by Julia Baird
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But the greatest problem for Victoria was not Albert’s country but the God he prayed to. The queen of England could marry anyone she liked—but not a Catholic. After the pro-Catholic King James II was hurled off the throne in the Glorious Revolution of 1688 and replaced by the Protestant William III, an act was passed that prohibited any English monarch from being a Catholic, or marrying one. This is still the case today. Albert was a strict Lutheran with a strong personal faith, but Catholics dominated his family. Suspicions were raised when Victoria’s address to the Privy Council did not have the word “Protestant” in it. (Foolishly, given the intense anti-Catholicism in the country and Victoria’s crucial position as Defender of the Faith, Melbourne had advised taking it out.) After the Duke of Wellington raised the matter in Parliament, and the Tory papers made snide remarks, it was reinserted in the official version. When Albert went back to Germany to prepare for the wedding, he drew up a detailed family history proving his impeccable religious credentials. Martin Luther, after all, had composed psalms in Coburg.
Further hurdles followed as Victoria tried to procure status and money for her beau. The vote on Albert’s annual income was humiliating. Melbourne had proposed that he receive £50,000, the same amount as previous consorts. The Tories emphatically voted against this and his income was set at £30,000. Albert, embarrassed and annoyed, chastised Victoria for failing to utter even one word of sympathy: “for those nice Tories have cut off half my income (that was to be expected), and it makes my position no very pleasant one. It was hardly conceivable that anyone could behave as meanly and disgracefully as they have to you and me. It cannot do them much good, for it is hardly possible to maintain any respect for them any longer.” Victoria vowed, “As long as I live, I will never forgive those infernal scoundrels with Peel—nasty wretch—at their head.”
Next came the question of precedence. Victoria wanted Albert to be placed after her in the country’s official hierarchy, which meant he would follow her in official processions, but her uncles and the Tory leaders objected. Victoria was enraged, again: “Poor dear Albert how cruelly are they ill-using that dearest Angel! Monsters! you Tories shall be punished. Revenge, revenge!” She blamed the Duke of Wellington, who had railed about Albert’s religion in Parliament and failed to support the proposal for a higher income. It took considerable persuasion on Melbourne’s part to procure an invitation for the duke to her wedding, and even then Victoria would allow him to come only to the ceremony and not to the wedding banquet.
Albert was an introvert unused to expressing emotion. As he confessed to Victoria later in the year, “I am usually (alas!) of a rather cold nature, and it needs a pretty strong appeal to move me.” But he wrote his fiancée many letters with assurances of his love, trying valiantly to respond to her fervor. On November 30, he wrote a particularly long, rambling letter from Coburg:
Dearly beloved Victoria—I long to talk to you; otherwise the separation is too painful. Your dear picture stands on my table in front of me, and I can hardly take my eyes off it….[W]hat a delight it must be to walk through the whole of my life, with its joys and sorrows, with you at my side!…Love of you fills my whole heart….Think sometimes with love of your Albert, whose heart beats truly and honourably for you, and whose dearest wish is that your love may continue….I kiss you a thousand times. May Heaven bless you!
Albert fretted when Victoria’s letters were delayed for nine days by an erratic postal service. His love was genuine.
But terse words sometimes followed the sugary sentiments. When it came to the business of court, Albert attempted to assert his will, especially regarding the men who would form his household. Albert was desperate to ensure they would not simply be Whigs, the party his future wife was allied with, but men of honor, standing, and intellect. “If I am really to keep myself free from all parties,” he wrote, “my people must not belong exclusively to one side…above all do I wish that they should be well-educated men and of high character.” Albert was dismissive of the suggestion that Lord Melbourne’s private secretary should be his treasurer: “I know personally nothing of Mr. George Anson, except that I have seen him dance a Quadrille.” Albert campaigned for weeks, urging Victoria at least to allow him, a man who was leaving his home behind, to choose the men who would be closest to him. Surely it was more important to please Albert than Mr. Anson? Albert wrote forcefully:
I have exhausted all my arguments on that point, and written myself nearly blind to make you understand how distasteful it all is to me. It was the first and only request with which I appealed to your love, and I do not wish to make a second; but I declare calmly that I will not take Mr. Anson nor anybody now.
But Victoria and Melbourne had their way. Mr. Anson was appointed. The only concession was that Anson had to resign from Melbourne’s staff. Soon he and Albert would laugh about this dispute, for they became close friends. It was one of the few—or possibly only—instances in which Albert was—eventually—glad not to win. But his original instincts were correct, and he was wise to insist the Crown be above politics. William IV had been a Tory, Victoria was an avowed Whig, but Albert firmly steered her toward the view that nonpartisanship was crucial for a sovereign. His success in doing so helped guard the Crown from revolution.
Albert’s early letters reveal him to be confident and determined to be heard and respected. He calmly expressed his displeasure at being overruled or dictated to, and then moved on to blow Victoria kisses. When he was arguing with his fiancée about the suggestion that someone handle his finances, he was clear about the prospect of fiscal emasculation. “As the Queen’s husband,” he wrote early in January 1840, “I shall be in a dependent position, more dependent than any other husband, in my domestic circumstances. My private fortune is all that remains to me to dispose of. I am therefore not unfair in requesting that that which has belonged to me since I came of age nearly a year ago (and indeed belongs to any grown man) shall be left under my control.” He ended this forceful letter: “With burning love for you, I remain, your faithful, Albert.” He told Victoria that she should not confuse business with personal matters, and that disagreements do not mean “failure of my love towards yourself, which nothing can shake.”
One of the things Victoria was most certain of was that Albert must not be seen to exercise any undue influence upon her, or possess any independent power. Although Leopold had pushed Albert to request a place in the House of Lords, Victoria refused. What she wanted for her husband was royal rank: she asked Melbourne if there was any possibility he could become king. The prime minister said no, that she was the monarch and he was the spouse, meant for “support and assistance” in difficult times. The problem for Victoria, then, would be how to reconcile the role of a wife with that of a powerful queen. Bucking the traditional role of an at least outwardly submissive wife would be painful and unprecedented.
Six weeks before the wedding, on December 29, 1839, Melbourne wrote a letter to Albert—at Victoria’s prompting—laying out guidelines. First, it was crucial that Albert and Victoria be seen to agree on all matters. Second, he should not dabble in politics himself: “It will be absolutely necessary that your Highness should be considered as sanctioning and countenancing the policy pursued by the actual government of the Queen.” Third, he should choose men generally sympathetic to the government for his household. Albert was irritated. He wrote to Victoria, “I hope Lord Melbourne does not think we want to lead a life of strife and dissension instead of love and unity; one’s opinions are not to be dictated, for an opinion is the result of reflection and conviction, and you could not respect a husband who never formed an opinion till you had formed yours, and whose opinions were always the same as yours.” Albert would not be a trophy husband. Victoria always adored him, and their marriage was a happy one. But what she did not discuss, except with her eldest daughter after Albert had died, was the conflict and struggle of their marriage, the toll it took, and how hard she labored to make it work. A
t the heart of the struggle was the fact that both of them loved power: Victoria for the freedom it brought to her as a woman living in a century when most of her sex lacked it, and Albert for the license it gave him to lead, influence, and effect change.
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As she stood trying to stay still for a series of fittings for her white lace wedding dress, Victoria mentally scrolled through the lists of chores to be done for the wedding. She must not forget to tell Albert, she thought, as the seamstress pinned ivory folds to her now-slender torso, that he should not shave for the wedding. If there was one thing she would insist upon, it would be that he keep the thin mustache he had when she met him. She was so impressed by it that she told Lord Melbourne that all the cavalry should be made to grow one, which Melbourne “saw no objection to.” She wanted it to be part of an official uniform. It is a curious image: rows of uniformed men on horseback, all wearing identical narrow mustaches because of an infatuated young queen. The thought of Albert was almost enough to overcome Victoria’s nerves; the thought of all the fuss and pomp and scrutiny of her wedding day was making her feel queasy.
In the days leading up to her wedding, Victoria was preoccupied with a fight to make Parliament—especially the Tories—understand that Albert, as her husband, should be recognized as the preeminent man in her kingdom—both well respected and well remunerated. Her prayer on New Year’s Day, 1840, was simple: “From the Tories, dear Lord, deliver us.” Victoria’s antagonizing of the Tories would also antagonize Albert. Her groom was determined to puncture Melbourne’s influence: he would make the prime minister suffer for the foolish mistakes Victoria had made in her first year as queen. Albert did not just want to be good; he wanted to be great.
CHAPTER 11
The Bride: “I Never, Never Spent Such an Evening”
If I were Queen
What would I do?
I’d make you King
And I’d wait on you.
—CHRISTINA ROSSETTI
You forget, my dearest Love, that I am the Sovereign, and that business can stop and wait for nothing.
—QUEEN VICTORIA
As her wedding loomed in the early weeks of 1840, Victoria became increasingly agitated. The weather was dismal—windy, cold, and wet. She grew pale and thin, she could not eat or sleep, she was feverish, her entire body ached, and she had a terrible cold. Even writing letters exhausted her. Dr. Clark examined her and, in another case of misdiagnosis, told her she had the measles. As Victoria lay in her bed watching rain streak the dirt on her windows at Kensington Palace, trying not to panic, doubts crawled through her mind. Hadn’t she enjoyed the last two years of her life as an independent woman more than any others? That pure freedom was about to slip from her grasp. She closed her eyes and thought of the preparations humming across the city: cakes being baked, shoes polished, coats fitted, gardens trimmed, carriages cleaned, and large casks of Scottish whisky and carts piled high with food for the wedding feast being rolled along the streets.
The questions drummed persistently in the twenty-year-old woman’s mind: What would life be like after making her vows? She dreaded the thought of having children. The ways of a man and his wife, alone together, seemed mysterious. Was she good enough for Albert? Would his eye turn to other, more comely women in a few years’ time, as Lord Melbourne had so unkindly suggested? Why did so many people think Albert would interfere politically, when it was clear she was the ruler, the one in charge? Would he try to control her or criticize her? Would the sacrifice be too much for him? She felt, at times, so unworthy: he was so handsome, and she so plain. Her pride was ingrained, and her strength had become habitual, but love had humbled her. In a poem printed five days after the wedding, Elizabeth Barrett (later Browning) wrote: “If ye say, Preserve the queen! oh, breathe it inward low / She is a woman, and beloved! And ’tis enough but so.” Victoria had learned, in just a few years, how to be a queen, but how did one learn to be a wife?
Lord Melbourne’s sole task was to boost Victoria’s spirits in the days before the wedding. It was normal, he assured her, to feel anxious. When she reminded him of her former determination to remain single, he said getting married was natural; it was her job as monarch that was “very unnatural.” The man whose own marriage had been torturous and humiliating offered realistic advice: “it’s a great change—it has its inconveniences; everybody does their best, and depend upon it you’ve done well; difficulties may arise from it.” Victoria recorded his words carefully, adding, “All this is so true.” There was also a quiet need to shine and feel pretty. She pointed out to her prime minister, a little shyly, that she had lost weight and must look awfully stressed. He insisted that she looked “very well.” He added that he had seen an article in a Scottish newspaper in which the reporter described Victoria as having “a large searching eye, an open anxious nostril, and a firm mouth.” Lord Melbourne repeated this compliment several times, with tears rolling down his face. It was, he said approvingly, “a very true representation, can’t be a finer physiognomy.” While few women today would be flattered to hear they had open, anxious nostrils, the queen smiled and responded, “I am sure none of your friends are as fond of you as I am.” He replied, “I believe not.” His gentle encouragement could have come from a father.
Victoria’s measles turned out to be nerves, which were calmed the moment she saw Albert. When he arrived at Buckingham Palace, she was impatiently standing at the front door: “seeing his dear dear face again put me at rest about everything.” Albert, though so ill from his crossing that he likened himself to a wax candle, was unruffled and resolute. The only jarring note was a rather formal letter Albert had received from Victoria as he left his Coburg home. She would not agree to a two-week honeymoon, she wrote, despite his desire for at least two weeks alone together. She said, somewhat condescendingly, that she was just too busy:
Dear Albert, you have not at all understood the matter. You forget, my dearest Love, that I am the Sovereign, and that business can stop and wait for nothing. Parliament is sitting, and something occurs almost every day, for which I may be required, and it is quite impossible for me to be absent from London; therefore two or three days is already a long time to be absent. I am never easy a moment if I am not on the spot, and see and hear what is going on….This is also my own wish in every way.
Her love for her husband was deep, but so was her love for her work, and her sense of duty. This is what is often forgotten in accounts of Victoria’s consuming relationship: when she fell in love with Albert, she had no intention of stepping back from her tasks of correspondence, reading Cabinet documents, and consulting with the prime minister. Victoria thought she would be able to do more work with Albert by her side, not less. She knew, though, that she would need to be careful not to evirate her husband, the majority of whose income derived from the simple fact that he was married to the most famous woman in the world.
When the archbishop asked the queen if she would like to remove the word “obey” from the marriage service, she insisted it remain. It was not, for her, a call to subservience, but a reminder that she could not, or perhaps would not, dominate the man she married, as she did the rest of her household, her Cabinet, and her millions of subjects. At the time of her wedding, she was as contradictory and complicated as she would be throughout her life: publicly vowing to obey her husband at precisely the same time she privately overruled his wishes.
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Victoria wanted a simple wedding: a plain dress, a small group of guests, and a restrained ceremony. This was, of course, a difficult desire to accommodate for a queen. Melbourne managed to persuade her to have a more elaborate celebration, which he thought suitable for a monarch. He counseled her to try to overcome her public shyness and discomfort with being looked at. He had convinced her to invite not only the Duke of Wellington but also Lord Liverpool, despite her determination to have a wedding entirely devoid of Tories. Melbourne also persuaded her that the ceremony should take place in the Chapel Royal of
St. James’s Palace, even though she thought it was hideous. Victoria sighed, “Everything [is] always made so uncomfortable for Kings and Queens.”
Certain things Victoria insisted on. While Albert wanted her to have only daughters of mothers he considered virtuous in her bridal party, Melbourne advised her, with the glorious hypocrisy of the privileged, that this kind of morality was a problem only for the lower classes. She decided to ignore Albert’s wishes and chose her twelve bridesmaids according to rank. She even, daringly, included the daughter of the notorious Lady Jersey, who had been the mistress of George IV. She also wanted Albert to sleep under her roof on the night before their wedding, and shrugged off the objections of her mother and prime minister as “foolish nonsense.” She knew she would sleep better if he was nearby, and she joked with Lord Melbourne: “I declared laughing I would show that I could sometimes have my own Will, though I was so seldom allowed to have it—which made Lord M. laugh.” The prime minister and the queen chortled together as Albert awaited instructions, biding his time.
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The skies were black and brooding on the morning of February 10, 1840. Victoria slept deeply and late, waking at 8:45 A.M. It was the last time she would be in her bed on her own, she thought happily. She peered out the window at the darkness and sat to write a letter to her groom: