Queen Victoria

by Bartley, Paula;

  Queen Victoria was overjoyed when the Chartists and their supporters were suppressed. In the dangerous revolutionary world that surrounded her country, the language of democracy was best avoided. Rather than address the cause of the discontent, Victoria approved of straightforward repression, taking delight when the ringleaders of the mob were arrested and the protest was ruthlessly crushed.15 Victoria was equally pleased when ‘the mobs’ were

  over awed by the vigour with which the troops acted at Preston and Blackburn, and Bolton, where several prisoners have been taken, and the troops, in self-defence, were compelled to fire, several persons being killed and wounded, among the rioters. . . . Near Newcastle under Lyme, a tumultuous mob, was yesterday charged by a Troop of Dragoons. Some lives were lost and the ringleaders were taken prisoners.16

  On Thursday 18 August 1842, the Queen was reassured that the rioting was subsiding, a result of strict repression by government forces. Several Chartist leaders were arrested, along with 1,500 followers: about 250 of whom were given prison sentences ranging from 16 months to 21 years; 50 were sentenced to transportation to Australia. The government, keen to know what the Chartists and other rebellious figures might be planning, opened their private correspondence. The Secretary of State, Queen Victoria believed:

  must have the right to open letters in dangerous times. The fact is, in 1842, at the time of the Chartist riots, some great and alarming assemblages of thousands of people, took place in London and Fergus O’Connor and Mr Duncome were implicated with various of these Meetings, and it is upon this that Sir J Graham kept Mr Duncome’s letters for 4 days and had them opened.17

  In the summer of 1843 the Rebecca riots, a series of protests by agricultural workers against unfair taxation, resurfaced in Wales. On the night of 26 May 1843, a mob of 300 attacked the toll gate of Camarthen and Newcastle Emlyn: soon not a single tollgate remained standing and landlords were sent threatening letters demanding they lower rents. Once more, Victoria had no sympathy for rioters and wrote a letter to the Home Secretary ‘urging him strongly to take measures to bring to speedy trial, those abominable people who have led on the Rebecca Riots. . . It is of the utmost importance that the Govt should take severe action.’18 The government sent in troops.

  A few men blamed Queen Victoria personally for their distress and tried to assassinate her. In 1840, just three years after Victoria ascended to the throne, an 18-year-old man fired two pistols at the pregnant Queen while she drove up Constitution Hill in an open carriage. The miscreant was caught, tried and transported to Australia. In 1842, there were two more attempts: one by a 19-year-old unemployed youth, the other by a 4ft tall disabled 17 year old. The courts were less lenient to the former. The Chief Justice pronounced that ‘you be drawn on a hurdle to a place of execution, and there be hanged by the neck until you are dead, and that afterwards your head be severed from your body, and your body divided into four quarters’.19 Fortunately for the would-be assassin, the Queen intervened, sent a royal reprieve and his sentence was commuted to transportation for life. The second youth’s attempt was not taken as seriously, so the offender was given 18 months imprisonment. The Queen remained safe for seven years, until an Irish navvy took a pot-shot at her from an unloaded pistol borrowed from his landlady. He received seven years transportation. These first four would-be assassins had several things in common: they were poor, uneducated and powerless individuals. There were altogether eight assassination attempts on her by, respectively, a public house waiter, an unemployed carpenter, a 4ft tall news vendor, a navvy, an army officer, a clerk, an artist and an Irish nationalist.20

  The Irish question

  Ireland dominated British politics throughout the reign of Queen Victoria. In 1801 the Act of Union had united the Kingdom of Ireland and the Kingdom of Britain to become the United Kingdom. Ireland had the right to elect 105 MPs to the House of Commons and select 28 peers to sit in the House of Lords. However, executive power lay in the hands of two British appointed men: the Lord Lieutenant and the Chief Secretary. More importantly, the Irish had little economic power: most land in Ireland was owned by absentee English or Anglo-Irish landlords who paid their workers such low wages that they were the most destitute in Europe.

  Predictably, an Independence Movement emerged to free Ireland from English domination and oppression. It was led by Daniel O’Connell who held a series of ‘Monster Meetings’ across Ireland. Naturally, the Queen disliked any threat to the cohesion of her United Kingdom and was contemptuous of the meetings. She

  read to Albert an account of another immense Repeal Meeting of 60,000 people at which O’Connell presided, wearing a wreath of laurels on his head! Hitherto perfect order has prevailed, but the language used by O’Connell and some of the Roman Catholic Priests is most atrocious, – urging the people to get free, – telling them they were in chains and using altogether most inflammable language. . . . The state of things is very alarming.21

  The British government reacted by banning further meetings, prosecuting O’Connell and imprisoning him. Eventually, after a huge protest, the House of Lords reduced O’Connell’s sentence to three months, a change that the Queen thought was ‘too bad!’ Nevertheless, Victoria understood the importance of placating the Irish, commenting that ‘this way of governing Ireland by Troops, – that is, to keep it quiet by a large force, – is dreadful and cannot last’.22

  Queen Victoria blamed the Roman Catholic Church for the unrest in Ireland. In her view, the influence of the Catholic Church was near total and often far from benign. Victoria thought the clergy ‘were of the worst class – and badly educated’, and had an undue authority over their parishioners. Victoria and Albert hoped that an injection of funds and the appointment of better qualified teachers to the Catholic seminary at Maynooth – the main trainer of Catholic priests – might lead in turn to a better educated, and therefore less politically motivated, clergy. The British government, with the Queen’s approval, duly increased its funding to the seminary. Regrettably, this led to fierce criticism in England by those who thought it unnecessary and dangerous for a Protestant England to finance an Irish Catholic seminary. The Queen was unsettled by

  the terrible bigotry and uncharitableness, displayed by the Protestant element, which is very much against their honour. I blush for the form of religion we profess, that it should be so devoid of all right feeling, and so wanting in Charity. Are we to drive these 700,000 Roman Catholics, who are badly educated, to desperation and violence. The measures proposed, are to render these people less dangerous, give them a good education and satisfy them! . . . the loss of the Bill would be fatal in Ireland. . . then Ireland can only be governed by the sword, and what an alternative that would be!23

  The Queen’s words turned out to be prophetic.

  In the summer of 1845 Ireland experienced further calamity when it was hit by a potato blight which turned potatoes into a slimy, decaying black mush. By 1846 the blight had spread across Ireland affecting three-quarters of the harvest; in 1848 it returned in full force. Most of the Irish workforce depended on the potato – it was their main source of food – so the situation soon became critical. The British government did little. Victoria at first seemed unsympathetic, noting in her journal that ‘it seems that the former accounts were really exaggerated. At all events it is hoped that it may be found possible to make use of the diseased potatoes by grinding them into meal.’24 Soon, as reports of skeletal children, ‘their features sharpened with hunger and their limbs wasted’ reached England, Victoria began to realise the seriousness of the situation. ‘We saw Sir Robert Peel. . . and talked of the accounts from Ireland, about the potatoes, which are still bad, and he much fears that by the spring the want will be very great.’25 During the four years of the potato famine, approximately one million people died from hunger and the associated illnesses of cholera, dysentery, scurvy and typhus, and about two million emigrated. Thousands, who were too impoverished to pay their rent, were evicted from their land by absentee la
ndlords.

  The opposition leader, Lord Russell, demanded the repeal of the Corn Laws so that the starving and malnourished Irish people could buy cheaper bread. These Laws, which imposed strict import duties on foreign corn, kept the price of corn high, thus making the price of bread unaffordable for working-class families. At first, Queen Victoria opposed the Repeal. Eventually, encouraged by Prince Albert and Robert Peel, Victoria changed her mind and began to support the Repeal of the Corn Laws and the principle of Free Trade. But the British government remained split over the question. Victoria noted that Peel ‘hopes and thinks he will be able to remove the contest entirely from off the dangerous ground upon which it now rests viz; that of a war between the manufacturers, the hungry and the poor on one side, and the Landed Proprietors and Aristocracy, on the other, which can only end in the ruin of the latter’.26 The government, she now believed, needed to abolish the existing Corn Laws before another national calamity forced it upon the country. In 1846 Peel succeeded in repealing the Corn Laws, at the cost of tearing the Conservative Party apart.

  Meanwhile, the damage to the Queen’s reputation in Ireland was considerable. Critics in Ireland blamed the callousness of the British government, and by association the Queen, for the distress in Ireland. Victoria was later called the ‘Famine Queen’. It is safe to say that Queen Victoria did not look kindly on Ireland. She disapproved of its Catholic religion and its Irish Catholic clergy; she disapproved of Irish nationalism and its veiled threat to separate from the United Kingdom; and she disliked its links to radical movements such as Chartism.27 Indeed, the Queen blamed individual Irish Chartist leaders such as Fergus O’Connor and James O’Brien for encouraging dissent and Irish radicals more generally for the popular unrest that brought Britain to the verge of revolution. In the course of a 64-year reign, the Queen only made four visits to Ireland; in contrast, she visited Scotland every year, often for long periods of time. Undoubtedly, the Irish population noted Victoria’s Celtic partiality not just in terms of the time she spent in Scotland. She had built a castle at Balmoral, she attended the Highland Games and she created a tartan for herself and Albert.28 Indeed, Hector Bolitho suggests that if Queen Victoria had perhaps paid as much attention to Ireland as she did to Scotland, the Irish independence movement may have quietly died.29

  Queen Victoria and foreign policy: 1841–1846

  Queen Victoria was more attentive to foreign than domestic policy. She was aware of her own and Britain’s status in Europe and the world and sought to maintain, and even increase, it. Moreover, European politics often involved her own family in such a way that Victoria’s sympathies and partialities were often tied up with the needs and wishes of her relations.

  Victoria’s family connections were labyrinthine: she was related to the royalty of France, Portugal, Belgium, Austria-Hungary, Mexico, Spain, Russia and Germany.30 In the early nineteenth century, German territory was composed of about 39 different kingdoms, duchies, principalities, cities – and Prussia. Most of these places were governed by men who were related to Victoria in some way and they too made links across national boundaries. Her German uncles on her mother’s side (all from tiny insignificant German territories) married into well-established powerful European royalty. Her Uncle Leopold married George III’s only child, Princess Charlotte, and after her death the eldest daughter of the French king, Louise Philippe; Uncle Ferdinand married the daughter of the Chancellor of Hungary; two other uncles – Alexander and Ernest – married into German nobility. Her British aunts and uncles mostly married into the German aristocracy thus cementing the already strong bonds between the countries.31

  The upshot of all this inter-marriage was that the royal houses of Europe, and the countries and territories over which they reigned, were bound up in a complex familial network. This, in future, would either help keep world peace or set the scene for destructive internecine conflict. As in most families, tensions often came to the surface. More importantly, Victoria’s desire to protect her extended family members sometimes led to conflict with her ministers.

  Peel appointed a good friend, Lord Aberdeen, as foreign secretary. Aberdeen adopted a more ameliorative foreign policy than that of his predecessor, Palmerston, preferring traditional diplomacy to strategic sabre-rattling. The shy and reticent Aberdeen enjoyed the trust of the Queen, largely because he listened to her and would change the wording of despatches at her request. Queen Victoria always prized ministers who did what she asked. One of Aberdeen’s major achievements was to use diplomacy to resolve conflicts between Britain and the rest of the world. In the 1840s, for example, the relationship between the United Kingdom and the United States was if not hostile, then certainly awkward, particularly over the question of territorial rights. Under Aberdeen’s aegis, two important territorial disagreements with the United States were resolved: the 1842 Webster–Ashburton Treaty settled the boundaries between America and the British Canada; and in 1846 the Oregon Treaty settled the US border at the 49th parallel. Victoria, who often saw events in black and white terms, praised the ‘admirable manner’ in which Lord Aberdeen had conducted the Oregon difficulties while criticising the ‘infamous behaviour of the Americans’,32 and the ‘late menacing inaugural speech of the President’33 which spoke of further American expansion. Indeed, the Queen agreed with Peel ‘that the United States and their wretched Gvt, in their spirit of aggrandisement, made such a parade of liberty, while retaining all their slaves’.34

  The Queen was equally delighted when Aberdeen improved Anglo-French relations, and in so doing helped coin the term entente cordiale to describe the new relationship. Between 1841 and 1846, Aberdeen and the French prime minister, Guizot, worked hard to revive Anglo-French friendship but it was sometimes a struggle not helped by disputes about the African slave trade, about who controlled Tahiti, and about Greece and Spain. There was, for instance, a distinct wobble in the entente cordiale when Britain and France both claimed the right to colonise the island of Tahiti. The Queen worried about ‘the awful responsibility that would be incurred by going to war, over such a matter, and bringing on all the miseries it would entail, . . . the idea of my country being at war with that of my dearest relations and friends, would be a terrible grief to me’.35 Behind the scenes, Aberdeen and Guizot worked hard for a settlement and war was averted.

  The situation in India was more challenging. At the time, the East India Company, a private trading company which acted as a managing agent for the British government, governed large parts of India. The Whigs were on good terms with the bankers and the entrepreneurs of the East India Company, and approved of its policies. In contrast, the Tories and the Queen thought that the East India Company was so poorly managed that it would ‘end in the Crown having the management of the whole’.36 One of Peel’s first tasks was to select a new governor general to India. He consulted with the Queen who had a penchant for the ultra-Tory Lord Ellenborough. It was a disastrous appointment. Ellenborough was arrogant, opinionated and, more unfortunately, inept. However, Queen Victoria liked him because he communicated directly with her, passing on confidential information that should have been restricted to the Cabinet and the East India Company.37 In turn, Ellenborough used the Queen as his weapon to fight Whig policy.

  When Ellenborough first arrived in India, he had to deal with problems in neighbouring Afghanistan. In December 1841, William Macnaghten, a British civil servant, was murdered by an allegedly friendly ruler (Akbar Khan), decapitated, had his head stuffed with portions of his mutilated body, and was paraded through the capital. The Queen heard directly from Ellenborough

  of the dreadful news – poor William Macnaghten having been killed and all our troops at Cabul having been annihilated. . . he said it was a terrible country to defend, particularly in winter. . . . Akbar Khan had professed to be a friend (but had killed Mcnaghten) in order to prove to his own people, who had accused him of being bought by the English, – that he was not a friend.38

  Victoria read the ‘letter fro
m the assassin himself. . . . He seemed to think it right to do this, as a follower of the Prophet!’39 Shortly after the murder of Macnaghten, six thousand British troops were massacred and a large number of women and children taken hostage: ‘The unfortunate ladies are in Akbar Khan’s hands; the poor troops who were promised safety, after capitulating, were attacked, whilst retiring and nearly annihilated.’40 The panicstricken, and largely incompetent, Lord Ellenborough dithered over what to do. In the end, the army generals took an executive decision, rescued the women and children and retreated from Afghanistan. Ellenborough unjustifiably claimed the credit, and the Queen believed him. She realised that the retreat from Cabul must have been ‘one of the most fearful things imaginable’41 but expressed her delight that ‘ all the prisoners, including all the Ladies, liberated. . . splendid news, for which we must be deeply thankful’.42

  Just after this, Ellenborough peremptorily and without permission became involved in another imperialist fiasco by annexing Sind, today a province of Pakistan. This upset the delicate relationship between the East India Company, the Sind rulers and the British government, and Ellenborough was recalled to Britain. The Queen objected, notified Peel of how much she disapproved of the decision to recall Ellenborough and complained of how ungrateful the East India Company appeared to be for ‘Ld Ellenborough’s meritorious services’.43 Even though the Queen admitted that Ellenborough was sometimes ‘intemperate’ and ‘provoking’, she blamed the East India Company for being ‘actuated by mean, unpatriotic pique’.44 In fact, the Queen approved of Ellenborough, sharing his dream of imperial expansion. Perhaps more significantly, Ellenborough made her feel important. All too often, the Queen was reminded of the limitations of her royal prerogative whereas Ellenborough made her feel powerful by accentuating the Queen’s role as commander-in-chief of the armed forces.