Queen Victoria

by Bartley, Paula;

  Notes

  1 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) March 16th 1861.

  2 Ibid. March 24th 1861.

  3 Victoria to Vicky, December 18th 1861.

  4 Rappaport, Magnificent Obsession, p. 152.

  5 Victoria to Vicky, April 18th 1862.

  6 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) July 1st 1862.

  7 Victoria to Vicky, December 27th 1861.

  8 Ibid. December 27th 1861.

  9 See Richard Mullen, ‘The Last Marriage of a Prince of Wales, 1863’, History Today, June 1981, for a full discussion of the marriage.

  10 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) March 10th 1863.

  11 Victoria to Vicky, June 27th 1863.

  12 Jane Ridley, Bertie, a Life of Edward VI, Vintage Books, 2013, p. 86.

  13 Albert had adopted Wettin as his surname.

  14 Lord Halifax to Ponsonby, August 28th 1871 quoted in Ponsonby, Henry Ponsonby, p. 72.

  15 Bertie to Victoria, September 18th 1871.

  16 Sir Theodore Martin, Queen Victoria as I Knew Her, Blackwood and Son, 1908, p. 284.

  17 The Times, December 15th 1864, p. 8.

  18 Victoria to Russell, December 8th 1864.

  19 Memo by Ponsonby on Queen, quoted in Ponsonby, Henry Ponsonby, p. 73.

  20 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) March 29th 1883.

  21 Thompson, Queen Victoria, Gender and Power.

  22 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) February 10th 1865.

  23 Hardie, The Political Influence of Queen Victoria, p. 20.

  24 Ridley, Bertie, a Life of Edward VI, p. 83.

  25 For a thorough assessment of Queen Victoria’s role, see W. E. Mosse ‘Queen Victoria and her Ministers in the Schleswig-Holstein Crisis, 1863–1864’, The English Historical Review, 78, April 1963, pp. 263–83.

  26 Victoria to Vicky, February 24th 1864.

  27 Quoted in Ridley, Bertie, a Life of Edward VI, p. 86.

  28 Victoria to Vicky, January 27th 1864.

  29 Mosse ‘Queen Victoria and her Ministers’, p. 282.

  30 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) January 6th 1864.

  31 Palmerston to Victoria, January 4th 1864.

  32 Ibid. January 8th 1864.

  33 Ibid. to Victoria, February 22nd 1864. Palmerston was referring to the London Protocol.

  34 Phipps to Palmerston, February 22nd 1864.

  35 August 28th 1864, quoted in Brown, Palmerston, p. 458.

  36 London Review, May 7th 1864, quoted in Mosse ‘Queen Victoria and her Ministers’, pp. 277–8.

  37 Quoted in Mosse ‘Queen Victoria and her Ministers’, p. 278.

  38 Palmerston to Victoria, May 10th 1864.

  39 Victoria to Palmerston, May 11th 1864.

  40 Victoria to Vicky, May 10th 1864.

  41 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) May 27th 1864.

  42 Victoria to Vicky, July 1st 1863.

  43 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) July 5th 1866.

  44 Quoted in Christopher Hibbert, Victoria: A Personal History, HarperCollins, 2000, p. 393.

  45 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) April 26th 1865.

  46 Russell to Victoria, April 27th 1865.

  47 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) April 29th 1865.

  48 Ibid. October 18th 1865.

  49 Victoria to Leopold, October 20th 1865.

  50 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) February 6th 1866.

  51 Sir Charles Phipps to Earl Russell, December 10th 1865.

  52 Victoria to Russell, January 22nd 1866.

  53 Martin, Queen Victoria as I Knew Her, quoted in Arnstein, ‘The Warrior Queen: Reflections on Victoria and Her World’, pp. 1–28.

  54 Victoria to Derby, August 8th 1866.

  55 For a stimulating article on this conflict, see W. E. Mosse, ‘The Crown and Foreign Policy. Queen Victoria and the Austro-Prussian Conflict, March-May 1866’, Cambridge Historical Journal, 10, 1951, pp. 205–23.

  56 Longford, Victoria, p. 380.

  57 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) April 9th 1866.

  58 Mosse, ‘The Crown and Foreign Policy’, p. 222.

  59 Ibid.

  60 Ibid. p. 213.

  61 Grey to Wood, undated, quoted in ibid., p. 213.

  62 Quoted in Weintraub, Victoria: Biography of a Queen, p. 350.

  63 Victoria to Russell, June 19th 1866.

  64 The 1867 Reform Act granted the vote to all male householders in the boroughs as well as lodgers who paid rent of at least £10 per annum and reduced the property threshold in the counties. It was to double the electorate in England and Wales from one million men to two million.

  65 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) January 3rd 1867.

  66 Victoria to Derby, January 12th 1867.

  67 Derby to Victoria, January 10th 1867.

  68 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) January 17th 1867.

  69 Ibid. February 20th 1867.

  70 Ibid. March 27th 1867.

  71 Ibid. November 11th 1867.

  72 Ibid. November 20th 1867.

  73 Ibid. June 17th 1844.

  74 Ibid. June 18th 1844.

  75 Ibid. February 2nd 1849.

  76 Longford, Victoria, p. 248.

  77 Thompson, Queen Victoria, p. 122.

  78 Hardie, The Political Influence of Queen Victoria, p. 40.

  79 Disraeli to Victoria, February 26th 1868, quoted in ibid., p. 36.

  80 Disraeli to Victoria, February 26th 1868.

  81 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) March 17th 1868.

  82 Ibid. March 24th 1869.

  83 Quoted in Weintraub, Victoria, Biography of a Queen, p. 350.

  8 Victoria, Gladstone and Disraeli: 1868–1880

  On Wednesday 9 December 1868, William Gladstone became Queen Victoria’s eighth prime minister. He was a clever man who had followed what is today a familiar political route, gaining a double first at Oxford, serving as president of the Oxford Union, training as a barrister, entering parliament at a young age and swiftly rising up the ranks. Gladstone served as prime minister four times: 1868–74, 1880–5, 1886 and 1892–4. He was advised to treat the Queen as a woman, that is, as a conventional nineteenth-century gentleman was expected to treat a lady, and told that he could ‘not show too much regard, gentleness, I might even say tenderness towards her’.1 But the prime minister ignored this advice and decided to speak to her as an intellectual equal. It did not occur to Gladstone to use different language with his sovereign from that which he was normally accustomed to use.2 Gladstone’s behaviour to the Queen was as to a monarch and head of a great empire, not as an empty-headed female, with the result that Victoria was as much out of her depth as she had been with Palmerston, ‘lost in the fog of the long and far from lucid sentences of her Minister’.3

  It is claimed that the evolution of the relationship between Queen Victoria and William Gladstone ‘decisively affected the future course of constitutional monarchy in Britain’.4 Gladstone was a convinced monarchist whose fervent religious belief made him regard Queen Victoria’s rule as sacred. Nevertheless, Gladstone was a realist, fully aware that the Crown was dependent on public opinion for its continuation. He was the first prime minister to focus on the need for a ceremonial monarchy, doing his best to persuade Victoria that her job as sovereign was to be seen. In his opinion, ritual was an essential part of being queen and he took pains to explain how essential it was for Victoria to be present on ceremonial and state occasions if the monarchy was to survive. It was clear to Gladstone that ceremonies were a visible representation of the power of the sovereign, reminding the population of the long history of an independent and self-governing Britain. Naturally, such events should be carried out in style: in 1815 the future George IV, the Prince Regent, had ridden in a coach with a cavalry escort to parliament, arriving to a cannon salute. But Queen Victoria, with striking disdain, now preferred to avoid all such display.

  The first significant breach between the Queen and Gladstone occurred in 1869 when the Queen declined to open parliament in person, claiming that she was too weak. She had agreed, under duress, to open parliament the previous two years but had warned her previous governments that they could not expect her do so regularly. Lo
rd Grey wrote to Gladstone saying that neither ‘health nor strength was wanting, were inclination what it should be. It is simply the long, unchecked habit of self-indulgence that now makes it impossible for her. . . to give up, even for ten minutes, the gratification of a single inclination, or even whim’.5 The Queen, encouraged by Disraeli’s past defence of her seclusion, refused to compromise. Moreover, Victoria only reluctantly, and only under protest, would entertain foreign dignitaries at her palaces. This too was considered an essential part of her monarchical role. She complained that ‘as a lady, without a husband’ and at ‘her own expense’ she would not invite ‘foreign Potentates to her house’.6 Once again, the Queen used her femininity as an excuse not to do her job.

  In 1871, when Gladstone asked the Queen to delay her departure to Balmoral until she had prorogued parliament, the two clashed once more. Victoria refused, pleaded illness and threatened to abdicate if too much pressure was brought to bear on her. Gladstone, all too aware of growing Republicanism, wrote to her private secretary that the Queen’s refusal was ‘the most sickening. . . I have had during near forty years of public life. Worse things may easily be imagined: but small and meaner causes for the decay of Thrones cannot be conceived.’7 For once, the Queen was not malingering: her throat was so sore that she could not eat, an abscess developed under her arm and she rapidly lost weight. Victoria had not been this ill since her bout of typhoid in 1835. When Gladstone went to Balmoral the following month, the Queen pleaded her illness as an excuse not to see him for several days and when she did he commented that ‘the repellent power which she so well knows how to use has been put in action towards me’.8

  A universal feeling of discontent at the Queen’s seclusion found voice in all the leading newspapers and journals. Between 1871 and 1874 alone, 84 republican clubs were founded in Birmingham, Cardiff, London, Aberdeen and other big cities, calling for the Queen to abdicate or be deposed. In November 1871, the radical politician Charles Dilke delivered a widely reported speech at Newcastle inciting people to overthrow the Queen and set up a republic. In addition, Queen Victoria was accused of appropriating large amounts of money from the Civil List – supposed to be used for public ceremonials – and using it to increase her family’s personal wealth. In 1871, the Radical MP Charles Trevelyan published a very popular pamphlet which asked ‘What does she do with it?’ Trevelyan criticised the Queen’s well-known parsimony and wanted to know how money paid by the government for regal displays, court banquets, entertaining visiting royalty, public appearances and other expenses was spent. Trevelyan alleged that the Queen squirreled away £200,000 a year and was thus able to amass a private royal fortune which he considered ‘unconstitutional and most objectionable’. In reality, the Queen had saved £500,000 from the Civil List since the beginning of her reign, a fact that Gladstone refused to let his government make public in case there would be further public criticism of the Crown.

  The Queen, and the monarchy, was saved by three brief episodes: a wedding, a brush with death and an assassination attempt. First, the Queen enjoyed a brief surge in popularity when, in 1871, her daughter Princess Louise married the Marquess of Lorne. The wedding marked a significant break with the royal tradition of marrying foreigners and it was the first time since the sixteenth century that a princess had married someone below their rank. The Queen’s recently appointed private secretary, the Liberal grandee Sir Henry Ponsonby,9 no doubt shared the view of most of the population when he commented that he was thankful that there was no ‘talking now of this or that Seidlitz-Stinkinger’10 joining the royal family. Certainly, another marriage to a German might have further undermined the monarchy. Then Bertie, the Queen’s eldest son, became ill and his illness helped stem the rising tide of Republicanism. In December 1871 he contracted typhoid – the same illness thought to have killed his father – and it was feared that he might die. After a long struggle, Bertie pulled through and there was considerable public rejoicing. Gladstone took this opportunity to stage a carefully orchestrated parade of thanksgiving, persuading a reluctant queen to take part in it. On 27 February 1872, the Queen and Bertie drove in semi-state to St Paul’s Cathedral to give thanks for the survival of the heir to the throne. The British public, desiring a much-needed fix of royal pomp and ceremony, came out in their thousands to witness the royal procession. The Queen, pleasantly surprised by the emotional outburst of her people, spoke of the ‘millions out, the beautiful decorations, the wonderful enthusiasm and astounding affectionate loyalty shown. The deafening cheers never ceased the whole way. . . . It was a most affecting day, and many a time I repressed my tears.’11 Queen Victoria may have been moved by the loyalty of her subjects but the British public would have to wait another 15 years for a similar celebration. Nevertheless, the illness of the Prince of Wales, his recovery and the subsequent thanksgiving ceremony marked a turning point in the reign of Queen Victoria. From now on, she would not have to face the threat of Republicanism.

  Two days after the thanksgiving service a sixth assassination attempt on the Queen drew her people even closer to her. It was difficult for her to describe, as it ‘was all over in a minute. . . suddenly someone appeared at my side. . . Then I perceived that it was someone unknown, peering above the carriage door, with an uplifted hand and a strange voice. . . in a terrible fright I threw myself over Jane C calling out “save me”, and heard a scuffle and voices!’12 John Brown, the Queen’s gillie, rescued his monarch and held the would-be assassin tightly. When the Queen saw the pistol lying on the ground, she was filled with horror. Her companions ‘were as white as sheets. . . . It is to good Brown and to his wonderful presence of mind, that I greatly owe my safety.’13 A 17-year-old boy had climbed over the railings of Buckingham Palace, accosted the Queen in her carriage as she returned home and thrust a pistol in her face. The teenager was Arthur O’Connor, the grand-nephew of Chartist leader Feargus O’Connor, who had wanted the Queen to sign an order freeing Irish political prisoners incarcerated in England. These three episodes helped to mitigate the growing criticism of the Queen.

  Domestic affairs: 1868–1874

  Historians believe that Gladstone’s first ministry was the greatest reforming ministry of the nineteenth century.14 In August 1869, in order to effect a smooth passage of his proposed Bills, he asked the Queen to create 10 new peers and 14 baronets. The Queen objected. She knew it was

  essential to make the Hse of Lds a little more liberal, and to bring it more in harmony with the Hse of C. I see the force of this argument, but the object cannot be attained by the creation of a few Peers, even if there were to be 20, and it is a measure that is sure to damage the Govt.15

  One of Gladstone’s hopes was that Lionel Rothschild should be made an English peer, the first Jewish man to be so honoured. The Queen, however, was ‘strongly against’ the idea, claiming that she would ‘have to refuse on the score of his religion, as much as on that of his wealth, being in fact derived solely from money contracts’.16 The Rothschilds had to wait until 1885 before Nathanial Rothschild, eldest son of Lionel, was given a seat in the House of Lords, possibly as a reward for his father’s loan to the government when it was negotiating to buy shares in the Suez Canal.

  Gladstone’s government introduced reforms which affected education, the army, alcoholic licensing, ballots, trade unions and Ireland. The 1870 Education Act laid the foundation for the British elementary school system and marked the first major step of the state’s intervention into education by establishing Board schools for poor children. This was followed in 1871 by the University Entrance Act, which abolished the need for students to be Anglicans and allowed Methodists, Catholics and Jews to study at Oxford and Cambridge. In the same year the Bank Holidays Act established the first Bank Holidays in the United Kingdom, a Trade Union Act permitted trade unions to be formed, though the Criminal Law Amendment Act took away much of its power by making picketing punishable by three months imprisonment with hard labour. In 1872 a Licensing Act restricted the number
of public houses, introduced closing times, regulated the content of beer and created an offence for being drunk in public or of riding a horse, driving a steam engine or carrying a loaded fire-arm when inebriated. In addition, the Secret Ballot Act stopped employers and landowners intimidating their workers and tenants by the introduction of secret ballots at government and local elections. Victoria was convinced that the ballot would lead ‘to grave mistakes, from the secrecy, enabling people to promise one way, and vote another!’,17 a view shared by a number of politicians of both parties. In her view, Gladstone wanted radical change in too many areas.

  The Queen raised objections to at least three domestic issues: one was about taxation, one concerned women and one the army. Gladstone wanted to minimise public expenditure and attempted to meet the government’s deficit by taxing matches: a halfpenny on plain wooden matches and a penny on waxed matches. Thousands of match-makers, mainly from the Bryant and May factory in the East End, marched to parliament demanding its withdrawal. The Queen sympathised and wrote ‘strongly’ to Gladstone that the tax would