by Julia Baird
Victoria wrote to Maria on June 2, 1842, “I assure you that I share entirely your opinion, the husband should always be first; I’m doing everything in order that it be thus—and I am always saddened that he must be below me in rank; for it pains me to be Queen and he merely the Prince; but in my heart and in my house he comes first and is the master and head.” Victoria to Maria, June 2, 1842, Lisbon Archives, Torre do Tombo, Caixa 7322/CR150-1, quoted in Ward, “Editing Queen Victoria,” 251.
and showed them off proudly: QVJ, December 26, 1840: “The Baby was brought down and I showed her to all the ladies. She was awake, & very sweet, & I must say, I am very proud of her.”
how many hours she spent with her babies: Wyndham, Correspondence of Sarah Spencer, 391. Anson also noted that the queen “interests herself less and less about politics…and…is a good deal occupied with the little Princess Royal.” Ward, “Editing Queen Victoria,” 88–89.
“as much as possible with their parents”: Martin, The Prince Consort, 2:182.
“fear and trembling”: Ibid.
“a great blessing and cheer & brighten up life”: QVJ, February 10, 1852.
as though asleep with his eyes open: Jerrold, Married Life of Victoria, 230.
“a very good child & not at all wanting in intellect”: Ibid., 234.
the queen thought he was stupid: January 22, 1848. Greville added “the hereditary and unfailing antipathy of our Sovereigns to their Heirs Apparents seems thus early to be taking root, and the Q. does not much like the child.” Strachey and Fulford, The Greville Memoirs, 6:9; Greville, The Great World, 238.
“The intellectual organs are only moderately developed”: Rhodes James, Albert, Prince Consort, 238.
“feel the strong pulsations of a nation’s heart”: Reverend D. Newell, quoted in Homans and Munich, Remaking Queen Victoria, 42.
“the good example it presents”: Queen Victoria to King Leopold, October 29, 1844, Benson and Esher, The Letters of Queen Victoria, 2:32.
understood her people with a canny intuition: When Victoria received glowing reviews for her book More Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands, published in 1884 and dedicated to John Brown, she said that she was certain she knew “perfectly well what my people like and appreciate and that is ‘home life’ and simplicity.” Fulford, Beloved Mama, 160.
“All is well with us”: Jagow, Letters of the Prince Consort, 141
Chapter Sixteen: Annus Mirabilis:
The Revolutionary Year
“The uncertainty everywhere, as well as for the future”: QVJ, April 3, 1848.
they had been hiding in to try to arrest the king: Mr. Featherstonhaugh, British Consul at Havre, to Viscount Palmerston, March 3, 1848, Benson and Esher, The Letters of Queen Victoria, 2:188.
thousands gathered on the streets to protest: Alexis de Tocqueville wrote that Paris was sinister and frightening at this time: “There were a hundred thousand armed workmen formed into regiments, without work and dying of hunger, but with heads full of vain theories and chimerical hopes.” Tocqueville, Recollections, 98.
drank and danced in the palace, raiding the royal closets: Ward, “1848: Queen Victoria,” 180.
concealing his eyes with enormous goggles: Mr. Featherstonhaugh, British Consul at Havre, to Viscount Palmerston, March 3, 1848, Benson and Esher, The Letters of Queen Victoria, 2:187.
Victoria and Albert’s second visit to Eu in 1845: Queen Louise to Queen Victoria, October 7, 1844, ibid., 22–23.
still loved her French family: Victoria wrote to Baron Stockmar on March 6, 1848, that she had longed to be on better terms with the French family, which indicates she had forgiven them for the Spanish marriage backflip: “You know my love for the family; you know how I longed to get on better terms with them again….Little did I dream that this would be the way we should meet again, and see each other all in the most friendly way. That the Duchess de Montpensier, about whom we have been quarrelling for the last year and a half, should be here as a fugitive, and dressed in the clothes I sent her, and should come to thank me for my kindness, is a reverse of fortune which no novelist would devise, and upon which one could moralise for ever.” Martin, The Prince Consort, 2:24.
the day after she greeted Louis Philippe and Marie-Amelie: Queen Victoria to King Leopold, March 7, 1848, Benson and Esher, The Letters of Queen Victoria, 2:163.
“What could be more dreadful!”: QVJ, February 29, 1848. Writing about the day of abdication Victoria was most struck by the anxiety of the mother whose children were wrested out of her arms: “Poor Hélène had her children torn from her. What could be more dreadful! Paris was pushed along into a corridor but returned to her whereas poor little Robert got entirely lost for 3 days! However a gentleman had taken care of him & managed to let poor Hélène know, who it seems behaved throughout with wonderful courage.”
“and hearing those dreadful cries and shrieks”: QVJ, February 27, 1848.
“like a crushed rose”: QVJ, May 16, 1848.
“people [who] are going on in a disgusting way”: In her journal she called them a “mob of bloodthirsty ruffians,” “horrible shrieking mob” (QVJ, February 28, 1848), “infuriated, armed mob,” “horrid infuriated mob” (QVJ, February 29, 1848), and “the dreadful rabble” (QVJ, March 5, 1848), and said, “people are going on in a disgusting way” (QVJ, March 1, 1848).
to avoid embarrassing her son, King Edward VII: Most of the cuts were made because they were too overtly political, or revealed a side of Victoria that would have been too strident or unfeminine for Edwardian eyes. Ward, “Editing Queen Victoria,” 309.
“Iniquity from wherein all the mischief comes”: Note also another excision: Victoria said she wished there would be peace in Europe when “this madness is over” in France. The words “in France” were deleted from the final version of the letter, February 6, 1849. Ibid., 241.
“and everybody will admit that”: March 11, 1848, cited in Ward, Censoring Queen Victoria, 163.
who burst into tears: Bolitho, Albert, Prince Consort, 100. Victoria also wrote to Leopold on March 11: “Our little riots here are mere nothings, and the feeling here is good.” Martin, The Prince Consort, 2:8.
protests were scaring her French relations: QVJ, March 6, 1848.
“one cannot help being more anxious”: QVJ, March 7, 1848.
to advise on foreign policy: Martin, The Prince Consort, 2:158.
the Duke of Coburg and Gotha: He wrote to his distressed brother Ernest: “Such an outbreak of the people is always something very dreadful” and recommended that “the laws for election should be liberal and extended.” Victoria’s sister Feodora wrote from Stuttgart on April 7, 1849: “I think you can hardly have an idea of the state Germany is in now. The want of respect for all that is called law is dreadful….You have no idea how low Ernest sometimes is; it quite distressed me to see it. I think women can bear up better against the blows of misfortune than men.” Martin, The Prince Consort, 2:25.
extending military power to quell the local riots: Bolitho, Albert, Prince Consort, 101.
“if only we are spared to one another to share everything”: QVJ, April 3, 1848.
“it is only trifles that irritate my nerves”: Queen Victoria to King Leopold, April 4, 1848, Benson and Esher, The Letters of Queen Victoria, 2:166–67.
“her departure was due to personal alarm”: Phipps to the Prince, April 9, 1848, Woodham-Smith, Queen Victoria, 288.
special constables on the day of the meeting: Goodway, London Chartism, 1838–1848, 131.
any foreign citizen against whom allegations had been made: The act was passed in 1848, but not enforced, and was rescinded in 1850. Bloom, Victoria’s Madmen, 110.
troops were hidden at various points around London: See Schama, A History of Britain.
Lord John Russell lined his windows with parliamentary papers: Belchem, “The Waterloo of Peace,” 255.
The troops were told to fire if necessary: QVJ, April 6, 1848.
“will
have a beneficial effect in other countries”: QVJ, April 10, 1848.
help the working class at a time of distress: Benson and Esher, The Letters of Queen Victoria, 2:224.
“coming in consequence to wrong conclusions”: Quoted in Martin, The Prince Consort, 2:75.
Victoria wrote, a little guiltily: QVJ, April 6, 1848. She wrote: “Albert is so overwhelmed with business, that he has to get up very early. I am not half grateful enough for the many ways in which he helps me….Took a short drive with Albert in the Barouche, then went about the garden in my pony chair, & Albert played with the 4 children. He is so kind to them & romps with them so delightfully, & manages them so beautifully & yet firmly.”
“like a plague”: QVJ, June 10, 1848.
laborers stood on the lawns armed with sticks: QVJ, June 13, 1848.
a man ran up: QVJ, June 17, 1848.
Lady Emily Lamb, to whom he was then engaged: Chambers, Palmerston: The People’s Darling, 178–79.
argue against Palmerston a decade later: Woodham-Smith, Queen Victoria, 304–5: “There had been a change in accommodation at Windsor and the room entered by Lord Palmerston was normally occupied by a lady not averse from his attentions, whom he was accustomed to visit there.” Also, according to Feuchtwanger, Albert and Victoria, 89, Albert told Lord Russell that Palmerston should not be allowed to force himself upon the queen, either, which seems either untrue or uncharacteristically rude and indelicate.
“dignified courtesy towards other Sovereigns and their governments”: Martin, The Prince Consort, 2:300–301.
failing to update her on the feud between Austria and Sardinia: September 4, 1848, Bolitho, Albert, Prince Consort, 103.
wrestling with their own rebels in Ireland: QVJ, July 24, 1848. Victoria wrote: “For us to join with this unrecognised Govt & be the 1st to act in concert with them, in helping revolted subjects to throw off their allegiance, while at the same time we are grappling with Rebellion in Ireland, is to dishonour & disgrace the name of England. I expressed myself strongly to Ld Palmerston on this subject.”
This was later edited out of their official correspondence: Ward, “Editing Queen Victoria,” 224. Victoria and Albert contested much Palmerston did as foreign minister between 1846 and 1851. Esher cut out many passages of criticism of Palmerston by Victoria, Albert, and Leopold just before printing, “most likely in deference to King Edward.” They deleted all references to the Pilgerstein nickname.
Victoria often wrote…about how much she despised: Victoria even blamed Palmerston for the European revolutions, so great was her contempt. In an odd twist of logic, she also considered him responsible for the Spanish marriage fallout that had created a dispute between France and England: “There can be no doubt that the greatest interests of Europe have been sacrificed to Ld Palmerston’s ambition, & headstrong policy. It is very dreadful to contemplate.” QVJ, May 7, 1848.
“and this without her knowledge”: Queen Victoria to Viscount Palmerston, February 17, 1850, Benson and Esher, The Letters of Queen Victoria, 2:234.
angered Greece, and alienated France: Martin, The Prince Consort, 2:277.
use her constitutional powers to dismiss him: When Russell read this out in Parliament the following year, the MPs were shocked, and a mortified Palmerston declared he would never work with Russell again. (On March 4, 1851, the queen wrote to Lord Russell reminding him that he too “must keep her constantly informed of what is going on and of the temper of the parties in and out of the Parliament.”)
“an unparalleled outrage”: Greville, The Great World, 289.
“who has equally duties & obligations”: QVJ, August 6, 1848.
people on the streets of Dublin were crying for food: Woodham-Smith, Queen Victoria, 295.
people in Ireland could be arrested without a warrant: QVJ, July 21, 1848.
her views were considered strident: The word “dirtier” was also cut out of the published version of one of her letters when describing the Irish people during her visit to Dublin in 1849: “A more good-humored crowd I never saw, but noisy and excitable beyond belief, talking, jumping, and shrieking instead of cheering….You see dirtier, more ragged & wretched people here than I ever saw anywhere else.” Queen Victoria to King Leopold, August 6, 1849, Ward, “Editing Queen Victoria,” 309.
her sympathy for their tenants waned: Murphy, Abject Loyalty, 66: “However, as the year wore on, the attention of both Victoria and Albert became fixed on the rising number of outrages in Ireland against landlords. In 1846 there were sixty-eight murders in Ireland. In 1847 there were ninety-eight….Unable to comprehend the starvation of faceless masses, Victoria and Albert were able to sympathize with the plight of individual landlords with whom they had often had personal contact.”
“the enjoyments of this world”: Bolitho, Albert, Prince Consort, xi.
establishment of banks especially for savings: Martin, The Prince Consort, 2:228.
“But there is the rub”: May 13, 1849, quoted in Bolitho, Albert, Prince Consort, 113.
putting them in a sorry state: Ibid., xii.
“British peculiarity seemed to be underlined once again”: Taylor, “The 1848 Revolutions,” 146. Such comments were frequently removed or tempered by the editors—Esher in particular, in his enthusiasm for France.
leaders of the Irish independence and Chartist movements: Ibid., 155.
Victoria was immensely proud of that: In her closing of Parliament in 1848, on September 5, Victoria said: “My people, on their side, feel too easily the advantages of order and serenity to allow the promoters of pillage and confusion any chance of success in their wicked designs.” Martin, The Prince Consort, 2:106.
the man who had been his ally in his rise to power: Queen Victoria to King of the Belgians, July 9, 1850, Benson and Esher, The Letters of Queen Victoria, 2:256.
Peel was hugely popular in death: As Victoria wrote, “From the highest to the lowest grief is shown & felt in a manner, hardly ever before known for a person in his position. All the lower & middle classes realize that they have lost a father & a friend.” QVJ, July 3, 1848.
Albert mourned him like a brother, wrote Victoria: QVJ, October 9, 1849.
Uncle Leopold lost his much-loved second wife, Louise: QVJ, March 21, 1849.
Chapter Seventeen: What Albert Did:
The Great Exhibition of 1851
“We are capable”: QVJ, April 29, 1851.
a fog that made the spectacle seem unreal: “The Opening,” Preston Guardian, May 3, 1851.
“beautiful beyond the power of language to describe”: “Royal Inauguration of the Great Exhibition of 1851,” Morning Post, May 2, 1851, 5.
“a day to live forever”: QVJ, May 1, 1851.
“and I can think of nothing else”: Benson and Esher, The Letters of Queen Victoria, 2:318. Victoria writes to Leopold: “I wish you could have witnessed May 1st, 1851, the greatest day in our history, the most beautiful, and imposing, and touching spectacle ever seen and the triumph of my beloved Albert. Truly it was astonishing, a fairy scene….Albert’s dearest name is immortalized with this great conception, his own, and my own dear country showed she was worthy of it. The triumph is immense.”
described the opening as “quite satisfactory”: Fulford, The Prince Consort, 222.
shapes of the continents and the celestial heavens above: Leapman, The World for a Shilling, 152.
pulling the ocean’s tides with its heartbeat: Ibid.
the whole of the Exhibition: For a fuller description of the displays, see the excellent account contained in Leapman, The World for a Shilling, 133.
“had a ludicrous effect”: QVJ, May 19, 1851.
“It must be amusing to wash yourself with yourself”: Cowen, Relish, 221.
“a deep hum like the sea heard from the distance”: Shorter, Charlotte Brontë and Her Circle, 425–26.
begun in the sixteenth century, as a child: The tradition of industrial exhibitions began with the Frankfurt fairs in the sixteenth century. Ex
hibitions began in Paris in 1798 and continued sporadically.
and helping to launch the penny post: Cole had also vigorously campaigned for the standard gauge railway track, managed South Kensington Museum for two decades, and was responsible for the Royal College of Music and Albert Hall. Rhodes James, Albert, Prince Consort, 195.
Albert was then the president: Cole and Albert had worked together on some smaller Society of the Arts exhibitions that had drawn increasingly large crowds. Ten thousand attended one in 1849; about the same number would visit the Great Exhibition daily.
serious moral and patriotic underpinnings: It was a time when it was assumed that humanity was beginning to attain a higher kind of enlightenment; as Tennyson put it in In Memoriam, mankind must “Move upward, working out the beast / And let the ape and tiger die.”
“civilization and the attainment of liberty”: Martin, The Prince Consort, 2:246.
“able to direct their further exertions”: Ibid., 2:248.
“a cucumber frame between two chimneys”: Fulford, The Prince Consort, 221.
“truly a marvelous piece of art”: Rhodes James, Albert, Prince Consort, 199.
“palmed upon the people of this country”: Ibid., 197. Also, as Cecil Woodham-Smith points out, Colonel Sibthorp had vehemently opposed the Public Libraries Act too, because he did not like reading. Queen Victoria, 310.
to prevent the Exhibition from taking place: Martin, The Prince Consort, 2:358.
“and to drive myself crazy”: Rhodes James, Albert, Prince Consort, 100. See also Woodham-Smith, Queen Victoria, 313n17.
“the whole thing would fall to pieces”: Martin, The Prince Consort, 2:244.
these mechanisms would transform their lives: Cowen, Relish, 221.
“the greatness of man’s mind”: QVJ, June 7, 1851.