by Julia Baird
A mischievous rumor is in circulation that our widower President thinks seriously of making an offer to the young and beautiful Queen of the British Empire. We at first supposed that the British Constitution and Laws presented an insuperable barrier to such a connection—but by the following paragraph from the Boston Daily Advertiser, the young Queen is at liberty to marry whom she chooses except a Papist. Although Martin has been almost “every thing by turns and nothing long,” yet we believe he was never a professed Catholic—we therefore see no reason why he should not offer, or why he may not stand as good a chance as the namby-pamby princes and kinglings of Europe.
“assured him he need have no fear”: QVJ, April 18, 1839.
“not NECESSARY”: QVJ, June 24, 1839.
she hoped he would not remarry: QVJ, October 14, 1839.
“Oh! But you would have”: QVJ, April 18, 1839.
he would not stand idly by: Jagow, Letters of the Prince Consort, 32.
“Cousin Victoria is always friendly”: Stewart, Albert: A Life, 26.
“If after waiting, perhaps for three years”: Martin, The Prince Consort, 1:7.
his greyhound stole food: Victoria and Albert shared a love of dogs. Victoria’s favorite breed was the goofy, affectionate cocker spaniel; Albert’s was the cool, sleek greyhound. He told Victoria in a letter dated December 31, 1839, that his favorite, Eos, was “very friendly if there is plum-cake in the room, very much put out when she has to jump over the stick, keen on hunting, sleepy after it, always proud, and contemptuous of other dogs.” (Jagow, Letters of the Prince Consort, 47.) Albert brought Eos to England with him, and while he was there, he chose a tan-colored greyhound pup for Victoria.
“for a woman cannot stand alone”: QVJ, October 14, 1839.
“He seems perfection”: Quoted in Grey, The Early Years, 188. She also wrote to Stockmar, the Duke of Sussex, and Queen Adelaide.
“Never. The Duchess of Kent never knew”: Stuart, The Mother of Victoria, 246.
a “great plague”: QVJ, November 17, 1839.
“The Queen sent for me alone”: Hibbert, Queen Victoria: A Personal History, 110.
“Liebe Kleine, Ich habe”: Longford, Victoria R.I., 135.
“I said to Albert we should be very very intimate”: QVJ, November 13, 1939.
“often at a loss to believe”: Jagow, Letters of the Prince Consort, 23.
“Oh, the future!”: November 11, 1839, ibid., 25.
“decisive for the welfare”: Ibid., 24.
“elasticity of the brain”…“great men”: Rhodes James, Albert, Prince Consort, 58.
poor German duchy: Albert, just three months Victoria’s junior, came from Coburg, a small state with half a million inhabitants and a royal house that had become a European dynasty in the early part of the nineteenth century. Jagow describes Leopold, Duke Ernst I’s younger brother, as Coburg’s “spiritual leader.”
“but she has acquired”: Vallone, Becoming Victoria, 31.
His words and ideas: QVJ, October 26, 1839.
She confessed twice: QVJ, November 15, 1839.
“with nothing under them”: QVJ, November 1, 1839.
“looked about him, like a squirrel”: Bolitho, A Biographer’s Notebook, 114.
“most unbecoming in a Saxon knight”: Ibid., 19.
“superb, an extraordinary beauty”: Stewart, Albert: A Life, 8.
blatantly unfaithful: Rhodes James, Albert, Prince Consort, 20–21.
the night she left: In a letter dated September 21, 1824, she wrote: “Parting from my children was the worst thing of all. They have whooping cough, and they said, ‘Mama is crying because she has to go away when we are ill.’ ” Sotnick, The Coburg Conspiracy, 147.
disguising herself as a peasant: This is a story told by German philologist Max Müller, quoted in Weintraub, Victoria, 28.
intercepted the letters: Sotnick, The Coburg Conspiracy, 150.
Duke Ernst was not his father: For analysis of the issue of Albert’s possible illegitimacy, see Rhodes James, Albert, Prince Consort; Bolitho, A Biographer’s Notebook, 102–22. Sotnick outlines the counterargument in The Coburg Conspiracy. In short, Sotnick says he was illegitimate; Rhodes James and Bolitho say he wasn’t. The salient points are that the rumors about Baron von Meyern, the court chamberlain, began only after she had an affair with Lieutenant von Hanstein, whom she later married. David Duff also argues that Albert was conceived when Leopold visited Coburg at the end of 1818. Duff, Albert and Victoria, 28–32, 66. Again, the evidence is circumstantial.
“shameless little sinner”: Ibid., 148.
“there was not even a hint in the documents”: Bolitho, A Biographer’s Notebook, 103.
they dug up her coffin: Ponsonby, The Lost Duchess, 163.
“with tenderness and sorrow”: Quoted in Jagow, Letters of the Prince Consort, 4, attributed to Grey, The Early Years, 8.
“an awful moment”: Benson and Esher, The Letters of Queen Victoria, 1:248.
“I did a much more nervous thing”: November 26, 1839, Greville, The Great World, 175–76.
“A gilded puppet”: Quoted in the Caledonian Mercury, November 28, 1839.
aristocratic families often encouraged it: See Kuper, Incest and Influence, 23.
“at least three times as frequent”: Ibid., 18.
about 10 percent of marriages: Ibid.
“When Benjamin Bunny grew up”: Ibid., 23.
“perpetual self-fertilisation”: Darwin, Fertilisation of Orchids, 361.
he had married his own cousin: Kuper, Incest and Influence, 94. Darwin was fascinated by the consequences of in-breeding. Between 1868 and 1877 he published three monographs on cross-fertilization in animals and plants. In the first of these, The Variation of Animals and Plants Under Domestication, he proposed that “the existence of a great law of nature is almost proved; namely, that the crossing of animals and plants which are not closely related to each other is highly beneficial or even necessary, and that inter-breeding prolonged during many generations is highly injurious.” Darwin thought this was probably true of human beings as well, although he was reluctant at first to press the issue, “as it is surrounded by natural prejudices.” In any case, he was bound to consider the implications for his own family. His scientific project and his personal concerns—his own marriage, his illness, and the poor health of his children—could hardly be separated.
Florence Nightingale had raised: Nightingale, Cassandra: An Essay, 47.
the medical establishment was unanimous: For a wonderful analysis of consanguinity in the nineteenth century, please see Anderson, “Cousin Marriage in Victorian England,” and Kuper, Incest and Influence.
“starving, cringing, swaggering” people: Evans, “The Victorians: Empire and Race.”
great revival of interest in German philosophy: Ramsden, Don’t Mention the War, 32.
“for those nice Tories have cut off half my income”: Jagow, Letters of the Prince Consort, 59.
“As long as I live, I will never”: Cecil, The Young Melbourne, 478.
“Poor dear Albert”: QVJ, February 2, 1840, from Longford, Victoria R.I., 137. The bill for his naturalization went through without mentioning it—but she was able to declare precedence by royal prerogative later.
“I am usually (alas!) of a rather cold nature”: Prince Albert to Queen Victoria, Gotha, December 28, 1839, Jagow, Letters of the Prince Consort, 45.
wrote his fiancée many letters: On November 15, he wrote to the queen from Calais, still ill from the sea crossing, calling her again “Dearest, deeply loved Victoria.” He had not stopped thinking of her since he left Windsor, he wrote, “and your image fills my whole soul. Even in my dreams I never imagined that I should find so much love on earth. How that moment shines for me when I was close to you, with your hand in mine!” (Jagow, Letters of the Prince Consort, 26.) Two days later, he wrote, “I kiss you a thousand times.” (Ibid., 27.) And from Wiesbaden on November 21, 1839: “I can only imagine you on the 14th in you
r little sitting room feeling rather lonely; we were so happy sitting there on the little sofa. How I would like to be there by magic to cheer your loneliness. I have these days been distracted by fresh places, fresh conditions, memories, people, events, and yet none of them can smother the painful feeling of separation.” (Ibid., 28.)
“Dearly beloved Victoria—I long to talk to you”: Rhodes James, Albert, Prince Consort, 85.
especially regarding the men: Jagow, Letters of the Prince Consort, 31–32.
“I know personally nothing”: December 15, 1839, Ibid., 40.
Albert campaigned for weeks: Jagow, Letters of the Prince Consort, 42.
more important to please Albert: Ibid., 48.
“With burning love for you”: January 6, 1840, ibid., 50.
“I hope Lord Melbourne does not think”: January 13, 1840, ibid., 51.
Melbourne “saw no objection to”: QVJ, January 14, 1840.
“From the Tories, dear Lord”: QVJ, January 1, 1840.
Chapter Eleven: The Bride: “I Never, Never
Spent Such an Evening”
“You forget, my dearest Love”: January 31, 1840, Buckingham Palace, Benson and Esher, The Letters of Queen Victoria, 268–69.
Would his eye turn: Victoria brought this subject up with Melbourne at least twice in the weeks before the wedding. First, QVJ, January 19, 1840: They “talked of Albert’s dislike for Ladies,” and Lord M. said: “It’s very well if that holds, but it doesn’t always.” Victoria “scolded him.” Second, on January 23: “I said to Lord M. I had told Stockmar what Lord M. had said to me here and at Windsor, about those very high principles like A.’s not holding often, upon which Stockmar said, generally speaking that was true, but that he didn’t think that would be A.’s case.”
“if ye say, Preserve the queen!”: From the poem “Crowned and Wedded,” printed five days after the royal wedding.
“I am sure none of your friends”: QVJ, February 7, 1840.
“seeing his dear dear face”: QVJ, February 8, 1840.
“Dear Albert, you have not at all understood”: January 31, 1840, Buckingham Palace, Benson and Esher, The Letters of Queen Victoria, 1:268–69.
remove the word “obey”: Warner, Queen Victoria’s Sketchbook, 92.
“Everything [is] always made”: QVJ, December 5, 1839.
“foolish nonsense”: QVJ, January 7, 1840.
“I declared laughing”: Ibid.
“Dearest,—how are you today”: Benson and Esher, The Letters of Queen Victoria, 1:273
“like a pure virgin”: Strickland, Queen Victoria, 209.
“a hurried glance around”: The Times, February 10, 1840, 5.
“vast numbers”: The Observer, February 10, 1840, 3.
“We are all going stark staring mad”: The Satirist, February 9, 1840, quoted in Plunkett, Queen Victoria: First Media Monarch, 135.
“Poor little thing”: Thomas Carlyle to Margaret A. Carlyle, February 11, 1840. doi:10.1215/lt-18400211-TC-MAC-01; CL 12:40–42, carlyleletters.dukeupress.edu.
“as the King of England”: Williams, Becoming Queen, 339.
“Society is unhinged”: Forster, Life of Charles Dickens, 1:145.
“On Tuesday we sallied down”: House and Storey, Letters of Charles Dickens, 2:25–27.
“remarkably agreeable looking”: February 14, 1840, to Parthenope Nightingale, McDonald, Nightingale on Society and Politics, 5:411.
“perfectly composed and spoke distinctly”: McDonald, Florence Nightingale’s European Travels, 623.
“I did not shed one tear”: QVJ, February 10, 1840.
“There never was”: Longford, Queen Victoria, 143.
“SO delightful”: QVJ, February 10, 1840.
“The Ceremony was very imposing”: Ibid.
“of course in one bed”: Ibid.
“I NEVER, NEVER spent such an evening!”: Ibid.
women’s animal nature: Female sexual desire was believed to be particularly dangerous: women were more easily overwhelmed by the power of their sexual passion, it was said, because they were closer to nature and thus more volatile and irrational than men. According to one doctor in 1887, “When they are touched and excited, a time arrived when, though not intending to sin, they lost all physical control over themselves.” Groneman, “Nymphomania,” 353.
candidates for nymphomania: Ibid., 340.
specifically excluded women: Even women who considered themselves open-minded had difficulty with the idea of women doctors. Men had been so effective in establishing themselves as moral and scientific authorities that any woman who sought to place herself in that role was considered mannish or of indeterminate sex. Florence Nightingale was celebrated as a nurse, and therefore acceptable as a nurturer; but Dr. Mary Walker, who treated many patients during the U.S. Civil War, was a byword for freakishness. One exception was Elizabeth Blackwell, who had qualified in America, so was able to practice as a doctor in the United Kingdom.
never consummated: “It is far from seldom that I meet with cases in which the hymen has never been ruptured.” “Ignorance and False Ideas About Sexual Congress” (1865) in Acton, Functions and Disorders, 89.
his 1857 declaration: Tosh, A Man’s Place, 44.
women tried to avoid: Mason, The Making of Victorian Sexuality, 203. Mason writes that many women were scared of sexual pleasure in the nineteenth century because they linked orgasms to falling pregnant. Many GPs would have read Copland, who wrote, “It is generally understood by females of all ranks in society, that indifference during intercourse, or suppression of the orgasm will prevent impregnation, and, although they are sometimes deceived in this respect, yet their inference is correct in the majority.” Copland, A Dictionary of Practical Medicine, 374.
“The majority of women”: Tait, Diseases of Women, 36, 41, quoted in Jalland and Hooper, Women from Birth to Death, 222.
sex was a chore: Historian Edward Shorter wrote, “The overwhelming body of evidence suggests that, for married women in the past, sex was a burden to be dutifully, resentfully borne throughout life rather than a source of joy.” A History of Women’s Bodies, 13.
“She had a very low-necked dress”: August 22, 1840, Bolitho, The Prince Consort, 24.
“pay more attention to the ladies”: Rhodes James, Albert, Prince Consort, 57.
This was partly true: Stockmar, Memoirs of Baron Stockmar, 2:7.
male company: In 1838, Albert told his childhood friend Prince Wilhelm zu Löwenstein-Wertheim-Freudenberg that “I believe the pleasant days which we spent together [at the university], partly in useful occupation, partly in cheerful intercourse, will ever appear to me as the happiest of my life. In spite of our unrestrained intimacy [Ungenirheit] and our many practical jokes, the utmost harmony always existed between us. How pleasant were our winter concerts—our theatrical attempts—our walks to the Venusberg—the swimming school—the fencing ground—! I dare not think back upon all those things.” Grey, The Early Years, 154.
only women he spoke to: Extract from Lady Clarendon’s Journal, July 21, 1841: “I sat by Prince Albert at dinner today, but could not get on with him. He was civil and good-natured, but did not converse. I believe he does with men, but he appears never to do so with women, except Royalties. He seemed to get on very well with the Queen of the Belgians, who sat the other side of him.” Maxwell, Life and Letters of Clarendon, 1:221.
“a marked distaste to the opposite sex”: Strachey, Queen Victoria, 136.
point to the male friendships: Some have argued that it is also possible that Albert formed romantic attachments while at Bonn University in the 1830s, although this is mere suggestion, without evidence. The prevalence of homoerotic liaisons at universities at this time has been well documented, especially in England. Ronald Pearsall argues that for many of the upper classes, “Homosexual experiences were the rule rather than the exception.” (Pearsall, The Worm in the Bud, 452.) By 1895, the editor William Stead recognized this when he wrote in his Review of Reviews aft
er the Oscar Wilde case: “Should everyone found guilty of Oscar Wilde’s crime be imprisoned, there would be a very surprising emigration from Eton, Harrow, Rugby and Winchester to the jails of Pentonville and Holloway. Until then, boys are free to pick up tendencies and habits in public schools for which they may be sentenced to hard labor later on.” (Ibid., 456.)
attachment to his tutor: See Gillian Gill’s analysis of this in We Two. Edward Benson, who collated Victoria’s letters in the 1930s, described Albert’s affection for Herr Florschütz as “a disordered unnatural fancy.” (Queen Victoria, 190.) Forty years later, in 1972, David Duff said Albert had “strange and unnatural feelings” for his tutor that had to be “sternly repressed.” Again, no evidence was given for this. In 1991, Monica Charlot wrote that Albert “undoubtedly attracted” Florschütz, and said if Duff was right, it would “scarcely be abnormal, given the traumatic effect of his mother’s departure and the fact that Florschütz was to supervise the boys’ studies for some fifteen years.” Charlot does not, however, suggest a homosexual relationship. (Charlot, Victoria the Young Queen, 154.)
the categorization of homosexuality: The word “homosexual” was first used in English in Charles Gilbert Chaddock’s 1895 translation of Richard von Krafft-Ebing’s Psychopathia Sexualis, a study of sexual practices. The country that has been credited with “the invention of homosexuality” was Germany, partly because the politicians felt the need to curb same-sex affection with anti-sodomy laws in the mid-1800s. Beachy, “The German Invention of Homosexuality.”
“of Albert’s not caring greatly”: QVJ, October 22, 1839.
“I shan’t forgive you that”: QVJ, November 4, 1839.
“a great dislike to being in [the] charge of women”: Grey, The Early Years, 42.
Chapter Twelve: Only the Husband, and Not the Master
“[Acknowledging] one important truth”: Quoted in Homans and Munich, Remaking Queen Victoria, 3.
“In my home life I am very happy”: Prince Albert to Prince Wilhelm zu Löwenstein-Wertheim-Freudenberg, May 1840, quoted in Jagow, Letters of the Prince Consort, 69.