Queen Victoria

  At the outbreak of war, Victoria became entirely taken up with military affairs. She soon had an impressive command of the allied positions in the Crimea, signed the commission of every officer, wrote encouraging letters to her generals and personal letters of condolence to the widows of commanders, knitted woollen socks, mittens and scarves for the troops, made regular visits to military hospitals and continued to take a keen interest in the work of Florence Nightingale. The Queen was visibly moved each time she visited the wounded and her journals are full of comments about ‘the sight of such fine, powerful frames laid low and prostrate with wounds and sickness on beds of sufferings, or maimed in the prime of life, is indescribably touching to us women, who are born to suffer, and can bear pain more easily, so different to men, and soldiers’.78 On one occasion, Victoria saw 251 patients, of whom 127 had served in the Crimea:

  there were 15 cases of amputation amongst the wounded. I never saw such a number without legs or arms. . . . We saw 2 totally blind men. Another young man had had a bullet through his nose, entering his nostril and carrying away part of his palate and coming out the back. . . . there were some very severe cases which made one very sad to see.79

  It fitted Queen Victoria’s sense of deep gratitude that there should be a public recognition of the efforts of her army. In 1854 the Queen created her own campaign medal which she conferred on all those who had fought in the Crimea:

  At first I felt so agitated, I could hardly hold the medals as I handed it with its blue and yellow edged ribbon. . . . all touched my hand, the 1st time that a simple Private has touched the hand of his Sovereign, and that, a Queen! I am proud of it, – proud of this tie which links the lowly brave to his Sovereign. . . . I feel as if I could cry while writing these lines, the recollection of it all is so moving.80

  Eventually the war ended. In March 1856 the Allied Powers and Russia signed the Treaty of Paris, which imposed severe terms and restricted Russia’s naval power in the Black Sea. It had cost Britain £76 million and the lives of 22,700 men. Queen Victoria wrote that ‘I own the peace rather sticks in my throat, and so it does in that of the whole nation!’81 Even so, she realised that

  with the great sickness prevalent in the French Army and the unwillingness of the Emperor and his people to proceed any further with the war, it is better it should be so, for I am sure. . . We could not have hoped to gain any successes. This has reconciled me to the Peace, which, otherwise, I consider, came too suddenly and is not a very favourable one for us.82

  When the war ended, Queen Victoria welcomed back each and every one of her army regiments as well as the return of a fleet of 240 ships. When she greeted the first of the troops, she commented that she could not describe the emotion Albert and she felt

  as toil worn, very sunburnt men, advanced in splendid order. They all had long beards and were heavily laden with large knapsacks, their cloaks and blankets on top, canteens and full haversacks, and carrying their muskets – quite the picture of real fighting men, such fine tall, strong men, some strikingly handsome.83

  In the early summer of 1856, the Queen reviewed her troops in a series of military days at Aldershot. She was majestically dressed in a newly designed scarlet jacket with gold braid, brass buttons and a gold and crimson sash tunic and a hat with a white and red feather and golden tassels. She looked the very image of pomp and splendour. On 8 July, the Queen was, for the first time ever, confident to address her troops. She learned her speech by heart:

  I stood up, wonderful to say, no longer nervous as I had been before, dreading I might make mistakes, and said my speech loudly and distinctly, without one moment’s hesitation, or a single mistake. On beholding all those gallant, sun burnt, weather beaten heroes around, I felt courage all at once come over me.84

  On Friday 26 June 1857 the Queen distributed her first Victoria Crosses, instigated by her to honour acts of valour in the Crimean War. It was the highest military decoration, awarded to members of all ranks ‘for gallantry of the highest order’. It held a pension of £10 a year. The event was a royal spectacle as 4,000 troops and about 100,000 people witnessed the now quite plump 38-year-old Queen, dressed in her full army uniform of red scarlet tunic and black skirt, bend down from her horse and pin the cross on the breast of 47 men. She was ‘full of agitation for the coming great event’, but thought it a ‘beautiful sight and everything admirably arranged. . . it was indeed a most proud, gratifying day’.85 She personally donated £1,000 to set up a Patriotic Fund for the widows and orphans of soldiers who died during the war.

  This expensive and, it is generally held, futile war confirmed Palmerston as the saviour of the nation. By the end of the Crimean War, even Victoria considered Lord Palmerston to be the ‘one who gives the least trouble, and is most amenable to reason, and most ready to adopt suggestions. The great danger and great difficulty with him however, is foreign affairs.’86 Vindicated by events and emboldened by his successful prosecution of the war, Palmerston remained ‘the same and his Despatches are written precisely as they used to be’ but the Queen confessed that it did not bother her so much.87 Queen Victoria never held grudges. She bestowed the Order of the Garter on Palmerston, the most senior British Order of Chivalry for those who have held public office. It is a mark of royal favour; only 24 men could hold this honour at any one time.

  Relationships between Queen Victoria and Palmerston improved further – for a time – when trouble arose in China. The Chinese Emperor refused to allow foreign merchants into Canton, and seized a British ship. Palmerston wanted liberty and security for British trade and in true ‘gunboat diplomacy’ style he ordered the bombardment of Canton. His policy was defeated in the House of Commons, a general election took place and Palmerston was returned with an increased majority; Queen Victoria, who had just given birth to her last child, Beatrice, congratulated him.

  The Indian Mutiny 1857

  No sooner had Palmerston returned to office than the Queen and her government were faced with a mutiny in India. A large proportion of the army in India were native troops (Sepoys) because the British government disliked spending too much money on a large standing peacetime army staffed by British troops. Indeed, there were 151,000 men in the Bengal army compared to 23,000 British troops based in India. The Sepoys were subjected to a range of educational, army and civil service reforms brought in by the governor-generals, and resented it. Many other Indians agreed with the Sepoys, believed that the British had over-Westernised India and feared that they would ultimately suppress both Hindu and Muslim religions. In addition, the British seized the lands of a number of Indian rulers on the spurious pretext that they misgoverned their subjects.

  The spark for the mutiny occurred when a new rifle was introduced to the Indian army. Soldiers, who had to bite the ends off the cartridges before inserting them into the rifle, found that the cartridges were greased with animal fat: anti-British protesters told Hindus that the fat came from the cow, while Muslims were told that the fat came from the pig. This had a cruel significance when, in the early summer 1857, an Indian Mutiny – known more in India as a war of independence – began near Calcutta and spread rapidly when soldiers refused to load their rifles. Victoria heard ‘such sad accounts from India, – the mutiny amongst the native troops spreading, sad murders of Europeans at Meerut, and still worse, at Delhi’.88 The restoration of the Islamic Mogul Empire was proclaimed.

  Victoria was haunted by the ‘dreadful’ reports from India, of the ‘horrid’ murders of British women and children which had taken place at Cawnpore.89 In July 1857, 120 women and children were hacked to death, dismembered with meat cleavers and the remains thrown into a well by Indian forces who had captured them. Victoria read the ‘dreadful details in the papers of the horrors committed in India on poor ladies and children, who were murdered with revolting barbarity’.90 She thought the ‘details of horrors committed on women, ladies and children too appalling! If they had only been shot down, it would not be so ghastly, but everything that can
outrage feelings, – every torture that can be conceived, has been perpetrated!! I cannot bear to think of it! . . . One’s blood runs cold, and one’s heart bleeds.’91 She later reflected on the ‘horrors of shame and every outrage which women must most dread, as well as of exposure, surpass all belief, and it was a great mercy all were killed! It should never have been made known, now that no good can be done any more and it can only distract for life, the unhappy relations.’92 At Lucknow too, soldiers as well as civilians including women and children, were forced to retreat to the Governor’s residency where they were besieged for months, suffering from semi-starvation, lack of water and the incessant Indian heat as well as bombardment. On Wednesday 23 December 1857, Victoria received the ‘blessed news’ that Lucknow had been relieved and that the ‘Ladies, women, children and sick’ had left.

  This time, Queen Victoria had no relatives to placate, and nor did she have any personal agenda which would conflict with the needs of her country. She was anxious to squash the rebellion and claim India as her own. Palmerston was written to regularly and exhorted to use vigorous measures and re-inforcements to quell the mutiny. Victoria spoke ‘most strongly’ to Palmerston about ‘the necessity of recruiting the whole army, – of taking energetic measures at once, and not miserable half measures’.93 She was anxious to impress upon Palmerston ‘the necessity of taking a comprehensive view of our military position. . . instead of going on without a plan, living from hand to mouth and taking small isolated measures without reference to each other’.94 Palmerston, who was concerned about the damage to trade, agreed with his sovereign and sent out more troops to suppress the mutiny.

  Affairs in India improved for Victoria and her British Empire: Delhi was recaptured and Lucknow relieved. Reprisals were cruel as the British victors wreaked a pitiless revenge, firing mutineers from cannon, hacking them to pieces and hanging them in their hundreds. In Lahore, two mutineers were lashed across the muzzles of guns, the two guns fired simultaneously and ‘shreds of cloth, bone and bloody hunks of flesh were spewed onto the parade ground’ in front of the assembled sepoys.95 It was a gruesome deterrent: viciousness, it was believed, should be attacked with viciousness. Victoria, who preferred reconciliation to retribution, ‘spoke strongly’ to Palmerston about the ‘bad vindictive spirit, exhibited by many people here. . . and of the absolute necessity for showing our desire to be kind to the peaceable inhabitants’.96 In her view the death penalty should not be used indiscriminately on all those involved in the mutiny, for she felt there was a wide difference between those who committed murders and atrocities and those who had just run away. She told Lady Canning, wife of the Governor-General of India, that the greatest care should be taken not to interfere with Indian religions ‘as once a cry of that kind is raised among a fanatical people – very strictly attached to their religion – there is no knowing what it may lead to and where it may end’.97 The Queen asked that Indian princes and troops who had remained loyal be rewarded, advice which showed a wisdom and integrity that would do credit to experienced politicians.

  The long-term problem of the governance of India remained. Palmerston announced his decision that the ‘Government of India by the East India Company must be terminated.’98 The Judge Advocate, the legal advisor of the armed forces, told the Queen that the British people felt that India should belong to the Queen and not to the East India Company. Moreover, he believed that Indians would feel differently ‘to what they do now, wounded and hurt, by the vulgarity and lack of breeding and proper feeling which has been so conspicuous in the E. I. Co.’.99 In 1858 the government passed a Government of India Act which abolished the East India Company and put India firmly under the control of the British government. The pace of educational and civil reforms slowed down. At the same time more British troops were sent out.

  Continental politics

  On the evening of 14 January 1858, an assassin tried to kill Louis Napoleon, the French emperor, and his wife on their way to the Paris opera. An Italian revolutionary, Felice Orsini, was charged with the crime. The British were implicated: Orsini had taken political refuge in England and had allegedly bought his bombs in Birmingham. The French foreign minister, Walewski, complained to Palmerston about the British tradition of offering sanctuary to potential political assassins. Palmerston ignored the letter. The Queen, however, agreed with Walewski. In her opinion, if similar assassins were ‘tolerated in France and came over to attempt to do something against us here, the whole British nation would demand instant reparation’.100 In the end, Palmerston introduced a Conspiracy to Murder Bill aimed to combat terrorism. However, this was defeated when news reached the House of Commons about Walewski’s letter: parliament was outraged at what it saw as interference in Britain’s domestic policies and disapproved of Palmerston’s undue compliance. Queen Victoria, ‘much vexed and thunderstruck’ by these events accepted Palmerston’s resignation.

  The Queen’s next government under the leadership of Lord Derby was weak and limped on for 15 months before it conceded defeat. ‘So’, wrote the Queen ‘we are in for a crisis!’101 In June 1859, after a failed attempt to appoint Lord Granville as prime minister, Victoria invited Palmerston once again to lead the House of Commons even though she feared ‘the bad effect Ld Palmerston’s name would have in Europe’.102 Predictably, Palmerston’s next premiership opened amid European conflict and the rapport between Queen Victoria and Lord Palmerston which had built up during the Crimean War soon disintegrated. Once more, the two disagreed over Italy. As usual, the Queen tended to protect her family’s interests whereas Palmerston’s sole purpose was to protect Britain’s. In 1859 friction between Piedmont, a region in north-west Italy and Austria flared up into a second Italian war of independence. The Queen, who had a number of relatives in the Austrian court and army, disagreed with her government’s policy over Italy: she thought Palmerston’s commitment to a free and independent Italy a ‘dangerous doctrine’ and resisted any dilution of Austrian control. Victoria feared Palmerston’s sympathy towards Italian unity and his visceral dislike of Austria. At one time the Queen stubbornly refused to sign letters supporting Italian independence, even threatening to abdicate and emigrate to Australia. In the Queen’s opinion, Palmerston had put forward an ‘unfortunate policy and still more, imprudent private language, showing their wish to persecute Austria and trying to deprive her of all influence in the Italian Confederation. . . . Lamentable!’103 She ‘felt quite in despair and overwhelmed at the dangers we are being dragged into, step by step. . . . It seems dreadful!’104

  France, which hoped to gain land from the conflict between Austria and the Italian rebels, went to war against Austria, defeated them and liberated most of northern Italy. In July 1859 Austria and France signed a secret treaty – the Treaty of Villafranca – which ceded parts of Italy to France and restored some of the deposed rulers. In October 1859 the British approved the annexation of central Italian states by Piedmont and pressurised Austria to accept. Queen Victoria was ‘greatly alarmed, and thought it a very immoral act’ and worried that war might come as a result: ‘I said, I could never be a party to this.’ She ‘lamented bitterly over the utter folly and recklessness of Ld Palmerston and Ld Russell and the inconceivable attitude they had taken up with regard to Italy. All might have been settled. . . had they only not encouraged the revolutionary party.’105 Queen Victoria thought that her government, by which she meant Palmerston, ‘are really a misfortune’.106 In her opinion, Palmerston would only see the Italian question ‘in one light’,107 leading to wrong and misguided policy. Britain, the Queen insisted, had forfeited and undermined her position in Europe by the injudiciousness and folly of Palmerston who had encouraged the Italians in their ambitions, instead of advising them to be moderate and reasonable. Queen Victoria had approved of German unity but always perceived Italian unification as a threat.

  This latest disagreement between Queen Victoria and Lord Palmerston was typical of the conflicts between the two. Palmerston clashed with
the Queen not only over his progressive liberalism and encouragement of struggles against absolute monarchy but also over his playing of a continuous diplomatic game of ‘checks and balances’ – in particular when he tried to contain the ambitions of Russia against a weakening Ottoman Empire. In many ways, the 1850s can be regarded as a battle between Queen Victoria and Palmerston over the direction of British foreign policy. The Queen won a few of the skirmishes and even managed to get rid of Palmerston at one point. In the end, parliament triumphed and the Queen was forced to bow to the will of the people, particularly over the Crimean War. When war was seen to be inevitable, Queen Victoria, who saw herself as a soldier’s daughter, took on her role as head of the armed forces with dogged and unwavering resolution. Consequently, the war brought unexpected unity between Queen Victoria and Lord Palmerston. Palmerston’s focus on the living and working conditions of her army, his transformation of the army medical services and supply chain and his determination to ensure sufficient munition supplies meant that the Queen eventually warmed to her prime minister. For perhaps the first time, the two protagonists saw themselves as fighting the same battle, on the same side. Unfortunately, the truce between Victoria and Palmerston did not last as animosities re-emerged over European policy.

  Notes

  1 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) April 29th 1851.

  2 Ibid. May 1st 1851.