Sons, Servants and Statesmen

by John Van der Kiste

  Had Sir Henry’s political views been closer to hers, the Queen would have surely been more accommodating. But old age had made her increasingly dogmatic and set in her ways. Like many elderly people, she disliked change, resented new ways of doing things and was inevitably less patient than before. However, it seems a little strange that she did not properly appreciate and value the impartiality of his dealings with sovereign and ministers, or his desire for peace and his quiet determination to smooth difficulties out. With her failing eyesight she was having difficulties with reading his handwriting, but even others familiar with it observed a change in his handwriting for the worse, and a general appearance of apathy, of increasing forgetfulness, on his part. Like her, his reserves of patience were probably wearing thin with the advancing years.

  One detects a note of mild exasperation in his comment of 1893 (probably to Lady Ponsonby) that Her Majesty ‘is full of business and sending ticklers all round, as much as to say “I’m back, so look out!”’8 At what would be his last interview with her late the following year, he was reputed to have said to her face, ‘What a funny little old woman you are.’9 Astonished at being spoken to in this candid way, the Queen told him that he could not be well.

  Sadly, she was quite correct. By this time he had probably suffered a series of minor seizures and may have been in the early stages of senile dementia. But nobody was prepared for the paralytic stroke on 7 January 1895 which rendered him unconscious for a while. When he came to, his right arm and leg were completely paralysed, and his speech was incoherent and indistinct. He was confined to his bed, and by May it was evident to all around him that he was most unlikely to recover.

  Since the start of Ponsonby’s illness, Reid had become the person in the household whom the Queen and most of her family trusted more than anyone. He had to undertake the painful duty of telling Lady Ponsonby that she would need to resign her husband’s offices for him. The Queen permitted them to stay at Osborne Cottage for the duration of his illness, and it had previously been agreed that Lady Ponsonby could keep the rooms they occupied at St James’s for the rest of her lifetime. However, his salary of £1,700 per annum was reduced to a pension of £1,000 when he became ill.

  For the next six months he lingered, a helpless shadow of his former self, until the end came on 21 November. ‘My heart bleeds for you and your children,’ the Queen telegraphed to Lady Ponsonby, ‘and I feel deeply the loss of so faithful and devoted a friend.’10 To their daughter Magdalen she wrote that there was one person who felt her beloved father’s loss more than anyone, ‘and whose gratitude to him is very deep, and that is my good Munshi Abdul Karim. Your dear father was kinder to him than anyone, always befriending him, and the loss to him is, as he says, that of “a second Father”. He could not well go to the funeral tomorrow to his regret, but sends a wreath, and I enclose what he wrote on it as I fear in the multitude of similar wreaths this tribute of gratitude might be overlooked.’11 However, neither wreath nor card had been the Munshi’s doing. The former, Reid assured Magdalen Ponsonby, had been made at Her Majesty’s special command, and she herself had dictated to the Munshi what he was to write on it.

  It says something for the enormous workload undertaken by Ponsonby during the previous few years that two members of the household needed promotion to the position of private secretary in order to succeed him. One was Arthur Bigge, the other was Fleetwood Edwards. Bigge found his task very difficult in the early stages, telling Reid that the Queen often found it ‘inconvenient’ to see him, and he could only communicate with her through written messages. Declaring it was impossible to do such a job under these conditions, Reid intervened to persuade Her Majesty that it would be necessary for her to see Bigge regularly.12 Yet Reid was now indispensable as the only male member of the household who could readily approach her, and his importance as a liaison between his sovereign and the outside world was invaluable.

  Reid’s faithful service and increasing importance in the household had been rightly recognised. In May 1895 Lord Rosebery had told him he intended to offer him a knighthood on the Queen’s birthday. Reid declined, making as his excuse to Dr Jenner that ‘a simple knighthood’ was ‘rather looked down on here’, and that the fact it was being offered to him showed that he was ‘not put on the same platform as the rest of the people here’, though his services to the Queen were more arduous and responsible than those of most of the men in royal service who had already been similarly honoured.13 His attitude was mildly frowned on by his colleagues, and he evidently reconsidered his views. On 20 June he was knighted at Balmoral. Two years later, the Queen conferred on him a baronetcy as part of the diamond jubilee honours.

  The year 1897 was that of the Queen’s diamond jubilee, but for Dr Reid it was also to be remembered, unhappily, as ‘the year of the Munshi’. In January he and Randall Davidson, Bishop of Winchester, had frequent discussions on the subject of the Queen and the Munshi, and he remarked with regret that Her Majesty was ‘off her head on this point’.14 He had been asked to treat the Munshi for an unpleasant disease which, he found, was venereal in origin, and ‘had an interesting talk with her’ about it. It was more than likely that she regarded any comments on the possibility of his having such a complaint as a disgraceful slur on the character and morals of her disgracefully persecuted Indian servant.

  That spring, the household’s difficulties with the Munshi came to a head. Queen Victoria had planned that she would take her spring holiday at Cimiez, near Nice, and it was beyond question that she intended to take the Munshi with her. This would necessitate his dining with her gentlemen. After previous occasions they had had enough, and they strongly objected to the fact that they would have to take their meals with him in the somewhat cramped accommodation offered by the Hotel Excelsior Regina. The Queen’s personal secretary, Harriet Phipps, was chosen by the less than gallant gentlemen of the household and asked to tell her that if the Munshi was to accompany her to Cimiez, the gentlemen would not be prepared to associate with him.

  When the message was delivered, her reaction was swift. She lost her temper, rose from her chair and angrily swept everything off her writing table on to the floor. This stalemate was only brought to an end when Lord Salisbury persuaded her that the French, being a somewhat odd race, would not understand the Munshi’s position. If he accompanied her, he might be exposed to insults. She gave in, but with bad grace. While he did not accompany her entourage to the Côte d’Azure, he turned up soon afterwards. His friend Rafiuddin Ahmed, who had tried and failed to become a lawyer and was now calling himself a journalist, joined him, but the household objected to his presence so strongly that the Queen was obliged to ask Ahmed to leave.

  The household were determined to get rid of the Munshi. Reid warned the Queen that people in high places were saying that the only charitable explanation of her extraordinary obsession with her Indian servant was that she was no longer quite sane. He feared that a time might come when, for the sake of her good name, he might find it necessary for him as her doctor to announce that she had indeed gone mad. It was a brave thing for him to say to her face, but, unpalatable as it was, she apparently took his words seriously – for the time being.

  Next Dr Reid spoke firmly to the Munshi, accusing him of dishonesty, lying about his origins and education, telling the Queen that in India no receipts were ever given for money and that therefore he did not need to give any, and having certain letters of the Queen’s in his possession which he was refusing to give up. If the Munshi did not stop his double-dealing and curb his pretensions, the doctor would feel himself obliged to reveal to her the full extent of his duplicity.

  If he had hoped for any results after his interview with the Queen, he was to be disappointed. She insisted that the household had all behaved disgracefully, that the Munshi was to be treated with all due respect, that her gentlemen were not to go talking about such a painful subject either among themselves or with those from outside, and, above all, that they must not unite
with the household against one person.

  Frederick Ponsonby said wearily that all of them had done their best, but the Queen declared that they were all racially prejudiced and jealous of the Munshi. The Queen’s views were in fact well ahead of their time. Her positive discrimination in having Indian members of the household contrasted impressively with the record of Queen Elizabeth II, whose reign over a multi-racial Britain at the millennium was in no way reflected in her household, which had not one secretary, equerry or household servant of Asian or Afro-Caribbean background.15

  But the gentlemen of Victoria’s household still tried to get rid of the Munshi and telegraphed the Viceroy in India for any further information about his background and anything that might make his position untenable. Meanwhile, the Prince of Wales was on holiday in Cannes. He had become increasingly alarmed about the harm which his mother’s obsession with the Munshi was doing the monarchy, especially in jubilee year. He sent for Reid to ascertain the extent of the situation and assured him that he was prepared to support the gentlemen in any reasonable moves they might need to take, and to intervene personally if necessary.

  The Queen enlisted the help of her grandson-in-law Prince Louis of Battenberg. As a member of the family who owed much of his current standing in public life to her intervention, particularly with regard to his joining the English Navy as a young man despite his German birth, and as the husband of her granddaughter Princess Victoria, she was sure he would support her. She sent him to tell her gentlemen, through Sir Arthur Davidson, the groom-in-waiting, that they must ‘associate more’ with the Munshi. He did so with some reluctance, only to find the household up in arms and threatening to resign if she insisted on pressing the matter. Endless conferences between various senior officers of the household followed. The result was akin to a nervous breakdown on the Queen’s part. She finally admitted to Dr Reid that she had been foolish in acceding to her Indian servant’s constant requests.

  A few days later, when Reid told the Queen he had received a letter from Sir Edward Bradford, Chief of Police for London, about the Munshi’s complicity in the somewhat suspect Muslim Patriotic League affairs, she broke down, admitted ‘she had played the fool about the Munshi, begged to be “let down easily” and promised to do what they wanted, though not abruptly, for fear of any scandal’.16

  Yet it was not enough to prevent ‘a very excited interview’ between the sovereign and her doctor a day or two later, in which he firmly warned her that the only reasonable excuse that could be given was that Her Majesty was not sane, and that the time would come when he would find it necessary, for her memory and reputation, to say so, ‘and that is a nice position to be in’.17

  It had no lasting effect. Having evidently slept on the problem, the Queen continued to insist that the Munshi was to be treated with all due respect, and that the household should not continue talking about this ‘painful subject’ among themselves or with others. The court realised that it was no use: Her Majesty would not change her view that they were all racially prejudiced, and that they were all jealous of the Munshi.

  That summer, the Queen wanted to confer on the Munshi the Membership of the Royal Victorian Order. He had already been honoured with the CIE, or a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire. Once again, the household were angered by this rank favouritism, and Sir James Reid was again prevailed on to speak to the equally weary Lord Salisbury on the matter. The Prime Minister advised her that to honour the Munshi in this way would look like favouritism towards her Muhammadan subjects and cause jealousy among the Hindus. This reasoning apparently convinced her.

  By now, even the Queen was beginning to realise that her devoted Indian servant was not totally blameless. If he was attracting such hostility, surely there was something in the comments being made against him. Yet to admit that he was in the wrong would have meant losing face in front of her household, and she did not wish to give the impression – no matter how true it might have been – that she was afraid of him. The more she favoured and protected him, the more he took advantage of the situation, and the more his bullying and insolence increased.

  In October 1897 a large photograph was published in the Daily Graphic, showing the Munshi standing by the Queen while she sat at her table, signing documents. Underneath it ran the caption: ‘The Queen’s Life in the Highlands, Her Majesty receiving a lesson in Hindustani from the Munshi Hafiz Abdul Karim C.I.E.’ Reid discussed the photograph with the Queen, who was uncomfortable about the matter and felt she had been made to look foolish. That week Reid interviewed the photographer, who told him that the Munshi himself had ordered its publication.

  Another round of ‘painful interviews’ ensued, especially after the furious Munshi resented Reid’s discussing the matter with the photographer. The Queen realised that she had made a mistake, writing Reid a fourteen-page letter which started with her admission that she was ‘terribly annoyed and upset by all this stupid business which unfortunately I am to blame for, and regret extremely’.18 The persistent aggravation was telling on Reid, who was feeling gravely put upon in having to deal with matters far beyond the call of normal duty. In severe pain as a result of a boil on his right thigh, and worried almost beyond endurance, after a sleepless night he wrote a letter of resignation. Thankfully, the Queen must have sensed how upset he was and changed her attitude towards him for the better, evidently realising that she dare not lose him; the letter was never sent.

  By early 1898, the relationship between Queen and Indian servant was fraying at the edges. Both were beginning to raise their voices to each other, and her dresser noted in February that he shouted at her, after which she wrote him a long letter about it. Lord Salisbury remarked that Her Majesty could always get rid of the Munshi if she really wanted to – but such an outcome seemed most unlikely. He firmly believed that ‘she really likes the emotional excitement, as being the only form of excitement she can have’.19

  There was another, stronger, underlying reason. The Queen would not be dictated to, as she had made plain during one of the ‘Brown rows’. Nobody, whether family, government or household, was going to tell her whom she should employ or even have as friends and confidants. To her, it was a person’s character which was important, not their position in the social hierarchy, let alone their racial origins or the colour of their skin. She also had a keen sense of fair play and the British instinct for championing the underdog, which was perhaps more than could be said of many of those around her.

  In fact, if the Munshi was not blue-blooded, this could be a positive virtue. Queen Victoria was not going to place her blind trust exclusively in aristocrats or courtiers. She would defend those in whom she placed her trust to the last breath in her body against any unfounded charges which she believed to be based on prejudice or jealousy, hence her spirited rebuff to those who dared to hint that he had probably stolen her jewellery for financial gain. While she knew that the Munshi, like John Brown, was only human and had his faults like anyone else, she must have felt a certain inward delight in forcing family and household to accept a man whom they hated or despised. Any attempts to poison her mind against him backfired with a vengeance. Only a decade or so later, others would find a similar parallel in the relationship between her granddaughter, Empress Alexandra of Russia, and the Russian peasant Grigori Rasputin.

  The Munshi remained in Queen Victoria’s service for the remaining three years of her life. After her last holiday in Cimiez, her problems with the household regarding his presence diminished. Like John Brown, he proved himself a faithful companion in a way that nobody from her household or family ever could be.

  Additionally, she had a vested interest in not wishing to lose face. After having braved a solid coalition of opposition from her household and their evident determination to try to force him out, either by shaming him into leaving or blackening him so much to the Queen that she would give in and dismiss him – both campaigns on their part proving counter-productive – she would have lost face had she
given in to them. For better or worse, she had no alternative but to retain his services until he decided to leave of his own accord, something he was unlikely to do, or until she decided she had really had enough of him, another unlikely scenario.

  In time, Sir James Reid would also cause his employer some, but only temporary, distress – if for a very different reason. Unlike John Brown, he was not destined to remain a bachelor for life. At the age of forty-nine he fell in love with Susan Baring, a ladyin-waiting at court and niece of Lady Ponsonby. What began as friendship rapidly blossomed, and on 24 July 1899 he proposed to her. Normally so understanding in many personal matters, the Queen had an uncommonly proprietorial attitude where bachelors and spinsters in her employ suddenly announced that they intended to get married. Naturally, Reid ensured that she was among the first to be informed. She was ‘much less ferocious about it’ than he and his affianced ever expected, but she asked them to refrain from announcing the news or telling the other members of the household, at Osborne at the time, for a few days.20

  They had to wait for a full month before they were allowed to make the news public. Moreover, they had to agree to ‘the Queen’s Regulations’. Certain conditions had to be observed scrupulously once they were married, regarding the times of day he was in attendance on the Queen, times of year when they could go on holiday and where the future Mrs Reid could and could not go when they were at Windsor. He was still required to come round after breakfast to see what the Queen needed and be back before luncheon. Moreover, while Mrs Reid might occasionally visit his room, ‘this must not interfere with his other duties’.21

  A less amenable employee, particularly an eminent physician aged almost fifty, might have reacted angrily to such conditions, but Reid treated the business light-heartedly. He posted ‘the Queen’s Regulations’ to Susan, who fortunately found them as amusing as he did. They knew that an elderly lady of eighty deserved to be treated lightly in her declining years, and there was nothing to be gained by upsetting her and making a fuss about something they had expected anyway. She might be a demanding and authoritarian employer, but at heart a kindly one.