I, Victoria

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

  Then The Times joined in. Hyde Park and Kensington Gardens would become a bivouac to all the vagabonds in London, it declared. It was bad enough during the Coronation celebrations, but this time the nuisance would last months rather than days. The neighbourhood would suffer dreadfully – the handsome homes and mansions in Kensington Gore and Park Lane would be ransacked. No servant-maid would be safe. Equestrians, who depended on Rotten Row, would be deprived of their daily horseback exercise. Hyde Park would be spoiled, trees would be cut down, children would lose their playground, and no-one would sleep safe in their beds. Prince Albert, it warned gravely, should think carefully before associating his name with such horrors.

  In the middle of all this, on the 27th of June, the Building Committee suddenly emerged from seclusion and published its design for the exhibition building. It was received with howls of outrage and mockery from the Opposition, and with a low moan by Albert, for it was a monstrous thing: a long, low building four times the length of Westminster Abbey and surmounted by a gigantic dome somewhat larger than that of St Peter’s in Rome. The influence of Brunei was unmistakable: the great arches at the front end were distinctly reminiscent of Paddington Station.

  Granville, Albert and I looked at the drawing for a long time in silence, and then Granville sighed. ‘It looks,’ he said, ‘like a railway shed that’s collided with an observatory.’

  ‘What can the committee be thinking of? They will bring us all into disrepute,’ Albert cried frantically.

  ‘It plays right into the Opposition’s hands,’ Granville admitted. ‘We’ve said all along that the exhibition will be housed in a temporary building, but this thing looks anything but temporary. Brick and iron and stone, as solid as Buckingham Palace: it looks fit to last a century.’

  ‘Nineteen million bricks,’ Albert said in agony. ‘It will take a year to build at the least – and the cost! Not a penny less than £100,000, or I know nothing.’

  ‘It has to have a separate furnace house,’ I said, still examining the report. ‘Boilers and chimneys and engines for pumping steam – all in the middle of the Park. Oh, Albert, it will be such an eyesore!’

  ‘It won’t do,’ he said. ‘Certainly it will have to be modified.’ But he sounded worried. Time was so short. Here it was, June already, and the exhibition was supposed to be opening in May of 1851 – less than a year away. And what modification could make this monumental railway shed acceptable?

  ‘It’s not going to help the cause,’ said Albert gloomily.

  Letters of protest flooded in, to the commissioners, and most of all to Albert, and alternative suggestions, of varying degrees of unhelpfulness, were published in every newspaper. Both Houses were in uproar with continuous interruptions about the site and the building; and an Association of the Residents of the Environment of Hyde Park presented a Save Our Trees petition to the Commons.

  ‘Things can’t get any worse,’ said Albert. But they could, and did.

  On the 29th of June Sir Robert Peel attended a meeting of the commissioners at Buckingham Palace at midday, to discuss the delicate situation. The debate over whether the Hyde Park site should be sanctioned by the Government was due to begin on July the 4th, and Peel was to be our spokesman – if anyone could influence the Lower House, it must be him. But at this late stage a change of site was considered impossible. The meeting decided that if the site should be forbidden, the whole scheme would be called off.

  After the meeting Albert asked Peel to stay behind for a moment or two, and I joined them. They were talking about the provision of a temporary ride in Kensington Gardens, to replace the part of Rotten Row that would be lost to horsemen for the duration of the exhibition.

  ‘I have written to the Woods and Forests – our favourite department,’ he added with a smile for me, ‘but I’m sorry to say I have had a very curt reply from Lord Seymour. He seems to think the ground would be too soft for riding, and that it would cost too much to fence off the area needed.’

  ‘Lord Seymour is something of a Protectionist, I’m afraid,’ said Peel. ‘He would be glad to put a difficulty in the way of the exhibition.’

  ‘I don’t see that the ground would be any softer than in Hyde Park,’ I said, ‘particularly not in May, June and July. And after all, outside those months horsemen have to take their chance wherever they ride.’

  ‘Quite so, ma’am,’ said Peel. ‘Lord Seymour must know it. It simply needs the right person to concentrate his mind on the fact.’

  ‘You will ask Lord John Russell to speak to him, then?’ Albert said. ‘And as to the expense of fencing the area, I’m sure hurdling is cheap enough.’

  ‘Woods and Forests must have any amount of hurdling in store,’ I pointed out indignantly. ‘They are always putting it up and taking it down.’

  ‘Indeed, you are right, ma’am,’ said Peel. ‘And if they have not enough, I am sure it could be bought, or even hired for a few months.’

  ‘In fact,’ said Albert thoughtfully, ‘there is a quantity of wattle hurdling in St James’s Park which ought really in such a place to be changed for iron hurdles. Why not use the iron hurdles first for the ride in Kensington Gardens, and then transfer them to St James’s when the exhibition is over?’

  I looked at him admiringly. ‘How you do think of everything!’ I exclaimed. He had even the smallest detail of the business at his fingertips. ‘Now, Sir Robert, would not that put Lord Seymour on the spot? He can hardly object to proper fencing in St James’s Park, can he?’

  ‘I think, ma’am, that there is a very good chance he will be defeated on that point,’ said Peel, but the gravity of his face did not change. ‘But I cannot conceal from you that the opposition in general is very great, and I cannot be sanguine about our getting the Hyde Park site agreed on.’

  ‘You must tell them,’ Albert said earnestly, ‘that if it is not, the whole affair must be cancelled, and that would be a disaster! Speak to Palmerston about it – twenty-three foreign states so far have committed themselves to send exhibits. Speak to Labouchère – two hundred and forty local exhibition committees have set themselves up throughout the country. Speak to Sir George Grey – £64,000 has been subscribed already, and the labouring classes are subscribing their wages to funds to enable them to come up to London to see the exhibition. We cannot cancel now! Speak to Russell. You must persuade the House.’

  ‘I assure Your Highness that I will do everything in my power,’ Peel said, as earnestly as was in his nature.

  Impulsively I held out my hand. ‘I know you will do your utmost, Sir Robert,’ I said. ‘I know we have no better friend than you.’

  He bowed over my hand, and a moment later left us. Albert stared at the closed door a moment and then said in a low voice, ‘If he cannot help us, then we are done for.’

  I was worried by his mood. ‘Dearest,’ I said gently, ‘do not take it so much to heart. You have done all you can – no-one could have done more.’ I wanted to add that it was only an exhibition, that it did not matter so very much if it failed; but I stopped myself in time. It did matter to him. He had invested so much time and trouble in it already – but more than that, he had set his heart on it. It was not just an exhibition to him – it was a holy crusade. Instead I said, ‘Sir Robert will win over the Lower House. There can be no doubt about it.’ Since his resignation over the Corn Law appeal, he had belonged to no party, and so had a unique position and influence in the House.

  Albert knew that, and allowed himself to be comforted; and a moment later was talking about his plans for the provision of drainage and water for the site.

  The dreadful news were brought to us some hours later – the worst news we could have received at that time. My cousin George Cambridge brought them. On his way home from Buckingham Palace, Peel had been riding his brown cob up Constitution Hill when she shied, slipped, and fell. Peel was caught under her, and as she struggled to her feet, she somehow stepped or kneeled on him. A passer-by at once put his carriage at Peel’s d
isposal, and he was carried to his house and the doctor summoned. It was feared he was gravely hurt.

  Albert went at once to Peel’s house, and returned much shaken.

  ‘How is he? How is our dear Sir Robert?’ I asked him.

  ‘In a great deal of pain,’ Albert said.

  ‘Yes, yes, he always was more sensitive to it than other men,’ I said. Under normal circumstances he could not bear even the prick of a needle. ‘The least thing gives him the most exquisite suffering. Poor man! But what do the doctors say?’

  ‘He is in too much pain for them to examine him thoroughly, but they think a broken collar-bone – or perhaps a broken shoulder. They may be able to say more in a day or two.’

  ‘A broken collar-bone,’ I said hopefully. ‘If it is only that!’

  ‘We must pray it is no worse,’ Albert said shortly.

  ‘He must have the best of attention. I shall send Sir James Clark to him,’ I said. ‘Oh, what a wretched, wretched thing to happen!’

  ‘There was quite a crowd outside his house when I got there,’ Albert said. ‘Mostly poor people. They know who gave them cheaper bread. He is well loved.’

  ‘But not only by poor people,’ I said quickly.

  He gave a brief, pained smile. ‘Oh, no. The Duke was there too – he arrived just as I was leaving.’

  Clark went to visit Whitehall Gardens, and came back with a cheerful report. It was undoubtedly only a broken collarbone. Sir Robert was heavy, gouty, and high in blood, but he would recover. I was comforted, but Albert, who went to see Peel every day, remained impenetrably grave. Peel continued to suffer agonies – the slightest ministration was excruciating to him, though he bore it all with desperate patience. The crowds grew outside his house day by day, and a policeman was posted at the door, who passed out regular bulletins to the anxious, waiting supporters. An odd story started up that the brown mare, who was a recent purchase of Peel’s, had been sold at Tattersalls because her previous owner could not break her of her habit of shying; and from there it was only a step to rumours of a plot to assassinate the senior statesman. But the fact was, as Palmerston said (and I knew very well from my own observation), that Peel was a very poor and clumsy rider. When he fell, he managed somehow to get himself tangled up in the reins, and so was not able to get clear of her as she struggled to her feet. It was not the mare’s fault.

  However it was, on the 2nd of July we received an alarming note from Peel’s own doctor. He feared that there may have been a broken rib which had now pierced the lung. Sir Robert was in a very poor way; the worst was feared. We had been planning to go to the opera, but I cancelled that. Neither of us had the heart for it, or even to eat any dinner. We sat waiting for news; and at half an hour after midnight a letter was brought. My hands trembled so much I could not open it. I handed it to Albert without a word, and he stared as if he wished to die before he had to read it. Then he tore it open with a violent, despairing gesture. Sir Robert Peel had died just before midnight.

  27th August 1900

  WE HAD a family photograph taken on the terrace yesterday, to send to poor Vicky. Her last letter was very worrying – she said she was in great pain and could not rise from her bed, and since she always writes very stoicallly, it has put me in a dreadful anxiety. I haven’t seen her now since the summer of ’ninety-eight, when she visited us in Balmoral. It was on her return from that visit that she had her bad fall while out riding, and since then she has been suffering from what she calls ‘lumbago’, but with the terrible news from Coburg fresh in my mind I cannot shake off the fear that it is something worse. I cannot lose another child! Would to God she could come here, or I go to her! One is not less a mother because one’s child is sixty years old. Oh, my dear Vicky, my firstborn!

  Tomorrow the ever-dear day returns on which, eighty-one years ago, my beloved Albert came into the world as a blessing to so many. How I remember the happy day it used to be, and the preparation of the presents for him, choosing what he would like best, and looking forward to his pleasure in them. But of all the things I ever gave him, he always said that my love was the best gift he could ever have had. On his last birthday in this world he wrote to me, ‘How many a storm has swept over our love, and still it continues green and fresh and throws out vigorous shoots’ – these tender words from the husband of more than twenty years! Oh, I know how lucky we were, lovers to the end – and that love is still green in my heart. Yesterday on the terrace, while we sat still for the photographer, I felt a warm touch on the back of my neck, and knew that he was standing there behind me, taking his rightful place in the family group. Others might have thought it was only the sunshine, but I knew. He is always close at this time of the year.

  Peel’s death was the most appalling blow to Albert. He had grown more and more fond of him, had relied on him not only for his support over the exhibition, but in every way. They had had so much in common and worked so closely together – Peel above all had been the one statesman of importance to appreciate Albert’s talents and put them to use. And the blow was made worse by the fact that George Anson, Albert’s secretary and his one intimate friend, had died suddenly of a seizure the previous October. Now with Peel’s death, Albert said, ‘I have lost my only friend.’

  I had been worried for some time about the amount of work that had been accumulating on his shoulders since the exhibition scheme was started; and he had had so many worries recently. I had given birth to Arthur on the 1st of May, which though a happy event in itself always meant extra strain and worry for Albert. Then in the same month, when I was barely out of childbed, there had been two attacks on me, the first on the 19th by a man with a pistol (which fortunately was loaded only with blanks) and the second on the 27th, that horrid attack by the man Pate, who struck me in the face with his cane. Then there was all the upset over the opposition to the exhibition; and now this most frightful blow. Albert sank into black despair, and I could not comfort him. I worried that he would really make himself ill, and wrote urgently to Stockmar, begging him to come and comfort and advise my poor darling, but he could not, or would not come.

  And then on July 4th a miracle happened. The debate on the Hyde Park site opened, and Lord John Russell began by making a brief address to the Lower House about Sir Robert Peel. What went on in the minds of the Members then I can’t say, but the opposition motion was brought forward by Colonel Sibthorpe – and heavily defeated! Everyone knew Peel had been in support of the scheme, and perhaps in respect to his memory no-one could bring themselves to vote against it. At all events, the site was accepted, and in the Upper House Lord Brougham withdrew his motion.

  Two days later a second miracle solved the problem of the building. The Building Committee’s design was still drawing down loud protest, and though the committee had pruned and pared at it for economy’s sake, abandoning (probably with relief) the dome and some of the other ‘striking features’, it was still too expensive, and too, too solid – quite apart from looking more peculiar than ever because of the surgery it had undergone.

  The miracle came from an unexpected direction. The new Westminster Palace was largely completed by now, and on the 7th of June a trial session had been held in the new House of Commons to test the acoustics. One of the Members, John Ellis, who was chairman of the Midland Railway, had brought with him a friend who was also on the Midland Railways committee, a man who was very much interested in the engineering problems of new buildings. This friend had himself designed and constructed many new sorts of greenhouses and conservatories, including a gigantic lily-house at Chatsworth, and had solved many problems of construction, heating, lighting, ventilation and condensation. He had invented an entirely new kind of metal sash-bar which had won a medal from the Society of Arts; and he was passionately interested in the Great Exhibition.

  This friend was of course Joseph Paxton, once head gardener to the Duke of Devonshire but now more of a friend and colleague to His Grace. After the trial session in the Commons, Paxton remark
ed in a conversational way to Ellis that the acoustics in the Chamber were obviously unsatisfactory, and that he feared another mistake was about to be made over the exhibition building.

  ‘It seems to be an insoluble problem,’ Ellis said. ‘The building has got to be large enough and strong enough for the purpose, but how can a temporary building be sufficiently solid?’

  ‘I know how,’ said Paxton, and proceeded to outline a plan to his friend. Ellis listened with increasing astonishment, and then said, ‘I think Granville is still at the Board of Trade. Will you step across with me and tell him what you’ve just told me?’

  What Paxton proposed was nothing more nor less than a giant greenhouse. It was to be made solely of iron, wood and glass – all dry materials, so it would be ready at once for use (a building made of bricks and mortar could take months or even years to dry out properly). All its parts would be manufactured off the site and in standard sizes, all inter-changeable. Thus it could be put up rapidly, and its shape could be altered, or its size increased or reduced, easily and at a moment’s notice. When its use had finished, it could as quickly be taken down again, and if required erected somewhere else as a winter garden or even stored for future exhibitions. Best of all, it would look light and pleasing, entirely suited to its park setting, frightening nobody with a permanent appearance; and the cost would be only half that of the Building Committee’s railway-shed.