Royals have always patronised the arts: Victoria was to be no exception. She was a keen theatre-goer, and admired the actor Charles Kean’s performances, believing that his Hamlet, a ‘very difficult, and I may almost say incomprehensible character, is admirable; his delivery of all the fine long speeches quite beautiful; he is excessively graceful and all his actions and attitudes are good’.6 She also thought his Richard III impressive:
the House was crammed to the ceiling; and the applause was tremendous when Kean came on; he was unable to make himself heard for at least five minutes . . . It would be impossible for me to attempt to describe the admirable manner in which Kean delineated the ferocious and fiend-like Richard. It was quite a triumph . . . All the other parts were very badly acted, and the three women were quite detestable.7
Theatres were unheated and sometimes it was so cold that the Queen sat ‘the whole time in my fur cloak’.8 In 1848, the Queen made Charles Kean director of her private theatricals at Windsor Castle, further helping his career and that of theatres more generally. Certainly, royal patronage of the theatre helped shift its image as a shabby lower-class entertainment with a reputation for disorderly and disreputable behaviour. In the nineteenth century, theatre became respectable.
Victoria preferred opera to theatre, thinking it less taxing on the intellect. Her favourites were all Italian: operas by Bellini, Donizetti, Rossini, all composers with seemingly effortless gifts for sweet-toned melodies, repetitive rhythmic music and emotionally charged theatrical scenes. Their operatic characters were usually larger than life individuals whose inappropriate love affairs led them ineluctably to personal destruction. In Victoria’s opinion, Lucia di Lammermoor, a melodramatic story about an emotionally fragile heroine thwarted in love, was ‘decidedly one of Donizetti’s best operas; it is full of the most beautiful and touching melodies’.9 In 1837, her favourite opera singer was Giulia Grisi, a soprano whose dramatic gifts and exquisite voice entranced audiences. On a visit to Rossini’s Semiramide, an opera set in Babylon and based on Voltaire’s play, she wrote that ‘no words of any kind can do justice to Grisi; both for her acting and singing were throughout splendid. No tragic actress of any kind could have acted, better, with more feeling, pathos, dignity, and spirit . . . I wish I could say the same of poor Albertazzi, who was as inanimate, tame and devoid of feeling as Grisi was splendid.’10 Certainly, criticism was coruscating if Victoria disapproved. ‘Ricci’s Scarammuccia, the story of which is stupid and tiresome and the music mediocre . . . Belinni as Tomasco was very outré and vulgar.’ Undoubtedly, the Queen’s enthusiasm for music, as with the theatre, improved its standing in Britain, especially when over the period of her reign Victoria knighted 20 musicians.
Shortly after her succession to the throne, Victoria employed her own palace orchestra consisting of 16 wind instruments and a drum, a ‘delicious treat’ for her as she could hear it quietly and without fuss. Singers were invited to the Palace and the Queen regularly commented on their performances in her journals. She once wrote of how ‘Poor Pasta’ looked very old, and was very ill-dressed and sang out of tune; on her favourite little Grisi who had grown exceedingly fat, on M de Melcy who had beautiful small features, very fine dark eyes, dark hair, moustaches and whiskers.11 The young Queen enjoyed singing arias from her favourite operas at home. From an early age she had had singing lessons with a music master and later on lessons from the Italian tenor Luigi Lablache when he visited London, sometimes singing the challenging aria ‘Casta Diva’ from Bellini’s Norma, yet another melodrama about failed love. As with most upper-class young girls, Victoria knew how to play the piano and sing, but unlike many, she was a proficient pianist with a good voice.
Queen Victoria also patronised painters. She was a competent amateur artist, receiving lessons from the age of eight from the royal academician Richard Westall, and later from Edward Lear, William Leighton Leitch and Edwin Landseer. Her early lessons consisted of copying other drawings, but later on, she sketched people she knew and the surrounding landscape. This training in factual representation undoubtedly influenced her preferences for paintings that reflected a near photographic reality rather than ones which arose from the imagination. Her patronage of Edwin Landseer, ‘an unassuming, pleasing and very young looking man, with fair hair’,12 made him a very rich man with his paintings selling for as much as £7,000. His first commissioned royal painting depicted the Queen on her favourite horse – a romantic, rather idealised portrait. Landseer went on to produce many other, similarly sentimental, portraits of the Queen, her family, favoured servants and her pets. The more innovative painters – such as the later Pre-Raphaelites or Impressionists – were never invited to paint the Queen: throughout her reign, she retained her preference for representational art.
Victoria enjoyed less serious pursuits too. She continued to be keen on horse riding, writing in her journal ‘I mounted in the garden just under the terrace in order that nobody should know I was going to ride out. I rode my dear favourite Tartar who went perfectly and most delightfully, never shying, never starting through all the very noisy streets, rattling omnibuses – carts – carriages – &c., &c.’13 On one occasion she cantered down Constitution Hill and St James’ Park, along Pall Mall, up Regent Street and up to Hampstead, across the Heath and came home by the Paddington Canal.14 Her mother disapproved of her daughter riding through the streets: these were public spaces and, by her actions, Victoria became too much of a public woman with all the negative associations that that represented. The Queen took no notice. On her accession to the throne, against the advice of her courtiers and politicians, she reviewed her troops on horseback, riding between two male officers. No ladies accompanied her. As Queen, Victoria felt comfortable to break the conventional codes that applied to other nineteenth-century females.
Victoria was partial to a bit of flamboyance and panache. She was entranced by Lion tamers and visited one show seven times, even commissioning Landseer to paint the animals. She spoke excitedly of seeing a lion and a lioness, a tiger and two cheetahs on stage and of how the lion tamer remained about a quarter of an hour with each animal who ‘all seem actuated by the most awful fear of him; . . . he seems to handle them excessively roughly; beating them, and pinching them, and he puts his hands between their teeth . . . he takes them by their paws, throws them down, makes them roar’.15 On one occasion Victoria asked to go inside the lion cage but her courtiers persuaded her otherwise.
All too often, civic duties took precedence. On 9 November 1837, Victoria attended the Mayor’s dinner. Throughout her progress to the city, she
met with the most gratifying, affectionate, hearty and brilliant reception . . . the streets being immensely crowded as were also the windows, houses, churches, balconies, everywhere . . . I cannot say how gratified, and how touched I am by the very brilliant, affectionate, cordial, enthusiastic and unanimous reception I met with in this the greatest Metropolis in the World; there was not a discontented look, not a sign of displeasure, – all loyalty, affection and loud greeting from the immense multitude I passed through; and no disorder whatever. I feel deeply grateful for this display of affection and unfeigned loyalty and attachment from my good people. It is much more than I deserve, and I shall do my utmost to render myself worthy of all this love and affection.16
The most important ceremonial ritual of the Queen was the opening of parliament. On her first State opening, the ‘bustle and excitement that prevailed in the neighbourhood was great’ as crowds lined the route from Buckingham Palace to the House of Lords all keen to catch a glimpse of the state carriage with the young Queen inside. The Queen, according to the Blackburn Standard, was cheered ‘during the whole of her progress to the House. From the tops of houses, from the windows and balconies in Pall-Mall, her Majesty was saluted as she passed along, with waving of handkerchiefs, flags and banners’.17 Dressed in a ‘splendid white robe’ with the riband of the Garter across her shoulder and sparkling with diamonds, Queen Victoria arrived at the
House of Lords. All the seats were filled. The Queen read the Speech ‘in an audible and most distinct manner’,18 a difficult feat with so many hundreds of peers, peeresses, MPs and visitors straining to hear. She was delighted when she heard that ‘people were pleased to say I read well . . . Good, kind Lord Melbourne was quite touched to tears.’19 The first real test for the young sovereign had been accomplished with sufficient pomp and splendour to keep her subjects contented.
Victoria and Albert
The young Queen knew it was her duty to marry and have children since the Crown would never be stable without a successor. The court, the country and parliament were all desperate for an heir because if Victoria died childless, her notoriously scandalous Uncle Ernest, the Duke of Cumberland, would succeed. Rumours even circulated that he had murdered his valet and fathered a son by his sister. Victoria insisted that her husband be someone she loved, rather than a diplomatic choice imposed on her by the needs of the country. At the time, it was inconceivable for the Queen to marry someone from the British nobility, as he would be a subject, not an equal. It would have to be a foreign prince: Albert seemed the best choice.
When she first became Queen, Victoria was in no rush to marry. King Leopold’s great wish was that she should wed Prince Albert but the Queen relished her new-found independence. When Victoria discussed the various eligible princes with Melbourne, she insisted that ‘not one, for one reason or another, would do . . . I dread the thought of marrying, being so accustomed to having my own way.’20 She was also having fun. Her Uncle Leopold suggested that Albert visit again – with obvious intentions –prompting Victoria to reply that her uncle must understand that there was no engagement between them. Most of German royalty wanted a match between Victoria and Albert; indeed, Albert was trained from childhood to be the husband of the heiress presumptive to the throne of England. It was not an arranged marriage in the conventional sense, yet it was a family match. Prince Albert was Victoria’s cousin and the family, especially the Duchess of Kent and King Leopold, all longed for it. Nevertheless, unlike most girls who had to wait to be asked for their hand in marriage, it was Prince Albert rather than Queen Victoria who had to do the waiting. The gender roles were reversed: in 1839, the Prince, worried about his marital prospects, told his Uncle Leopold that his life would be impossible if the Queen did not wish to marry him for he would be too old to begin a new career and all the other available princesses would have already married. But he had to wait. Victoria – royal prerogative demanded it – had to ask for Albert’s hand in marriage, something she later said made her more nervous than speaking at her Privy Council.
Before Albert visited England to meet the Queen, and perhaps expect a proposal, Victoria wrote to her Uncle Leopold asking him to ‘consult Stockmar with respect to the finishing of Albert’s education; he knows best my feelings and wishes on that subject’.21 Victoria arranged for the faithful Stockmar to accompany Albert to Italy, asking him to send his thoughts about the Prince’s personality, character and development. Stockmar, in effect, was vetting him for a future role as consort to the Queen of England.
When Victoria saw Albert, all her doubts about marriage evaporated. She fell in love. She confided to her journal that it was ‘with some emotion that I beheld Albert – who is beautiful’. She spoke to Melbourne about Albert’s ‘fine figure’, and that her ‘heart is quite going’.22 Melbourne was the first to be told that Victoria had made up her mind to marry Albert, whom she now adored. She asked Melbourne ‘if I hadn’t better tell Albert of my decision soon, in which Lord M agreed; how? I asked, for that on general such things were done the other way – which made Lord M and me laugh very much.’23 Eventually Victoria sent for Albert and after a few minutes Victoria said ‘it would make me too happy if he would consent to what I wished (to marry me); we embraced each other over and over again’.24
The arrangement was kept secret until the council was summoned to declare the Queen’s marriage. About 80 privy councillors were present when the ‘Queen came in, attired in a plain morning-gown, but wearing a bracelet containing Prince Albert’s picture. She read the declaration in a clear, sonorous, sweet-toned voice, but her hands trembled so excessively that I wonder she was able to read the paper which she held.’25 One courtier confided that he ‘cannot describe with what a mixture of self-possession and feminine delicacy she read the paper. Her voice, which is naturally beautiful, was clear and untroubled; and her eye was bright and calm, neither bold nor downcast, but firm and soft.’26 The Duchess of Gloucester asked the Queen whether she was nervous in making the declaration, to which the Queen replied, ‘Yes; but I did a much more nervous thing a little while ago . . . I proposed to Prince Albert.’27
Not all of the Queen’s subjects approved of Albert as a husband since they disliked the idea of the younger son of a dissolute and penniless German prince being provided with an income by the British people. One popular song spoke of how Albert ‘comes to take, for better or for worse, England’s fat Queen and England’s fatter purse’. The British parliament had a great many members for whom the bedchamber crisis and the Hastings affair still rankled. All of them remembered the misplaced generosity provided to Prince Leopold, and refused to give Albert a peerage, a rank in the army or a generous allowance. Melbourne, who had proposed an annuity of £50,000, had to accept parliament decreasing it to £30,000, a humiliation for the Queen and her prospective husband.
The Queen’s obstinacy, and perhaps Melbourne’s dominance over her, can be seen in the way Victoria treated Albert before marriage. She insisted that she choose Albert’s advisors, appointing his private secretary against his wishes and stipulating that his household consist of Whigs. Victoria even chose Albert’s doctor. Undoubtedly, she was selfish and stubborn over the choice of Albert’s advisors – Albert wrote to her pleading that he be allowed to choose his own gentlemen of the household for two main reasons. First, he expressed concern about the political persuasions of Victoria’s choice, as he believed that the Crown should be above party politics and therefore he needed to choose his staff from an equal measure of Whigs and Tories. Second, he pleaded:
I am leaving my home with all its associations, all my bosom friends, and going to a country in which everything is new and strange to me – men, language, customs, modes of life, position. Except yourself I have no one to confide in. And is it not even to be conceded to me that the two or three persons who are to have the charge of my private affairs should be persons who already command my confidence?28
Victoria obstinately and unsympathetically refused; Albert was forced to submit.
Marrying Albert
The morning of Monday 10 February 1840 had only just dawned when the flags were hoisted and the bells of all the main churches rang out over London. By 6am, despite heavy rain, the Mall and the space outside Buckingham Palace were full of people hoping to catch a glimpse of the royal wedding.29 Meanwhile, Queen Victoria was looking forward to being married, commenting in her journal that this was the ‘last time I slept alone’.30 She had, some thought, showed a lack of decorum by inviting Albert to stay at the Palace the night before the wedding. But Victoria had been brought up by Germans and had no time for English superstitions. She even met ‘precious Albert for the last time alone, as my Bridegroom’ on the morning of their wedding. Her ladies-in-waiting helped put on her wedding outfit, a gown of white satin with a deep train of Honiton lace, a diamond necklace and earrings and a sapphire brooch given to her by Albert; the Prince wore a field-marshal’s uniform with large rosettes of white satin on his shoulders.
On her wedding day, the 20-year-old Victoria wanted to be treated as a wife and bride not a queen. The wedding vows made in the Chapel Royal, St James’s Palace, had the same phrasing as the humblest of her subjects: Victoria promised to ‘love, honour and obey’. She could, but chose not to, omit the word ‘obey’: the Queen considered men were meant to rule, women to submit. Yet, apart from this phrasing, Victoria shared little else with other wom
en, for once they were married her female subjects lost their legal status. The law stipulated that husband and wife were one, and that the ‘one’ was the husband. Women were considered to be the property of their husband who also owned the home and everything within it, all their earnings, their belongings, clothes, stocks, shares and money. Husbands could dispose of this wealth as they thought fit. Moreover, wives could not sue, sign contracts, run a business or make a will without the permission of their husbands. Victoria, unlike the rest of women in nineteenth-century Britain, did not take the name of her husband, nor did she give him her property. She was queen and all other legal formalities were subservient to the constitutional prerogatives of that role.31
Victoria and Albert’s wedding was a demonstration of love and respectability. This was not always the case with royal weddings. In 1795, the Prince of Wales, later to be King George IV, was blind drunk at his wedding to Caroline and spent the first night of his honeymoon lying on the floor in an alcoholic stupor. Victoria and Albert’s wedding marked a new royal propriety. The ceremony was a spectacle that inaugurated an unsullied custom of royal ritual and symbolism as the young and morally upright Victoria and Albert processed to and from Buckingham Palace for all the thousands of crowds who came to glimpse the obviously happy bride and groom. It was, Eric Hobsbawm observes, the invention of tradition.32 In a rare outpouring of British emotion, the country celebrated: London theatres put on free plays, treats were given to children of every parish, and workhouse inhabitants received better meals than usual. In the evening, London was illuminated with crowns, stars or the initials V. A.; in Leicester Square, a very large and handsome crown was brightly lit up by gas. At the palace, the couple presided over their wedding breakfast that included a wedding cake nine feet wide and sixteen inches high. It was the wedding of the century with the British demonstrating a new taste for pageantry and the magic of a royal wedding. This event, as with the coronation, strengthened the idea of a ceremonial monarchy with its public parade of regal colours, its procession of crowns and coronets, its display of flags, its gun salutes, its national celebrations, rather than a monarchy with any real ruling power. A new age of a theatrical monarchy began with the Queen and Albert playing their parts: they were the stars in a royal performance. The two represented what David Cannadine calls the symbolic affirmation of national greatness.33
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