by John Matson
* Louise was not an easy tenant, but there faults on both sides. vide ‘The Prince’s Thorn’ by Mary Mackie.
CHAPTER FIVE
1870 – 1871 YEARS OF CRISIS
The years when the Prince of Wales was ‘in waiting’ for his accession to the throne were seldom without interest, but these, while he was still under forty years of age, were to prove exceptional. His extraordinary vitality, panache and love of sport and excitement ensured the public’s continuing fascination with his activities which were not, however, wholly devoted to pleasure. He complained to Queen Victoria that it was impossible to satisfy the endless demands on his time to undertake engagements, since she herself had withdrawn from public life after Albert’s death. Though light enough in the early days, the many requests forced him to winnow the merely frivolous or selfish from those of genuine importance, such as the opening in 1865 of the Crossness Pumping Station on Bazalgette’s great Metropolitan Sewerage undertaking.
It was while Sandringham was being rebuilt that the Prince of Wales became involved in a Society divorce case. Early in 1870, Sir Charles Mordaunt filed for divorce from his young wife, Harriet, on the ground of adultery with two of the Prince’s friends and, on the basis of some letters from the Prince to Lady Mordaunt, he was subpoenaed to appear as a witness.
This was an unwelcome intrusion into the Prince’s private life, and he therefore consulted the Lord Chancellor, who agreed that the letters were harmless and advised him to write at once to the Queen, who also strongly supported him, only asking him to be more circumspect in his private life. The outcome was never in doubt. The divorce petition failed since Lady Mordaunt’s family declared her to be insane.
The publicity surrounding the case shed a damaging glare on the Prince’s lack of judgment, just at a time of increasing public unrest. He and the Princess were hissed in the street and booed at the theatre. The Queen was an invisible figurehead and, after nine years of secluded widowhood, in danger of becoming largely unknown. Mr Gladstone noted that ‘while the nation has confidence in… the Sovereign, the Throne may be regarded as safe, but’ – remembering the excesses of the late Hanoverians – ‘the revival of circumstances only half a century old…might bring about its overthrow.’
Such were the relations between the Monarchy and the nation in 1871. The Prince and Princess of Wales had spent some weeks with the Queen at Balmoral, and on their return south early in November they stayed with Lord Londesborough, arriving at Sandringham to celebrate the Prince’s thirtieth birthday on 9 November. Soon afterwards the Prince became ill, and on the 23rd the Queen was informed that her son had contracted typhoid. Several of Lord Londesborough’s guests had also caught the disease, and the Earl of Chesterfield had died. The Prince’s groom, Blegge, was also taken ill as they returned from Londesborough Lodge.
As the fever pursued its course, the Princess and her Lady of the Bedchamber, Lady Macclesfield, had to grapple with the problems created by the arrival of relatives and well-wishers. Princess Alice, who, since her marriage to Prince Louis of Hesse-Darmstad, had taken a practical interest in hospitals and the care of the sick, was at first warmly welcomed, but before long her managing ways caused irritation. ‘We are all furious at seeing our Princess sat upon and spoken of as if she had not sense enough to act for herself,’ Lady Macclesfield wrote.96 As for the Princess of Wales herself, she was becoming ‘deadly tired’ with the strain and lack of sleep. She would retire into the Prince’s dressing room for a few hours at a time, so that she was always at hand if need be. When the Prince entered on long periods of delirium, the Princess was kept from his room as far as possible, for his ravings were ‘very dreadful’ to hear, full as they were with names and indiscretions.97 The delirium left him, but returned from time to time. Pillows were thrown into the air, and once the Princess was knocked over as she attempted to crawl into his room on hands and knees, so that he would not see her, as the doctors believed that her presence excited him. ‘The dear Princess behaves admirably, she does not disguise the truth from herself, but her self-control and composure are perfect, she never thinks of herself and is so gentle and considerate to everyone as ever,’ Lady Macclesfield commented.98 On a sharper note during that period of calm, when it seemed that the patient was recovering, she mused, ‘But how Princess Alice is to be rooted out it is not easy to see… Suffice it is to say for the moment that she is the most awful story-teller I have ever encountered, meddling, jealous and mischief-making. For a short time she is everything that is charming, but the less one knows of her the better.’99
The Queen had never visited Sandringham. She deplored the ‘fast set’ who formed the innermost circle of the Prince’s friends, and since the Prince Consort’s death ten years previously, she seldom broke her established routine of journeying between Windsor, Osborne and Balmoral. But now it was time to put her own inclinations aside. ‘Better accounts from Sandringham,’ the Queen recorded on 29 November:
Quieter, mind clearer. Nourishment taken well. I was nervous and agitated at the thought of this sad journey… At eleven I left (Windsor)… Reached Wolferton after three. Affie, Sir William Knollys and Colonel Ellis met me there, and a quarter of an hour’s drive brought us to Sandringham. The road lay between commons, and plantations of fir-trees, rather wild-looking, flat, bleak country. The house, rather near the high-road, a handsome quite newly-built Elizabethan building, was only completed last autumn. Dear Alix and Alice met me at the door, the former looking thin and anxious, and with tears in her eyes. She took me at once through the great hall upstairs to my rooms, three in number.
I took off my things and went over to Bertie’s room, and was allowed to step in from behind a screen to see him sleeping or dozing. The room was dark and only one lamp burning, so that I could not see him very well. He was lying rather flat on his back, breathing very rapidly and loudly. Of course the watching is constant, and Alix does a great deal herself. Dr Gull came in, saying they were a little more anxious, as the pulse and temperature were higher. I remained until about ten and then went to my room.100
The Prince’s illness continued to cause anxiety, By the 1 December – the birthday of the Princess of Wales and a muted occasion – the Prince had regained consciousness and the Queen was encouraged to think she could safely return to Windsor. She had made a good impression on Lady Macclesfield: ‘charming, so tender and quiet’, but the presence of so many of the family was not conducive to peace and quiet: ‘really the way in which they all squabble and wrangle and abuse each other destroys one’s peace.’101
On the 5 December, back at Windsor, the Queen received a guardedly optimistic report from Jenner, though the Prince could not yet be said to be out of danger. On the 8th, however, the Queen wrote in her journal:
Was dreadfully alarmed… the telegram I received at quarter past eight said: ‘The Prince passed a very unquiet night. Not so well. Temperature risen to 104. Respirations more rapid. Dr Gull and I are both very anxious.’ [This was from Jenner.] When I got up saw Dr Marshall, who said it was very grave, occurring at this stage of the illness, and he thought, if I wanted to go to Sandringham, I should do so today.
At three Louise and I started on our melancholy journey. Reached Wolferton at half past seven, Sir William Knollys meeting us and handing me a note from Sir William Jenner, saying condition no worse, but that was all he could say. Got into a brougham with Louise and Affie [who had joined the Queen at Victoria Park] and drove in deep snow and hard frost up to Sandringham. Nobody at the door but Lady Macclesfield, who said that dear Bertie was very bad. Went up at once to the room. The doctors were there, Alix and Alice on either side of the bed, and poor dear Bertie breathing rapidly. I naturally only peeped for a moment, and then remained behind the screen. The state was very critical but not hopeless, the doctors said…102
The Duke of Cambridge, the Queen’s cousin, wished to join the family at the Prince’s bedside but, much to his chagrin, had been advised to remain in London for the time being.
‘Alfred,’ the Prince’s younger brother, ‘came to see me in great distress,’ wrote the Duke. ‘Poor boy! He is going at once to Sandringham. I telegraphed for leave to go down myself, for I felt most miserable. I decided upon going down in the morning at all hazards.’103 The following morning he received a telegram saying he might come and immediately ordered a special train which brought him to Sandringham at 1.30 p.m:
Found on arrival that the day had been so far quiet. I lunched with the young people, who are all here, Louise, Beatrice, Alfred, Arthur, Leopold; then saw Alice, whom I thought looking very ill and much distressed; then dear Alix, who was wonderfully calm and self-possessed, but looking better than I had anticipated. Later on I saw the Queen, who was calm and anxious… The anxiety of the Household, high and low, is intense…
The Duke of Cambridge, the Queen’s cousin, caused a good deal of alarm by complaining of a bad smell, and ascribing it to the drains. Sir Henry Ponsonby wrote:
Cambridge has been full of talk but old Knollys says he utterly refuses to discuss military matters and converses on nothing but drains… This afternoon the Duke thought there was a bad smell in the library where we were sitting and when Francis Knollys came in and said he smelt it, the Duke jumped up and said, ‘By George, I won’t sit here’, and went about smelling in all the corners… There may be a bad smell but I don’t perceive it.104
Eventually, a gas leak was discovered and peace was restored. The Duke’s preoccupation with the drains was natural enough. The ‘Great Stink’ of 1848 had been caused by the almost non-existent sewerage in London and the pollution of the River Thames. The Prince Consort had been carried off by typhoid, and the drains at Windsor Castle had been found to be in an appalling condition; bad sanitation at Londesborough Lodge had almost certainly been the prime cause of the Prince of Wales’ illness. Often, a bad drainage system led to polluted wells, whence the microbe found its way into the drinking water. The Queen, writing to her daughter in Prussia, commented: ‘I do not think this place wholesome and the drainage is defective – though he did not catch the fever here but at Scarborough. The poor groom is very ill, I went to see him on Thursday.’105 Soon afterwards she was enlarging her views: ‘I think the house very unhealthy – drainage and ventilation – bad; bad smells in some rooms – of gas and drains.’106 Not so many years earlier she had thought the house ‘unlucky’.
Royal etiquette demanded that when the Queen was taking a drive or walking, others should stay out of sight. Sir Henry Ponsonby, the Queen’s Private Secretary, told his wife that when out walking with Prince Alfred’s equerry:
We were suddenly nearly carried away by a stampede of Royalties headed by the Duke of Cambridge and brought up by Leopold, going as fast as they could… They cried out ‘The Queen! The Queen!’ and everyone dashed into the house again and waited behind the door until the road was clear. When Haig and I were alone we laughed immensely. This is that ‘one-ness’ we hear of.107
The patient’s condition continued to cause great alarm and anxiety, and indeed the entire nation could not fail to be aware of the dread lying deep in the Queen’s heart; namely, that the tenth anniversary of the Prince Consort’s death from typhoid was but a few days off.
On the 11th the Duke of Cambridge wrote:
The awfulness of this morning, I shall never, never, forget as long as I live. Between six and seven the General (Sir William Knollys) knocked at my door to say we were sent for to the house. I rushed out of bed, dressed hurriedly, and ran to the house in intense agony. The morning was desperately cold and the damp rose from the snow on the ground. On arrival found all assembled near the dear patient’s room… However, towards ten matters seemed rather to mend, at all events to quiet down.108
Certainly, the whole family, summoned while it was still dark, feared the worst. The Queen recorded:
At half past five I was woke by a message from Sir William Jenner saying dear Bertie had had a very severe spasm… I saw him at once, and he told me the spasm had been so severe, that at any moment dear Bertie might go off, so that I had better come at once… It was very dark, the candles burning, and most dreary. Poor dear Bertie was lying there breathing heavily, and as if he must choke at any moment… The talking was incessant, without a moment’s sleep. Dr Gull said he was much alarmed.109
The crisis continued for two more days. Indeed, that it had not ended by this time with the Prince’s death was in itself a notable achievement. Dr Gull, later to be knighted, had risen through sheer ability from a humble background to become in due course Physician-in-Ordinary to the Queen. As a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians his treatment of the Prince, assisted by Sir William Jenner, brought him a baronetcy and considerable prominence. That the Prince had survived the fever this far was no doubt due as much to his natural resilience and zest for life as to the ministrations of his doctors. In this he was as unlike his father, the Prince Consort, as possible; for he, before his fatal illness at Windsor, had once remarked to the Queen: ‘I am sure, if I had a severe illness, I should give up at once, I should not struggle for life.’110
But to return to Queen Victoria’s chronicle of her son’s illness:
Sandringham, 13th Dec. 1871.– This really has been the worst day of all, and coming as it has so close to the sad 14th, filled us and, I believe, the whole country with anxious forebodings and the greatest alarm. The first report early in the morning was that dear Bertie seemed very weak, and the breathing very imperfect and feeble… There had been no rest all night, from the constant delirium… Got up and dressed quickly, taking a mouthful of breakfast before hurrying to Bertie’s room. Sat nearby on the sofa, but so that he could not see me. Remained a long time. Strolled round the house and pleasure grounds for a short while. It was raw and damp and thawing all day.
Returned to Bertie’s room and, whilst there, he had a most frightful fit of coughing, which seemed at one moment to threaten his life!.. Poor dear Alix was in the greatest alarm and despair, and I supported her as best I could. Alice and I said to one another in tears, ‘There can be no hope.’ He turned round and looked wildly at me saying, ‘Who are you?’ and then, ‘It’s Mama.’ ‘Dear child,’ I replied. Later he said, ‘It is so kind of you to come,’ which shows he knew me, which was most comforting to me… I left again when Alix and Alice, who had been resting a little, came in.111
The day continued to be full of foreboding. As the Prince’s condition deteriorated Princess Alice, with memories to call upon of her father’s death in the Blue Room at Windsor ten years before, said, ‘It is the death rattle – I have heard it before.’ As a last resort, the doctors called for old champagne brandy and rubbed the patient’s body with the spirit, which appeared to revive him. Queen Victoria resumed her journal:
When I returned I found dear Bertie breathing very heavily and with great difficulty. We were getting nearer and nearer to the 14th, and it seemed more and more like ten years ago, and yet it was very different too. After going to my room to have some dinner, went straight back, and the doctors told me they hoped dear Bertie was really a little better. He had had a few minutes sleep, was talking less loudly, and the breathing was less rapid. The condition was still very serious and alarming, but not hopeless. Went rather relieved back to my room.112
Elsewhere in the country, the nation waited anxiously for news. For all that the Prince had been booed and hissed when he appeared in public as a witness in the notorious Mordaunt divorce case of the previous year, his nearness to death was something else again. He was, after all, heir to the throne. News came, reduced to bathos in Alfred Austin’s immortal lines:
‘Flash’d from his bed, the electric tidings came:
He is no better, he is much the same.’113
All was not entirely easy, either, among the watchers at Sandringham: the Princess of Wales resented the managing ways of Princess Alice, though she was, in fact, a capable nurse. Members of the Royal family sat about, they could only speculate on the outcome and sense the crisis that
was going on upstairs. Matters were not made any easier by the fact that not all members of the family were on good terms with one another. There was not enough for them to do; no one felt like taking active exercise of a cheerful nature with so serious a drama being enacted in the house. Sandringham itself was packed. Needless to say, the Queen’s arrival with her retinue ensured that the house, already full, was crammed to overflowing; and it was reported that Princess Louise and Princess Beatrice had to share a bed.
The next day, the anniversary of the Prince Consort’s death, brought the turning point: ‘14 Dec.– The dreadful anniversary, the 10th, returned again,’ wrote the Queen.
It seems impossible to believe all that time has passed. Felt painfully having to spend the day away from Windsor, but the one great anxiety seems to absorb everything else. Instead of this day dawning upon another death-bed, which I had felt almost certain of, it brought the cheering news that dear Bertie had slept quietly at intervals… the respiration easier, and food taken well…
Breakfasted with Beatrice and Leopold, and then went over to dear Bertie. When I stood near the screen, he asked if that was not the Queen, and asked me to go up to him, which I did. He kissed my hand, smiling in the usual way, and said, ‘So kind of you to come; it is the kindest thing you could do.’ He wanted to talk more, but I would not allow him, and left… It seems hardly possible to realise the day and to feel that on this very day our dear Bertie is getting better instead of worse! How deeply grateful we are for God’s mercy! Walked a little with Louise, very muddy and slushy, and the snow all disappearing. Went to see after dear Bertie, who was going on well, occasionally dozing and talking far less. What a relief… All satisfactory the last thing at night.114