Victoria

by Julia Baird

  On November 16, four days after he heard the rumors about the affair from Stockmar, Albert sat down to write to his son. It was a strikingly harsh letter, especially as it was not unusual for aristocratic men to dabble with women before marriage. It began: “I write to you with a heavy heart upon a subject which has caused me the greatest pain I have yet felt in this life,” the discovery that his son, a prince, had “sunk into vice and debauchery.” Bertie had always seemed ignorant and weak, he wrote, but “depraved” was a new low. His father warned him of nightmarish scenarios: this “woman of the town” could have a child—and take him to court if he denied it. She could offer “disgusting details of your profligacy” and Bertie himself could be cross-examined, mobbed, and humiliated. Bertie, shamed and guilty, begged his forgiveness. Albert told him nothing could restore his innocence. Victoria shared her husband’s disgust: “Oh! that boy—much as I pity him I never can or shall look at him without a shudder.”

  It was decided: Bertie must get married. Vicky had been thumbing the almanac of eligible European princesses for months, searching for an appropriate bride for her younger brother. She had fixed on Princess Alexandra of Denmark, who turned seventeen in December 1861, for her beauty, her aristocratic but unaffected manner, and her kind disposition. It was arranged that they would meet, casually, at a German cathedral while sightseeing, in 1861. Vicky had half fallen in love with Alexandra—or Alix—herself, and thought if Bertie was not taken with this woman, he would not be taken with anyone. Bertie liked her, but he was in no rush to marry. A frustrated Victoria wondered if he was “capable of enthusiasm about anything in the world.” The only serious drawback was Alix’s homeland. One of the major political disputes of the 1860s was between Germany—or Prussia—and Denmark over the Schleswig-Holstein duchies. The Germans wished to gain control of the mostly Danish duchies in order to gain access to the North Sea; Holstein was part of Germany, and Schleswig was majority Danish but aligned with Holstein. It was difficult, then, for the heir to the throne of England to align himself with the foe of Prussia; however, Prince Albert declared that Bertie would marry the princess—but not the country. The union would not be a “triumph of Denmark.” Time was short, for the beautiful Alexandra had other suitors.

  Albert was ill and unable to sleep, haunted by visions of a dissolute future for his son. He decided to visit Bertie at Cambridge in November, where he was studying, and went for a long walk with him in the rain. Bertie’s remorse was genuine, and by the end Albert, his clothes soaked through to his skin, forgave him for the Nellie Clifden debacle. As Victoria walked in the forest, she prayed her fatigued husband would sleep that night.

  It would be unfair to blame Bertie for Albert’s insomnia. The Prince Consort was forty-two, but he had the poor health of a man much older. He worked fiendishly, and as he sank deeper into his Sisyphean tasks—committees, engagements, matters of state—he grew more irritable, and he lost his temper with Victoria more frequently. She complained to Vicky that he was “very often very trying—in his hastiness & over-love of business.” It was her role, as always, to cheer him up. Victoria was always far more buoyant than Albert, but she was increasingly frustrated with him, too. She was unable to penetrate the dark cloud he now inhabited.

  More than anything, the Prince Consort was lonely. He felt isolated in the court, and he did not have a close friend to confide in. He had lost Anson and Robert Peel, and the elderly Stockmar had moved to Germany. He was acutely distressed when he heard their cousin, young King Pedro of Portugal, had died of typhoid at twenty-four. He regarded the industrious, good Pedro as being like a son—the son he had wished Bertie would be. He was also lonely in his marriage. As he told Stockmar, “many a storm” had “swept over” his relationship with Victoria. Much as she tried, she could not talk to him at length on the matters that consumed him most. Spiritually, they were well matched; intellectually, they were not. Victoria knew this, writing later that she had prayed often “to be more fit society for him.” Stockmar was the only one he could talk to unreservedly.

  Albert’s constitution had always been fragile. As a boy, according to his old tutor Florschütz, he was “never very robust.” His brother Ernest reported that his “physical development did not keep pace with the quick unfolding of his remarkable mental powers; he needed protection.” He never grew into a healthy adult, as was hoped, and his stomach was a constant source of complaint. Nor were their palaces particularly comfortable. He was often shivering, partly due to Victoria’s insistence on a chilly environment; she thought warm air caused colds and ruined one’s complexion. Both believed that bracing baths and cold showers were good for the immune system. (Albert joked with Vicky that her mother would be annoyed to wake and find he had lit a fire in that morning hour he had to himself, to work, write, and get warm.)

  Soon Albert’s depression turned into passivity, and eventually into fatalism. He toyed with the thought of dying. A man of strong Christian faith, toward the end of 1861 he told Victoria he would not fight death if it came. If struck by a grave illness, he would submit to it: “I do not cling to life. You do; but I set no store by it. If I knew that those I love were well cared for, I should be quite ready to die tomorrow.”

  When he returned home to Windsor from Cambridge, Albert was sick and suffering neuralgic pain in his back and legs. Victoria blamed Bertie and hinted at “a great sorrow and worry” to Vicky, “which upset us both greatly—but him especially—and it broke him quite down.” She had never seen him “so low.” Albert also confided in Vicky that he was at a “very low ebb.” It was a warm day when he went to see the Eton volunteers go through their maneuvers, but Albert was shivering in a fur-lined coat; he felt as though cold water were being poured down his spine.

  That weekend of November 30, 1861, Albert drafted the most important document of his career. The Civil War had broken out in America, shortly after Abraham Lincoln was sworn in as president. On April 19, 1861, the Union established a naval blockade to prevent any goods or supplies—especially arms—from going in or out of the Confederate South. On May 13, Queen Victoria issued a proclamation of neutrality, forbidding British subjects to join either side. Then, on November 8—as Albert prepared to go out into the rain at Sandhurst—a British mail-carrying ship called the Trent was intercepted by the USS San Jacinto in the Bahama Channel near Cuba. Two men on board, Confederate diplomats heading to Europe, were captured and taken from the Trent.

  Northerners were furious that the British-owned Trent had ferried Confederates, though Lincoln did not want to risk war over the matter. The British public was angry, too, at the insult to their neutrality and free movement. “Bear this, bear all!” was the cry; surely war must be the consequence of such a provocative act. Victoria scribbled to Vicky: “The great and all absorbing event of the day is the American outrage! They are such ruffians!” The Cabinet decided it was a gross violation of international law. A memo was drafted by the foreign secretary to the British ambassador in Washington, with a series of strongly worded demands. It was sent to Windsor Castle on November 29.

  A feeble Albert rose at 7 A.M. on November 30, after a sleepless night, to draft a response. He was worried that the curtness of the foreign secretary’s reply might provoke the Union, effectively forcing Britain to go to war with the United States. Victoria agreed. Jamming a wig onto his head for warmth and wrapping his velvet dressing gown around him, Albert toned down the demands, employed far more diplomatic language, and gave the Lincoln administration a way out by indicating that the British assumed the San Jacinto must have acted without the Union’s knowledge or approval:

  The United States Government must be fully aware that the British Government could not allow its flag to be insulted, and the security of her mail communications to be placed in jeopardy, and Her Majesty’s Government are unwilling to believe that the United States Government intended wantonly to put an insult upon this country, and to add to their many distressing complications by forcing a question of dis
pute upon us, and that we are therefore glad to believe that upon a full consideration of the circumstances, and of the undoubted breach of international law committed they would spontaneously offer such redress as alone could satisfy this country, viz. the restoration of the unfortunate passengers and a suitable apology.

  Albert brought it to Victoria wearily, saying, “I could hardly hold my pen.” It was the last memorandum he ever wrote.

  After making some corrections, Victoria sent it to her ministers. The amendments were universally approved, and the final version hewed closely to Albert’s suggestions. (Lord Palmerston—who had been wandering the corridors of Windsor Castle for days, leaning on his cane and arguing that Albert should receive better medical treatment—had been particularly pleased with the response.) The Confederate men were released. While no formal apology came forth, Lincoln’s administration eventually condemned the San Jacinto’s actions. War with America was avoided.

  —

  By Monday, December 2, only opiates could bring relief to the lethargic Albert. Victoria had never seen him so ill, and she was “terribly nervous and distressed.” By December 4, as Albert wandered between his bedroom and dressing room, seeking rest, the public received the first notice of his illness, which was described as a “feverish cold.” The queen was thrilled if Albert fell asleep for just an hour. Some have surmised that Dr. James Clark decided to conceal the gravity of the situation from the royal family, out of concern for them, but he was also plainly inept. He failed to call for further medical help, and he had an unhelpful tendency to claim imminent recovery before a serious decline. Lord Clarendon later remarked that the doctors there were “not fit to attend a sick cat.”

  On December 6, Victoria woke at 3 A.M. to check on Albert, though he did not smile or acknowledge her when she came near. As she later watched him drink tea and eat two rusks, she was unable to shake the feeling that he was elsewhere: “Sometimes he has such a strange wild look.” Later, he seemed to rally, and was sitting up and talking, still weak but with a stronger pulse. He even asked to see the plans of the house Alice would live in with her fiancé, Louis, the future Grand Duke of Hesse. Victoria was growing so anxious that she frequently asked Dr. Jenner to check on her after examining Albert. Eighteen-year-old Alice, who exhibited a patient strength and a remarkable maturity during this time, sat and read to her father for hours.

  By December 7, Albert was often incoherent, repeating such phrases as “I’m so silly.” Victoria sat motionless on her bed in her room, feeling as “if my heart must break.” She remained in an “agony of suspense” until the doctors came to her and said they had finally diagnosed the problem: it was gastric and bowel fever, which usually took a month to clear. Victoria was consumed by her own needs and kept thinking how awful it was to be deprived of her husband. Alice tried to cheer her up, and took her driving. Half of the month had already passed, she reminded her. As Victoria sat next to a silent Albert, tears dropped in a steady stream onto the sheets. It was as though she were “living in a dreadful dream.” He would have to stop working so hard, she thought. She could barely contemplate two more weeks without him.

  The next day, Albert asked to be placed in the King’s Room—now called the Blue Room—which was cheerful and sunlit. A piano was wheeled next door so he could listen to chorales. His eyes brimmed with tears as Alice played for him. He drank tea at three-hour intervals, with a little wine. Victoria glumly made her way to church, where she was unable to focus on a word of the sermon. When she returned to Albert, he smacked her hand when she was trying to explain something to the doctor. But he later smiled and stroked her face—“liebes Frauchen”—before falling asleep as she read to him. The doctors said they were very pleased with his progress, a patronizing fudging of the situation. The royal household had been trained to tiptoe around the volatile and sensitive queen, but they were only contributing to her eventual trauma and shock.

  As he grew fainter, Albert veered from lucidity to confusion, from testiness to tenderness. On December 11, he rested against Victoria’s shoulder as he ate breakfast. She cried when he said kindly, “It is very comfortable like that, dear Child.” He then said, as though startled, “Let us pray to the Almighty!” Victoria glanced at his flushed face and reassured him that he always prayed, plenty. “But not together,” Albert replied, grabbing her hands and cupping them in his before bending to pray. The last sermon Albert had heard at Balmoral before coming to Windsor was on Amos 4:12, “Prepare to meet Thy God, O Israel!” Once Victoria was out of the room, he told his daughter Alice he was dying.

  Meanwhile the doctors told Victoria she had absolutely no cause for concern and predicted Albert would be better in a week. But his shallow, gasping breaths tormented her. She woke at 4 A.M. on December 13 and asked for a report, but she was told Albert was sleeping. He took no notice of her when she visited him at 8 A.M. that day. As he was wheeled into the next room, he didn’t even glance at the sublime Raphael Madonna he had said helped him live. He lay panting, staring out the window at the clouds, straining for sounds of the nightingales that reminded him of Rosenau. Victoria stayed by his side, leaving only for short intervals to walk or go for drives. She tried to remain calm when in the room with Albert, but lost control when outside, praying and crying “as if I should go mad!”

  The doctors slid brandy down Albert’s throat every half an hour in a futile attempt to strengthen his pulse. They continued to tell the queen that they had seen much worse cases recover. It was, Victoria wrote, “a time of awful anxiety, but still all full of hope. It was a crisis, a struggle of strength.” The last sentence—her last journal entry for some days—reported the words of the doctors that “there was no reason to anticipate anything worse.” She went to bed miserable on the night of December 13, asking to be woken every hour with updates. She curled up tight, a tiny figure alone in the large bed that she and Albert normally shared, thinking how just a short time ago Albert had been stalking deer at Balmoral. She wished they were still there, and not at the cavernous and overlarge Windsor. Until just recently, the public could wander the parks outside the castle, and the Eton boys often tore about the terraces or went poaching in the park. Victoria had never liked the sprawling Windsor Castle, and she would soon come to hate it.

  —

  At 6 A.M. on December 14, there was wonderful news. Mr. Brown, who had been a royal doctor since the year Victoria was crowned, came to tell her there was “ground to hope the crisis is over.” Outside, she heard faint sounds of dogs howling in the kennels and birds squawking in the aviary. The sun was climbing in a brilliant blue sky. She went to see Albert an hour later, padding down the corridor in slippers, her long hair falling down her back, but she was taken aback when she arrived: “The room had the sad look of night-watching, the candles burnt down to their sockets, of doctors looking anxious. I went in, and never can I forget how beautiful my darling looked, lying there with his face lit up by the rising sun, his eyes unusually bright, gazing, as it were on unseen objects, and not taking notice of me.” He looked like a saint.

  Bertie had, until now, been kept ignorant of his father’s condition. Victoria was still angry with him and had not wanted him to come, worried that he might upset Albert. In some of Albert’s jumbled ramblings over the past few days, one word could be discerned: “Bertie.” Alice, who had always adored Bertie and had been his sidekick in various rebellious capers, finally decided she must tell him Papa was “not so well” and to come at once. The telegram reached Bertie while he was hosting a dinner party at Cambridge on the night of December 13; he boarded a train to Windsor two hours later. He arrived at three in the morning, and was shocked by the state his father was in. Albert never recognized the face of his son by his bed.

  At 10 A.M., the doctors told Victoria that they were still all “very, very anxious” but that Albert had rallied. When she asked if she could go out for air, they asked her to return in fifteen minutes. She wandered, dazed, out onto the terrace with Alice, began
crying and could not stop. Alice placed her arms around her and stared across the park, mute, as a military band played in the distance.

  Victoria was exploding with grief. The man who had left his homeland for her over twenty years ago now lay pale on his bed, soaked in sweat, taking no notice of anyone. His hands and face had a “dusky hue.” Albert folded his arms and raised his hands to style his hair: “Strange! as though he were preparing for another and greater journey.” Twice that afternoon, Albert called Victoria Frauchen and kissed her tenderly. Finally, later that night, she walked into the anteroom and collapsed onto the floor, sobbing. When her spiritual counselor the Dean of Windsor told her to steel herself for a great trial, it made her cry harder: “Why? Why must I suffer this? My mother? What was that? I thought that was grief. But that was nothing to this.”

  In a few minutes, Dr. Clark asked Alice to fetch her mother. Victoria wiped her eyes and walked quickly to the Blue Room. When Alice told her hope was gone, she “started up like a Lioness rushed by every one, and bounded on the bed imploring him to speak and to give one kiss to his little wife.” Albert’s eyes opened but he did not move; she leaned in to kiss him over and over. She then knelt next to her husband and took his hand. It was already cold, and his breathing was faint. “Oh no,” Victoria said, staring into his face. “I have seen this before. This is death.”

  Alice stood on the other side of the bed with her hands folded, and Bertie and Helena stood at its foot.* Behind them stood Victoria’s nephew Prince Ernest of Leiningen and his wife, Marie, the four royal doctors, and Albert’s valet and top equerries. Clustered in the grand red-carpeted corridor outside the room stood a grave group of men of the royal household.