QUEEN VICTORIA A Personal History

by Christopher Hibbert

  Albert said they should go at once and light the bonfire which had been prepared when the false report of the fall of the town arrived last year, and had remained ever since, waiting to be lit ... In a few minutes Albert, and all the gentlemen, in every species of attire, sallied forth, followed by all the servants, and gradually by all the population of the village - keepers, gillies, workmen - up to the top of the cairn. We waited, and saw them light it, accompanied by general cheering. The bonfire blazed forth brilliantly, and we could see the numerous figures surrounding it - some dancing, all shouting ... Albert came down and said the scene [which he described as a 'veritable Witch's dance'] had been wild and exciting beyond everything - The people had been drinking healths in whiskey, and were in great ecstasy.9

  It was a French victory, though, not an allied one. The British soldiers, mostly raw recruits or old soldiers whose nerve had long since been shattered, had come to a halt at the foot of the defensive works and, under intensive fire, had refused to go forward; while the French, whose losses were almost three times as heavy, seized and clung on to the Malakoff redoubt until the Russian commander decided he could no longer hold Sebastopol which was by then a smoking ruin.

  When she heard the details of her army's failure and disgrace, the Queen expressed her deep regret that the war should end on so shameful a note, while Palmerston, well aware that France, having vindicated her military honour, now longed for peace, declared that he would rather continue fighting with no other ally than Turkey than agree to unsatisfactory terms. 'I own that peace rather sticks in my throat,' the Queen confessed, '& so it does in that of the whole Nation.'10

  She liked to think of herself as a soldier's child; and while the peace negotiations were making laborious progress, she kept as closely in touch as she could with her army, welcoming home soldiers returning from the Crimea, visiting the wounded, reviewing parades of recruits. She attended a field day at Aldershot and found it 'so exciting', never having been 'so completely in anything of this kind before'. A few weeks later, she reviewed a parade of troops, appearing before them in a new military tunic of scarlet and gold, a crimson and gold sash, a blue skirt with white piping and a hat with a red and white plume and golden tassels, and looking far smarter than ever she did in civilian clothes. The following month she was in military attire again, sitting on a horse named Alma and reviewing the largest force of British soldiers 'assembled in England since the battle of Worcester' in 1651.

  By then the protracted peace negotiations had at last been concluded by the Peace of Paris of 30 March 1856, a treaty so generally unpopular in England that the heralds who announced it in London were hissed at Temple Bar. Relations between France, whose army had so single-handedly secured the final victory, and Britain, whose military reputation had been so shamefully besmirched, went from bad to worse until, on 14 January 1858, there was an outrage in Paris which threatened to break them off altogether.

  As the Emperor and Empress were driving to the opera on the evening of that day, three bombs were hurled at their carriage and in the explosion, which sent the glass canopy of the Opera House crashing into the rue Lepelletier, extinguishing all its lights, ten people and two horses were killed, the Emperor and Empress escaping with cut faces.

  'The noise and cries were dreadful, as well as the rush of the crowd, many bleeding,' Queen Victoria wrote, having been told what had happened by Prince Albert's brother, Ernest, who was in the Emperor's box waiting for the performance to begin. 'The Empress's dress was splashed with blood from the wounded around her ... [She was] wonderfully composed and courageous, even more so than the Emperor. [She told the police, 'Don't bother about us, such things are our profession. Look after the wounded.'] They remained throughout the performance. '11

  Several attempts on the Emperor's life had already been made. 'You know,' he had said to his friend, Lord Malmesbury, when he had been in England three years before, 'I am neither fanciful, nor timid, but I give you my word of honour that three men have been successively arrested within fifty yards of me armed with daggers and pistols ... These men all came straight from England, and had not been twelve hours in France. Your police should have known it and given me notice.'12

  He now had further cause for complaint, since the man responsible for this latest attempt on the Emperor's life was an emotionally disturbed Italian count, Felice Orsini, who had been welcomed in England as a champion of his country's freedom from Austrian control, a cause which he believed might be furthered by provoking a revolution in France that would spread to Italy.

  The French were outraged to learn that not only had Orsini been greeted as a hero in England - where his published accounts of his life as agent of the revolutionary, Giuseppe Mazzini, had been widely read and admired - but also that the bombs which he and two accomplices had hurled at the Emperor's carriage had been manufactured in Birmingham. Count Walewski, the French Foreign Minister, complained of such dangerous men as Orsini being harboured in England, while there were calls from French army officers for an invasion of England to prevent such protection of revolutionaries in the future. Lord Granville observed, 'The accounts from France are very bad. A war with France would not surprise me.'13 Palmerston ignored the French Ambassador's letter; but his Government did introduce into the House of Commons a Bill intended to strengthen the law relating to conspiracy. Resentment in England about anti-British sentiments in France led to the Conspiracy to Murder Bill being defeated, however, and to the fall of the Government.14

  Ten days before Orsini's attempt on the Emperor Napoleon's life, the Princess Royal had been married to Prince Frederick of Prussia in the Chapel Royal, St James's, where the Queen herself had been married. 'I felt as if I were being married over again,' the Queen wrote, 'only much more nervous.'15 So nervous was she, indeed, that in a daguerreotype of the bride and her parents taken before the ceremony her features were reduced to a blur by her trembling. She feared that she might break down in the Chapel. Once there, however, she recovered her composure; and, having noted that the bridegroom was very pale and seemed as nervous as the Archbishop of Canterbury as he waited at the altar, she was proud to see 'our darling flower' looking 'very touching and lovely with such an innocent, confident and serious expression' as she approached him, 'her veil hanging back over her shoulders, walking between her beloved father and dearest Uncle Leopold'.16

  Afterwards, when the Princess went up to the Throne Room to sign the register, dry-eyed and holding her husband's hand, as Mendelssohn's 'Wedding March' was played on the organ, the Queen was 'so moved, so overjoyed and so relieved' that she felt she could have 'embraced everybody'. The next day, having watched her child acknowledging the cheers of the crowd from the balcony of Buckingham Palace - and having enjoyed the wedding breakfast even though the Princess was hidden from her view behind a gigantic wedding cake - she felt quite sad that 'all was over': it had all been 'so brilliant, so satisfactory'.17

  That evening, after the bride and bridegroom had driven off for a brief honeymoon at Windsor Castle, where, on the first evening after dinner, they sat 'almost too shy to talk to one another', the Queen felt 'so lost without Vicky'. She was, therefore, much relieved to receive a letter from her to which she replied immediately, telling her how well she had behaved and how happy her parents were to think that she was now 'in other but truly safe and loving hands'. It had been difficult for the Queen, possessive as she was, to accept that she must now put her 'maternal feelings aside' if she was 'not to be very jealous'. It was an 'awful moment to have to give one's innocent child up to a man', knowing 'all that she must go through'.18

  'That thought - that agonizing thought ... of giving up your own child, from whom all has been so carefully kept & guarded, to a stranger to do unto her as he likes, is to me the most torturing thought in the world,' she wrote to her daughter years later. 'While I feel no girl could go to the altar (and would probably refuse) if she knew all, there is something VERY DREADFUL in the thought of the sort of trap she is b
eing led into.'19

  Four days after the wedding, the parents had to say goodbye to their child. The prospect of parting on that 'dull, still, thick morning' made the Queen feel quite 'sick at heart'. The night before, when she and Prince Albert had gone with her to her room, Vicky had 'cried so much'; and her mother had said to her husband on their way back to their own room that it was 'like taking a poor lamb to be sacrificed'. 'It really makes me shudder,' she later told Vicky, 'when I look round at all your sweet, happy, unconscious sisters, and think I must give them up too - one by one.' Now, her 'breaking heart gave way'; and she wept helplessly as they stood at the carriage door. Vicky who, in her own words, loved her parents 'so passionately, so intensely', cried too, holding her mother in her arms; and there were tears also in Fritz's eyes.20

  The next day Vicky, who had told her mother that she thought it would kill her 'to take leave of dear Papa', wrote him a loving letter:

  My beloved Papa,

  The pain of parting from you yesterday was greater than I can describe. I thought my heart was going to break ... I miss you so dreadfully, dear Papa, more than I can say; your dear picture stood near me all night, it was a comfort to me to think that I had even that near me. I meant to have said so much yesterday, but my heart was too full for words. I should have liked to have thanked you for all that you have done for me. To you, dear Papa, I owe most in this world. I shall never forget the advice it has been my privilege to hear from you at different times, I treasure your words up in my heart...

  I feel that writing to you does me good, dear Papa; I feel that I am speaking to you, and though the feeling that I cannot see you or hear your dear voice in return makes the tears rise to my eyes, yet I am thankful that this is left to me. Goodbye, dearest Papa -I must end. Your most dutiful and affectionate daughter, Victoria.21

  That same day her father had written to her, his favourite child:

  My heart was very full when yesterday you leaned your forehead on my breast to give free vent to your tears. I am not of a demonstrative nature, and therefore you can hardly know how dear you have always been to me, and what a void you have left behind in my heart: yet not in my heart, for there assuredly you will abide henceforth, as til] now you have done, but in my daily life, which is evermore reminding my heart of your absence.22

  In the lessons he had given her after her engagement he had made it plain what his daughter's duty as the Crown Princess - and, no doubt, eventually Kaiserin - was to be the gradual liberalization of Prussia and the unity of the German states under Prussia and in alliance with the England which she loved. 'I feel I am serving you both,' she told her parents a few days after her arrival in what was to be her new home, 'and that I am proving my deep gratitude to you. In doing my duty here, and in imitating your great and glorious example, I may I hope be of real use to you.'23

  This is just what Otto von Bismarck, the future German Chancellor, feared. 'You ask me ... what I think of the English marriage,' he replied to a letter from General Leopold von Gerlach. 'The "English" in it does not please me ... If the Princess can leave the Englishwoman at home and become a Prussian, then she may be a blessing to the country ... But ... if our future Queen remains even only partly English, I can see our Court in danger of being surrounded by English influence.'24

  'Poor dear child,' the Queen wrote, 'I often tremble when I think how much is expected of her ... I do not like the idea now of our Child going to Berlin, more or less the enemy's den.'25

  She comforted herself by writing to her at least twice a week, and receiving in return letters which, nearly as long, arrived in England almost as frequently. In the years between 1858 and 1901, a total of almost eight thousand surviving letters passed between them.26 The Queen's letters, affectionate, candid, detailed, are replete with unsolicited advice and occasional reprimands, as though her daughter remained the seventeen-year-old girl who had left home so soon after her marriage. 'You have not written me one single word, for more than a week!!' one letter begins. 'Now let this not happen again promise me and answer this.'27 'I asked you several questions,' another letter reminded her, 'and you have not answered one! You should just simply and shortly answer them one by one and then there could be no mistake about them. My good dear child is a little unmethodical and unpunctual.'28

  She must always be tidy in appearance and avoid loud laughter; 'remember never to lose the modesty of a young girl towards others (without being a prude)'; she should protest against the rude jokes of the King's brother, Prince Charles, 'or at least not speak to him, if he gets on such abominable subjects, but be very stiff and reserved'; she must avoid high-heeled boots and 'fearfully full sleeves - for God's sake take care or you will set yourself on fire'. Repeatedly, she is also warned against over-heated, unwholesome rooms, so bad for the health, and against being too lazy to look at thermometers and to open windows. Her mother hoped that she was 'not getting fat again' - 'do avoid eating soft, pappy things or drinking much' - and that she would consult an English dentist - 'German dentists are not famous and German teeth so bad.'

  She was to take no notice of the 'extraordinary' German convention that pregnant women should not stand as godmothers; nor was she to follow the German custom of 'lying in a dressing gown on a sofa at a christening'; she must promise her mother 'never to do so improper and indecorous a thing ... Let German ladies do as they like but the English Princess must not.'

  Vicky must not try to paint in oils - 'you remember what Papa told you on the subject. Amateurs never can paint in oils like artists and what can one do with all one's productions? Whereas water colours always are nice and pleasant to keep in books or portfolios.' Vicky must correct her careless spelling and her use of unnecessary capital letters as well as remember to number her letters properly. Also, when writing at her desk, she must sit up straight - 'remember how straight I always sit, which enables me to write without fatigue at all times.' She was 'almost angry' when her daughter referred to 'dear, dear Windsor' when she herself was in residence there and 'struggling with homesickness' for her 'beloved Highlands'. She could not, she said, 'feel the slightest affection for this old dull place, which please God shall never hold my bones, I think I dislike it more and more ... You don't say a word about all the affectionate speeches of those dear people at Balmoral, which I write to you about.'29

  In another letter she wrote of her surprise on learning that her daughter had been to see The Merry Wives of Windsor, she herself had 'never had courage to go to see it'. She had, she said, 'always been told how very coarse it was - for your adored Shakespeare is dreadful in that respect and many things have to be left out in many of his plays'. The Queen had also been surprised to read in one of her daughter's previous letters that she thought Ada, the daughter of Princess Hohenlohe, must be 'glad' at being pregnant again.

  How can anyone, who has not been married above two years and three quarters rejoice at being a third time in that condition? [she continued, warming to a favourite and perennial theme] I positively think those ladies who are always enceinte quite disgusting; it is more like a rabbit or a guinea-pig than anything else and really it is not very nice ... Let me repeat once more, dear, that it is very bad for any person to have them very fast - and that the poor children suffer for it even more, not to speak of the ruin it is to the looks of a young woman - which she must not neglect for her husband's sake, particularly when she is a Princess.30

  Chapter 32

  INDIAN MUTINY

  'We are in sad anxiety about India which engrosses all our attention.'

  Hostilities in the Crimea had not long been formally concluded when news reached London of renewed fighting; this time in India, where for some time now unrest had been fostered by the agents of princes dispossessed by the British, and by agitators, troublemakers, fakirs, maulvis, and men who had cause to resent the rule of the subcontinent by the East India Company, the British Government's representative in the civil administration of India, which was also responsible for the armies of
native infantrymen and cavalrymen, sepoys and sowars, maintained by the three Presidencies: Bengal, Madras and Bombay. Villagers collected to hear warnings of the designs of the firinghis (the foreigners who, so they were told, were bent on destroying their faith), and to listen to prophecies that the British would be forced to leave India in 1857, the hundredth anniversary of the defeat of Siraj-ud-Dawlah's forces by the East India Company's army under Robert Clive at Plassey. Sepoys were assured that the British were not invincible; that, following the Crimean War, Russia had conquered and annexed England; and that, since their country's population was less than a hundred thousand, the English could not - even if the Russians let them - reinforce their own regiments, known as the Queen's Regiments, in India. They were told that Lord Canning, the recently appointed Governor-General, had been sent out with the express purpose of converting them to Christianity, and that the widows of soldiers killed in the Crimean War were being shipped out to India where the principal land-holders would be compelled to marry them so that their estates would eventually fall into Christian hands. Sepoys were also told that the new cartridges issued for their rifles were greased with beef fat or pig fat and thus intended to defile them and destroy their caste.

  These fears erupted into violence on 10 May 1857 at Meerut where men of a native regiment, the 3rd Light Cavalry, had refused to handle the new cartridges and had consequently been sentenced to imprisonment with hard labour, for ten years. After this punishment had been pronounced upon them at a parade of all the troops at Meerut, their uniforms were stripped from them, their boots removed and their ankles shackled. The next day the native troops mutinied; British officers and their wives were killed either by sepoys or by budmashes from the bazaar; and soon the uproar spread all over the Ganges valley: Delhi and nearby towns were seized by the mutineers.1