QUEEN VICTORIA A Personal History

by Christopher Hibbert

  For their part, the Ministers were delighted to see so obviously robust a baby, and so was the country at large. No heir had been born to a reigning monarch since the appearance of George III's first child, almost eighty years before; and this new birth led royalists to hope that the monarchy, which the young Queen was now making more respectable and popular, was secure from a decline into its recent disrepute. Salutes were fired, crowds gathered in the streets to cheer and sing 'God Save the Queen', and the Prime Minister made reference to the nation's enthusiasm in a speech at the Guildhall, which was decorated for the occasion with illuminated letters spelling 'God save the Prince of Wales'. The Times described the 'one universal feeling of joy which ran throughout the kingdom'. 'What a joy!' wrote the boy's grandmother, the Duchess of Kent, expressing a common opinion. 'Oh God, what a happiness, what a blessing!'7

  The relief the Queen herself felt at having given birth to a prince did not for long revive her spirits. For although Prince Albert Edward, known at first as 'the Boy' and afterwards as Bertie, was as 'strong and robust a baby as you could hope to see', his sister, 'Pussy', so healthy at first, 'so strong and fat' in the summer, was now sickly and pale and losing weight, and this, so her mother said, 'fusses and worries me much'.8 In this anxiety she and the Prince had their first serious quarrel.

  The source of the mischief was Baroness Lehzen who felt her position increasingly threatened by the Queen's deepening love for her husband and her reliance upon him. There were those who found the Baroness an agreeable and interesting woman; among them were Charles Greville, Lady Lyttelton and, at first, Baron Stockmar. Certainly there could be no question of her devotion to the Queen whose diary entries - which in earlier times the Baroness had read with the satisfaction they were no doubt intended to give - were filled with references to the love which Victoria felt for her and the gratitude she owed her for her protection and care during their days at Kensington. But Lehzen had become crotchety and ever more jealous, convinced that 'no one but she could take proper care of the Queen as she had done in the past', arousing suspicion by the close access she had to the Queen's private finances, hostility amongst Tories because of her outspoken support of the Whigs, and resentment in Prince Albert whom, in George Anson's opinion, she was 'constantly misrepresenting'. She exaggerated the Prince's every little fault', tried 'to undermine him in the Queen's affections and [made] herself a martyr, ready to suffer and put up with every sort of indignity for the Queen's sake'. With the Baroness, Anson concluded, 'we must always be subject to troubled waters'.

  Anson wrote a memorandum of an interview he had had with the Baroness on 21 June 1842. He had gone to see her about an unbalanced army officer who had been making crazy protestations of love for the Queen. She had reported this to the Lord Chamberlain but had not let the Prince know of the officer's pestering as Anson thought she should have done. The Prince's conduct, she said, 'with great agitation and earnestness', had 'rendered it impossible for her to consult him. He had slighted her in the most marked manner and she was too proud not to resent it ... He had once told her to leave the Palace, but she replied he had not the power to turn her out of the Queen's house.'

  Lord Melbourne agreed with her about this. The Prince had 'no right to ask the Queen to make such a sacrifice'; and if he were to say that he would go if the Baroness did not, the Queen might well reply, 'In this alternative you have contemplated the possibility of living without me. I will show you that I can contemplate the possibility of living without you.'

  In his growing frustration the Prince raged with uncharacteristic passion against the 'crazy, stupid intriguer' who was 'obsessed with the lust of power', and 'regarded herself as a demi-God and anyone who [refused] to recognise her as such [was] a criminal'.9 'Victoria, who on other questions is just and clear-sighted,' he complained to Stockmar, 'does not see this because she has never been away from [Baroness Lehzen] and, like every good pupil, is accustomed to regard her governess as an oracle. Besides this, the unfortunate experience they went through together at Kensington has bound them still closer, and Lehzen, in her madness, has made Victoria believe that whatever good qualities she possesses are due to her ... There can be no improvement until Victoria sees Lehzen as she is.' She would 'really be happiest without her'.10

  The quarrel spread to the nursery which Lehzen proposed should be handed over to her control. The Prince, however, was convinced that Lehzen, the nurses and the doctor were all incompetent and that his little daughter's weakness was their fault. He said as much one day to a nurse who was spitefully impertinent in her reply. 'That is really malicious,' he complained to the Queen who, in turn, flared up in fury, accusing him of wanting to drive the child's mother out of the nursery and shouting that he could murder the baby if he wanted to. Endeavouring to control his own anger, the Prince murmured, 'I must have patience.'11 He went down to his room where he gave vent to his anger in a passionately angry letter to his wife which he sent to Stockmar, asking him to send it on to her when he thought the right moment had come for her to receive it. 'Dr Clark has mismanaged the child and poisoned her with calomel,' the letter ran, 'and you have starved her. Take the child away and do as you like and if she dies you will have it on your conscience.'12

  'All the disagreeableness I suffer comes from one and the same person,' the Prince wrote in another of his long letters to Stockmar, 'and that is precisely the person whom Victoria chooses for her friend and confidante ... Victoria is too hasty and passionate for me to be able often to speak of my difficulties. She will not hear me out but flies into a rage and overwhelms me with reproaches and suspiciousness, want of trust, ambition, envy etc. etc. There are, therefore, two ways open to me: (1) to keep silence and go away (in which case I am like a schoolboy who has had a dressing-down from his mother and goes off snubbed), (2) I can be still more violent (and then we have scenes ... which I hate because I am so sorry for Victoria in her misery... )'13

  There was no doubt that these scenes did make the Queen miserable, and that she deeply regretted that she was 'so passionate when spoken to'. 'I feel so forlorn and I have got such a sick headache,' she told Stockmar after Prince Albert had stormed out of the nursery. 'I feel as if I had had a dreadful dream. I do hope you may be able to pacify Albert. He seems so very angry ... I don't wish to be angry with him.'

  She feared that her flashes of temper were 'irremediable as yet, but [she] hoped in time [they] would be got over'. 'There is often an irritability in me which ... makes me say cross and odious things which I don't myself believe and which I fear hurt A., but which he should not believe ... like being miserable I ever married and so forth which come when I am unwell ... I have often heard Albert own that everybody recognised Lehzen's former services to me and my only wish is that she should have a quiet home in my house and see me sometimes ... I assure you upon my honour that I see her very seldom now and only for a few minutes, often to ask questions about papers and toilette for which she is the greatest use to me. A. often and often thinks I see her when I don't ... I tell you this as it is true, as you know me to be...'14

  'Our position is very different from any other married couple. A. is in my house and not I in his ... Dearest Angel Albert, God only knows how I love him. His position is difficult, heaven knows, and we must do everything to make it easier. '15

  It was made rather easier after the nursery had been reorganized. When Princess Victoria had been its only infant occupant it had been under the supervision of the widow of an admiral, Mrs Southey, a worthy, old-fashioned fogey who declined to make any concessions to modern ideas and still wore a wig. Although warmly recommended by the Archbishop of Canterbury, she had never been very satisfactory as Superintendent of the nursery and was even less so when there were two children to look after. She had not liked living at Windsor Castle, though she enjoyed gossiping in overheated rooms with Baroness Lehzen; and she went out too often, leaving her charges in the care of nursemaids inclined to squabble. She was not sufficiently firm or vigi
lant to ensure that the strict rules of the nursery were observed: that the two children must never be left alone for an instant; that no unauthorized person must ever be permitted to see them; that there must not be the slightest variation in the daily routine without prior consultation with the parents, who were to be regularly informed of the children's progress and any treatment recommended by their doctors. When consulted by the Queen - who complained that Mrs Southey was 'totally unfit' and that the children were 'quite left in the hands of low people - the Nursery and Nursery Maids [who] were vulgar and constantly quarrelling' - Lord Melbourne gave it as his opinion that the nursery ought to be entrusted to the care of a lady of rank who could command more authority, control the tantrums of the stubborn and wilful Princess, and report intelligently upon the development of the little Prince. This was also the opinion of Baron Stockmar who, with characteristic industry, provided the children's parents with a memorandum on the subject over thirty pages long, concluding that 'a Lady of Rank & Title' should be appointed in Mrs Southey's place. After discussions with various advisers, this most important post of Superintendent of the royal nursery was offered to one of the Queen's ladies of the bedchamber, Lady Lyttelton, eldest daughter of the second Earl Spencer, widow of the third Baron Lyttelton, and mother of five children. She was not well off and was thankful to have employment at Court where she was most regular in her religious observances, rather to the disapproval of the Queen who looked askance upon her High Church tendencies, all the more so because Lady Lyttelton's brother, George, an occasional visitor to Windsor, was a priest of the Church of Rome and Superior of the Order of Passionists.16

  The choice of Lady Lyttelton as Superintendent was a highly fortunate one. She was a gifted woman; understanding, good-natured, calm and sensible. She had managed the occasionally flighty maids-of-honour with firmness and tact. Besides, she loved Windsor, greatly admired Prince Albert, and thought most highly of the Queen who never lied or dissembled and through whose 'extraordinary character' she detected a 'vein of iron'.

  Lady Lyttelton considered that the Queen was unnecessarily anxious about her daughter, known to Lady Lyttelton as 'Princessy' and to the Queen as 'our fat Vic or Pussette', who was over-watched and over-doctored and 'always treated with what [was] most expensive'. 'Cheaper and commoner food and ways', in Lady Lyttelton's opinion, were 'often wholesomer'.17

  'Princessy' did not take to Lady Lyttelton at first, screaming with 'unconquerable horror' when she arrived; and thereafter, though bawling less, treating her with a kind of irritable reserve which was finally overcome by Lady Lyttelton's patience and tact. With the little Prince there were no such problems. He continued to flourish, remaining constantly 'in crowing spirits' and in the best and calmest of tempers. When he was two years old Lady Lyttelton said that his 'worst crime' was 'to throw his cows and his soldiers out of the windows'; but this she considered was unlikely to 'furnish a dangerous precedent' for his future life.18

  With peace in the nursery restored by Lady Lyttelton, who was in the Queen's opinion 'perfection', life became much easier for Prince Albert, all the more so when it was agreed that Baroness Lehzen must go. She had brought it upon herself, Stockmar thought. 'She was foolish enough to contest [Prince Albert's] influence, and not to conform herself to the change in her position ... If she had done so and conciliated the P., she might have remained in the Palace to the end of her life.'19 Having already succeeded in removing from the household the objectionable Pagets who, in his opinion, had gravely compromised the Court's moral tone and who had been prominent in Baroness Lehzen's support, the Prince had by now acquired what Stockmar termed 'unbounded influence'. He made arrangements, at the end of September 1842, for the woman's departure. She left England to live with a sister at Buckeburg with the generous pension of £800 a year.

  The Queen, who gave her a carriage as a leaving present, felt that her departure was for 'her and our best' and was relieved when Lehzen herself said that her removal to Hanover was 'necessary for her health' and that, 'of course', Victoria did 'not require her so much now'. When the time came for her to leave, the Queen decided that rather than go to say goodbye, she would write to her which would be 'less painful'. 'I am much relieved,' she wrote in her diary, 'at being spared the painful parting [although] I so regret not being able to embrace her once more.'20

  On her future visits to Germany the Queen saw Lehzen upon only two occasions, but regularly and affectionately she wrote to her until she died at the age of eighty-six in 1870. Between the Queen and Prince Albert, however, her name was rarely mentioned after her departure and, when it was, the Queen was contrite, ready to sympathize with her husband and to take responsibility upon herself for the quarrels which her presence in the Castle had provoked.' I blame myself for my blindness,' she wrote in her journal. 'I shudder to think what my beloved Albert had to go through ... It makes my blood boil.'

  She conceded, though, that Lehzen had been 'an admirable Governess'. 'I owed her much,' she wrote, 'and she adored me ... I adored her, though I also feared her ... She devoted her life to me, with the most wonderful self-abnegation, never ever taking one day's leave.' She did, however, the Queen added, get to be 'rather trying at the end'.21

  The departure of Baroness Lehzen was a watershed in the Queen's life.

  Chapter 20

  OSBORNE

  'Albert and I talked of buying a place of our own.'

  'Oh! If I could only describe our dear happy life together,' the Queen wrote in her diary at the beginning of November 1844. Even the prospect of having other babies did not so much daunt her now. Her only wish was that her 'great happiness' should last, her most fervent prayer that God would grant 'His protection of us together'. Two years previously, soon after Lehzen's departure, she had 'looked over & corrected' some comments she had made in her old journals which 'did not now awake very pleasant feelings'. The life she had led then 'was so artificial'. She was ashamed to remember some of the things she had done and said and written, the pain she had allowed Lehzen to inflict upon Albert, the 'unbounded admiration and affection' she had felt for Lord Melbourne in her need to cling to someone, her working herself up into something which Albert thought 'became at last quite foolish'. 'I thought I was happy,' she wrote. 'Thank God! I now know what real happiness means!'1

  Albert was all in all to her, 'such a perfection, such an angel'. She hated to be parted from him, regretted so much that he was always so busy that she could not see more of him; no one, she was to tell her eldest daughter, could be as blessed as she was with such a husband: he was her father, protector, guide, 'adviser in all and everything; she might even say her mother as well as husband'. She supposed 'no-one was ever so completely altered in every way' as she had been by her dearest husband's 'blessed influence'.2 Her diary is filled with references to him, praise of his goodness, his kindness, his perfection - Albert playing the organ with a baby on each knee, Albert pushing the children round the nursery in a basket and playing hide and seek with them, helping them to chase butterflies and making them laugh by turning somersaults in a haystack. 'He is so kind to them,' their mother wrote contentedly in her journal, 'and romps with them so delightfully, and manages them so beautifully and kindly.' 'It is not every papa,' commented Lady Lyttelton after seeing him helping one of them to get dressed, 'who would have the patience and kindness to do so.'3

  At Christmas time he could be seen building snowmen twice as tall as himself, playing ice hockey, driving a sledge across the snow and setting up a Christmas tree.[xix]

  Each Christmas, the chandeliers were taken down in the Queen's sitting room at Windsor where trees, hung with candles and toffees, took their place; the dining room tables were piled high with food and on the sideboard stood an immense baron of beef. In the Oak Room there was another Christmas tree surrounded by presents for the members of the household, and on each present was a card written by the Queen. 'Everything,' so the Prince told his brother, 'was totally German.'

  When Al
bert's father died Victoria abandoned herself to the grief her husband felt in recalling the days of his lost childhood, disregarding the manifold faults of the old reprobate who had plagued her with demands for money, and giving vent to an extravagance of uncontrolled mourning, 'all on the Prince's account', as Lady Lyttelton said.4

  God has heavily afflicted us [she told King Leopold]. We feel crushed, overwhelmed, bowed down by the loss of one who was so deservedly loved, I may say adored, by his children and family ... You must now be the father of us two poor bereaved heart broken children ... I loved him and looked on him as my own father; his like we shall not see again. I have never known real grief till now, and it has made a lasting impression on me.5

  'My darling stands so alone,' she added in a letter to Baron Stockmar, 'and his grief is so great and touching... He says (forgive my bad writing, but my tears blind me) I am now all to him. Oh, if I can be, I shall be only too happy.'6

  She dreaded the thought that Albert would now have to go to Germany to help his brother see to their father's confused affairs. But, when he did go, he made his absence less unbearable by writing to her often and with real, if rather stilted, affection, beginning a letter, written on the day of his departure from Dover, 'My own dear darling, I have been here about an hour, and regret the lost time which I might have spent with you. Poor child! you will, while I write, be getting ready for luncheon, and you will find a place vacant where I sat yesterday. In your heart, however, I hope my place will not be vacant ... You are even now half a day nearer to seeing me again; by the time you get this letter you will be a whole one - thirteen more, and I am again within your arms. Your most devoted, Albert.'7

  On the day of his return the Queen had the 'immense joy' of being 'clasped in his arms'. He himself wrote, 'I arrived at six o'clock in the evening at Windsor. Great joy.'8