Sandringham Days

by John Matson

  Sir Henry Ponsonby, the Queen’s Private Secretary and wisest of counsellors, took a more moderate view of the drama and sought to reduce the tension. He wrote to his wife: ‘There seems to be a determination with some people to make the worst of everything… Stephy (the Duchess of Roxburghe) turns up her eyes and tells me wondrous horrors ending up by saying the Queen was by no means happy. ‘Dear me,’ I said, ‘you surprise me, as I have just had a message as to whether Princess Beatrice and even some of the others might go tomorrow. Stephy considerably taken aback went to bed.’115

  On the 15th, the doctors in attendance issued an optimistic bulletin: ‘His Royal Highness has slept quietly through the night and there is some abatement of the gravity of the symptoms.’ The Prince’s life had indeed been saved: it was his groom, Charles Blegge, who died, and whom the Queen herself had visited. The Princess genuinely grieved for him; she paid for his tombstone in the little churchyard where her infant son was buried, with the inscription: ‘The one is taken, the other left’.

  The improvement in the Prince’s condition continued and, after this harrowing ordeal, with its nightmare memories of the Prince Consort’s death at this very time of year, the Queen was able to return to Windsor. There was a relapse, however, on the 17th, and once again the Queen journeyed to Sandringham. Departing from her invariable custom since the Prince Consort’s death, she spent Christmas at Windsor; it was to be an al fresco festival, which ‘would be spent very quietly with only one tree for ourselves and no élatage of dishes etc.’116 Writing to her daughter, Vicky, the Queen reported: ‘Another person, a woman who helped in the kitchen, has now got the fever.’117 On the 27th, the Queen set off again for Sandringham on reports of high temperature and rapid pulse. ‘They fear some deep seated inflammation somewhere and certainly it is very anxious.’117 Severe pain in his leg caused further anxiety. The Prince was indeed very seriously ill, and only superb nursing and his own robust constitution enabled him to survive.

  The children of the Prince and Princess of Wales had been sent to Osborne in the care of Mr Dalton. Their mother wrote:

  My own darling little Eddy,

  Mama sends a thousand thanks for all the very nice little letters, and is so glad to hear from Mr Dalton that Eddy is a good little boy. Mama is so glad that dear little Eddy has been going on praying God for dear Papa’s recovery and the Almighty God has heard our prayers, and darling Papa is going to be quite well again and very soon we hope you may all come home again to see dear Papa once more! Mama is so glad her little Chicks will spend a happy and merry Christmas with dear Grandmama, and Mama sends you each a little Christmas card with many good wishes for Christmas and the New Year, which I hope will begin brightly and happily for all of us, and that my little Eddy will try and become a very good obedient boy. Remember me kindly to Mr Dalton with many thanks for all his letters, kiss Grandmama’s hand, and give my love to Uncle Leo and Aunt Beatrice.

  Ever your loving Mama,

  Alix.118

  On the 31st, the Queen was able to write, ‘How I pray the New Year may see him safely on the road to recovery!’

  Her wish was fulfilled. Alix was able to discern a real change in her husband. He was a man, full of life and energy, who had faced death, and he had been frightened. Now that he had been granted a reprieve, he could clearly perceive and appreciate not only the simple things of life, but also the goodness and devotion of a wife whom he had too often neglected. She wrote:

  Oh dearest Louise, you who knew what I suffered and saw my utter despair and misery – you would hardly know me now in my happiness. We are never apart and are enjoying our second honeymoon. Never, never can I thank God enough for all His mercy when He listened to my prayers and gave me back my life’s happiness.119

  The Duke of Cambridge returned to Sandringham at the beginning of February and was surprised by the rapid improvement in the Prince’s health. ‘Nothing could be nicer or more affectionate than he was… I really was more gratified at seeing his general condition than I could have believed possible after such an illness.’ The following morning ‘the Prince rode out, for his first ride, with dearest Alix, who looks happy and well, Alfred, myself, and some of the gentlemen.’120 Shortly afterwards the Prince and Princess went down to Osborne to be reunited with their children. He was, for a time at least, a changed man. The Queen wrote to the Crown Princess of Prussia that ‘he was quite himself again, only gentler and kinder than ever; and there is something different which I can’t exactly express. It is like a new life – all the trees and flowers give him pleasure, which they never used to do… He is constantly with Alix, and they seem hardly ever apart!!!!’121

  On the 27th, a Thanksgiving Service was held at St Paul’s. The Queen, who had virtually retired from public life since Prince Albert’s death, was a reluctant participant. ‘I cannot deny,’ she wrote to the Duke of Cambridge on the eve of the service, ‘that I look with considerable dread to the dreadful fatigue of tomorrow, which I think will be too much for Bertie, and for which I am not feeling either very equal… we must hope that we shall have fine weather and my good people will be gratified.’122 As it turned out, the crowds were enormous and the Queen and her son were delighted. Her reception taught her the importance of being seen – a major factor in the success of the monarchy, as it had never been enough to be reported unveiling statues and cairns in memory of the Prince Consort in the remote Scottish Highlands – and encouraged her to resume her public engagements.

  There was, too, an unexpected side-effect from the occasion. The under-current of republicanism had made sturdy growth recently. Sir Charles Dilke’s lectures on the expenses of Royalty had aroused huge indignation, the disappearance of the Queen from public life and the successful re-establishment of the French Republic had combined to give the movement a fresh impetus. But the crowds’ loyal enthusiasm which greeted the emergence of the Queen from her seclusion and the Prince’s recovery dealt republicanism a severe blow.

  The Prince’s illness revealed other facets of his wife’s character: her kindness and her courage. She was as much aware of the gravity of Blegge’s condition as she was of her own husband’s. She visited him, consulted with the doctors about him and, when he died, saw his parents and attended his funeral. Though her own birthday on 1 December was neglected, she remembered Lady Macclesfield’s, two days later, with a gift of jewellery and an affectionate note. The Queen, whose feelings about her daughter-in-law tended to vary, was full of admiration for her selflessness. As for her courage, she had to endure what must have been serious humiliation when the Prince, in his delirium, shouted and swore, pouring out his indiscretions – which she would have wished to keep to herself. Now they were common knowledge, at least among her husband’s family. All this had to be borne, too, in the presence of the doctors and nurses. The Princess was becoming used to her husband’s infidelities – she had long since called him her ‘naughty little man’ – but they were endurable whilst there was at least an element of discretion in the conduct of his affairs; what she could not accept was public knowledge of scandals with which he was associated. With her lameness and deafness, her fortitude and devotion to a wayward husband, her generosity of spirit and lack of jealousy, the Princess revealed herself as a woman with remarkable qualities which, in any attempt to reach an assessment of her, should not be underestimated.

  CHAPTER SIX

  MARRIAGES

  Of the five surviving Wales children, Princess Louise, the eldest daughter, was the first to marry. She was the quietest of them all, and less communicative than her sisters, so that her engagement to the Earl of Fife, eighteen years her senior, came as something of a surprise. Her mother had not encouraged the match; indeed, when Queen Victoria wrote to the Prince of Wales about the lack of enterprise shown in searching for eligible suitors for his daughters, the Prince replied that, ‘Alix found them such good companions that she would not encourage their marrying, and that they themselves had little inclination for it.’123 This
was utter selfishness on the Princess’ part, and forms an interesting paradox since, when her own happiness was not at stake, her generosity and consideration were legendary. Princess Louise, then, had been brought up without too much education and had led a largely sheltered life, and her engagement caught her parents unawares.

  In 1889, the Earl of Fife had taken Castle Rising, a nearby estate, for the shooting, but it soon became evident that he had his eye on Princess Louise, eighteen years younger than himself, and in due course they became engaged, despite her mother’s opposition. The match did not please everyone; the Queen would have been less pleased had she known that Fife was the subject of a good deal of scandal in Paris – but she did not know this, and approved the plan. ‘It is a vy brilliant Marriage in a wordly point of view as he is immensely rich,’124 she wrote happily to her daughter, Vicky, in Berlin. The Queen liked her descendants to marry outside the narrow family circle, and she was not deterred by the experience of her own daughter, Louise, who had married thus, and to another Scot, but whose marriage had not been a success.

  The news of the betrothal was the occasion for another visit by the Queen to Sandringham, her first since the Prince of Wales had been struck down by typhoid. This time there was no sense of urgency and impending doom. The Prince’s preparations for the Royal visit were elaborate, and are best learned from the Queen’s journal:

  Sandringham, 23rd April, 1889. – At two left Windsor, with Louise, the Duchess of Roxburghe, Sir H(enry) Ponsonby, Sir H. Ewart, and Dr Reid… At Lynn, Bertie and Eddy came in, and the Mayor handed an Address and his daughter a bouquet. A few minutes brought us to Wolferton Station… Here were great crowds. Alix, the dear girls, Lady Moreton, Charlotte Knollys, and Sir Dighton Probyn met us. The station was very prettily decorated, and just beyond it there was a triumphal arch. The sun came out, and all looked very bright. I got into Bertie’s landau, open, with four horses and postillions, and dear Alix insisted on sitting backwards with Louise, in order that I might be better seen. Bertie and Eddy rode on either side, Sir D. Probyn in front, preceded by the Hunt, sixty in number, forty of whom were in their red coats. The road was lined with people, and numbers drove and rode. Great enthusiasm. We passed two more arches, and from the last, almost to the gates, there were Venetian masts. It was a very pretty sight. All Bertie’s neighbours came out.

  Everything came back to my mind, as we drove in at the gates and I saw again the house and stepped out and entered the hall. All was the same as at that terrible time and yet all is so different! A happy contrast. Bertie asked me to stand at the door to see the gentlemen of the Hunt, who had escorted me, pass by. There was a Guard of Honour of the Norfolk Artillery with their band, who afterwards marched past. Bertie and Alix then took me upstairs to the well-known old rooms, which have been freshly done up. I had some tea in my room and rested. We dined at a quarter to nine, Bertie leading me in, and Eddy sitting on my other side.

  26 April.– We went down into the Ballroom, which was converted into a theatre, after talking till ten. There were nearly 300 people in the room, including all the neighbours, tenants and servants. We sat in the front row, I between Bertie and Alix. The stage was beautifully arranged and with great scenic effects, and the pieces were splendidly mounted and with numbers of people taking part. The piece, The Bells, is a melodrama… and is very thrilling… (It) was followed by the trial scene from The Merchant of Venice in which Irving played the part of Shylock, and that of Miss Ellen Terry that of Portia beautifully… It was a most successful performance. I waited in the Drawing-room a moment to speak to Irving and Ellen Terry. He is very gentleman-like, and she, very pleasing and handsome. It was one when I got upstairs.

  Windsor Castle, 27th April.– We left Sandringham at half past ten, having spent a very pleasant time under dear Bertie and Alix’s hospitable roof, and I was greatly touched by all their kindness and affection. The weather was very favourable. They and their children accompanied us to Wolferton Station, and here they took a most affectionate leave of us. Reached Windsor at 2.25.125

  Every care had been taken; even Sandringham time had been set back to conform to Greenwich. Nor could she have known of the confusion caused by her wish to see Irving and Ellen Terry after the performance – the actors were changing and removing their make-up when the summons came, and there was a frantic scramble to avoid keeping the Queen waiting; nor that the house was so full of visitors and her own large personal staff and servants that Irving and Terry had to return to London that night. Nevertheless, the Queen’s visit, though she was never again to come to Sandringham, gave public approval to Princess Louise’s engagement. The couple were married later that year in the Chapel Royal, and spent some weekends at their house in Richmond Park. The groom had been created a Duke, with some reluctance on the Queen’s part, and his Duchess thereafter largely retired from public life and spent much of her time salmon fishing, with great expertise, in Scotland. An early report of their marriage was encouraging:

  Princess May and I prolonged our walk (after church) after Pcess Mary Adelaide had gone in. Coming home near the house we saw a little pony carriage, in the shape of a low dog cart coming along – a lady driving herself – a little groom behind. The lady stopped, it was Princess Louise, Duchess of Fife – She looked so pretty – almost as pretty as her mother – with a bright colour – pretty blue eyes – lovely teeth… Pss May says Pss Louise is so happy.126

  Those who had known the Princess as a shy, tongue-tied girl were delighted that marriage had brought out a vivacity that they had never seen before. ‘It does one’s heart good to see them,’ wrote the Duchess of Teck. With their immense wealth, the Fifes had two homes in Scotland and, when in England, they could choose between Sheen Lodge, near Richmond, which was their favourite residence, London and Brighton. Having escaped from the nursery world of Sandringham she had contrived to do so very thoroughly.

  At this stage in the life of the family, Prince George was often at sea as a serving naval officer, and Prince Eddy was falling in and out of love with distressing frequency. The question remained how he could usefully spend his time. In 1889, Prince Eddy had embarked on a tour of India, where his choice of companions and entertainments caused scandal and from which he had returned worn out with dissipation – nothing had been accomplished except the further weakening of a constitution which was not naturally robust.

  In May 1890, Prince Eddy was created Duke of Clarence and Avondale, and it was becoming increasingly clear that he must marry and settle down. His first essay in serious courtship was with Princess Alix of Hesse, one of the Queen’s granddaughters by Princess Alice. But she would have none of him. Then, in 1891, he fell deeply in love with Princess Hélène of Orleans, daughter of the Pretender to the French throne. He would have to persuade her to change her religion, for a Catholic could never become Consort to the future King of England, neither constitutionally could the heir-presumptive become a Catholic. The Queen saw the impossibility of the match – though, when she met the two lovers at Balmoral, she was, somewhat surprisingly, won over, and promised to see what might be done. But the Prince’s hopes were dashed by the refusal of the Princess’ father, and the Pope, to allow Princess Hélène to renounce her faith. She was, perhaps, the one and only true love of the Prince’s life, and it seems that she was genuinely in love with him – she had not known him long. During his last illness he was heard to murmur her name. The Princess of Wales, who had been delighted by the engagement and who would never have wished her son to marry a German, was as disappointed as Prince Eddy by the abandonment of the plan. ‘This brings everything to a deadlock,’ the Prince of Wales wrote to Prince George; ‘and it is a sad state of things and makes poor Eddy quite wretched.’127 The story of this romance loses some of its tragic appeal when it is recalled that Prince Eddy was already casting his eyes elsewhere. Although to most people this would seem impossible, yet the Prince could write that ‘exceptions will happen at times.’128

  The question of
the young Prince’s future now became urgent as his prospects with Princess Hélène faded and his conduct gave rise to further scandal. The Prince of Wales was fast becoming exasperated with his son, having removed him abruptly from Cambridge. On 5 August 1891, he wrote to the Queen: ‘His remaining in the Army is simply a waste of time… His education and future have been a matter of some considerable anxiety to us & the difficulty of rousing him is very great. A good sensible wife with some considerable character is what he needs most, but where is she to be found?’129 It was a question which the Queen herself had asked some thirty years earlier, when the Courts of Europe were searched for a suitable bride for the young Prince of Wales. There were a number of options open to Prince Eddy’s parents; the Queen had recommended a tour of the European capitals, which would widen his outlook on the Continental scene, but, as Sir Francis Knollys wrote:

  Unfortunately, her views on certain social subjects are so strong, that the Prince of Wales does not like to tell her his real reason for sending Prince Eddy away, which is intended as a punishment, and as a means of keeping him out of harm’s way; and I am afraid that neither of those objects would be attained by his simply travelling about Europe. She is therefore giving her advice in the dark.130

  She had kept herself surprisingly well-informed, however, of the young Prince’s activities, and was well aware of his instability: ‘You speak of his apathy and want of application,’ she wrote to her eldest son. ‘You disliked your lessons very much, and it was very difficult to make you apply. But you travelled a great deal, and with good people, and you profited immensely by what you saw… No doubt you were much more lively than Eddy.’131