by Julia Baird
In the Victorian era, women mourned more loudly and longer than men. Widowers were far more likely to remarry and go back to work, usually reentering the world after a few weeks of seclusion. In the second half of the nineteenth century, one in three women aged fifty-five to sixty-four was widowed, but only one in seven men. For most women, writes Patricia Jalland in her fascinating study Death in the Victorian Family, “widowhood was a final destiny, an involuntary commitment to a form of social exile.” Yet the queen had a choice; her exile was voluntary and had privileges others’ didn’t, and some people were privately critical of her lack of stoicism. The Scottish author Margaret Oliphant, for example, had endured the death of her own husband in 1859 and that of three of her children in infancy. She provided for her remaining offspring with her wits, writing dozens of books. When Victoria met Oliphant in 1868, four years after the author lost her last surviving daughter, she noted approvingly that Oliphant was a simple widow. But Oliphant did not approve of the queen. She wrote to her publisher:
If any of us ordinary people were to treat our friends and visitors and society in general in the same way [Victoria does] we should…lose both visitors and friends. I doubt whether nous autres poor women who have had to fight with the world all alone without much sympathy can quite enter into the “unprecedented” character of the queen’s sufferings. A woman is surely a poor creature if with a large happy affectionate family of children around her, she can’t take heart to do her duty whether she likes it or not.
But no one could force the queen to do anything she did not want to do. The innate steel that helped drive a teenager to seize a crown now drove a woman to insist upon a clamoring and unrepentant grief.
—
Behind palace doors, Victoria continued to work. Her year was now split between Windsor, Osborne, and Balmoral. She avoided Buckingham Palace as much as possible, as it was too keen a reminder of the past. She continued to correspond forcefully with her ministers, to involve herself in awarding honors and approving appointments, and to insist on her right to scrutinize all ministerial recommendations for posts, often raising objections or making suggestions, especially when it came to bishops and archbishops. She retained her power, but this work was hidden from the public.
The voices calling for Victoria to show herself continued to clamor. This made her furious. She chastised anyone who dared press her for not understanding how fragile she was. In 1863, Victoria’s secretary, Charles Phipps, told Palmerston that her three doctors were “very decidedly” of the opinion that appearing alone in public in full dress would be “most undesirable” for her health. Her doctors were loath to put this in writing for fear it might be misconstrued.
On April 1, 1864, The Times officially protested Victoria’s absence. That December, on the third anniversary of Albert’s death, The Times complained again. Just days before, Victoria had told Lord Russell that she could not open Parliament because it would give her “moral shocks.” She had felt safe with Albert next to her, but now that he was gone, “no child can feel more shrinking and nervous” than she did at the thought of appearing in public. She wrote to Lord Russell:
Her nerves are so shattered that any emotion, any discussion, any exertion causes much disturbance and suffering to her whole frame. The constant anxieties inseparable from her difficult and unenviable position as Queen, and as mother of a large family, (and that, a Royal family), without a husband to guide, assist, soothe, comfort, and cheer her, are so great that her nervous system has no power of recovery, but on the contrary becomes weaker and weaker.
Physically, Victoria was more robust than she would admit. Mentally, she was fragile. Her great anxiety caused headaches, faintness, and rheumatic pains in her face and legs. In May 1866, Victoria told Lord Russell that she continually feared “some complete breakdown.” She often declared she was likely to die soon. The thought that thousands of eyes would rest on her sent her into a severe form of agitation. When out in public, she trembled from head to toe and often struggled to compose herself. She had been shot at, clubbed in the head, abused, and widowed; what she wanted now was to feel safe, to have someone who would protect her. Her refuge soon materialized in a most unlikely person.
—
The trusted Scottish ghillie John Brown was sent for in the winter of 1864 to lead Victoria’s pony at Osborne. Her doctor had ordered Victoria to continue to ride, and in the Highlands she grew accustomed to Brown’s leading her: “A stranger would make me nervous….Alas! I am now weak & nervous, & very dependent on those I am accustomed to & in whom I have confidence.” A tall, handsome, protective man, Brown cheered Victoria with his brawny authority and calm strength. He arrived in December; in February she made his position permanent under the title of the Queen’s Highland Servant. By November, he was designated John Brown, Esquire. Brown began to occupy an unusually elevated place in the household, traveling with her from London to Scotland and even to Europe. Victoria was charmed by his loyalty: “He is so devoted to me—so simple, so intelligent, so unlike an ordinary servant, and so cheerful and attentive.” He was precisely the tonic a forlorn, lonely queen needed.
Victoria finally opened Parliament in February 1866 for the first time since Albert’s death. She made sure that the prime minister, Lord Russell, knew it was a “very severe trial” for her. When the day arrived she was agitated and unable to eat. She wore plain evening dress, with a small diamond and sapphire coronet on top of her widow’s cap. The wind whipped her veil as she rode silently in an open carriage past curious crowds, many of whom had not glimpsed her for years. At the crowded House of Parliament, where she used a different entrance to avoid the gallery with “staring people,” Victoria felt she was going to faint. The next day, she told the prime minister she was “terribly shaken, exhausted and unwell from the violent nervous shock” of the effort. It was only for the sake of her children and country, she said dramatically, that she had any desire to live.
But gradually she began to do more in public, holding court at Buckingham Palace, reviewing troops at Aldershot, attending the wedding of her cousin opening waterworks, and unveiling a statue. When her daughter Helena married on June 12, 1866, Victoria even gave her away (though the archbishop told her it was “not usual” practice for a woman to do so). In 1867, she opened Parliament again, though she insisted that she not be asked to do it the following year. For the last thirty-nine years of her reign, Victoria opened Parliament only seven times, and not once did she read out her own speech. This was done for her by the Lord Chancellor.
As Victoria grieved through the 1860s, a concerted push for democracy sparked a spate of riots, public marches, and demonstrations. John Bright, the radical leader of the Reform League that sought an expansion of the suffrage, spoke at mass meetings across England. In 1867, the Second Reform Bill—which doubled the number of men who could vote in England and Wales from one to two million—was passed in Parliament. Victoria was wary of democratization, but she strongly supported the bill once it was evident that it had majority support in the House of Commons. She viewed herself as the queen of the poor, often lamenting “the frivolity of the higher classes & the little feeling they had for those beneath them.” But her impact on this crucial piece of legislation was minimal.
But politically, Victoria had lost none of her fire. Prime ministers had grown used to being pummeled by an assertive queen who insisted she was ailing and weak. Lord Stanley was reprimanded for sending dispatches that had not received Victoria’s approval, just as Palmerston had been, years before. She batted most official requests away, even those she eventually complied with. She frequently resisted hosting foreign dignitaries and asked the British government to pay if she did. In 1867, for example, the Earl of Derby, a Whig who had replaced Lord Palmerston as prime minister, begged the queen to postpone a trip to Osborne for three days so she could meet the sultan of Turkey for ten minutes at Buckingham Palace. Her response was scorching: “The word distasteful is hardly applicable to the sub
ject; it would be rather nearer the mark to say extremely inconvenient and disadvantageous for the Queen’s health.” Still, she agreed to postpone her trip for two days, asked the sultan to come a day earlier, and dispatched her doctor to Lord Derby so he might relay the fragile state of her nerves, thus emphasizing again how great the burden was. She threatened again a “complete breakdown,” saying she refused to be bullied or dictated to. This was Victoria’s unique and effective negotiating tactic: to plead helplessness in a manner of hostile combat, and to insist on her weakness in repeated shows of strength. Her ministers were ill equipped to handle a cantankerous, obstinate queen. Only one realized that the lonely queen wanted to be feted, flattered, and adored.
—
Benjamin Disraeli understood the power of charm. In 1868, he swept into office, declaring of himself to the queen, “He can only offer devotion.” Though he was a Tory, when he was made prime minister, Victoria heralded it as a victory for the working class. He had no position or fortune and was the son of a Jewish man, which was almost unheard of in political circles. Disraeli had been refused a job under the leadership of Prime Minister Peel and had been instrumental in forming the protectionist Conservative Party when the Tories split over the repeal of the Corn Laws. He was regarded as a peculiar, if talented, outsider who had a flair for writing popular novels. When he became prime minister, Disraeli proudly declared he had “climbed to the top of the greasy pole.”
Disraeli was a singular character. He had dressed as a dandy in ruffled shirts, dyed ringlets, and colored stockings for decades, aping Lord Bryon, the poet who had seduced Lord Melbourne’s wife back in 1812. At the age of twelve, he had converted from Judaism to Anglicanism after his father had a disagreement with their local synagogue; this allowed him to contemplate a political career, as Jews were at the time precluded from holding office. He adored his wife, Mary Anne Lewis, a winsome, clever, wealthy widow who was some twelve years older than he.
Disraeli was also a successful popular novelist with a fondness for florid sentiments. His great talent with words was put to good use in his relationship with the queen. He hoped, he wrote,
that, in the great affairs of state, your Majesty will not deign to withhold from him the benefit of your Majesty’s guidance. Your Majesty’s life has been passed in constant communication with great men, and the acknowledgement and management of important transactions. Even if your Majesty were not gifted with those great abilities, which all now acknowledge, this rare and choice experience must give your Majesty an advantage in judgment which few living persons, and probably no living prince, can rival.
When Victoria next saw Disraeli, she greeted him with “a very radiant face.”
It was not just that Disraeli made an art form of flattery. In his confiding missives to the queen, he made politics entertaining for her for the first time since Lord Melbourne. He explained political events and debates clearly, in great detail and with style. Victoria told a friend she had never had such letters before. Disraeli wisely deferred to her wishes on appointments, especially when it came to men of the church, saying he was delighted to obey her commands. He also treated her with respect. After Victoria published Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands in 1868, drawn from her journals, it quickly sold out its print run of twenty thousand. Disraeli would then, in conversation, smoothly refer to “we authors.” He could not convince her of everything, but he was so successful in manipulating her that he eventually managed to convert the once unequivocally Whig queen to the cause of Tory conservatism.
But Disraeli’s first term as PM lasted only ten months. He was trounced by his greatest political rival, the Liberal William Gladstone, in the December election. Gladstone was an imposing, cerebral man with hawklike eyes, and strong Christian faith, whom Albert had approved of; their eldest sons had traveled together. Gladstone, often called “the People’s William,” was a popular, frugal chancellor who was intent on reform. What he lacked was the delicate tact required to manage a prickly sovereign—the kind of tact that men like Melbourne and Disraeli possessed. His wife had told him to “pet the Queen,” but he could not understand how. Nor was he able to explain policies in a simple way. He frequently baffled Victoria, who hated feeling stupid or patronized. Dean Wellesley tried to explain it another way: “You cannot show too much regard, gentleness, I might even say tenderness towards her.”
Proving himself to be both farsighted and politically courageous, Gladstone said his great mission was “to pacify Ireland.” In his first term, from December 1868 to early 1874, Gladstone was primarily preoccupied with disestablishing the Protestant Church of Ireland—as it was known, although it was a minority church in communion with the Church of England—of which Victoria was head. This meant legally separating the church from the state and freeing the Irish—most of whom were Catholic—from paying tithes to it. Victoria did not support this bill—she argued that land rights should take precedence, and that extreme nationalists would be provoked. Undoubtedly a greater personal concern was that Scotland might follow suit—and perhaps even England—and remove her as the head of their church as well. But the overwhelming majority in the House of Commons—which Gladstone called the “emphatic verdict of the nation”—forced her to recognize that the decision was not hers, and that a collision between the two houses of Parliament would be “dangerous if not disastrous.” After initially scheming against it, she aided Gladstone by working as a mediator and helping to broker a compromise with the House of Lords. She even—reluctantly—postponed a trip to Osborne to ensure the passage of the bill (while strongly reminding Gladstone that such an accommodation was very uncommon and must not be regarded as a precedent). The Irish Church Act passed in 1869.
Albert’s work had been performed in full public view; he made the monarchy obviously productive as well as respectable. Without him, Victoria shrank from view, and public resentment toward the expensive, mushrooming monarchy spread. The royal family was incurring greater and greater costs with each marriage and new birth, and Bertie’s behavior was profligate. Between 1871 and 1874, eighty-five Republican Clubs were founded in Britain, protesting, among other things, the “expensiveness and uselessness of the monarchy” and Bertie’s “immoral example.” Gladstone wrote to Granville in 1870: “The Queen is invisible and the Prince of Wales is not respected.” The economy was weak, the royals were overpaid, and France had become a republic in 1870; why shouldn’t Britain follow suit?*
One of the greatest threats to public safety came from the Fenian Brotherhood, which was founded in America in 1858 with the aim of overthrowing British control of Ireland and establishing an Irish republic. In 1866, the Brotherhood unsuccessfully tried to invade Canada from America. In 1867, they began a campaign of terror in Britain, blowing up a prison wall and killing a policeman. Three members were executed in reprisal and became martyrs. The resulting overblown panic irritated Victoria, and she advised her ministers to respond to any threat of violence by simply suspending habeas corpus, which would mean people could be arrested or detained without cause, but they considered this inappropriate. On December 20, 1867, she was told that eighty members of the Fenian Brotherhood had set out in two ships from New York and were coming to attack the British government. One hundred Scots Fusiliers set up camp in the Osborne stables as ships patrolled the beaches below. Victoria felt trapped, but was even more annoyed when no threats materialized.
Three months later, on a trip to Australia, a Fenian shot Victoria’s twenty-three-year-old son Prince Alfred in Sydney. He was on his way to Cabbage Tree Beach to “see the aboriginals, as they were then ready for some sports,” when he was shot in the back and fell on his hands and knees. The bullet lodged in his abdomen. For three days, he later told his mother, he could not breathe. The Irish assailant, who was about thirty-five, fair, and well dressed, was later executed. The Sydney Morning Herald described the shooting as a “gigantic calamity, affecting all classes of the people.” Like other British revolution
ary movements, the Fenian Brotherhood fizzled after this and disappeared for some years.
—
Albert wanted Germany to be unified and powerful. He had embedded his eldest daughter, Vicky, in the Prussian court in the hope of bringing his liberal ideals to the state he hoped would lead a future German nation. In the 1860s, the canny and opportunistic Prussian diplomat Otto von Bismarck was bent on unifying all German states under Prussian rule. By 1871, he had largely succeeded. The Crimean War in 1854 and the Italian War in 1859 had destabilized alliances between the great powers of Europe—Great Britain, France, Austria, and Russia—leaving a vacuum that Bismarck capitalized on with his well-organized and well-resourced army. “The great questions of the time,” he said in 1862, “will not be resolved by speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood.” In 1866, he invaded Austria with Italian support, in what became known as the Seven Weeks’ War. Prussia decisively defeated Austria, and the resulting treaty saw twenty-two states unified in a North German Confederation, with Bismarck as its chancellor and leader. But Austria, which had led the German Confederation since the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815, was excluded.
In the new federation, Schleswig, Holstein, and Hanover became Prussian states. Victoria agreed with Albert, telling Lord Stanley: “A strong, united, liberal Germany would be a most useful ally to England.” But she distrusted Bismarck and thought his aggressive conduct “monstrous.” Her son-in-law, Vicky’s husband, Fritz—whose uncle was then king of Prussia—also disapproved of forcing unity through violence, as Bismarck was doing. Fritz had thought it would be “fratricide” to go to war against Austria, but he was proved wrong when Prussia triumphed. Victoria urged the king of Prussia to make acceptable compromises to secure peace and prevent a wider war from erupting.