Victoria & Abdul

by Shrabani Basu

  In August that year, James Reid married Susan Baring, maid of honour to the Queen, surprising the Court who had presumed he would remain a bachelor. The Queen was upset with the marriage since she did not like losing any of her ladies-in-waiting, but soon came round to the idea.

  The Munshi returned to India in early November 1899. The Queen wrote in her thirteenth Hindustani Journal that she would be having her last lesson for some time as he was going away. She went to see the Munshi’s wife to say goodbye and ‘to give her my little Christmas present’, a signed photograph of herself.13

  In December that year, the new Viceroy – Lord Curzon – wrote to the Queen that during his visit to Agra he had the pleasure of meeting Dr Wuzeeruddin, the Munshi’s father. ‘He was a courtly old gentleman and had many interesting experiences to relate. Unfortunately the Munshi was too unwell to accompany his parent,’ said the Viceroy.14 Clearly the strain of the Court politics and the long sea journey had caught up with the Munshi.

  13

  DEATH OF A QUEEN

  The Munshi’s father died in June. The Queen received the news from Karim and her heart went out for the old man whose son she had got to know so well and from whom she had learnt so much about India. She wrote immediately to Karim and to the Viceroy, who sent a feeling response:

  I had already heard with great regret of the death of the Munshi’s father. The Viceroy recalls with much pleasure his interview with the old gentleman at Agra in December last, when he was much struck at the courtly manner and interesting conversation of the Khan Bahadur. He was a most devoted subject of your Majesty.

  The Munshi’s father – once a humble hospital assistant – died a titled man, living in a grand house with acres of land. The Queen and Karim had provided well for him. The Munshi remained in India following his father’s death winding up the affairs of his estate.

  It was a year of heartbreaking news for the Queen. She had lost her grandson, Alfred (young Affie), in the Boer War. In July she received news of the death of her son, the Duke of Coburg, to cancer. She was given the news after breakfast and got up slowly, saying, ‘My people will feel for me’. Her maid-in-waiting, Marie Mallet, recalled how she wept silently and remembered his early days. The Queen had buried three children and three sons-in-law – all of whom had been in their prime – and this last blow was more than she could bear. A pall of gloom hung over the Royal palaces as news of the ravages of the war came in. In October the Queen received the telegram informing her of the death of her grandson, Prince Christian Victor, in South Africa.

  The Munshi returned in November. It had been nearly a year since he had left. Marie Mallet was not particularly welcoming: ‘The Munshi has also returned after a year’s absence in India, why the plague did not carry him off I cannot think, it might have done one good deed!’1 she wrote.

  The Queen – frail and lonely as she had become – was delighted to have her dear Munshi back. Both had lost their loved ones in the last few months. Karim was shocked to see how pale she looked. The Queen had made her last journey from Balmoral the night before, requesting that there should be no one at the platform at Ballater. The weather had been gloomy, a grey drizzle visible from the waiting room at the railway station, where she had sat by the fire and had a cup of tea with her daughter Beatrice. The Queen slept badly that night, knowing she would not be returning to her beloved Highland home. Back in Windsor, with her Munshi by her side, the Queen felt better and resumed her lessons immediately. On 7 November 1900, she wrote in Urdu:

  Today, I reached here safely from Balmoral. The weather was not good. It is a matter of sorrow that we do not write the lesson well today because we paid attention to it after a year. The Munshi returned the day before yesterday.

  The whole of this year we faced grievous shocks and concerns. Many a famous man was wasted in war. My son, Duke of Coburg, passed away. Prince Gracious Victor died of fever ten days ago.2

  It was the Queen’s last entry in her Hindustani Journal. She was soon to become seriously ill.

  Osborne, 22 January 1901

  The Queen died in my arms at 6.30, the Kaiser on the other side of the bed, helping me and supporting her.

  James Reid made the entry in his diary and wiped a tear. A whole era had ended and the anxiety and stress of the last few days was just beginning to sink in. The Queen had died surrounded by her family in her favourite holiday home in Osborne. She had been confined to her bed for the last few weeks, showing signs of dyspepsia, impaired nutrition and brain fatigue. The doctor diagnosed it as ‘periods of insomnia and mental confusion, brought on by damaged cerebral circulation after years of constant brain work through a long life of Royal responsibilities and Imperial events, domestic sorrows and anxieties specially in her later years’.3 She drifted in and out of sleep, the doctor constantly by her side. Even in her semi-conscious state she asked Reid what her people would think because she had not ridden out for several days and wondered if they were getting anxious.

  The Queen’s last entry in Urdu in her Hindustani Journal.

  The Prince of Wales was summoned to Osborne and the Kaiser of Germany came to see his ‘grandmama’ before she died. He had troubled her during her reign with his hostile attitude to Britain and his uncaring attitude to his mother, the Queen’s eldest daughter Victoria, but now came to make his peace. The Kaiser’s arrival caused a stir and journalists started gathering around Osborne House as it came to be known that the Queen was dying. Regular updates on the Queen’s health prepared by Reid were posted outside the gates of Osborne House. The sight of reporters dashing to the post office at Cowes to telegraph their copies to the news desks was becoming familiar. Mr Mott, postmaster at Cowes post office, had to lay on more staff to cope with the demand.

  The day before her death, the Queen had been given oxygen frequently and in the afternoon asked for her favourite dog, Turi. He was out for exercise, but on his return was taken and put on the Queen’s bed. She patted him and seemed pleased to have him beside her. In her drowsy state, the Queen asked for the Prince of Wales and asked him to kiss her face.

  On the morning of 22 January, the Queen started sinking after breakfast and the doctor nearly thought it all over by ten o’clock, but she rallied again after the last prayer was read. Regaining consciousness, she asked for the clergyman, Mr Smith, and recognised the Kaiser. She was left alone with her grandson for five minutes. Reid remained by her side all day and she murmured his name several times. Her last words to her doctor were, ‘I will do anything you like’, a sad testament to how helpless and vulnerable the wilful Queen suddenly felt. The end came at 6.30 in the evening and was peaceful and dignified, the Queen dying in the arms of her trusted doctor, with the Kaiser holding her other hand.

  ‘All day long, the Angel of Death has been hovering over Osborne House,’ reported The Times. ‘One could almost hear the beating of his wings. But at half past six those wings were folded and the Queen put to rest.’ At Cowes post office, Mr Mott laid on forty extra people to man the wires, working through the night on shifts, as the press sent out the story to the world.

  The Queen had left detailed instructions regarding the procedures to be followed after her death in a sealed letter, which she had given to Reid on 9 December 1897, three years back. With the help of her faithful dressers, Mrs Tuck and Miss Stewart, the doctor laid out all the things she had requested – photographs and mementoes of all the people she had held dear to her through her life – even the sprig of Balmoral heather that she so loved. He then packed the sides of the coffin with bags of charcoal in muslin. But he still had a final duty to perform.

  The Queen was already wearing her own wedding ring and the wedding ring of John Brown’s mother, which was given to her by Brown in 1875, and which she had always worn after his death. The doctor now wrapped two items in tissue paper and placed them in the Queen’s left hand. They were a photograph of John Brown and a lock of his hair in a case. He discreetly covered these with the flowers given by Queen Alex
andra so that the family could not see them.4 The loyal doctor had taken care to keep his Queen’s last request; it was one of the secrets she carried to her grave.

  Once the coffin was arranged, Reid called in the family and members of the Household to see the Queen for the last time. The Munshi was summoned at the very end. He was allowed to spend a moment with his Queen and was the last person to see her alone. As he left the room, the members of the Royal family entered and the coffin was closed by Mr Wardford, the Osborne carpenter and his two workmen. The Munshi watched silently as the coffin was covered with a white pall and carried downstairs by the Blue Coats (sailors) into the dining room, which had been prepared as the Chapelle Ardante.

  ‘My duties were over with the Queen after 20 years of service,’ wrote Reid in his diary. ‘I am exhausted.’

  The Munshi sat in Arthur Cottage that night, the tears silently pouring down his face. He prayed for the friend who had stood by him for the last thirteen years and changed his life. To him, she had been more than the Empress of India and Queen of England. She had been a friend, a mother and an inspiration. He gazed at a photograph of the Queen on his desk and read the inscription in her familiar writing: ‘Dear Abdul, Merry Christmas, Your loving friend VRI.’ The Queen had written ‘VRI’ in Urdu.

  A rich Indian shawl with a border of golden sequins was spread near the foot of the wrought-iron staircase in Osborne House. On it was spread a beautiful cushion of violets, from which rose a huge cross made of moss. The Queen was making her last journey from her beloved Indian rooms in Osborne, with its ornate carvings, collection of memorabilia and paintings of her Indian subjects.

  In Calcutta the news of the Queen’s death had spread like wildfire. One of the Viceroy’s staff, who was out shooting early in the morning in the countryside, was surprised to find a native running out of the village across the fields to ask ‘if the Great Queen was dead’, such was the speed with which the news travelled to even the rural areas. Soon all of India knew the Empress was dead and the day was declared as one of general mourning.

  The Viceroy, who had been woken at 3.45 a.m. to be told the news, wrote to the Secretary of State:

  No one who has not been to this country, can well realise the extent to which the British government, the monarchy, and the Empire did loyalty assume a more personal and therefore, a more passionate form … The virtues of the Queen, her domestic character, her homeliness, the old fashioned simplicity of her sentiments and sayings, the fact that she was equally revered as Queen, mother, and wife, have all combined to produce an overpowering effect upon the imagination of the Asiatic, and not until some time has passed and the new regime is started shall we realise, in all probability, to what a degree the contested incorporation of India in the British Empire has been facilitated by the character and attributes of the late Sovereign … No successor to the Queen, however genial, tactful and popular, and the new King is known to be all these, can ever win from the Indian people the feeling of personal devotion which assisted by her gt. longevity, and the glory of her reign, Queen Victoria aroused.5

  One hundred and one guns were fired at sundown to mark the death of Queen Victoria in Calcutta.

  On 1 February the Queen’s coffin was taken down to Trinity Pier and carried on board the Alberta, the Royal yacht on which the Queen had made the same crossing so often over the years. The massed bands, their drums muffled, played Beethoven’s funeral march. King Edward followed the Alberta in the Victoria and Albert, and the Kaiser behind him in his own yacht, the gleaming Hohenzollern. Thirty British battleships and cruisers – proud evidence of Britain’s naval power – lined the eight-mile route from Cowes to Southampton, providing an escort to the Alberta. They stood in formation, barely 500 yards apart, the sailors linking hands on the deck and the officers saluting as the Alberta sailed past. It was late afternoon when the Alberta turned into Portsmouth harbour. The sun set on the Solent in a blaze of red and gold, as the ships sailed out in a fitting farewell to the Queen.

  Next morning her coffin was taken from Portsmouth by train to Victoria. Nearly 1 million people, dressed in mourning black, lined the streets in London to watch the funeral cortege on its way to Paddington Station. The Queen – the proud daughter of a soldier – had wanted a military funeral and decreed that her coffin would be carried on a gun carriage. On the coffin was placed the Imperial Crown, the orb and sceptre and the collar of the Order of the Garter. The crowds filled Hyde Park – standing sixty deep – to catch a final glimpse of the Queen who had become a legend in her lifetime and taken the country into the age of steam, telegraphs, industrialisation and Empire. Four European Kings followed the gun carriage on horseback: King Edward VII, Kaiser Wilhelm II, King George I of the Hellenes and King Carlos of Portugal. King Leopold II of Belgium rode in a separate carriage. The Crown Princes of Denmark, Norway, Sweden and Romania rode in the procession along with other Royals. The Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria represented the Austrian Emperor. Thirteen years later, his assassination would trigger the First World War. Victoria had spread her family by marriage across Europe and her Empire covered one-fifth of the globe. At her death they had gathered from around the world to pay their respects.

  From Paddington the funeral procession moved by train to Windsor, as the Queen had done countless times over the years. Once again the crowds gathered in Windsor to get a last glimpse of their Queen. A slight mishap occurred: the horses had got cold waiting outdoors and had got out of hand when being harnessed to the gun carriage, breaking the splinter bar and nearly causing aserious accident. As confusion reigned, Ponsonby suggested that the horses be abandoned and the gun carriage be manually pulled with ropes through Windsor and up the castle’s Long Walk to the St George Chapel for the funeral service. After the service, an eighty-one gun salute was fired, one for each year of the Queen’s life.

  Far away in Calcutta, in the capital of the Queen’s Indian Empire, the city rang out with the sound of eighty-one guns, which were also fired there to remember the Kaiser-e-Hind and Empress of India.

  The next day the coffin was taken to the mausoleum at Frogmore, where the Queen was buried beside her husband, Prince Albert. Standing in the funeral party was the Munshi, who watched as his Queen was buried in her own Taj Mahal. The Queen had left instructions that he would be one of those walking in her funeral procession along with her family, the Household and European Royalty. She had not forgotten him even in her death.

  It was all to end soon for the Munshi. The King sent Princess Beatrice, Queen Alexandra and some guards to Frogmore Cottage where they demanded all the letters written by the Queen to the Munshi; they then burnt them in a bonfire outside the house. The King wanted no trace left of the relationship between his mother and the Munshi. Abdul Karim, the Queen’s companion and teacher for thirteen years, was ordered to leave the country and packed his bags like a common criminal. All the other Indian servants were also asked to go home. After the Queen’s funeral, Lord Esher noticed that the Indians were ‘wandering about like uneasy spirits’. The new King did not want to see any more turbans in the palaces or smell the curries from the Royal kitchens. The Edwardian era had begun.

  14

  LAST DAYS IN AGRA

  The division of the spoils followed soon after. Days within the departure of the Munshi, Sir James Reid and his wife, Susan, went to see Arthur Cottage in Osborne, the Munshi’s former home, to see if it was suitable for them.1 The Munshi’s houses in Balmoral and Windsor were also quickly occupied. Every effort was made to deep clean the memory of the Munshi. ‘The Black brigade’, as the Indians were dubbed, were finally no longer occupying the centre-stage of life in the Royal palaces.

  In April a son was born to Reid. Fritz Ponsonby jokingly wrote to him asking, ‘Is it true his name is to be Karim Reid!’ In fact, King Edward VII became the godfather of the child and he was christened Edward James.

  The Household had been openly hostile to Karim and were keen to restore the old order speedily. They had
never understood what the Queen had seen in him. To Fritz Ponsonby, the Munshi was like ‘a sort of pet, like a dog or cat which the Queen will not willingly give up’. The Dean of Westminster, Randolph Davidson, thought she was ‘off her head’ over the Munshi. Lord Salisbury was of the opinion that the Queen enjoyed the spats over the Munshi with her Household because ‘it was the only excitement she had’.

  What her family could not comprehend was that the Queen was a born romantic. Beneath the trappings of the monarchy, the formalities of Court life and the prudence she often displayed, the Queen was never afraid to love and show her affections. The death of her beloved husband had left her lonely and heartbroken. As a Queen she lived in a man’s world and could have few women friends. Her own daughters – Princesses Beatrice and Helena – kept their distance, not even coming to see her through the night or nursing her when she was on her deathbed, a fact noted with disapproval by Reid. Princess Beatrice was often selfish and the Queen had frequently been reduced to tears by her behaviour and demands. Her sons, and grandsons too, gave her endless problems and she had no one to turn to or confide in after Albert’s death. It fell to John Brown to draw her out of her self-imposed isolation, and the Queen soon leaned strongly on him. Brown was devoted to her and she could talk freely to him. More than anything else, he treated her like a woman rather than a Queen, something neither her family nor her Household could do. His death once again robbed her of a companion.

  When the Munshi arrived during the Jubilee, his presence lifted her spirits. The Queen took instantly to the handsome twenty-four-year-old Indian and was soon roller-coasting into an Indian wonderland of fragrant curries, bright turbans and the sensuous sound of the Urdu language on Karim’s lips. The Queen sensed a certain depth in Karim and found she could talk to him comfortably despite the language barriers. Karim brought her closer to India, the country that she had always longed to visit. A skilled raconteur, he told the Queen about his country, the religions and the culture. Soon these discussions became more political.