Edward VII_The Last Victorian King

by Christopher Hibbert

  Extremely angry with the Prince for having so flagrantly broken her rule about his incognito and for having failed to send the baby home despite repeated requests that he should do so, the Queen wrote a letter sternly reproaching him for past faults and warning him that he and Princess Alexandra must on no account stay with the Emperor and Empress on their way home through France, ‘the style of going on [at Compiègne and Fontainebleau] being quite unfit for a young and reputable Prince and Princess’.

  The Prince replied that he had stayed at the royal palace in Stockholm only because Swedish hotels were dingy, the Legation was cramped and he had ‘no intention of letting Alix be uncomfortably lodged’ if he could help it. Besides, as he had said before, ‘the King was immensely gratified’ by their visit and ‘what would have been the good of annoying him by not going to the Palace?’ He had not sent the baby home before because the doctors had advised against it and Alix was naturally upset at having to part with ‘her little treasure’ for the first time. As General Knollys had already suggested, ‘the Queen’s kind consideration will perhaps make a little allowance for a young mother wishing to delay the first separation from her child as long as she could and hardly ever weighing the consequences likely to follow an infringement of the terms. You may be sure,’ the Prince concluded, ‘that I shall try to meet your wishes as much as possible, but … if I am not allowed to use my own discretion we had better give up travelling altogether.’

  More angry than ever on receipt of this letter, the Queen dispatched a telegram ordering them to cancel altogether their journey through France: they were to come home instead through Belgium, where the Prince would be able to have the benefit of the wise counsels of the King of the Belgians, who, now ailing and nearly seventy-four, would not be spared much longer to give them. First of all, though, they would be required to visit the Prince’s German relations to show that he was not only the son-in-law of the King of Denmark, as the Queen put it to Lord Russell, but the child of his parents.

  The Prince and Princess went to Germany as instructed, first visiting the King of Hanover, then going on to Darmstadt to see the Prince’s sister Alice, now married to Prince Louis of Hesse, and afterwards staying at Cologne with the Crown Prince and Princess of Prussia. But it was not an agreeable time. ‘I can assure you,’ the Prince told Lord Spencer, ‘it was not pleasant to see [the Crown Prince] and his A.D.C. always in Prussian uniform flaunting before our eyes a most objectionable ribbon which he received for his deeds of valour??? against the unhappy Danes.’

  For once he was not at ease with his sister either; and she, in turn, wrote home to their mother making unaccustomed complaints about him, particularly about his new and irritating habit of never answering letters. The trouble was, the Queen replied, that Bertie was becoming ‘quite unmanageable’. He was entirely in the hands ‘of that most mischievous Queen of Denmark’. As for Alix, kind as she was, she had not proved ‘worth the price we have had to pay for her in having such a family connection’.

  When the unruly children arrived home and went to stay at Osborne, however, all was for the moment forgiven. While they were away the Queen had spoken to her Household about the trouble she was having with her son; and Sir Charles Phipps, Keeper of the Privy Purse, had advised that it was ‘of the highest importance that her Majesty’s authority should be distinctly defined and constantly supported and maintained by the Government … but the Government should lay it down, so that control should not constantly be associated in the Prince of Wales’s mind with [the Queen’s] authority for which he should feel nothing but confiding affection.’

  Affection certainly warmed the atmosphere at Osborne that November. The visit was ‘most satisfactory’, the Queen thought; and Alix was, after all, ‘a dear, excellent right-minded soul’ whom one could not help but ‘dearly love and respect’. Her lot was ‘not an easy one’; she was ‘very fond of Bertie, though not blind’.

  Indeed, the Queen usually did feel that she loved and respected her daughter-in-law when they were together, for she readily succumbed to her charm; yet no sooner had they parted than reservations once again overcast her regard for her. Fond of her as she was, she could never ‘get more intimate’ with her; ‘she comes completely from the enemy’s camp in every way — Stockmar was right’. The Queen could not depend on her to take the place of her own daughters when they got married: Alix never stayed with her for long enough; besides, she knew ‘none of [the Queen’s] intimate affairs’.

  The Queen’s reservations about the Princess of Wales grew appreciably more pronounced when the time came for her third daughter, the nineteen-year-old Princess Helena, to get married. The Queen had hoped to be able to keep Princess Helena at home, and had looked for a husband prepared to settle in England. But it was proving difficult to find a suitable prince willing to do so. Eventually the Queen had agreed to Helena’s becoming engaged to Prince Christian of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, the Duke of Augustenburg’s younger brother, though it was not considered a very good match for her, the intended bridegroom being fifteen years older than she was and neither rich nor clever. He was also extremely boring and very plain, his features being further marred in later years by a shooting accident which deprived him of an eye. This loss he remedied by assembling a collection of glass replacements which were occasionally shown to his dinner-table guests, whose attention was particularly drawn to one of them — a realistically blood-shot specimen — for wearing when he had a cold.

  The Queen was aware of Prince Christian’s failings; but she also recognized that, while Helena was certainly much more alert and intelligent than he was, she was not at all charming herself and might well find it difficult to make a better marriage. The Prince and Princess of Wales, on the other hand, were uncompromisingly opposed to Helena’s marriage with a man whose family had sided with Denmark’s enemies in the recent war. ‘What do you say to this charming marriage of Helena?’ Princess Alexandra asked Lady Macclesfield. ‘I cannot say how painful and dreadful it will be to me.’ But the Queen was determined to stand firm. ‘I will not allow [any argument],’ she told King Leopold. ‘I had much to go through with his marriage which was disliked by all our family.’

  Although he behaved tactfully at Balmoral where he first saw the Queen after the engagement had been announced, the Prince of Wales subsequently made it clear that he was not prepared to withdraw his objections to the marriage: if it took place he would not attend the ceremony. On their mother’s behalf, Princess Alice pleaded with him to be more reasonable. So did the Crown Princess. So, too, did Prince Alfred. ‘The engagement has taken place and we must put a good face on it,’ Prince Alfred advised his brother. ‘Of course, the relationship is painful to you but you must try to accept him for what he is worth personally, and don’t look at him with a prejudiced eye for he is really a very good fellow though not handsome.’

  Eventually the Prince of Wales gave way; but his wife stubbornly declined to accept a marriage which she held to be a betrayal of her family, as well as an indication of the Queen’s changed attitude to herself. ‘Bertie is most affectionate and kind,’ the Queen told the Crown Princess in December, ‘but Alix is by no means what she ought to be … I cannot tell you what I have suffered … It will be long, if ever, before she regains my confidence.’ And while still complaining about her daughter-in-law’s misconduct over this matter, she was given further offence by her thoughtlessness in other ways.

  The Princess’s second child, Prince George, had been born six months before, a month earlier than the Queen had been led to expect, an accident which the Queen believed to have been deliberate, supposing that she had been misinformed so that she could not fulfil her intention to be present — as she always deemed it her duty to be present — at the birth of a new grandchild. Then to exacerbate the Queen’s displeasure, as soon as the Princess had recovered from her confinement, she resumed her constant ‘going out in society’. Within a few weeks she was down at Cowes racing in the Prin
ce’s new cutter, Dagmar ; then she went off with him to that dreadful castle at Rumpenheim; and on her way home she insulted the Queen of Prussia, who had gone to Coblenz to see her, by refusing to get out of the train and leaving her husband to make some sort of apology. As well as being indiscreet and obstinate, she was becoming ‘haughty and frivolous’, lacking in ‘softness and warmth’. ‘Alix and I never will or can be intimate,’ the Queen complained; ‘she shows me no confidence whatsoever especially about the children.’

  The Crown Princess responded by assuring her mother that ‘Alix [had] the greatest wish to be now and then alone with you. She says she is not amusing, she knows, and she fears she bores you, but she loves you so much, and it seems to be a little ambition of hers to be allowed to be close with you sometimes. It was Bertie who told me this and it quite touched me.’

  A few days after this letter was written Princess Alexandra and the two ‘tiny little boys’ arrived at Windsor; and, as always once the women were alone together, past differences were forgotten and the relationship between them was perfectly relaxed. ‘Nothing could be nicer or dearer than she is,’ the Queen reported. ‘It is quite charming to see her and hear her … I do love her dearly … She is dear and good and gentle, but looking very thin and pale.’

  She was already pregnant again; and, to her great disappointment, had not been able to go to St Petersburg to attend the wedding of her sister Dagmar, who was to marry the Grand Duke Alexander at the Winter Palace on 9 November 1866, the Prince of Wales’s twenty-fifth birthday. The Prince had gone without her, ‘only too happy to be the means in any way of promoting the Entente Cordiale between Russia and our own country,’ as he assured the Prime Minister, Lord Derby; and, as he afterwards told his mother, who had thought it sufficient for him to be represented ‘by one of his gentlemen’, not only wanting to be present personally at his sister-in-law’s wedding but also in the expectation that ‘it would interest [him] beyond anything to see Russia’. He was not disappointed. Indeed, he enjoyed himself enormously, being splendidly entertained in Moscow as well as St Petersburg, where he was provided with apartments in the Hermitage. He attended banquets, fêtes and military parades, going on a wolf hunt at Gatchina and to a ball at the British Embassy where the Imperial family watched him dancing in his Highland dress.

  The British government had feared that he would give the Tsar a wrong impression of the British attitude to Turkey by voicing those ‘strong anti-Turkish opinions’ which he had openly entertained ever since his brother-in-law, the King of Greece, had discovered what a tiresome neighbour the Sultan could be. And, gratified that he had not, the government granted £1,000 towards his expenses, though it had to be admitted that, while he may well have carried home with him ‘the goodwill and affection of every one with whom he had been thrown in contact’ — as his equerry, Major Teesdale, assured the Queen — the visit had not really done much to ensure that the improved relations between Russia and England would be permanent.

  On his return home, the Prince found that his wife was not at all well. She had a slight fever and was suffering from pains in her limbs. He did not take her complaints too seriously, however, and he left her at Marlborough House to go to a steeplechase and a dinner at Windsor. The Princess grew worse, and a telegram was dispatched to the Prince to call him home. He did not return. Two further telegrams were dispatched, but it was not until noon the next day that he arrived back in London. By then it was clear that the Princess was seriously ill with rheumatic fever. She had dreadful pains in her leg and hip which, on 20 February, were greatly aggravated by the pangs she suffered in giving birth to her third child, a daughter, without the anodyne of chloroform, her doctors believing that in her already weak condition it would be dangerous to administer it.

  For days she lingered ‘in a most pitiable state’, according to the Queen, who often came up from Windsor to see her, while the doctors’ bulletins continued — in the usual manner of such announcements — to be blandly reassuring. The Prince of Wales appeared to share the doctors’ unconcern. His wife could not eat because her mouth was so painfully inflamed, she could not sleep without heavy doses of drugs, and she turned almost pleadingly for comfort to Lady Macclesfield, ‘dearest old Mac’, who wept herself to hear her crying so piteously from the dreadful pain in her knee. Yet the Prince, ‘childish as ever’, did not seem to ‘see anything serious about it’. Most nights he went out as though his wife’s complaint were nothing more serious than a slight chill. He had his desk brought into her room so that he could be with her while he wrote his letters, but he would soon grow bored and restless and, evidently irritated by the fussing anxiety of Lady Macclesfield and the mournful face of Sir William Knollys, he would march out of the house to a club or a more congenial sitting-room. Even when he told his wife he would be back at a certain time, it was frequently much later. ‘The Princess had another bad night,’ Lady Macclesfield reported one day, ‘chiefly owing to the Prince promising to come in at 1 a.m. and keeping her in a perpetual fret, refusing to take her opiate for fear she should be asleep when he came! And he never came till 3 a.m.! The Duke of Cambridge is quite furious at his indifference to her and his devotion to his own amusements.’ Lady Macclesfield was equally furious when the Prince, who had been warned to break the news of his wife’s grandmother’s death very gently to her, chose to do so one evening after the Princess had had an exceptionally trying and painful day. Hearing the Princess sobbing helplessly, Lady Macclesfield sharply observed, ‘He really is a child about such things and will not listen to advice.’

  When the Princess slowly began to improve in the late spring, her husband’s neglect became even more insensitive and obvious. Already there had been rumours that the Prince had been unduly attentive to various pretty young Russian women in St Petersburg and Moscow. Now, after a visit paid by the Prince to France, where he had attended the opening of the Paris Exhibition, Sir William Knollys received ‘very unsatisfactory’ accounts of his conduct, his going to ‘supper after opera with some of the female Paris notorieties, etc. etc.’ The next month at Ascot — where he received ‘a very flat reception as the Princess was not there but suffering at home’ — he invited to luncheon various other ‘fashionable female celebrities’. There were reports, too, that he had been seen ‘spooning with Lady Filmer’, and riding about in a public cab on his way to supper with young actresses. And one day in August Sir William Knollys was ‘greatly concerned’ by a conversation with one of Princess Alexandra’s doctors who ‘spoke out very forcibly’ and, Knollys feared, ‘truly, on the tone people in his own class of society now used with respect to the Prince, and on his neglect of the Princess, and how one exaggeration led to another’.

  Although the Princess always preferred to ignore what accounts she ever heard of her husband’s peccadilloes, it was much more difficult to overlook his thoughtless neglect of her when she had been so ill. It was all very well for Lady Macclesfield to lament his immaturity — he certainly was immature — but his inconsiderate disregard of her need for his comfort and sympathy had been publicly flaunted and that was a wound that she could not find it easy to forget.

  On the day of her marriage she had gaily remarked to the Crown Princess of Prussia, ‘You may think that I like marrying Bertie for his position; but if he were a cowboy I would love him just the same and would marry no one else.’ More recently she had confessed to her other, favourite sister-in-law, the eighteen-year-old Princess Louise, that the six weeks her ‘beloved one’ had spent in Russia the year before had seemed to her an endless time. But there were, in the immediate future, to be few other such remarks as these.

  On 2 July the Queen called at Marlborough House and found the Princess sitting in a wheel chair. She described her as ‘looking very lovely’ but ‘altered’. As well as being changed in character, she was also permanently impaired physically. Her leg was so stiff that she ever afterwards walked with a limp — the ‘Alexandra limp’ which some ladies thought so fetching that
they adopted it themselves. She was also much more deaf, the otosclerosis which she had inherited from her mother being liable to be accentuated by both serious illness and by pregnancy. For the moment the Princess’s deafness was not a serious liability; but, as the years went by, it grew increasingly worse until her whole social life was moulded by it.

  By the middle of August, however, the Princess was sufficiently recovered to leave England to undergo a cure in the baths at Wiesbaden. Her two little boys went with her; so did the new baby, Princess Louise; so did her husband, two doctors, and a household including twenty-five servants. The trip was not a success. On the way the Princess horrified Sir William Knollys by insisting on listening to the songs the sailors sang aboard the royal yacht, Osborne, of which one in particular was ‘a very objectionable one to be sung before modest women’. Knollys tried to stop the sailors singing. It was a Sunday, he protested, and the singing would ‘scandalise Protestant Dordrecht’ where the yacht was anchored.

  ‘I was, however, overruled,’ Knollys recorded. ‘I consoled myself in trusting that the Princess only half-heard the song and only half-understood its meaning, but the Princess seemed seriously annoyed with me for trying to get her away before this objectionable song was sung.’

  She was even more annoyed when her chair was wheeled off the Osborne and carried aboard a river steamer which, to her utter indignation, was flying the Prussian flag at the stern. She demanded that it be taken down; and it was pointed out to her in vain that it was the universal custom to fly such a flag in those waters, that the Union Jack was flying at the mizzen and the Danish flag at the fore.