and the rooms new-papered and with fresh drapes.’

  ‘Oh, Mamma, how lovely! Oh, I can’t wait to se
e them!’

  I raced away like a ten-year-old up to the spacious second-floor suite with the wonderful views over the lawns and flowerbeds. Our old rooms on the ground floor had been cramped, dark and damp, with no space for formal entertaining. Here on the second floor, next door to Uncle Sussex, we had two large rooms with magnificent pillars and fine carvings for receiving, reached by a handsome Kent staircase. Our bedroom was large and lofty, and beyond it came a little room for the maid and a dressing-room for Mamma. Beyond that the old gallery had been divided by new false walls into three handsome, cheerful rooms, a sitting-room for me, a study and an ante-room. The workmen were still busy in the study, and making a dreadful noise.

  I ran from room to room, admiring the new drapes and furnishings, and exclaiming to Lehzen, who was observing everything with her most tight-mouthed expression, evincing only a kind of dour amusement. I was surprised to find ourselves there, for three years ago, in 1832, Mamma, tired of our cramped quarters, had drawn up ambitious and expensive designs for these very rooms, and presented them to Uncle William with a bald demand for them to be carried out. Irritated with her on various counts, he had refused; and when Mamma had pressed him, he had finally written, ‘The King says NO!’ in his own hand across the plans.

  And now here we were in the very apartments! Uncle William must have relented, I thought – and if he had, it must be for love of me, for he and Mamma–Conroy were still at daggers drawn. What a good, kind uncle he was!