Queen Victoria
Page 32
Queen Victoria disregarded court protocol when it suited her. She insisted that Abdul Karim be treated as an equal, allowed him to sit among the royal household at private entertainments and at the Scottish Games. At Balmoral, Karim was given John Brown’s old room. In September 1889 she and Karim stayed at Glassalt Shiel, a remote house on the Balmoral estate which Victoria had often visited with John Brown. Karim accompanied the Queen on her trips to the French Riviera and participated in the Christmas tableaux vivants held at Osborne House. He was even presented to the King of Italy. In 1889, in her eightieth birthday honours list, the Queen appointed Karim a Commander of the Order of the Royal Victorian Order (CVO). The Queen’s letters were signed ‘your loving mother’, your ‘closest friend’ and on some occasions her letters were signed with kisses. A portrait was commissioned of Abdul Karim. When in early 1890 Karim fell ill with a boil on his neck, the Queen sent for her doctor, Reid, to look after him; she herself visited Karim twice daily, examining his neck and smoothing down his pillows.
The Queen’s indiscreet affection for her new servant and Karim’s rise in the royal household created jealousy and friction. The British aristocracy, who on the rare occasions they mixed with Indians only met princes, thought that Karim was a parvenu and an imposter. Historians have noted that Karim’s rapid advancement would have inevitably led to problems but the fact of his race complicated matters further. Racism was endemic in Imperialist Britain – the belief that the white race had a genetic right to rule over those with a darker skin colour was held to be self-evident. Victoria did not share this belief and accused her household of ‘nasty racial feeling’.123 The hierarchies, rivalries and racial prejudices of the court could not prevail against the Queen’s love for her new Indian friend.
More importantly, the Queen listened to the Munshi’s views about British rule in India.124 She took a special interest in Manipur, a sovereign state in northeast India. Tensions erupted when its leader was driven out by a rebel – Tikendrajit Singh – who then threatened British interests. Events moved swiftly: on 21 February 1891 the Viceroy of India, Lord Landsdowne, ordered the arrest of Tikendrajit Singh; on 22 March 400 soldiers arrived and asked Singh to surrender; two days later British troops attacked Singh’s residence, killing many women and children. Not surprisingly, Singh’s army took revenge and executed five British officers.125 Once again, women and children suffered. Queen Victoria was told by one of the ladies who had escaped from Manipur that:
she was nine days on the horrible March, and almost all the time followed and pursued. . . . She had no clothes but those she was wearing. Once she saw herself being aimed at, and the man close behind her, who was already wounded, was killed, knocking her over and covering her with blood. In this condition she had to go on her way.126
The British army eventually defeated Tikendrajit and his rebel force. Queen Victoria knew that the disaster at Manipur was dreadful but maintained that British ‘dealings in India should be dictated by straightforwardness, kindness, and firmness, or we cannot succeed’. She thought that hanging Tikendrajit ‘would never do; it would create very bad feeling in Manipur and in all India. But shut him up for life in some distant part.’127 Queen Victoria, who was keen to suppress unrest in Ireland by brute force, believed that the ‘principle of governing India by fear and by crushing them, instead of by firmness and conciliation, is one which never will answer in the end’.128 A special court was formed to put the rebels on trial: Tikendrajit Singh was found guilty and publicly hanged.
In August 1892 new elections took place. The Liberal Party regained some of its key constituencies and won 273 seats, the Conservatives won 269, the Liberal Unionists won 46 and the Home Rulers won 81 seats. Gladstone was returned to power for the fourth time, once again reliant on the Irish MPs for support. The Queen was sad to part with Salisbury. It seemed to her ‘a defect in our much famed Constitution, to have to part with an admirable Govt like Ld Salisbury’s, for no question of any importance, or any particular reason, merely on account of the number of votes’.129 Queen Victoria’s idiosyncratic views on democracy illuminate much of her political behaviour. Once again, they demonstrate how very far her partisan spirit, coupled with her desire always to have her own way, prompted her to think and act more in the manner of a despot in an autocracy than as a constitutional monarch in a democracy.
Notes
1 Victoria to W.E. Forster, December 25th 1880.
2 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) April 27th 1882.
3 Ibid. April 19th 1881.
4 Ibid. March 28th 1884.
5 Ibid. June 28th 1888.
6 See Helen Rappaport, Queen Victoria: A Biographical Companion, ABC-CLIO, 2003, p. 413.
7 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) January 14th 1892.
8 Ibid. March 13th 1892.
9 Ibid. April 27th 1880.
10 Victoria to Ponsonby, March 12th 1880.
11 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) April 28th 1880.
12 Ponsonby, Henry Ponsonby, April 5th 1880.
13 Magnus, Gladstone, p. 308.
14 Queen Victoria to Disraeli, September 20th 1880, quoted in Magnus, Gladstone, p. 279.
15 Ponsonby, Henry Ponsonby, April 12th 1880.
16 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) June 25th 1880.
17 Ibid. August 3rd 1881.
18 Victoria to Gladstone, October 30th 1883.
19 Queen to Granville, September 4th 1880, quoted in Hardie, The Political Influence of Queen Victoria, p. 79.
20 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) May 28th 1884.
21 Gladstone to Victoria, July 14th 1884.
22 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) July 23rd 1884.
23 Ibid. July 25th 1884.
24 Ibid. July 16th 1884.
25 Ibid. July 16th 1884.
26 Queen’s instructions to Granville, August 1884 quoted in Hardie, The Political Influence of Queen Victoria, p. 80.
27 Victoria to Salisbury, October 31st 1884; Victoria to Gladstone, October 31st 1884.
28 The Carlton Club was founded in 1832 as a club for members of the Conservative Party.
29 Gladstone to Victoria, quoted in Magnus, Gladstone, p. 319.
30 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) November 18th 1884.
31 Ibid. November 7th 1880.
32 Victoria to Hartington, December 12th 1880.
33 Victoria to Forster, December 25th 1880.
34 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) November 27th 1880.
35 Quoted in Arnstein, Queen Victoria, p. 158.
36 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) October 13th 1881.
37 Ibid. January 8th 1882.
38 Ibid. May 2nd 1882.
39 Victoria to Gladstone, May 3rd 1882.
40 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) May 6th 1882.
41 Victoria to Granville, May 7th 1882.
42 Victoria to Gladstone, May 9th 1882.
43 Ibid. May 11th 1882.
44 Victoria to Granville, May 21st 1882.
45 Victoria to Private Secretary, July 1st 1882.
46 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) July 1st 1882.
47 Ibid. March 15th 1883.
48 Ibid. April 9th 1883.
49 Ibid. November 20th 1883.
50 Ibid. April 8th 1881.
51 Ibid. April 5th 1881.
52 Victoria to Vicky, September 3rd 1886.
53 Harper’s Weekly, June 8th 1889, quoted in Walter L. Arnstein, ‘The Americanisation of Queen Victoria’, The Historian, 2010, p. 836.
54 Victoria to Ponsonby, January 5th 1881.
55 Wilson, Victoria: A Life.
56 Victoria to Ponsonby, May 30th 1882.
57 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) September 15th 1882.
58 Ibid. July 20th 1882.
59 Ibid. September 29th 1882.
60 Victoria to Gladstone, September 21st 1882.
61 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) October 17th 1882.
62 Victoria to Gladstone, October 14th 1882.
63 Victoria to Earl Granville, December 12th 1882.
64 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) May 17th 1884.
65 Victoria to Ponsonby, May 17th 1884
.
66 Ponsonby to Gladstone, May 17th 1884.
67 Victoria to Gladstone, April 15th 1885.
68 Victoria to Hartington, May 17th 1885.
69 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) April 20th 1885.
70 Victoria to Gladstone, February 12th 1884.
71 Victoria to Ponsonby, March 14th 1884.
72 Victoria to Gladstone, March 27th 1884.
73 Victoria to Wolseley, March 31st 1885.
74 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) February 5th 1885.
75 Victoria to Ponsonby, February 7th 1885.
76 Ibid. February 17th 1885.
77 Ibid. April (undated) 1885.
78 Victoria to Hartington, February 5th 1885.
79 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) May 16th 1885.
80 Quoted in Van der Kiste, Sons, Servants and Statesmen, p. 108.
81 Chaplain to the Queen, quoted in ibid. p. 109.
82 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) June 12th 1885.
83 Quoted in George Buckle, The Letters of Queen Victoria, Third Series, Vol. 1, 1886–1890, John Murray, 1930, p. 39.
84 Victoria to Goschen, December 20th 1885.
85 Ibid. January 27th, 1886.
86 Victoria to Ponsonby, January 29 th th 1886.
87 Robert Rhodes James, The British Revolution: British Politics 1880–1939, Hamish Hamilton, 1976, p. 136.
88 Ponsonby, Henry Ponsonby, p. 208.
89 Memorandum by Victoria, January 28th 1886.
90 Victoria to Goschen, December 19th 1885.
91 Victoria to Goschen, quoted in Ian Cawood, The Liberal Unionist Party: A History, I. B. Tauris, 2012, p. 16.
92 Victoria to Goschen, January 31st 1886.
93 Victoria to Gladstone, May 6th 1886.
94 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) June 8th 1886.
95 Ibid. July 20th 1886.
96 Victoria to Gladstone, July 31st 1886.
97 Victoria to Hartington, August 6th 1886.
98 Ponsonby to Selborne, October 27th 1887.
99 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) March 4th 1887.
100 Ibid. September 13th 1887.
101 Longford, Victoria, p. 619.
102 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) November 13th 1887.
103 Ibid. November 26th 1890.
104 Ibid. June 20th 1887.
105 The Times, June 22nd 1887, p. 5.
106 Ibid.
107 Ibid.
108 Ibid.
109 Ibid. June 21st 1887, p. 8.
110 Aberdeen Weekly Journal, June 22nd 1887, p. 5.
111 Cheshire Observer, June 25th 1887.
112 The Royal Cornwall Gazette, June 24th 1887, p. 5.
113 Daily News, June 21st, 1887, p. 5.
114 William M. Kuhn, ‘Victoria’s Civil List’, Historical Journal, September 1993.
115 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) June 21st 1887.
116 The Times, June 22nd 1887, p. 5.
117 Victoria to Salisbury, July 21st 1887.
118 Quoted in the York Herald, July 2nd, 1887.
119 Reynolds’s Weekly Newspaper, June 19th, 1887, p. 1.
120 The Times, June 21st 1887, p. 5.
121 See Basu, Victoria and Abdul.
122 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) August 11th 1888.
123 Victoria to Reid, April 1898, quoted in Basu, Victoria and Abdul, p. 220.
124 Basu, Victoria and Abdul.
125 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) May 2nd 1891.
126 Ibid. July 1st 1891.
127 Victoria to Viscount Cross, June 16th 1891.
128 Ibid. August 11th 1891.
129 RA VIC/MAIN/QVJ (W) August 18th 1892.
10 The last years: 1892–1901
It was a very fine and hot day on 15 August 1892. Victoria breakfasted in her tent at Osborne House and sat outside enjoying the sunshine until it was time for her lunch. At 4pm she went to meet her new prime minister, Gladstone. The septuagenarian Queen found her new prime minister greatly altered and changed, his face shrunk, deadly pale, ‘with a weird look in his eyes, a feeble expression about the mouth and the voice altered’.1 She complained that it was rather trying to have an 82½ year old as prime minister ‘who really seems no longer quite fitted to be at the Head of a Govt, whose views and principles are somewhat dangerous’.2 Gladstone later compared their meeting to that which ‘took place between Marie Antoinette and her executioner’.3
Gladstone's fourth ministry: 15 August 1892–2 March 1894
Two days before their meeting, Queen Victoria, ‘rather contrary to my feelings’, had written to Gladstone asking him to form a government.4 Her note was almost discourteous. It read: ‘Lord Salisbury having placed his resignation in the Queen’s hands, which she has accepted with much regret, she now desires to ask Mr Gladstone’. Her advisors were again made aware that the Queen ‘utterly loathes his very dangerous politics’ and could neither respect nor trust him.5 A couple of months earlier she had told Ponsonby that the idea of a deluded man ‘trying to govern England and her vast Empire with the miserable democrats under him is quite ludicrous. It is like a bad joke!’6 Queen Victoria continued to see herself as a ruling sovereign with the right to influence politics, and once again tried to avoid appointing ‘that dangerous old fanatic’7 as prime minister. The Queen tried – but failed – to find an alternative to Gladstone. She would never admit that she had little power to influence politics when one party had a clear majority. Eventually she was forced to accept the inevitable and to hand over the seals of office to the person who still dominated the House of Commons.
This time the Queen avowed that she had no desire to ‘interfere in the formation of this iniquitous Government’.8 At first, she strove hard not to voice her opinion. Gladstone was thus able to appoint John Morley as chief secretary for Ireland, Sir William Harcourt as chancellor of the exchequer and Herbert Asquith as home secretary without difficulty. However, the Queen could not help being meddlesome and tried to manipulate at least three major appointments, that of a Cabinet minister, a foreign secretary and the viceroy of India.
The Queen disclosed to Gladstone that she was ‘very anxious’ about Henry Labouchere’s appointment as a Cabinet minister because his immoral and dissolute lifestyle (he lived with an actress) brought the Crown and government into disrepute. Gladstone objected but did as his sovereign wished, largely because he too disapproved of Labouchere. It was to be the last time a British monarch vetoed a ministerial appointment. In contrast, the Queen facilitated the appointment of Lord Rosebery as foreign secretary. When Lord Rosebery initially declined the post, Bertie wrote him a secret letter confiding that the Queen ‘very much’ wished him to be foreign secretary.9 As a result, Rosebery changed his mind, begging that the communication between himself and the Prince of Wales remain strictly private and personal. Gladstone, as prime minister, knew nothing of these – unconstitutional – intrigues. The last appointment that Victoria tried to influence was that of viceroy of India. Gladstone wanted Lord Elgin to replace Lord Lansdowne as viceroy but the Queen disapproved. In her view, Elgin was too ‘shy and most painfully silent, has no presence, no experience whatever in administration. He would not command respect.’10 Queen Victoria had the constitutional right to advise, and recommended Lord Carrington; Gladstone, who had an equal right to ignore the advice of his sovereign, stuck to his first choice of Lord Elgin.
Ireland: the second Home Rule Bill 1893
Gladstone continued to be caught up in the complexities of the Irish question. In February 1893, despite his majority of only 40 MPs in the House of Commons and virtually no support at all in the House of Lords, Gladstone tried once more to force a second Home Rule Bill through parliament. Victoria noted that ‘the parties are so split up and divided, that they don’t know how to sit!’11 After the first reading, the Queen commented in her journal ‘it is sad to think it will be read a second time! . . . I am much disturbed about this and other measures I cannot approve of.’12 The Queen voiced her concern to Gladstone, revealing that she ‘cannot conceal from him her feelings of anxiety and apprehension with reference to the
provisions of this measure, which tend towards the disruption of her Empire and the establishment of an impracticable form of Government’.13 Gladstone replied by return of post. He notified the Queen that too great a ‘prolongation of the Irish controversy may beget mischief in Ireland by provoking a revival of the far more formidable demand for the Repeal of the Union’.14 Great Britain, he threatened, would be no more. The Queen remained unconvinced and was most pleased when the House of Commons opposed every clause of the Home Rule Bill.15
Once again, Queen Victoria tried to manipulate events surreptitiously. She put pressure on Rosebery to give up Home Rule, insisting that it ‘was like rolling a stone uphill’.16 She urged the Liberal grandee, the Duke of Argyll, to talk to leading figures from both parties to discover ‘the future course of action, after the House of Lords have thrown out what I consider a foolish and terrible Bill’.17 The Queen even proposed dissolving parliament over the Home Rule Bill,18 and was only dissuaded – confidentially and secretly – by the Conservative politician Lord Salisbury from pursuing this policy. Lord Salisbury persuaded Victoria to see that a Dissolution recommended by the Queen against the advice of her ministers would damage the reputation of the monarchy. It would, he informed his sovereign, involve the resignation of the government with the result that ‘their party could hardly help going to the country as the opponents of the royal authority . . . No one can foresee what the upshot of such a state of things would be!’19 Edward Hamilton, private secretary to Gladstone, thought the Queen was ‘thoroughly second-class. She was a bully and had by no means a first-class intelligence.’20
On 1 September 1893 Gladstone’s second Home Rule Bill passed its second reading in the House of Commons by 43 votes. It had a stormy passage. The Queen was exasperated that ‘the House of Commons seems to be going from bad to worse, nothing but wrangling and quarrelling’21 but decided – correctly as it turned out – that it was because the government was half-hearted about Home Rule.22 Nevertheless, the Bill duly went to the Upper House to be debated. After only four days’ deliberation the Lords – with its built-in Conservative majority – rejected it by 419 votes to 41. The Queen noted approvingly in her journal that it had been ‘a crushing majority indeed; and what is most remarkable, the crowd outside cheered very much’.23 When Gladstone wanted to dissolve parliament and fight the election on the Irish question, his Cabinet refused to allow it and he continued in office. And so his campaign for Home Rule ended, and the British Isles remained united – for the time being.