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

by Roland Perry

  Husna stretched and swung out of bed.

  ‘I think you should come,’ she said, her voice croaky. ‘You need the air every day because of your illness. And besides, I want your company.’

  Elphinstone yawned and sat up. She leaned across and kissed him.

  ‘In that case,’ he said with a smile, ‘I will come.’

  They began dressing. Elphinstone pulled on white trousers and brown riding boots.

  ‘Thank you for last night,’ he said. ‘What made you change your mind?’

  ‘I learned about your little queen’s ceremony yesterday,’ she said.

  ‘Oh? But I only received the letter the night before last.’

  ‘Your little queen has other friends here. One of them received the news from her and informed me.’

  ‘Who was that?’

  ‘Not really any of your business.’

  ‘So you . . .?’

  ‘I came here with the express intention of taking your mind off things.’

  14

  VICKY’S BIRTH; ELPHINSTONE ’S FEVER

  Victoria learned she was pregnant a few weeks into her marriage. Everyone expected her to be thrilled but the court was dismayed at her reaction. She was furious and moody. The news set off a period of depression that confused her young husband, who was made to feel he was to blame for something, rather than being praised for doing what the nation expected him to do. The conception led to a fusillade of tempestuous letters and diary scribbling in which she vented her feelings. She wrote that it was ‘the ONLY thing’ she dreaded. It was ‘too dreadful,’ she told Leopold. She ‘could not be more unhappy,’ she informed another relative in Coburg.Victoria ‘hated the idea’ and had prayed that she be spared her condition for at least the first half year of her marriage.

  ‘I cannot understand how anyone can wish for such a thing,’ she wailed,‘especially at the beginning of a marriage.’

  The pregnancy triggered a depression similar to that which she experienced in late 1835 and memories of what she considered to be the worst months of her life until that point.Then she had been made to feel so sordid, irresponsible and alone as her mother, Conroy and Lady Flora had badgered, harassed and pilloried her to a state of anxiety that was unbearable. She had wanted to die, and nearly did. Only the support from Lehzen and the fallible Clark squeezed her through that period. These two recognised her severe depression a second time around and were in full support again. The much-maligned doctor had done his homework on pregnancy since being lectured so humiliatingly in the Lancet after the fiasco with Lady Flora. He knew all the signs short of being a mother himself, yet still he called in an obstetrician (Charles Locock) for an examination, just to be sure. When her condition was confirmed she exclaimed to Leopold:‘If my plagues are to be rewarded by a nasty girl, I will drown it.’

  Victoria’s first thought after the shock was that she had to produce a male, but not to satisfy the nation’s desire for a future king. She simply wanted a boy.The whole business erupted into a confusion of emotions as those close tried to mollify her.

  The public knew nothing of her sensitivities. They had only had the newspaper accounts, mostly favourable now, about the new royal couple, which kept her public (newspaper-led) support reasonable. But regard for the queen took a leap on 12 June 1840 when a would-be assassin, carrying two pistols, leapt from Green Park as the royal carriage moved down Constitution Hill. He fired at them. Albert instinctively put his arms around his pregnant wife to protect her. The shooter missed and was set upon by onlookers, and later arrested.

  A short time later, when the couple were out driving, Albert noticed another man pointing a gun at them a metre away from the carriage window.The gun seemed to misfire. He reported the incident to Prime Minister Peel that night: ‘I saw a man of the age 26 to 30, with a shabby hat and dirty appearance. He stretched out his hand and snapped a small pistol.’

  Peel advised him and Victoria to stay at the palace for a while.

  When this was conveyed to Victoria she revealed her courage, saying: ‘Never! Alert the police. We shall ride out again tomorrow and see if he returns.’

  The same man did appear again on the edge of Green Park. He pulled out his pistol and aimed at them again. But it misfired once more. The would-be assassin was John Francis, a stage carpenter from Covent Garden. The police thought the man might be ‘mad’. When told this, Victoria commented:‘He is not in the least mad, but very cunning.’

  Francis was condemned to death, but his sentence was commuted and he was sent to prison for life.

  Only two days after this attempted assassination, a hunchbacked dwarf, John Bean, aimed and fired a pistol at Victoria as she rode to the Chapel Royal. It was a third shock, and not of great comfort that Bean’s pistol was loaded with tobacco and paper, giving rise to a tabloid spate of drawings of ‘smoking guns’.

  Shaken but unbowed, the royal couple was applauded the day after this incident when their carriage bumped out through the palace gates. The following night, they were cheered at the opera. Their popularity rose. The pistol threats had another important impact on Albert. It precipitated the passing of the Regency Bill in parliament.

  ‘In case of Victoria’s death, and her successor being under 18 years of age,’ Albert wrote to his brother, ‘I am to be Regent—alone—Regent [!] Without a Council [!] You will understand the importance of this matter and that it gives my position here in the country a fresh significance.’

  Victoria was happy about this breakthrough; Melbourne too. He put it all down to the prince’s character. ‘Three months ago,’ he remarked, ‘they [the parliamentarians] would never have done it for him.’

  Albert was not sure how to handle his wife during her pregnancy. He stayed well clear during the day in the initial months, unless called to be with her. He was attentive during the trying time, easing her misgivings. The child was born three weeks premature on 21 November 1840. Victoria had a tough twelve-hour labour.

  ‘Oh, madam,’ Dr Locock said at the birth, ‘it is a princess.’

  Victoria was disappointed. She replied snappily: ‘Never mind. The next will be a prince!’

  Albert dashed off to represent the queen in council for the first time. He was just as excited about this meeting as the arrival of his first child. Both were the initial signposts for two much hoped for parallel paths: producing a royal lineage, and being a highly functional, administrative regent in all but name.

  Victoria’s mental reaction to her experience of pregnancy, birth and babies in general had caused her to be disgusted by bodily functions, which was contrary to her hearty Hanoverian nature. She pushed the little princess royal (Victoria—‘Vicky’ to distinguish her) away with no inclination to nurse her. She spoke of the whole experience in German to distance it further; it was die Schattenseite, the shadow or dark side of marriage. She wrote that babies were ‘frog-like’ and ‘ugly’ until they were about six months and taking shape.

  In mid-1840, Elphinstone learned that the Duke of Sussex had appointed him as the Grandmaster of the Masonic Lodge in Madras. There were eight masonic chapters in the region, and while taking this honour with good grace, he was not an enthusiastic supporter of masonic activity, which was limited during his tenure. After nearly four years of banishment, the exiled Scot seemed not too keen on being overworked in many activities in steamy, somnolent Madras. Sir Alexander Arbuthnol passed through the town and enjoyed the company of the governor with Husna whom he thought was ‘quite the most outstanding dark beauty I have ever seen’. Arbuthnol added in a letter to his wife: ‘Lord Elphinstone had a reputation for being a man of pleasure and by no means diverted by his official work. He was a man of very good ability and he discharged his duties very well.’

  Elphinstone was tempted to return to London when struck down with an unspecified illness, the ubiquitous and all-encompassing ‘fever’, in late March 1840. Husna gave up part of her veterinary activities to look after him, much to the chagrin of the presidency�
��s resident surgeon. Reports went back to Britain that Elphinstone had chosen the aloof French-Indian and unqualified female instead of a professional English doctor of twenty years standing in the colony.

  Husna nursed Elphinstone back from a condition that had no known cure. She monitored his temperature and diet. She made sure he did Indian yogic exercises every day, to the ridicule of British observers. Gradually he returned from what Husna told him frankly was ‘the brink’.

  ‘Time’ would be the healer, she told him, and it took three months before she pronounced him off the ‘seriously-ill’ list. When an English reporter asked her how she saved him, Husna replied provocatively: ‘I treated him like a prize stallion, which he is,’ knowing that her remarks would be picked up everywhere, including Buckingham Palace.

  A press report in The Times noted: ‘We are happy in being able to state that Lord Elphinstone’s health is greatly improved. His lordship is unable to walk, but will be able to mount a horse in a few days, it is expected.’

  He did not return to full fitness for some months more when he recommenced his morning rides with Husna. In October they ventured into the hills for an exploratory look with the view to his presidency being moved there.

  ‘I won’t join you,’ Husna told him.‘It’s either Madras or Stockholm; not Madras or the hills.’

  ‘Let’s cross that river when we come to it,’ he said.

  ‘No,’ she said, with a fierce stare, ‘no rivers or hills.’

  On the ride home he spoke of his desire to return to Britain.

  ‘Well, that is interesting,’ she said as they trotted along a dusty track to the outskirts of Madras. ‘Next year I may well be returning to Sweden to do more study. There is some talk of allowing females to qualify as doctors.’

  ‘That means if you don’t come to the hills with the move, we won’t see each other for some time.’

  ‘I’ve told you; I won’t be coming to the hills.’

  Elphinstone became preoccupied by building a summer residence at Kaiti at nearly 3000 metres altitude in the Nilgiri Hills, or ‘Blue Mountains’, outside Madras and moved the seat of government there to beat the incessant heat.

  ‘Elphinstone’s excuse [for moving the government into the hills] was that his doctors had found him and several members of his Council, as well as secretaries of Government, exhausted by the heat,’ the Indian newspaper The Hindu noted.‘He advised them that a change of climate was necessary if they were to get about their work.’

  If Elphinstone were going to be governor, he wanted to do it in some comfort. He was determined to make the move. Elphinstone especially liked this region inhabited by the ancient Toda tribe.The area reminded him more of the rolling hills and downs of Southern England than the craggy heights of his beloved Scotland. Elphinstone encouraged other Europeans to build summer residences in the hills with the aim of creating a community in the region. But his experiment brought controversy. Not every East India Company employee wanted to live so remotely.There were protests and appeals to the company’s directors, who were scandalised, according to The Hindu. They remonstrated with the governor and referred the matter to their ‘court’. This decreed that Elphinstone’s move inland was illegal. The company censured him. He ignored the ruling, pitting himself against the directors. Pressure was put on him to return to Madras, which he did, with some bitterness and much reluctance. By 8 December 1840 the region was being governed from Madras once more. He replied to the East India Company directors’ letter of censure saying that ‘if he had not acted as he had, there would have been a general breakdown of the administrative machinery’.

  Elphinstone was incensed. He let Victoria know his feelings in a letter, which sowed the first real seeds of the East India Company’s demise. It was suggested that the company be dissolved and that the Crown itself take over the running of India.Victoria was still a novice in such matters and she had little idea how her empire was run. But she would learn through self-interest and Elphinstone’s advice influenced her attitude to the future running of the ‘jewel’.

  Elphinstone’s forced return to Madras allowed him to resume his guarded relationship with Husna. Over dinner at the mansion in late December 1840, when all the presidency staff had departed, he complained to her about the East India Company.

  ‘They have an informant in my office,’ he said with a frown. ‘My every move was known.’

  ‘I am not surprised. Not all your people wanted to go into the hills.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I didn’t want you to go. I was the only medical adviser to say it was not necessary.’

  ‘You wouldn’t be that devious to inform on me, would you?’

  Husna got up from the table.

  ‘Perhaps I would,’ she said.

  ‘You’ve been spying on me?’ he asked, shocked.

  ‘And you have not been honest with me!’ she said, tossing her napkin on the table and upsetting a wine glass. A pool of red liquid formed on the table cloth.

  ‘I think you are still in love with your little queen,’ she said, dropping her voice. ‘Why else would you return to England when I am still here?’

  She strode towards the dining-room door. He tried to stop her.

  ‘No my lord,’ she said, brushing past him, ‘you are still in love with her!’

  Husna did not appear at the stables the next morning and two days later, on New Year’s Eve, Elphinstone was told that she had left by boat for Stockholm.

  He was upset to lose his best friend and lover.

  Victoria was shocked and angry to learn in March 1841 that she was pregnant again, which indicated she may have become careless when in the grip of her passions. She has been diagnosed in retrospect by psychiatrists and psychologists as having a form of depression and an abnormal sex drive. She may, as diarist Greville claimed, have had a sexual crush on Melbourne, and other men she viewed as ‘beautiful’. But only once outside marriage had she done anything about it. Her fishbowl life and position limited her chances to almost nil for spontaneous romances. Albert was avoiding her sexual demands and hoped that by continuing his attentiveness to her—with gifts, warmth, expressions of love and devotion to their family life—he could satiate her desires. It wasn’t enough, and neither was his excuse that the Church forbade sex during pregnancy. The lack of servicing and her hormonal changes caused Victoria’s mood to spill over into anger, spite and other emotions.

  Victoria’s 1841 pregnancy prefaced a period of flux and change. Again, Melbourne lost in parliament and had to concede government. This time, due to the shrewd young Prince Albert, the bedchamber crisis was averted by Victoria being persuaded by Melbourne and him to give up three of her Whig ladies. Peel could govern in his own right. Victoria, in a fragile state and often depressed, was tearful about losing Melbourne, yet there was a compensation or two. Melbourne continued, unconstitutionally, to advise her as Albert began to fill the breach as her key confidant. Melbourne endorsed Albert’s stepping up. Victoria acquiesced. She was preoccupied with her condition and mental state, and less concerned about Albert usurping her role. Melbourne’s final ‘shot’ as prime minister was to suggest to Albert that the last block to Albert’s advance—Lehzen—should go. It was time to tell Victoria. But Albert knew his wife’s moods. Her pregnant state did not provide the moment. She would be too ‘excited’ by any effort to remove the woman who had been her governess since she was five. Victoria was now a woman of 22 and Queen of England. Lehzen and Albert were vying for Victoria’s heart and to have most influence over her. Albert was winning. He detested Lehzen, often calling her the ‘dragon’. Events in the palace nursery aided the prince consort’s determination and Lehzen was blamed for little Vicky’s problems. She was sickly.Victoria thought it might be the child’s diet of ass’s milk and chicken broth, another eccentric remedy prescribed by Clark. Others put it down to the way Lehzen handled her. Dramas continued.

  15

  BERTIE’S ARRIVAL; LEHZEN’S DEP
ARTURE

  Early in November 1841, Melbourne gave Victoria some advice that presaged a main theme in her career: the struggle for power and influence between the monarchy and the government’s executive arm. He informed her that the ministerial part of the constitution, the workings of the government, rested mainly on ‘practice, usage and understanding’. There was no set official publication that explained or described it. Confusing her at a higher level he added:‘It [the unwritten British constitution] is to be sought in debates, in letters, in memoirs, and wherever it can be picked up.’

  She and Albert understood well enough that since 1830 the executive power had resided in the hands of the government and its ministers. Her power had been limited. They realised that the personal power and influence of the monarchy depended on the drive, personality, character and popularity of the individual monarch. She and Albert had to gain the confidence of ministers if they were to wield influence and any power over events. The monarchy could become an unofficial department of state, to help compensate for lost powers. Albert believed this would help it remain afloat in the rising tide of democracy.Their approach would create a pattern to be followed by the heir to the throne, the Prince of Wales, who was born on 9 November 1841. Victoria liked the bigger-than-average-sized baby, who had big, dark blue eyes, a largish, refined nose and a girlish mouth.

  After adoring the new addition she slipped into a deep mental malaise for the second time after giving birth. It coincided with Lehzen going down with jaundice and turning yellow, much to Albert’s quiet but cruel merriment. Victoria’s state and the weight loss of the little Vicky caused the worst row between husband and wife in their nearly two years of marriage. Albert retreated but wrote her a blistering letter. ‘Doctor Clark has mismanaged the child and poisoned her with calomel,’ he seethed, ‘and you have starved her. I shall have nothing more to do with it; take the child away and do as you like and if she dies you will have it on your conscience.’