Queen Victoria

  that these many sad and striking events had convinced me more and more of the utter nothingness of this world, of the terrible uncertainty of all earthly happiness and of the utter vanity of all earthly greatness . . . . sorrow levelled all distinctions. I would as soon clasp the poorest widow in the land to my heart, if she had truly loved her husband and felt for me, as I would a Queen.47

  The letter was warmly received by the American government and was felt to help improve relationships between the two countries.

  Lord Russell: 1865–1866

  On 18 October 1865, two days before his eighty-first birthday, Lord Palmerston died. Victoria commented that it was ‘strange and solemn to think of that strong, determined man, with so much worldly ambition, – gone! He had often worried and distressed us.’48 She wrote to her Uncle Leopold that she ‘never liked him, or could ever the least respect him’.49 Palmerston’s death forced the Queen to return to London to appoint a new prime minister: Lord Russell. Against expectation, on Tuesday 6 February 1866 the Queen opened parliament for the first time since she became a widow. She dreaded it, saying ‘it was a fearful moment for me . . . I had great difficulty repressing my tears. . . . When I entered the House, which was very full, I felt as if I should faint! All was silent and all eyes fixed on me, and there I sat alone.’50 Cynics remarked that the Queen needed annuities for two of her children: Prince Alfred, her fourth child, was soon to come of age and Princess Helena, her fifth, needed a dowry to marry her penniless German prince. Victoria disappointed those who came to watch a royal spectacle. She made it difficult for everyone concerned, changed the date of the ceremony to suit her travel plans, refused to travel to parliament in the state coach and dressed in a black dress and black cap rather than the expected ermine robes and a jewelled crown. As soon as the Queen had opened parliament she escaped to Osborne.

  Before the event, Queen Victoria instructed her private secretary to write to Russell cautioning him that it was ‘difficult perhaps to estimate the sacrifice that the Queen has made in consenting to open Parliament in person; it was always a ceremony which, even in her happier days, she dreaded more than anything else, and now it will be a very severe trial to her, and she will probably suffer from it two or three days before and after.’51 Victoria complained directly to Russell that she could only compare opening parliament to that of an execution and thought that the wish for her to open it was

  so unreasonable and unfeeling a nature, as to long to witness the spectacle of a poor, broken-hearted widow, nervous and shrinking, dragged in deep mourning, ALONE in STATE as a Show . . . to be gazed at, without delicacy of feeling, is a thing she cannot understand. . . . she owns she hardly knows how she will go through it . . . and she will suffer much for some time after.52

  Once more, the Queen’s perception of this aspect of her role – if her emotional outburst was genuinely felt – was hopelessly myopic.

  Yet, Queen Victoria was physically fit and emotionally collected enough to take part in other public events. In 1866 the Queen held courts at Buckingham Palace, visited the Highland Gathering, opened waterworks at Aberdeen, visited a number of hospitals and prisons and unveiled a statue of Albert in Wolverhampton. She was also strong enough to resume her military reviews. At one such review, the march of soldiers past the Queen occupied more than three hours, during which the rain descended in torrents. The Queen was in an open carriage, ‘but, true soldier’s daughter as she was, she paid no heed to the weather . . . She did not leave the Park until the last man had passed. By this time the carriage was full of water, and pools of it . . . dropped from the dresses of herself and her ladies.’53 And here lay another contradiction. On the one hand, the Queen asked to be left alone with her widow’s grief when it meant taking part in events she disliked. On the other, the Queen willingly took part in military reviews and clearly enjoyed her philanthropic visits to hospitals and prisons. Nonetheless Victoria could not abrogate her responsibilities as Queen. It was essential to show the British people, not just her army and a favoured few, that she was their sovereign. But the Queen remained stubborn and obstreperous. Sometimes she would behave autocratically in a manner more suited to a despot; at other times she would assume conventional nineteenth-century notions of femininity and plead physical frailty.

  Austro-Prussian war: March–May 1866

  Meanwhile, Victoria continued to deal with the emotionally charged politics of Prussia and continued to try to placate her increasingly fractious family. Prussia declared its intention to annex all the German states, including Hanover and Hesse-Darmstadt to create a united Germany. Austria, who feared a Prussian-dominated Germany, challenged this. Most of the states, Hanover and Hesse-Darmstadt among them, were equally concerned about a Prussian take-over and sided with Austria. Victoria, however, felt passionately that a ‘strong, united, liberal Germany would be a most useful ally to England’54 and as ever she expressed her opinions vociferously.55

  By March 1866 news reached Britain that Prussia was about to provoke a war with Austria. Victoria endeavoured ‘with tears, prayers and pen to avert a conflict in which her children would be fighting on different sides’.56 Her daughter Vicky was married to the Prussian heir, while her daughter Alice was married to a prince of Hesse-Darmstadt. In April 1866 she wrote to Vicky’s father-in-law, the Prussian King, pleading for him to avert

  the Calamities of a war, the results of which are too fearful to be ever thought of and in which thousands of innocent lives will be lost, and brother will be arrayed against brother. . . . do pause before you permit so fearful a wrong to be committed as the commencement of a war, the responsibility of which will rest on you alone.57

  The plea, hidden in a private letter, was despatched by a servant to be delivered personally to the Prussian King. As ever, the Queen’s views were influenced by dynastic interests and ‘her methods of diplomacy also were first and foremost dynastic’.58 Queen Victoria had not consulted her ministers. After despatching her letter, the Queen sent a copy to her prime minister who fortunately approved of his sovereign’s initiative. As a result, a potential constitutional quarrel over diplomatic niceties was averted.

  The Queen’s intervention in Prussia was not limited to family letters. Victoria took an active interest in the official policy of her government and freely expressed her opinions.59 These views were not shared by her government. When the Queen wanted Britain to intervene in the German question, Lord Clarendon, the foreign secretary, declined to do so, privately declaring that ‘the idea of our spending one shilling or one drop of blood in the banditti quarrel which is now going on in Germany is simply absurd’.60 On one occasion, when Clarendon had irritated ‘the Queen a good deal by the contemptuous tone in which he spoke of Germany; she gave it him pretty sharply, telling him he forgot the stock she came of, and he should not speak that way to her’.61 On other occasions, the Queen would refuse to sanction policy she considered objectionable, protests which could have caused a constitutional crisis had it not been for Clarendon’s tact and diplomacy and the Queen’s willingness – in the end, and after much blustering – to defer to her ministers.

  Queen Victoria’s entreaties to her Prussian family failed and, provoked by Bismarck, Austria declared war against Prussia and the German states in June 1866. The war, which lasted for seven weeks, resulted in an overwhelming victory for Prussia and marked another step towards German unity as Prussia promptly annexed the German states which had sided with Austria. The North German Confederation came into being, representing the beginning of German unification. Lord Stanley, a leading Conservative, expressed the view that the Queen was ‘indifferent to business, except where pressed on by relations’. He claimed that she ‘interferes little, and only where Germany is concerned, or Belgium’.62

  Domestic events came to a head when a national political crisis threatened to derail the monarchy. On 13 June 1866 Russell tried to extend the franchise to the respectable skilled male working class, a Bill which was defeated by 11 votes. T
he government had no choice but to resign. The Queen, alarmed at the prospect of a parliamentary election and reluctant to leave Balmoral, insisted that it was ‘the bounden duty’ of Russell and her government ‘to set aside all personal considerations, and to continue at their posts. . . . the Queen could not accept their resignations’.63 Letters between the Queen and Russell were exchanged: the Queen reiterating her desire for the government to continue; Russell reiterating its resignation. The Queen was constitutionally obliged to return to London to accept Russell’s seals of office but, in what Rappaport calls ‘old-style absolutism’, refused until she was ready to do so. Again, in any other occupation, the Queen would have been sacked for not doing her job. Eventually, the Queen conceded and returned to London to accept her government’s resignation. She called for the Conservative leader, Lord Derby, to form a government.

  A Tory interlude: 1866–1868

  In June 1866 Lord Derby became prime minister of a minority Conservative government. He appointed Benjamin Disraeli to be both chancellor of the exchequer and leader of the House of Commons. In the short period it enjoyed power, the government took a ‘leap in the dark’ towards greater democracy when it passed the Second Reform Act.64 There was a popular appetite for an expansion of the electorate: meetings attracting enormous numbers of people had been held in London, Birmingham, Dublin, Glasgow, Leeds and Manchester. Disraeli brought in a new measure to give the vote to a wider body of men, a measure that was even more radical than the previous Liberal government’s. Disraeli was given the unenviable task of constructing the Bill and of steering it through a fractious House of Commons. He had the support of Gladstone and the Liberals but drew criticism from his own party, many of whom disliked any extension of the franchise.

  By this time, Queen Victoria had come round to supporting an extension of the franchise and urged ‘an early settlement of the question’. She had been persuaded that the new voters would be reliable and loyal. Moreover she feared political unrest, anxious lest the government fell and ‘their supporters, would become very angry and dissatisfied, so that much mischief might be done’.65 Indeed, at the time there was significant public discontent and Republicanism reached new heights of popularity. The Queen was hissed and booed in public, with the press increasingly hostile towards the monarchy. The Conservative Lord Salisbury claimed that ‘the monarchy was practically dead’. Fortunately, Queen Victoria showed greater political acumen than usual. When Derby asked the Queen to open parliament in person that year because of the ‘present state of political affairs’, she agreed to do so. And so for the second year in succession, Victoria opened parliament but she insisted that she did so ‘under the peculiar circumstances of the time, the Queen must have it clearly understood that she is not to be expected to do it as a matter of course, year after year’.66 Normally, the Queen remained stubbornly impervious to requests that she take a more visible role in public life and continued in her self-obsessed way to behave as she pleased.

  Parliamentary reform featured in the Queen’s speech to parliament. Privately, Queen Victoria was willing to facilitate the reform, offering to Derby that she would smooth the way for an ‘amicable understanding’ with the Liberal Party. Derby thanked the Queen, saying how grateful he would be for ‘any influence which your Majesty may be pleased to exercise’.67 In this instance, irresolvable differences emerged within the Tory Cabinet rather than between the parties. In February 1867 Disraeli informed the Queen about the difficulties, and that General Peel, a senior Tory minister and brother of the late Robert Peel, had threatened to resign over the Bill. The Queen ‘asked if I could do nothing to shake this and Mr Disraeli said yes . . . if I wrote to Gen Peel simply calling on him not to desert the Govt at such a moment of vital importance for the country, – he might yield’.68 Victoria duly wrote to General Peel, and a few days later received a letter ‘very handsomely consenting to stay, in consequence of what I wrote’.69 However, Peel did not keep his word, changed his mind and resigned anyway. He was joined by other senior figures. The situation was tense: Disraeli asked the Queen to ‘interfere’ once more but this time she declined to write to the dissidents. Fortunately for the Queen and the government, the Liberal Opposition gave its support. After considerable re-drafting and amending, Victoria ‘was much relieved at hearing that the 2nd reading of the Reform Bill last night, had passed without a division, Mr Disraeli’s speech having been much cheered. This is a great thing.’70 The Queen wrote to Disraeli thanking him for his efforts.

  Electoral reform impacted on the inter-relationships between the Crown, the House of Lords and the House of Commons. First, the 1867 Act enhanced the supremacy of the House of Commons. It brought in voters from previously unfranchised income brackets, thus increasing the electorate by well over a million voters – about one in three adult men could now vote. In one city alone – Birmingham – the electorate rose from 8,000 to 43,000. The House of Commons now represented a larger slice of the British population. Second, the House of Lords remained an unelected assembly, packed with supporters of the Conservative Party. In future, this upper chamber would find it awkward to challenge a Liberal-dominated government elected by a large section of the population. Finally, the 1867 Act meant that the Queen was even more obliged to recognise the ever-growing ascendancy of parliament and with it the diminution of her monarchical authority. Even so, only a small proportion of the British people could vote – Britain was still far from being fully democratic – allowing the Queen to claim that she embodied the nation, not just the small section of the voting population.

  The Queen was consistently unsympathetic to rebels within her own country, even when the discontent was fuelled by genuine suffering. In 1867, three members of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, William Allen, Michael Larkin and Michael O’Brien, attacked a police van carrying two leaders of the Brotherhood, released the prisoners and killed a policeman. Victoria talked with Disraeli about ‘the Fenian prisoners and the necessity . . . of an example being made and of no irresolution being shown, for the safety of others, and the country at large’.71 The Queen was gratified when she heard that the Cabinet had ‘unanimously decided that the 3 Fenians, Allen, Larkin and Gould should be executed, while those, who were all probably as culpable as the rest, but had not actually been present when Brett the Policeman was killed, were to have the death sentences commuted to penal service for life’.72 On the day of the execution, Victoria prayed for the ‘poor men’.

  Benjamin Disraeli: February–November 1868

  In February 1868, Benjamin Disraeli replaced the 75-year-old Lord Derby as prime minister. The Queen approved even though she had taken a long time to warm to Disraeli. In 1844 she had referred to ‘obnoxious Mr Disraeli’,73 accusing him of being ‘very troublesome’ and with a ‘bad character’.74 Two years later, in 1846, her opinion was the same, calling him ‘that detestable Mr Disraeli’ and considering him pushy and unprincipled. By 1849 she was changing her mind, saying that he had ‘made a most brilliant speech’.75 In April 1852 Disraeli was invited to Buckingham Palace. The Queen found him ‘thoroughly Jewish looking, a livid complexion, dark eyes and eyebrows and black ringlets. The expression is disagreeable, but I do not find him so to talk to. He has a very bland manner and his language is very flowery.’76

  For his own part, Disraeli never forgot that the Queen was a woman as well a monarch and behaved towards her in the manner of an enamoured suitor rather than a premier advising his sovereign. Queen Victoria was lonely; Disraeli befriended her. Dorothy Thompson suggests that Disraeli’s gift of diplomacy and his chivalrous attitude towards women persuaded the Queen to agree with his government policy.77 Disraeli soon established a ‘complete ascendancy over the Queen’s mind’78 by treating her with the charm and courtesy that he thought befitted her sex. In many ways, Disraeli can be seen as the man who saved the monarchy from itself – indeed one can witness the Queen’s metamorphosis from a melancholic recluse to a more active and politically engaged sovereign under Disr
aeli’s guiding hand. He wrote to the Queen that it would be ‘his delight and duty, to render the transaction of affairs as easy to your Majesty, as possible’. 79 He kept his word and wrote his report of proceedings in the House of Commons in a fresh, gossipy storybook style, which endeared him to the Queen, who enjoyed reading the simple, dramatic – and flattering prose. Queen Victoria thought ‘his curious notes were just like his novels, highly coloured’. For example, the Queen enjoyed Disraeli’s account of putting forward Ward Hunt as chancellor of the exchequer. Disraeli told his sovereign that ‘Mr Ward Hunt’s appearance is rather remarkable . . . He is more than six feet four inches in stature, but does not look so tall from his proportionate breadth; like St Peter’s, no one is at first aware of his dimensions. But he has the sagacity of an elephant, as well as the form.’80 Unfortunately, when Ward Hunt reached parliament to present his first and only Budget, he forgot to bring the ‘Red Box’ with him. Since that day each time British chancellors leave Downing Street on Budget Day, they hold the box aloft for the crowd to see.

  Disraeli’s minority government staggered on for ten months until November 1868 when he was forced to call an election over the question of the Church in Ireland. The issue centred upon the fact that the Protestant Church of Ireland was maintained by taxes levied on the Irish while the Roman Catholic Church, to which five-sixths of the country belonged, had to rely on voluntary Sunday collections to keep going. In March 1868, William Gladstone put forward a motion in parliament that the Church of Ireland should be disestablished, that is, separated from the British state. The Queen was appalled. Mr Gladstone, she wrote in her journal, ‘imprudently, declared for the downfall of the Established church in Ireland! This is so abrupt, that it will call forth a burst of indignation and fury against the Roman Catholics on the part of the ultra-Protestants.’81 She expressed a ‘great fear, that this Irish Bill would do great harm.’82 However, Gladstone’s proposal was popular in the House of Commons. On 3 April Gladstone won a majority of 56 votes in a motion in favour of Disestablishment and subsequent resolutions were carried with ever increasing majorities. By November, Disraeli was compelled to call an election: the government was defeated. When the ministers gave back their seals of office, the Queen remarked that she was sorry because ‘they had never been in better hands’.83 As usual, the Queen rejected the notion that she should be above politics.