The Queen, Her Lover and the Most Notorious Spy in History

by Roland Perry

  This tactic heralded a battle between the king’s court and the Kents. King William had the scandal confirmed and he supported Elphinstone without equivocation. A close friendship had developed between them over the four years the Scot had been a Lord of the Bedchamber. King William’s first move was to invest him as Knight Grand Cross, Hanoverian Order.This order of chivalry was peculiar to the House of Hanover and had been instituted by the previous monarch, George IV, when he was Prince Regent in 1815.A limited number were given out and King William bestowed it as his highest personal honour, a ‘reward’ for Elphinstone’s friendship, and a clear indication he would be happy if the Scot married his niece. The monarch would have understood that the thirteenth lord’s non-royal blood would make it difficult for him to become Victoria’s husband, yet King William was doing much to give this match a chance to happen. At the very least, he was determined to spoil the plans of his sister-in-law.

  The duchess countered by stepping up the search for an eligible young foreign prince. Soon after Elphinstone’s investiture, she scheduled as fast as she could the visits of two Coburg cousins, sons of her second brother, Duke Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg Koháry.There was an element of desperation in these invitations. The duchess knew that one prince, Ferdinand, was en route to Portugal to marry Queen Maria da Gloria, but they had yet to meet. The duchess made sure that the duke was aware of Victoria’s availability and a glorious picture of her suitability was painted in dispatches.Young Ferdinand’s long itinerary was diverted to the Channel and by boat to Dover. King William was obliged to meet and fete the visitors, but the duchess upstaged him in hospitality by putting on two lavish balls, one in fancy dress, at Kensington Palace. The princess enjoyed the company of young people, something denied her in the rigid system. She loved partying and being the centre of attention. She was attracted to Ferdinand.

  The princess’s affair with Elphinstone had made her experienced far beyond her years. She was sixteen but wrote with the insight of someone mature in matters of character and sensuality. She thought the brothers ‘very new in the world,’ which was her coded way of saying they were acting like immature virgins.Yet she enjoyed their company and Victoria could also afford to be generous in her professed affections. Ferdinand was betrothed. He was unattainable. Augustus was available but rejected and they departed after two weeks. It seemed far too sudden for the princess, who was allowed for those fleeting flirtatious moments to feel wanted, even though her heart was elsewhere. The contrived meetings and the concept of the planned marriage were irksome and left her feeling alone and miserable. ‘Now they are quite gone,’Victoria wrote on 2 April, ‘and no one can quite replace them.’

  3

  UNSUITABLE SUITORS

  King William, with his various illnesses, knew he was losing his battle or serious competition, with the duchess to have his choice win the princess’s hand. He was nearly 71 and suffering now from chronic, incurable asthma. His time was running out. King William knew that the odds were stacked against Elphinstone; once he died, there would be little chance of the Scot marrying his niece. But he was prepared to do anything to spoil his sister-in-law’s plans. In May 1836 he invited the Prince of Orange and his two sons to visit from Holland. This created panic with King Leopold, who could not stand the thought of a Dutchman winning the race for Victoria. Belgium had recently broken from the Dutch nation and there was a deal of enmity between the neighbours on the North Sea. The Prince of Orange and his two sons arrived in London in mid-May and were given stepped-up royal treatment by the king. He threw a ball for the Netherlanders at St James’s Palace and also invited Victoria’s cousin, young blind Prince George, Duke of Cambridge. Now there were three possible partners for Victoria.

  Prince George made no impression and Victoria didn’t care for the Netherlanders whom she told Leopold she found dull and plain.

  Leopold was emerging as the most important influence in this ever-more frenetic game of courtship. He was in regular written communication with Victoria. He claimed to her that on his recent visit to Ramsgate (in late September, early October 1835), he had been direct in his discussions with Conroy about his pushing too hard for the position of private secretary, and the duchess as regent. Leopold was trying to give the impression that he was on Victoria’s side but the fact that Conroy had ignored him and pushed her even harder was not discussed. Nevertheless,Victoria, relieved to have any powerful male support her, was grateful to the ingratiating Leopold, who stood to gain much from his connection to the princess when she was crowned—and she wished to please her uncle. Whomever he sent as possible suitors would be given a very good ‘audience’.Victoria had not mentioned Elphinstone to him, although he already knew of at least the rumours about the Scot, who was the main block to Leopold’s own plans.Victoria’s heart was with Elphinstone, the monarch’s Lord of the Bedchamber.The fact that he was forbidden fruit and not allowed near her bedchamber only enhanced her longing for him.

  Leopold connived with the duchess to send their nephews Ernst and Albert, sons of their brother Ernst, Duke of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, to visit. All the focus, the adults hoped, would be on Albert. His older brother, Ernst, would inherit his father’s domains. Albert would inherit very little beyond his title. A marriage with an English monarch would be a heaven-sent gift for the German house. King William heard of this move and asked Irishman Lord Palmerston, the foreign secretary, to delay, even prevent, the visit of the Coburg cousins. Palmerston—nicknamed ‘the mongoose’ because of his sharp nose and tight eyes—pointed out that he could not stop the duchess’s brother making a private visit.

  Frustrated, William then demanded that the visitors be lodged in a hotel and not Kensington Palace. William had control over all the royal palaces and had been annoyed to learn that the duchess, without his consent, had taken over seventeen rooms at Kensington, which were suitable for just such a visit. Conroy and the duchess refused to accommodate William’s whims; they did accommodate the two German princes. Leopold was relieved and expressed disparaging views about King William. He was setting up the princess against William and his choices as opposed to those of the duchess and himself.

  Victoria was responding as if she were gullible and ready to accept one of their offerings. Despite her precociousness, she was yet to master the byzantine ways of international royal intrigues and squabbles. She was restrained by her thoughts of a future with Elphinstone yet this did not stop a competition developing into a crisis; a huge contest over which male would be joined in holy matrimony with the future monarch of the world’s most powerful nation. Britain was approaching its zenith as an empire and, in parallel, enormous change was on the horizon. Democracy was growing. Reformation of parliament and extension of the vote was always under review. New ideas kept coming up in Fleet Street with The Times leading the way and living up to its sobriquet, ‘The Thunderer’.Writers and poets were setting a pattern and there was a deeper current of thought about equality and opportunity, two social virtues still in their infancy but developing. Even the City of London was not immune to reform and attempts to end abuses. No-one quite knew how this would affect the monarchy. Diminished power was one obvious implication, yet influence still sat with the monarch, who had to be more mindful about how he or she used or abused it as social and political enhancements occurred and the empire expanded.

  While the German cousins Albert and Ernst were making their way along the Rhine, other matchmakers and candidates emerged. The Duke of Brunswick was mentioned but he was regarded as a ‘Byronic Desperado’: too much of a romantic playboy to be taken seriously as the prince consort. The Duke of Wellington, 67, perhaps the most famous man in the land after winning the Battle of Waterloo against the French 21 years earlier, decided to play cupid also by supporting her blind cousin, Prince George. Victoria liked him more than any other cousin, but any advances fizzled. The princess was saying very little except to her diary and closest confidantes. The ordeal stressed her, especially when her mind over a partner was fix
ed. The pressure was so intense that she felt ‘extremely crushed and kept under’; she ‘hardly dare say a word.’

  Advice came from several quarters.Victoria’s maternal half-sibling (one of two children of her mother’s first marriage), Princess Feodora of Hohenlohe, then 28, wrote a prosaic appraisal of the German cousins en route to Victoria. Feodora, whose powers of observation were inferior to those of her much younger half-sister, thought Ernst had a better nature, while Albert was more clever and handsome. She asked Victoria to let her know what she thought of them. This helped build an expectation despite Victoria presenting her well-trained impassive exterior. Her emotions were with her uncle’s choices. Like a slick horse-trader, Leopold was presenting two possible purchases, leaving it to her to feel she had a say as to which one she preferred.Victoria was so well disposed towards Leopold that she felt the urge to please him. She would see the best in the lads, whatever her deeper feelings.

  Albert and Ernst arrived early afternoon on 18 May 1836. Albert was pleasing to her in many respects. He was as tall as Ernst, but broader of shoulder and better looking. Albert’s nose was ‘beautiful; his mouth sweet’ and his teeth were good. After appraising the physical side favourably, she dissected his character. She agreed with Feodora that he was smart and bright but it was the charm in his sweet expression that delighted her most.

  Above all Victoria sought expression. She wanted a confident, strong husband; someone with flair to complement intelligence; an individual with a deep interest in politics that might balance her own ambivalence towards certain aspects of the affairs of state. She had found all that in Elphinstone; she would accept nothing less in any other possible suitor. Victoria also looked for someone with a slice of daring in his political views. Elphinstone had had the best of schooling for the time and education had become one of his pet topics.

  Elphinstone was appalled at the lack of funds given for public education—and he had supported abolition of slavery in 1833. The impressionable, cosseted Victoria had never really considered the ramifications of such reform issues until Elphinstone opened up her mind. Elphinstone, a liberal, had been drawn into politics over the Reform Bill of 1832. He believed in a much wider voting franchise. Only 440,000 people out of a population of seventeen million met the voter qualification. Seats in the Commons were allocated disproportionately. Some constituencies were over-represented; others had hardly anyone overseeing their interests. Through patronage, corruption and bribery, the Crown and Lords ‘owned’ about 30 per cent of the seats (‘pocket’ or ‘rotten’ boroughs). This gave them significant influence in the Commons, and in the selection of the prime minister. Elphinstone held an unpopular view in the Lords, but his thought was that, if the Commons were created by a wide franchise there would be a more dispersed equity in the nation’s development and less disgruntlement in the population. People would feel they had some stake in the nation’s progress and wealth. In 1830, Elphinstone had been inspired by Prime Minister Charles Grey, a Whig, who had been determined to reform the electoral system. Grey had had a high-powered cabinet, which included one former prime minister, Viscount Goderich, along with Lord Melbourne, Lord Russell, Lord Derby and Lord Palmerston (all future prime ministers). They fought for two years to pass the Reform Bill, which was more symbolism than substance. As liberal statesman John Bright put it: ‘It was not a good Bill, but it was a great Bill when it passed.’ Many ‘rotten’ boroughs remained. The ‘new’ system created by the Bill still excluded millions of the working class.

  Women were not even considered anywhere as eligible voters, an odd state of affairs given that it was highly likely that a woman,Victoria, would become queen of the nation. Despite the trend to diminish the monarch’s powers, Victoria could use her constitutional right and considerable influence to have an impact as both a figurehead and dynamic leader in her own right.An anomaly, even an absurdity, in the system that excluded women was the fact that as princess she did not have a vote. As queen, she would not vote anyway, but she would have more say than anyone in the way the country was governed (apart from the prime minister), its international relationships (apart from the foreign minister) and its moral values (alongside the Archbishop of Canterbury).

  All Elphinstone’s attitudes and attributes were part of the princess’s idea of her future husband. She would have her ears open to the minds of the two unsuspecting and callow Coburg princes but she was also concerned first with the physical. After her experience with an ideal type so early, she would not accept someone who had no attraction for her. She noted that, where Ernst was dark, Albert had big blue eyes and light brown hair about the same colour as hers.Victoria delighted in their cultural interests. The two princes were both passable at the piano; they made time to observe and comment on prints. Victoria sat beside them as they drew sketches. Albert was appreciated more in everything. He was more reflective, more talented and wittier and had an adolescent flair for the histrionic. Once more Victoria’s capacity to make judgements was evident. She praised both the young cousins (Albert was a few months younger than her, Ernst a year older) as if she were a doting aunt.They were so serious and yet happy, as expected in the young. Albert, who could do little wrong in her critical eyes, won extra points for his devotion to and fooling around with her beloved dog, Dash.

  But Albert did not measure up in some areas. He was not a strong lad and was unused to staying up late. He needed his early bed-time and was bemused by Victoria’s desire to dance until dawn. He could not keep pace on 20 May 1836 at St James’s Palace, when a formal dinner lasted until 2 a.m.The next afternoon there was a drawing-room reception with a receiving line of an exhausting 3900 people. Pumping endless hands was not Albert’s forte or wish. A salubrious dinner and concert followed. He fell asleep during his meal, resting his face on the table next to, but not quite in, his untouched soup bowl. He slumbered again at the late-ending concert. On 23 May, the day before Victoria’s seventeenth birthday, he felt ill at a grand dinner at Kensington Palace and went to bed at 7 p.m.

  The next day, perhaps through nerves or illness or both, Albert reported he was still feeling poorly but he just had to turn up for the big party at St James’s Palace in his cousin’s honour.Victoria thought Albert looked sickly. After two dances he looked as if he might faint and he went home. On 25 May, he stayed in his room, perhaps wisely avoiding Victoria who was not impressed by his lack of vigour. On 26 May, he came down for breakfast but could only manage tea before retiring again. On 29 May, he attended another party but once more left early.

  Victoria felt sorry for Albert. She admired much about him, but in these social moments, so important to her high spirits, he was more child than youth.Yet she drew closer to him in private and away from the frenetic, mindless social whirl. Victoria, again showing a certain maturity, could project how Albert would develop. He was the first person, apart from Elphinstone, whom she considered with potential prince consort–like qualities. In the last week, 3 to 10 June, of the Coburg boys’ stay, she and Albert went to the opera and a play, where his calm and alertness restored his image to a degree.

  The other suitors, whether favoured or fobbed off, would soon fade from Victoria’s thoughts as serious options for marriage. But Albert would stay in her mind. If there had to be an alternative to her beloved Lord John, he was at least one in consideration.

  4

  KING WILLIAM’S FRUSTRATION

  King William’s next move was to engineer the appointment (via Prime Minister Lord Melbourne) of Elphinstone as a Privy Councillor, a significant honour for someone not yet 29. The Privy Council had been modified with the growth of parliamentary democracy but was still an institution of power. It was the monarch’s most important advisory body. The king relied on it for rulings, administrative duties and advice on matters such as the royal prerogative: what powers he had or did not have. Even if he had technical power, for example, over issues of foreign policy, the council might advise him not to exercise it.

  This elevation
for the thirteenth Lord Elphinstone further enhanced his status, and positioned him well for experience that would be appreciated on the remote chance he were ever to marry the princess.The duties of a prince consort were fluid and flexible and the future queen’s husband could exercise them the way he wished. If he were lazy, he could sit back and let all the arms of government and the monarchy operate without his input or influence. He could always shelter from the winds of change that promised to make the monarchy largely ceremonial and irrelevant to running the country. If he were ambitious and a man of ideas, he could move to have them realised. An intimate knowledge of the various functions of state would help.

  There were other ongoing scrapes between the king and the Kents. He refused to receive the duchess’s daughter-in-law (married to her son from her first marriage) on the grounds that she was not of royal blood, a condition that banned her from the ‘closet’ at St James’s Palace. Then he prevented Conroy from attending a palace throne-room reception, saying that no men but ladies only, from other royal households, were allowed to attend. These instances were traditional technicalities that would be overlooked normally, but King William enforced them in the war of the households. Matters came to a head during August 1836 when he had invited the duchess and Victoria to come to Windsor for the queen’s birthday party on 13 August, and then to stay on for his own 72nd birthday celebration eight days later.The duchess ignored the invitation to the queen’s celebration, saying she had her own birthday event on 17 August at Claremont Park, the royal estate in Surrey. Neither the king nor queen was invited.The duchess condescended to attend the king’s celebration. King William was furious about the snub to his wife.The duchess and Victoria would arrive on 20 August.