QUEEN VICTORIA A Personal History

by Christopher Hibbert

  Sir Theodore declined the project on the rather suspect grounds of his wife's ill health; but, undeterred by this, the Queen decided to write a memoir herself with the help of a Miss Murray MacGregor. Her intention, she told Henry Ponsonby, to whom she sent the manuscript of the first part of the book for his comments, was to show that John Brown had meant far more to her than a faithful servant. Ponsonby, aghast at what he had read and disclaiming any right to be considered a literary critic, suggested that Her Majesty approach men who were experienced in the matter. The Queen responded by complaining that Ponsonby had not said whether or not he liked the extracts which she had sent him. Put on the spot in this way, Ponsonby replied at length, tactfully assuring her that the memoir would be of great interest to all who had known Brown but bringing himself to express the opinion that certain passages might lend themselves to misinterpretation and that there might be critics who would doubt the wisdom of her revealing to the public at large her 'innermost and most sacred feelings'.

  To this the Queen retorted that the book was 'not intended for publication but for private circulation'. She asked him to send the manuscript back to her as she wished to show it to Lord Rowton, Disraeli's former secretary, who did, at least, show 'gt interest in it'.6

  Having read the manuscript, Rowton went to see Ponsonby. He fully agreed that it certainly should not be made public and suggested that some discreet printer should put it into type and by the time that this had been done, in about six months' time, Her Majesty 'would see how impossible it was to issue it'.7

  Before this plan had been put into execution, however, Randall Davidson had become involved and had delicately suggested to the Queen that publication would be a mistake. She was as annoyed by Davidson's response as she had been by her Private Secretary's: she would certainly have the memoir printed. Davidson bravely repeated his advice in rather stronger terms. The Queen responded by demanding an apology and the withdrawal of his remarks. Davidson apologized but did not withdraw his advice and offered his resignation. For over a fortnight the Queen ignored his existence. Then she sent for him; she was perfectly agreeable; the memoir was not mentioned and, together with Brown's diary, was quietly destroyed. 'My belief,' Davidson commented, 'is that the Queen liked and trusted best those who incurred her wrath, provided that she had reason to think their motives good.'8

  It did not, however, prove possible to prevent the publication, in February 1884, of a sequel to Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands, covering the years from 1862 to 1882, which was dedicated to her 'Loyal Highlanders and especially to the memory of [her] devoted personal attendant and faithful friend JOHN BROWN' whose loss was 'irreparable', for he deservedly possessed her 'entire confidence'. 'And to say,' she added, 'that he is daily, nay, hourly missed by me, whose lifelong gratitude he won by his constant care, attention and devotion, is but a feeble expression of the truth.'

  The book was to be a resounding success with the general reader, but the family deplored its publication. Her eldest daughter could not bring herself to say more than that it described Balmoral very well; the 87-year-old Duchess of Cambridge castigated its 'bad, vulgar English': the book, in her opinion, was 'so miserably futile & trivial! So dull and uninteresting'.9 The Prince of Wales, holding 'very strong views on the subject', acknowledged the advance copy of the book which she sent him with a suggestion that it should be limited to private circulation. The Queen passed the letter to her secretary with a cross note to the effect that she thought it 'very strange that objections should come from that quarter where grt strictness of conduct [was] not generally much cared for [and where there was so] much talk and want of reticence'. To restrict the book to private circulation would be to limit the readership of the book to members of society, who were just the people least qualified to appreciate it. Changing tack, the Prince again wrote to his mother, this time to protest that, although he was well aware that the main purpose of the book was to describe her life in the Highlands, it might create surprise that the name of her eldest son never occurred in it.

  To this the Queen riposted by asking if he had actually read the book himself or asked his 'so-called friends' to do so for him. Had he been kind enough to read it himself, he would have found that his name was mentioned on pages 1, 5, 8, 331 and 378. It would have been mentioned more often, the Queen did not forbear to add, if he had come to Balmoral more frequently.10 But then, as she complained on other occasions, he was far too occupied with the pleasures of his social round to spare much time for that.

  Chapter 58

  THE MUNSHI

  'The Munshi occupies very much the same position as John Brown used to do.'

  In the summer of her Golden Jubilee Year of 1887, the Queen acquired the first of her Indian servants. She was delighted with them, and in particular with the stout and agreeable Mohammed Bukhsh and the taller, more handsome and ingratiating 24-year-old Abdul Karim, both of whom kissed her feet when they were presented to her at Windsor.1 She had them stand behind her chair at breakfast as she ate a boiled egg in a gold eggcup with a gold spoon.2 In accordance with her detailed instructions, they wore 'dark blue dress' when waiting at breakfast out of doors, with 'any "Pageri" (Turban) and sash they like, only not the Gold Ones'. At dinner they were to be dressed in scarlet and gold in winter, white in summer. Their hands clasped in front of their sashes, they stood motionless, Abdul Karim 'looking so distinguished' with his black beard and dark eyes in striking contrast with the white of his turban. In fact, she was quite sure, he was distinguished in his way, not really a servant at all: his father, she had been told, was a surgeon-general in the Indian Army. She raised him from the rank of khitmagar (waiter) to munshi (secretary), although he was barely literate; and, instead of cooking curries for her as he had done at first, he began to give her lessons in Hindustani. All photographs of him handing dishes to the Queen were destroyed.3

  'I am learning a few words in Hindustani,' she wrote in her journal on 3 August. 'It is a great interest to me for both the language and the people, I have naturally never come into real contact with before.' The Munshi, as he came to be known, was a 'vy strict Master', though 'a perfect Gentleman'. 'He is zealous, attentive and quiet and gentle, has such intelligence and good sense,' the Queen told Dr Reid. 'He is useful for his great knowledge of his own language and ... he will soon be able to copy a good deal for the Queen.'4

  Her Household profoundly wished that she had never in any way come into contact with the Munshi. He was so tiresome, so infuriatingly pretentious, so very far from the docile, obedient, 'grave and dignified' man whom the Queen had described. Taking their dislike of him to be prompted by the racial prejudice she so much abhorred, she ignored such hints about Abdul Karim's unwarranted pretentions as they dared to insinuate. She gave him permission to enter the billiard room as though he were one of her official secretaries and even to have meals in the household dining room. She provided him with a fully furnished bungalow at Windsor, eventually allowing him the use of cottages at Balmoral and Osborne also. She commissioned a portrait of him from the Austrian artist, Rudolph Swoboda, and took great care in making a copy of it herself.5[lxviii] She allowed him to bring over from India so many female dependants that every time Dr Reid was asked to attend Mrs Abdul Karim a different tongue, so he said, was put out for his inspection. The Queen firmly scolded another of her Indians for declining to carry a message for the Munshi; and she reprimanded her equerry, Sir Fleetwood Edwards, for attempting to place him with the dressers at a theatrical performance. The year after his arrival, so Dr Reid told Sir William Jenner, she took him with her to Glassalt Shiel, her private retreat on Loch Muick.6

  A few months later, when Abdul took to his bed with a painful carbuncle on his neck, the Queen visited him twice a day, 'examining his neck, soothing his pillows' and stroking his hand. When he began to get better the Hindustani lessons were resumed in his room.7

  That year, at the Braemar games, he was allowed 'to make a very conspicuous figu
re among the gentry'.

  The Duke of Connaught was angry and spoke to me about it [wrote Henry Ponsonby upon whom the Queen had pressed an unwanted Hindu vocabulary to study]. I replied that Abdul stood where he was by the Queen's order and that if it was wrong, as I did not understand Indian Etiquette and H.R.H. did, would it not be better for him to mention it to the Queen. This entirely shut him up.8

  What concerned the gentlemen of her Household more than all this was her appointment of Abdul Karim as her 'Indian Secretary'. She told Ponsonby that he was 'most handy' in this respect, 'helping when she signs by drying the signatures. He learns with extraordinary assiduity.'9 There was no need to fear that she was indiscreet in employing him in this way. 'No political papers of any kind are ever in the Munshi's hands, even in her presence,' she assured Lord Salisbury. 'He only helps her to read words which she cannot read or merely submissions or warrants for signature. He does not read English fluently enough to be able to read anything of importance."0 Yet her Ministers were inclined to believe that, while she did, indeed, keep confidential papers from him, she entrusted him with more responsibility than her account of his assistance implied, made recommendations at his request and was persuaded to see Indian affairs from an exclusively Muslim point of view. Certainly, when told of a proposal to found a Muslim college, she promised to subscribe to it, adding that she would do so, 'even if it should mean giving something to a Hindoo College - but they do not need help as they have plenty.'11

  So much trust did the Queen appear to repose in Abdul Karim that it became a matter of serious concern that he was on very friendly terms with a young lawyer, Rafiuddin Ahmed, who was closely associated with the Muslim Patriotic League and was suspected of relaying to Afghanistan state secrets supplied to him by the Munshi.

  The Secretary of State for India, Lord George Hamilton, expressed a doubt that it would be wise to send confidential papers to the Queen if she showed them to the Munshi and warned that Hindus in India would much resent a Muslim being trusted in the manner which Abdul Karim was. 'I do not think that the Munshi is as dangerous as some suppose,' Lord George told Lord Elgin, the Viceroy. 'Salisbury [the Prime Minister] concurs in that view.' But, he continued, the Munshi is 'a stupid man, & on that account he may become a tool in the hands of other abler men'.12

  In 1894 a carefully worded protest to the Queen from four senior members of her Household about the indulgence shown to the Munshi, whose social origins were not as he pretended, drew forth a furious counterblast:

  To make out that the ... poor good Munshi ... is low is really outrageous & in a country like England quite out of place ... She has known 2 Archbishops who were sons respectively of a Butcher & a Grocer, a Chancellor whose father was a poor sort of Scotch Minister, Sir D. Stewart and Ld Mt Stephen both who ran about barefoot as children ... and the tradesmen Maple and J. Price were made Baronets ... Abdul's father saw good & honourable service as a Dr & he [Abdul] feels cut to the heart at being thus spoken of. It probably comes from some low jealous Indians or Anglo-Indians ... The Queen is so sorry for the poor Munshi's sensitive feelings.13

  Determined to silence his critics, the Queen now sent a telegram to Sir Henry Ponsonby's son, who was then serving as an aide-de-camp on the Viceroy's staff in India and was about to become an equerry at Court, asking him to seek out the Munshi's father and to report upon his position.

  Of course I took steps to obey the Queen's commands [Frederick Ponsonby wrote in his memoirs] ... And when I returned home and took up my appointment the Queen asked whether I had seen Abdul Karim's father and I replied that ... the man was not a surgeon-general but only the apothecary at the jail ... She stoutly denied this and thought I must have seen the wrong man ... To mark her displeasure with me, the Queen did not ask me to dinner for a year.14

  Frederick Ponsonby's revelation that the Munshi had lied about his parentage did nothing to lessen the Queen's regard for her 'Indian Secretary'. Randall Davidson and Prince Louis of Battenberg, who acted as go-betweens in the increasingly bitter dispute between the Queen and her Household, thought that the Queen was 'off her head' about her attitude to the exasperating man. She arranged for him to have a seat next to her lady-in-waiting at an evening entertainment; she persuaded the Prime Minister and the Secretary of State for India to have him created a Companion of the Order of the Indian Empire; she wrote to the Empress Frederick to ask her to show him her house at Kronberg when he was in Germany: he ate no meat, just fruit, and drank a little milk; the Queen hoped she was not being troublesome.15 In 1894, when the Queen was staying at the Villa Fabbricotti in Florence, the Munshi sent an announcement to be inserted in the Florence Gazette together with a photograph of himself:

  The Munshi Mohammed Abdul Karim son of Haji Dr Mohammed Wazirudin ... came to England in the service of the Queen Victoria Empress of India in the year 1887.

  He was appointed first for some time as Her Majestys Munshi and Indian clerk. From 1892 he was appointed as Her M's Indian Secretary. He is belonging to a good and highly respectable Family. All is Family has been in Govt. Service with high position ... All the Indian attendants of the Queen are under him and he also wholes different duties to perform in Her Majesty's Service.16

  While he was in Florence with the Queen, Dr Reid made a list of examples of the Munshi's dreadful behaviour, including his refusal to allow any Indians in the same railway carriage as himself, his appropriation of the bathroom and lavatory which had been allotted to Her Majesty's maids, and his complaint that Italian newspapers took too little notice of him. On learning of this complaint, the Queen told her wardrobe maid, Mrs Macdonald, to instruct her courier to see that more mention was made of him. 'The Italians,' Reid commented, 'say he is a "Principe Indiano" with whom the Queen is in love.'

  Not long after the Queen's return from Florence, in January 1895, Frederick Ponsonby reported to the Viceroy, Lord Elgin:

  I find the Munshi is a more difficult question to grapple with than I had thought. I thought that no one here had any idea of what the Munshi really was, but I find that not only all the Household but also Princess Louise, P. Beatrice and Prince Henry ... have spoken to the Queen about it and [the Prime Minister and Secretary of State for India] have done their best to explain to her the state of affairs. But she won't listen to any of them and thinks they know nothing about it ... It has been perfectly useless and the Munshi occupies very much the same position as John Brown used to do. I have been told that both your and Lady Elgin's letters are given him to read and that he retails all the news back to India.

  There have been two rows lately, one when Edwards refused to go to tea with the Munshi and the other when Doctor Reid refused to take the Munshi's father round the hospitals in London, and in both cases the Queen refused to listen to what they had to say but was very angry, so as you see the Munshi is a sort of pet, like a dog or cat which the Queen will not willingly give up...

  The Queen would listen to you if you could write and point out to her the importance of not elevating the Munshi to the position of a confidential adviser and explain to her what the feeling in India is with regard to the Munshi: that would be the only chance of getting her to listen.

  At the tableaux the Munshi took a very prominent part, and a seat in the audience next to the Lady in Waiting (much to her disgust) was reserved for him by order from the Queen. The Khitmagar on duty helps the Queen to walk into dinner and even into the chapel here, so you will see how great is her opinion of all the natives here. I have now got to think it lucky that the Munshi's sweeper does not dine with us.17

  When the Queen announced that she was going to take the Munshi in her entourage to Cimiez in 1897, the Household revolted since the presence of the man, now suffering from gonorrhoea, would entail their having to take their meals with him. They asked Harriet Phipps, the Queen's Personal Secretary, to tell Her Majesty that if the Munshi went to France they would regretfully have to resign. On being given this message the Queen lost her temper, which she had not do
ne for years, and with a cataclysmic gesture she swept everything on her desk on to the floor.

  For months the dispute continued, the Munshi causing further offence by arranging for the publication in the Daily Graphic of a photograph of himself with the Queen in which, document in hand, he appeared to be her mentor; Dr Reid becoming so worn out by the Queen's demands and intransigence, her complaints of being 'terribly annoyed and upset' by the 'stupid business', her being 'continually aggrieved' at her gentlemen wishing 'to spy upon and interfere with one of her people', that he fell ill and had to retire to bed with boils and carbuncles, while the gentlemen of the Household regaled each other with stories of the Munshi's outrageous presumption and of the Queen's peevishness and distress.

  Lord Salisbury did what he could to help restore peace to the Household. Tactfully, he persuaded the Queen that when she went to Cimiez the French might not understand the position which 'Le Munchy' occupied in her Household and they might not be as polite as they should be. There was also the problem of arousing jealousy amongst her Hindu subjects should the Queen show particular favour to a Muslim. So the 'Indian Secretary' did not accompany the Household to Cimiez that year but to their consternation he turned up later, having invited his friend Ahmed to come as well. This was too much for them to stand.

  Arthur Bigge, a 'clever, amiable and agreeable' - as well as that important consideration, 'good looking' - man who had, by then, succeeded Sir Henry Ponsonby as Private Secretary, insisted that Ahmed be sent away; while messages were sent to India requesting any information about the Munshi which might serve to persuade the Queen of his worthlessness. The Household themselves had done what they could to make her realize how impossible the man was. But it was 'no use', Frederick Ponsonby told the Viceroy's Private Secretary, 'for the Queen says it is "race prejudice" & that we are all jealous of the poor Munshi (!)."8