We Two: Victoria and Albert

by Gillian Gill

  42 “Remember that it was not I Cecil Woodham-Smith, Queen Victoria from Her Birth to the Death of the Prince Consort, New York: Knopf, 1972, p. 51.

  43 It was xenophobic enough In the letters he wrote to Queen Victoria in the weeks immediately following her accession in 1837, King Leopold was still worried that the Duke of Cumberland and the extreme faction of the Tory Party of which Cumberland was the leader would challenge Victoria’s right to the throne of Great Britain. Leopold had seen long civil wars break out in both Spain and Portugal when paternal uncles refused to accept the rights to the throne of the two child queens, Isabella and Maria da Glória. Leopold therefore advised Victoria to stress in her public utterances that she—unlike her two male cousins, George Cumberland and George Cambridge—was born in England and had never in her life left its shores.

  44 A mistress was essential to Leopold King Leopold I of the Belgians had a series of liaisons throughout his first widowhood and during and after his second marriage. In 1849 he selected the wife of an officer as his “maitresse en titre,” coldly informing Queen Louise that he was obliged to do so, as illness and religious devotions had led her to neglect her duties as a wife. The queen meekly accepted the rebuke and the mistress. She died in October 1850, probably of consumption, aged thirty-nine. See Richardson, chapter 26.

  46 Victoria never bore them a grudge Prince Albert was characteristically more censorious, blaming his uncle for failing in his duty toward Queen Victoria as a child. “Mama here,” wrote Prince Albert years later, referring to the Duchess of Kent, “would never have fallen into the hands of Conroy if uncle Leopold had taken the trouble to guide her” (Dorothy Margaret Stuart, The Mother of Victoria, p. 106).

  46 He believed he could trace The key work on Sir John Conroy is A Royal Conflict: Sir John Conroy and the Young Victoria by Katherine Hudson (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1994). Hudson, with John Jones, edited the Conroy Papers for Balliol College, Oxford.

  47 Though always happier in German Elizabeth Longford quotes an 1818 document in the Royal Archives in which someone has spelled out phonetically a little speech for the Duchess of Kent to deliver on her arrival in England. “Ei hoeve tu regrétt, biing aes yiett so little conversent in this Inglisch lênguetsch uitsch obleitsches—miy, to seh, in averi fiu words, theat ei em môhst gretful for yur congratuleschens end gud uishes” (Elizabeth Longford, Victoria R.I., London: Pan Books, 1964, p. 23).

  47 She also gave him money Hudson clarifies Conroy’s extremely murky finances. From the early 1820s on, Conroy lived an increasingly opulent life, even though he drew no salary from the Duchess of Kent and earned only a thousand pounds from his position at the Colonial Audit Office. His chief source of income was the Princess Sophia, though this was kept a close secret. Following John Conroy’s death, his heirs estimated that between 1820 and her death in 1848, Princess Sophia gave Conroy 148,000 pounds, a house in Kensington, and an estate in Wales that included lucrative mines. That sum was almost certainly a low estimate. When Conroy finally was persuaded to leave the service of the Duchess of Kent in 1840, Princess Sophia, now blind and deaf, remained his loyal friend. To salve his wounded pride and keep him in England, she gave him a superb English country estate called Arborfield and 3,000 pounds a year. When Princess Sophia died, she was virtually penniless. From 1837 to his death in 1854, Conroy also received some 51,000 pounds from the Queen’s privy purse and 25,500 from the Duchess of Kent’s parliamentary allowance. Whether Conroy or his shifty underling William Rea also embezzled large sums of money from the Duchess of Kent between 1831 and 1837, when she started to receive generous parliamentary grants, was widely alleged but never proven. Conroy and Rea were careful either to keep no accounts or to lose them. To the rage and astonishment of his heirs, Conroy managed to die deeply in debt. His wife and children, who had lived off the royal largesse all their lives, continued to pester Queen Victoria for financial assistance and did not come away empty handed. If one wonders just how Queen Victoria managed to spend her huge income, it is important to remember that she felt financially responsible even for people like the daughter-in-law of her former archenemy John Conroy.

  48 He once mystified Victoria Hudson, p. 74, quoting Queen Victoria’s unpublished journal entry of January 21, 1839. Hudson’s revelation about Elizabeth Fisher Conroy’s supposed kinship to the Duke of Kent is based on an entry in a little leather notebook of Conroy’s that was carefully preserved by his descendents.

  48 It was only after Victoria became See Hudson for the various unflattering names that King Leopold in later years was to apply to Sir John Conroy.

  48 As Victoria edged closer Hudson, p. 61.

  Chapter 4: THAT DISMAL EXISTENCE

  51 When Uncle York died Queen Victoria in Her Letters and Journals, ed. Christopher Hibbert, New York: Viking, 1984, pp. 9–11.

  51 After one stormy episode Elizabeth Longford, Victoria R.I., p. 33.

  51 As Victoria moved out of infancy Queen Victoria’s half sister, the second child of the Duchess of Kent by Emich Charles, Prince of Leiningen-Dachburg-Hadenburg, was christened Feodorowna but was known as Feodora or Feodore.

  51 Over the years, Victoria amply repaid It was impossible for Victoria and Feodora to correspond freely before Victoria’s accession, but Feodora understood better than anyone what Conroy was capable of. From Germany, she tried to keep informed about the situation at Kensington Palace, and she wrote to King William IV and to King Leopold to seek their protection for Victoria when Conroy’s dictatorship seemed to threaten Victoria’s happiness or even her life.

  52 Louise Lehzen became Victoria’s mother This is the report from biographers such as Longford, who have read the full transcripts of the Queen’s diaries in the Royal Archives. The published sections of the diaries systematically omit references to Baroness Lehzen. The editors, writing in the early part of the twentieth century, were anxious to conceal the fact that Queen Victoria had been abused by her mother in her youth and was barely on speaking terms with her between 1837 and 1840.

  52 At Amorbach Castle, her recent home Stuart, The Mother of Queen Victoria, p. 6. 52 Lehzen once told a member Katherine Hudson, A Royal Conflict, p. 19.

  52 More controversially Davys was made a bishop as a reward for his work as Queen Victoria’s tutor.

  53 However, in the documentation For the upbringing of Queen Victoria’s eldest children, the Princess Royal and the Prince of Wales (Vicky and Bertie), see chapters 24 and 25.

  54 She went pink with delight There is some discussion in the literature as to whether Queen Victoria is correct in assigning this event to 1826.

  55 Who knew, whispered Conroy Ernest Cumberland (later king of Hanover) was always at daggers drawn with Queen Victoria and Prince Albert over matters of precedence, and the prince was inclined to share the Duchess of Kent’s paranoia about Cumberland. However, as Woodham-Smith shows in an appendix, Queen Victoria in her private papers scrupulously insisted that Conroy had been quite wrong to claim that Cumberland attempted to harm her as a child.

  55 At Amorbach, Victoire For more on this incident, see chapter 8.

  55 The duchess herself had fortunately arrived Caroline Bauer recounts this incident in her memoirs. Just as Victoria was gazing at Fräulein Bauer and her mother, Frau Christina Bauer, the Duchess of Kent (who had known Christina since childhood) rode up and hurried her daughter away.

  56 “I must unequivocally state to you Woodham-Smith, p. 60.

  56 “When I look back upon Woodham-Smith, pp. 55 and 62.

  56 But he was only thirty-two Princess Feodora’s marriage to Prince Ernest of Hohenlohe-Langenburg was generally seen in English court circles as a mésalliance, the crowning proof that the Duchess of Kent placed her own interests and pleasures ahead of her elder daughter’s. The families of the two sisters were assiduously intertwined. Queen Victoria married her granddaughter Alexandra of Edinburgh and Saxe-Coburg to Feodora’s son, also named Ernest of Hohenlohe. Ernest and Alexandra’s son Gottfried married his
cousin Margarita of Greece, another direct descendent of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert. Most important, Augusta of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Glücksburg, one of Feodora’s granddaughters, was the bride chosen by Victoria’s eldest grandson, Kaiser William II of Germany.

  57 “He [Conroy] has never lived Woodham-Smith, p. 72.

  Chapter 5: THE KENSINGTON SYSTEM

  59 The Kensington System, as it later came The term “the Kensington System” seems to have been coined by Charles von Leiningen, Queen Victoria’s half brother, who, at the request of Prince Albert, wrote up a long account of Conroy’s role in his sister’s life before her accession. Prince Leiningen first came to England in 1824 and was initially impressed by Conroy’s affability and his devotion to the Duchess of Kent. Conroy counted Leiningen as an ally. The prince’s account is now in the Royal Archives at Windsor (M.7/67). See Longford, p. 69.

  59 The Kensington System became more oppressive The facts about Queen Victoria’s difficult childhood and the Duchess of Kent’s blind deference to the abusive Conroy were hidden from the public for some thirty years after the Queen’s death in 1901. The Conroy story was first pieced together in the 1930s by Kurt Jagow, using German archival sources. It was taken up for the English public by Woodham-Smith in the late 1950s, and amply confirmed in 2000 with materials from the Royal Archives in Christopher Hibbert’s magisterial biography Queen Victoria: A Personal History, New York: Harper Collins, 2001.

  59 At four, Vickelchen The expression is the Queen’s own, from the recollections of her childhood she set down in 1872.

  62 Darnley called her “unexampled Alison Plowden, The Young Victoria, New York: Sutton, 2000 (first published 1981), p. 61.

  62 Unsurprisingly, the King was outraged According to Philip Ziegler, “The Duchess of Kent seemed to have considered [William IV’s] reign as an undesirable and inconsiderately protracted interregnum between the black wickedness of the Georges and the radiant paradise to open with the accession of Queen Victoria” (King William IV, London: Fontana, 1973, p. 277).

  63 The duchess replied that the Princess Sir Walter Scott was permitted to meet the Princess Victoria in May 1828, around the time of her ninth birthday. Scott wrote in his diary: “This little lady is educating with much care, and watched so closely that no busy maid has a moment to whisper ‘You are heir to England.’ I suspect if we could dissect the little heart we should find some pigeon or other bird of the air had carried the matter” (quotation from Sir Walter Scott’s diary, Theodore Martin, The Life of the Prince Consort, vol. 1, New York: Appleton, 1875, p. 23). Queen Victoria insisted that Scott was wrong, and that she did not know that she would be “heir to England.” It is interesting that the great novelist in a brief and formal visit was impressed by how closely the Princess Victoria was watched and kept even from conversing with the maids.

  63 The conversation went as follows Woodham-Smith, p. 76. This is the account given by Baroness Lehzen in 1867 in a private letter to Queen Victoria. The Queen annotated the letter in the margins and confirmed its accuracy. She remembered how much she cried to hear of what the future held for her and how much she prayed that her aunt Adelaide would indeed have children.

  Chapter 6: FIGHTING BACK

  65 As Queen Victoria recalled Dearest Child: Letters Between Queen Victoria and the Princess Royal, 1858–1861, ed. Roger Fulford, New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964, p. 72.

  66 As she understood very well Just after her newly married daughter Vicky had left for Prussia,Queen Victoria wrote to tell Vicky how much affectionate interest had been shown in the marriage by people of every class in England. “People are so kind about you! … Lord Shaftesbury said, there was nothing in history like the feeling shown on this occasion— and the great affection, not for us only—but for you personally … Tell this to Fritz [soon to be Crown Prince of Prussia] for you know (and he ought to know) that such a feeling in England is worth a great deal—as it is the real feeling of the people, not merely a sense of respect—which can be put on, for you cannot force people here to be enthusiastic if they don’t choose” (Dearest Child, p. 63).

  66 Her voice was her greatest beauty The great nineteenth-century actress Fanny Burney once remarked on the Queen’s marvelous voice as one professional performer to another.

  66 It was warm, clear, ringing By contrast, Victoria’s own children, especially the four eldest who were brought up mainly by their German father, apparently retained slight traces of German pronunciation. Vicky, the eldest child and her father’s favorite, was equally at home in English and German but was said to have a German accent in English and an English accent in German.

  67 Nonetheless, in one of the many Charlot, p. 65.

  68 Amenorrhea is a common symptom The letters between King Leopold and Baroness Lehzen point to amenorrhea, though, of course, such intimate female matters could not be discussed with medical accuracy.

  69 As she later told Lord Melbourne Charlot, p. 66, who cites “RA, Queen Victoria’s Journal, 26 February 1838.” This entry is not included in Esher’s edition of Queen Victoria’s Journal.

  69 However, Queen Victoria herself was told Just before the prince consort died of typhoid, Queen Victoria wrote to her uncle Leopold: “It is the first time I ever witnessed anything of this kind although I suffered from the same at Ramsgate and was much worse” (Queen Victoria in Her Letters and Journals, ed. Hibbert, p. 155).

  70 “I talk to you at length The quotations in this and the following paragraph are taken from Woodham-Smith, pp. 122–123.

  71 “I trust in God that my life Woodham-Smith pp. 126–127, quoting apparently from the account left by Lord Adolphus FitzClarence, one of the King’s illegitimate sons, who heard the whole tirade and immediately set down an account for the history books.

  72 “The Monster and Demon Incarnate” The quotations are from the Queen’s diary of 1842 and 1843, when she was at last free to write frankly about her life under Conroy See Hibbert, Queen Victoria in Her Letters and Journals, pp. 42 and 71.

  73 “Her feelings seem Woodham-Smith, p. 136. Woodham-Smith gives an unequaled blow-by-blow account of the days just preceding the accession of Queen Victoria, full of hitherto unpublished quotations from archival sources.

  73 Despite everything her mother claimed According to Katherine Hudson, Conroy himself left a different account of the medical crisis in Ramsgate, which puts the blame for neglecting the princess’s serious condition on the duchess and on Dr. Clark.

  74 Conroy gave Stockmar a list Longford, p. 82.

  75 “Tuesday, 20th June The Childhood of Queen Victoria, ed. Esher, vol. 1, pp. 196–197. Let me repeat that this entry forms part of that section of Queen Victoria’s diaries that was transcribed by Esher before Princess Beatrice could take her scissors to it and is therefore pretty close to what the Queen actually wrote.

  Chapter 7: VICTORIA, VIRGIN QUEEN

  77 At last Victoria was permitted Alan Hardy, Queen Victoria Was Amused London: John Murray, 1976, p. 164.

  78 “I felt for the first time Esher, The Girlhood of Queen Victoria, vol. 1, p. 227. This vision of the young Queen Victoria on horseback will stir the memories of elderly Britons like myself. I remember well from my youth the seductive images of Queen Elizabeth II as a young woman reviewing the household cavalry on horseback, riding sidesaddle, marvelously elegant in her cocked hat and tightly fitting military uniform.

  79 “Everything is new and delightful Woodham-Smith, p. 141.

  79 To her half sister Feodora Charlot, p. 101.

  79 To her uncle King Leopold Benson and Esher, The Letters of Queen Victoria, vol. 1, p. 79.

  81 She had an exceptional memory For the fact that the Queen in private called Lehzen “Daisy” or “Mother” see Longford, p. 107, quoting an unpublished section from the Queen’s journal.

  82 She paid her personal servants Vera Watson found the Queen’s annotations on bills in the records of the Lord Chamberlain’s department. See A Queen at Home: An Intimate Account of
the Social and Domestic Life of Queen Victoria’s Court, London: Allen, 1952.

  82 King Leopold had fully expected Stockmar arrived in England just a month before the death of William IV and remained in England, in close communication with the Queen and with Melbourne, for some fifteen months. Stockmar came back to London, at the request of Prince Albert, a month before the prince himself arrived for his wedding in February 1840 (see Memoirs of Baron Stockmar, vol. ii, chapter XVIII).

  83 In the evenings and at weekends According to Clare Jerrold, at least six members of the Paget family were at the court of the young Queen Victoria. Matilda and Laura were maids of honor, Lady Sandwich was a lady-in-waiting, Lord Alfred Paget (who fell madly and very publicly in love with Victoria) was an equerry, the Earl of Uxbridge was Lord Chamberlain, following a Paget in-law, Lord Conyngham Lady Constance Paget was also at court in some capacity (The Married Life of Queen Victoria, London: Eveleigh Nash, 1913, p. 53).

  85 As the second Lord Melbourne once remarked Lord David Cecil, Lord Melbourne: The Later Life, London: Constable, 1954, pp. 177–178. The English oligarchs of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries led lives quite as sexually innovative as the Bloomsbury group in the early twentieth, but they were careful not to leave anything on paper that could affect their own social standing and political careers, or the inheritance rights of their children. Thus whereas contemporaries gossiped in letters and diaries, and historians have speculated that the first Lady Melbourne, her son Lord Melbourne, her daughter Emily, Lady Cowper, and her daughter’s second husband Lord Palmerston all had numerous affairs, there is no documentary proof. Lord Palmerston was rumored to have slept with at least three of the famous patronesses of Almacks—Lady Cowper and her friends Lady Jersey and Princess Lieven—but biographers have been unable to confirm this.

  85 The young Lambs were brought up See Amanda Foreman, Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire, Random House, 1998.