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

by Roland Perry

  With conflict now certain in the Crimea,Victoria saw the chance to shore up her support, and indirectly that for the prince, by backing the armed forces and war.This put to bed rumours about how much royal connections and friends interfered with her role as Queen of England and the empire. After writing in her diary that her heart was not in ‘this war’ she hardened her attitude when the humane Aberdeen declared to her that he found war repugnant ‘in all its forms’.Victoria thought that having such a squeamish prime minister under the circumstances ‘will never do’. Spurred by Stockmar’s fantasy about her being ‘a permanent Premier’, she began acting as she perceived she should. In an about-face over not taking on the Russians, she advised Aberdeen that it was better to have a ‘small’ war now than a bigger one later, where he was all for ‘patching things up’.Victoria would have none of it. She was prepared to rattle the sabre and then use it.Acting in her role to ‘advise’ her prime minister, she suggested the country should go to war. Aberdeen took this as a directive and much against his instincts had to agree. A stronger prime minister may have challenged her power prerogative, which was largely illusory. But even a tougher individual would have been aware that the nation was feverish about going into conflict, although there had been no rational discussion or justification for it. The press was for it; the public mood had to be taken into account. It was almost as if, after a long peacetime period, it was necessary to appease some manic or restless mood in the country. On 28 February 1854, three days after Victoria’s discussion, Britain declared war on Russia in support of Turkey and in alliance with France.

  The Crimean War had begun.

  25

  OLD FEELINGS, NEW CHALLENGES IN BOMBAY

  Elphinstone arrived early in 1854 at Bombay, the west port of entry to India, which was far more attractive than the other gateways of Madras in the south and Calcutta in the east. Bombay’s curved harbour, with its modest hills rising behind it, rivalled Sydney Harbour and Italy’s Bay of Naples for sheer physical beauty and it was made even more familiar by the line of impressive European buildings along the waterfront. He was thrilled to feel the sense of freedom that this exotic country brought to him once more. The aromas, as ever, were there with the accompanying heat. The colours struck him more than ever, especially with the women in their saris—purple, orange, pink, red, all shades of blue, yellow and mauve. ‘Such a contrast to the drab grey of London,’ he noted, ‘and I feel at home and liberated already.’

  Writing to the Duke of Cambridge, he observed:

  elegant [Indian] women in short satin skirts, the like of which I have never seen in England, or quite as short in India for that matter.The dominant color in fashion seems to be green, but a special emerald variety that adds to the wearer’s appeal. One very tall woman in pale cherry threw me a wonderful smile and a garland as we headed towards the governor’s mansion. She had a white flower in her glossy black hair and she was well adorned with many-colored wrist bands . . .How I wish I could have stopped the carriage and spoken to her! But of course, the dignity of my new office would not allow such a liberty. Her full smile reminded me so of another.

  The noises too were familiar—the chatter and laughter of the women; the industrious activity of men on bullock carts with squeaking axles; the clatter of carriages on cobblestone or gravel; and the continuous music with which he was not unfamiliar.

  ‘Did I hear a harp?’ he wrote.‘If so it seemed fitting at that moment, along with ever-present drums and gongs. It was cacophonous but still charming.’ Overhead, birds cackled incessantly and he noted the endless stream of seven sisters—groups that flew always in formations of seven. Red-and-white parrots swooped low across his carriage’s path.

  Along the route to his residence, people waved and greeted the new governor, if not like a king, then someone important at least. East India Company officials had organised the city’s greeting, but the cheering and reaction seemed genuine. He noticed, too, the bigger population of Bombay compared to his last presidency in Madras.The images were familiar: smiling faces, dirty white garments alongside spotless uniforms. In the crowds, women wandered in a variety of brilliant head-covering scarves and other headgear, and men wearing variously multicoloured turbans, skullcaps and cotton clothes, stopped, shaded their eyes and gawked. ‘I wanted to bring out my sketch book even on the ride in,’ he told Cambridge:

  as everywhere I looked there was life and industry. Craftsmen in alleyways worked in leather, brass and precious metals. Brilliant mosques caught the eyes, as did the pyramid-shaped Jain temples emerging from high-walled compounds, and the Hindu temples featuring copper idols, presumably instances of their many gods . . .and knowing how much you loved my talk of markets in Madras, the Bombay examples out-shine them with the stunning flowers—roses, marigolds, jasmine, and tuberoses.

  He added in closing that ‘as I begin my new post you will be at ease to know that I have my affairs in order, just in case on the very outside chance, as you feared, I do not survive my tenure.’

  Elphinstone’s governorship would run at least five years and would be a considerable challenge, the greatest of his life.The western, or Bombay, presidency of India was a long, narrow strip of country, including the province of Sindh. It occupied the western coast of the peninsula from the mouth of the Indus River to the northern tip of Goa, and from south of Goa to the border of Maisur.The new governor controlled 347,400 square kilometres in which there were fouteen million inhabitants. Elphinstone also had power over native states covering 184,700 square kilometres, including a further six million Indians. On the surface his new posting would have looked inviting. Bombay, a city of seven islands on India’s west coast, was one of the nation’s most thriving and populous centres. City elders and British bureaucrats were well disposed to him because of his record in running Madras, his touring of remote parts and his love and knowledge of the country. The achievements of his uncle, the former Governor Mountstuart Elphinstone, from 1819 to 1827 also raised expectations of the new appointee. Mountstuart had set a standard in organising education in India and this influenced his nephew’s efforts in the same field in Madras. On his first day in residence in Bombay the new governor visited Elphinstone College, an endowment of local communities in honour of Mountstuart. He also attended a modest ceremony at the foot of the marble statue of his uncle, which had been erected by local Europeans. It meant that Elphinstone walked tall from the beginning of his stay in Bombay and it was also a spur, if he needed one, to stamp his own mark on the governorship, Bombay and the Indian nation.

  Education would be a cornerstone of Elphinstone’s ambitions, as it had been in Madras. Elphinstone’s aim was to establish a university in Bombay as he had in Madras before his scheduled tenure of five years ended in 1857. Within a week of arriving Elphinstone was tackling a second area: train travel. In April 1853, a year before he was governor, the first railway in India began operating between Bombay and neighbouring Thane. It only covered 34 kilometres, but it was the start of a bigger system. Elphinstone was involved in the early development of the Bombay, Baroda and Central India Railway Company, which would be incorporated in 1855. He began the demolition of the walls of the fort, which had been a symbol of imperialism. Elphinstone also initiated plans for the Vhar waterworks, which were due to start in two years.

  Modernising by the British was viewed with suspicion by some locals.The train running out of the city was looked upon as a ‘demon’. The capitalist methods of financing and banking were disliked, especially the use of interest on money lent, which was frowned upon by Muslims, and always seemed to favour the Raj and not Indians. But it was ‘progress’ and the British felt, without broadcasting it, that their technical skills in modernising were superior to those of the Indians.

  Elphinstone was more aware of local sensitivities than most, yet he was now part of the relentless imperial expansion in the empire’s prize colony. He was at work continuing the development of a modern banking system, overseeing the build-up of
the cotton trade, and improving road works and hospitals. Elphinstone further showed his abilities as a conciliator when dealing with the Bombay Association, a group formed in 1852 that vented public grievances to the governor. Negotiation was one way of dealing with unrest, which had simmered on the surface since the Sikh Wars he had experienced in 1845.Thwarting rebellion was not simply a choice between using a sledgehammer or fine diplomatic skills. Elphinstone had to deal with diverse political, economic, military, religious and social issues. Each area had delicate balances to maintain. Sepoys (native Indian soldiers) were under the command of British soldiers trained in the East India Company College in England. Elphinstone had his own army of about 100,000 sepoys with a commander-in-chief who reported to him.Along with similar armies in Madras and Bengal there were about 250,000 sepoys under command in the East India Company, which was more than the official army of the British Empire. The sepoys of the Bengal Army proved the most difficult to manage. They had their own list of grievances against the company. Caste privileges and customs had once been encouraged within the Bengal Army, but modernising regimes in Calcutta threatened some sepoys’ ritual high status. Indian soldiers became unhappy about their treatment by British officers, who wished to entrench and deepen the divide between them. A few years earlier, in 1851 and 1852, sepoys had been required to serve overseas during a war in Burma. Hindus were upset. Tradition laid out that those who travelled ‘the black waters’ (away from the Indian homeland) would lose their caste. Low sepoy salaries caused disputes. After the British troops conquered Awadh and the Punjab, soldiers no longer received extra money because those missions were not considered ‘foreign’.

  There was also disgruntlement from the old Indian aristocracy, which saw its power eroding under British rule. The public auction of the Nagpur royal family’s jewels did not help the demeanour of the local elite. An anti-company Raj attitude reinforced the belief that the British intended to convert them either by force or deception to Christianity. Elphinstone spoke individually to religious leaders in Bombay, assuring them that under his watch there would be no such intrusive development. He admitted that a surge in evangelism had occurred, but he would not encourage or court it in his presidency. Elphinstone let it be known in the army that he was against any officers attempting to convert their sepoys, yet it still went on. The company agreed with his assessment that such proselytising could lead to a flashpoint. At his instigation, the British made moves to ban it. But they refused to slow down expansion and westernisation, which the new Governor of Bombay endorsed. In general the company embarked on rapid change, banning many Hindu and Muslim religious practices, which were viewed as uncivilised. Elphinstone could slow the pace of change in Bombay but not the unrest it caused elsewhere, such as in Bengal. He was against Sati, a Hindu ritual in which a recently widowed woman was put on her husband’s funeral pyre and burnt to death, either of her own volition or by force. It had been outlawed since 1829 but still went on in certain communities and regions, including those in Nepal and Bengal, where there was outrage over British ‘interference’. Elphinstone wished sati banned altogether, preferring reason over force to ensure change. Predecessors, such as former General Sir Charles Napier, commander-in-chief in India, had been tougher, telling Indian leaders that the British too had their customs in response to burning a woman alive: ‘We tie a rope around their [the killers’] necks and we hang them. Build your funeral pyre; beside it, my carpenters will build a gallows.You may follow your custom. And we will follow ours.’

  As tough as this talking was, it did not stamp out sati. Elphinstone’s approach was more effective. He also supported the abolition of child marriage and female infanticide. He backed efforts by the British to ban the Thuggee religious cult that had so intrigued young Bertie. Its members would insinuate themselves into other groups, and then murder them.

  The Indians complained about the justice system, which they said was unfair to them. East India Company officers were allowed an extended series of appeals if convicted or accused of brutality or crimes against Indians.There was also anger over heavy taxation. It was seen as extortion. If taxes weren’t paid, property was appropriated. Elphinstone moved early to buy more land for himself. But it was nothing compared to the Governor-General of India, Lord Dalhousie, who annexed, without compensation or payment, more than two and a half million square kilometres of land as the company’s territory. This British expansion outraged local rulers, who viewed it as imperial greed on a grand scale.

  Despite all the problems and attitudes to the Raj, Elphinstone in his first year as governor managed to gain the goodwill of the locals, the Europeans and the military.‘He brought to the office experience that few men could command,’ historians Kaye and Malleson wrote. ‘His knowledge of men, his courtesy, his genial bearing, gave effect to that experience . . . His conduct as Governor of Bombay was invariably marked by temper, judgment and discretion. Calm and dignified in manner . . .he evinced on every occasion likely to test his action, the possession of a guiding mind, of a will not to be shaken, a resolution that went direct to its aim.’ The mood of the population after the first Afghan War had to be handled with ‘tact and judgment on the part of the rulers . . .Lord Elphinstone . . . displayed them.’ At first he had to show his administrative skills, which gained the confidence of the Indians. ‘His measures for improving the resources of the country, and for establishing means of communications in all directions, are spoken of to this day.’

  Four months into his presidency, an army officer asked him to come to a field a few kilometres from his residence to witness a game of polo, which the officer deemed to be played too vigorously. There were 30 horses and riders on each team competing on a dusty, crude playing area of about 200 metres long by 120 metres wide. About half the players were British officers in one team wearing red shirts and the other team had mainly Indians in green shirts, some of whom were also serving in the British army. The game was rough and dangerous with the mallets wielded freely.

  ‘It’s willing,’ Elphinstone said, ‘but I’m not going to ban it. In fact, it looks like fun.’

  ‘The problem is the illegal gambling,’ the officer said. ‘Quite a lot is being wagered on the outcome. That leads to some extraordinary clashes. One resulted in a duel a few months before you arrived. Both officers were mortally wounded as a result.’

  Elphinstone watched as one particular horse crashed its way through a pack. Its rider swung the mallet so hard that it collected an opposition rider, who was thrown from his horse and then trampled on by other competitors. Several people ran from the sidelines to help the bruised and battered rider. The offending rider dismounted, ran to the stricken opponent and knelt down to examine the man lying face down in the dirt.

  ‘That was too tough,’ Elphinstone observed as he sat on horseback close to the field’s edge.They watched as the aggressive rider, wearing a leather cap, remounted, wheeled into another melee, and caused chaos again.

  ‘Who is that Indian?’ Elphinstone asked. ‘The one who examined the injured man like a doctor?’

  ‘Oh,“that” is a woman, sa.’

  ‘What?’ Elphinstone said, doing a double take.

  ‘Yes, sa. Name is De Crepeney, sa.’

  Elphinstone departed but left a message with Husna to visit his residence in the old government fort the next evening for tea. She accepted but arrived an hour late. Husna wore a very broad hat, a white silk shirt and a long red skirt. Nearly nine years had passed since they had seen each other.The only sign that she was older were flecks of grey in her long black hair. Otherwise, Elphinstone thought, she looked as magnificent as she did when they last met. He was still attracted to her.

  ‘What brought you here?’ he asked as he kissed her on both cheeks.

  ‘Not you, I assure you,’ she said with a smile. ‘A month ago, I took up as an assistant in a medical practice owned by a French friend of my father’s.Women still struggle to be doctors, so I am what the French call a “para-med
ical”. I can practise in this man’s surgery, under supervision. I am to be seen as a glorified nurse but, in fact, I do everything he does, and usually not under supervision and, may I say immodestly, better.’

  ‘That explains your failure to respond to my Christmas letter. It would not have arrived from Paris yet.’

  ‘How long will you be away from your little queen this time?’

  ‘Five years.’

  ‘Did you take up with her again?’

  ‘No.We are good friends.’

  ‘I heard as much, but didn’t believe a word of it.You were Lord in Waiting. What on earth were you waiting for?’

  Elphinstone laughed.

  ‘Husna, my dear, you have not changed.’

  ‘I am not your “dear”.’

  ‘And you?’ he asked.‘Are you married?’

  ‘Was. He died of the fever that swept Paris last year.’