Victoria Victorious: The Story of Queen Victoria

by Виктория Холт

  “The monarchy must be made visible and palpable to the people,” said Mr. Gladstone.

  Arthur had his money, he went on, but the people expected some return for these sums.

  Then I became ill. I awoke one morning to find my right elbow was very inflamed. At first I thought it was a sting but very soon I was developing a sore throat and other symptoms.

  I was at Osborne and it was time for my visit to Balmoral, and I was determined, ill as I was, to go.

  Gladstone was all against my leaving. He thought I should not be so far away from Parliament. The trouble was that I had shut myself away for so long and had pleaded the state of my health so often that the people did not now believe me. This was galling as I had never been so ill since my attack of typhoid at Ramsgate.

  I was receiving dispatches from London. The papers were saying that I should abdicate and hand over the throne to the Prince of Wales. These articles were read in Scotland and I am glad to say that all the Scottish papers came out in my defense.

  Dr. Jenner protected me magnificently. The sting in my arm was an abscess; it gave me a great deal of pain and I found it very difficult to rest at night. I was also suffering from gout and rheumatic pains. The gout prevented my walking and John Brown had to carry me from sofa to bed.

  It was a most depressing time. Alfred came down to see me and immediately there was trouble between him and John Brown. Alfred gave me almost as much concern as Bertie. He had Bertie's tendency for flirtation—and worse. He was not so affable as Bertie and had a great sense of his own importance. He deliberately and pointedly ignored John Brown whom I liked to be treated not as a servant but as a friend; and when Alfred ordered some fiddlers to stop playing for the servants' reels, John Brown countermanded the order. Alfred was incensed but Brown was his imperturbable self.

  Then there was another unpleasant scene that involved Vicky's daughter Charlotte who had come to stay with us at Balmoral.

  Brown came into the room and I told Charlotte to say, How do you do? to him and shake hands.

  Charlotte said, “How do you do? But I cannot shake hands with a servant. Mama says I must not.”

  Vicky and I had a bitter disagreement about the behavior of her children. She insisted that Charlotte had been right to refuse to shake hands with a servant. I said Brown was no ordinary servant and servants were human in any case. “Indeed,” I added, “I have had more consideration from them quite often than from people in high places.”

  Vicky was firm and did not mince her words. She thought Brown had too important a place in the household. Did I forget that people had talked of him … and of me?

  It was all very unpleasant.

  But there was this trouble with Alfred and the fiddlers.

  Brown did apologize—I think because he knew the affair was worrying me. I thanked him and said, “Prince Alfred is now satisfied.” “Well, I am satisfied too,” was his typical comment, which even in that state of discomfort and harassment made me smile.

  Who would have children? I thought. Their entrance into the world reduced their unfortunate mothers to the state of an animal; they might be interesting and amusing as Baby had been in her early days—and then they grew up, some of them to be a continual source of anxiety.

  A pamphlet was brought to my notice. It was the work of a Liberal Member of Parliament, and it was headed: “What does she do with it?”

  The article was referring to the £385,000 a year from the Civil List and other legacies which the writer estimated to be somewhere in the region of another £200,000 a year. The impertinence of people was shocking!

  At the end of September I was better, but still limp and suffering from vague rheumatic pains all over my body. I had lost twenty-eight pounds in weight and I felt rather gratified about this. It would show the people that I was not malingering.

  Just as I felt I was improving, I heard that a certain Sir Charles Dilke had spoken at Newcastle and made a really vicious attack on me. He had told his audience that I had failed completely in my duty. Since the death of the Prince Consort I had rarely been seen in public. What was the use of the monarchy? It should be abolished and a republic set up. It would be cheaper than a queen in any case.

  It was indeed dangerous talk.

  I thought that Dilke should be repudiated by his party.

  While all this was happening a blow was struck from another direction. We were approaching the time of year which was always especially somber to me. December! It was on the fourteenth of that dismal month that Albert had passed away.

  Then came this message; Bertie was ill and the doctors had diagnosed typhoid. Typhoid! The dreaded disease that had killed Albert. And now it had stricken Bertie!

  I took the train to Sandringham. Brown was with me—more brusque than ever. The dear man knew how anxious I was and he was anxious too… for me.

  Sandringham was full of people. I was glad Alice was there. She was often with us. Poor Louis had not been a great catch when she married him and owing to that villain Bismarck she was in very poor circumstances now.

  She was a great comfort to Alexandra who was a sad tragic figure. She told me that Bertie had been to Lord Londesborough's place in Scarborough. Lord Chesterfield had also been a guest and was now ill, so it seemed there must have been something wrong with the drains at the Londesboroughs.

  It was like living it all over again. The weather was cold as it had been then; there was snow at Sandringham. The news grew more and more alarming and I heard that one of the grooms who had accompanied Bertie to Scarborough was now ill with typhoid.

  I went in to see Bertie. He did not look much like the jaunty Prince of Wales. His face was scarlet, his eyes over-bright; he was babbling something I could not understand.

  I thought: Very soon it will be the fourteenth of December.

  Now the whole nation was waiting for news of Bertie. From a profligate rake, a seducer, cowering behind royal privilege, he had now become a hero, the jaunty, jolly Prince was the People's Prince.

  Strange how a virulent disease could transform a sinner into a saint!

  He had the very best of doctors. My own Dr. Jenner was there, of course, and Alexandra had called in Doctors Gull, Clayton, and Lowe to help him.

  Bertie was delirious. He was calling out the names of people… women some of them. He clearly thought he was the King of England, so that could only mean that I was dead! He was quite exuberant, laughing a rattling horrible kind of laughter. It was quite distressing to listen to him.

  The doctors insisted that there be a screen between me and the sick bed. It was a horrible and infectious disease.

  He recovered and then grew worse.

  The papers reported nothing else but the state of “Good old Teddy's” health. He was known as Teddy for he was Edward not Albert to the people. They did not want an Albert for their King. He was to be another Edward—the Seventh.

  There was an uncanny tension in the air. The papers reminded their readers that the Prince Consort had died on the fourteenth, and it seemed that everyone was waiting for the fourteenth to dawn.

  There was a fatalistic notion that on that date Bertie was going to die. Special prayers were said all over the country, and Alexandra attended those in Sandringham Church. Alfred Austin, our poet laureate wrote the banal lines that were quoted against him for long after:

  Flashed from his bed the electric message came

  He is not better; he is just the same.

  It was wonderful to have Alice with us. She moved about the sickroom with a quiet efficiency. She was a good nurse having had some practice during that terrible time which Bismarck had forced on Europe. Alexandra was indeed a devoted wife; and she loved Bertie in spite of the way he had treated her. I wondered whether I should have been so loving to a husband who had been notoriously unfaithful to me. I doubted it. But never in any circumstances could I imagine Albert unfaithful!

  I remember vividly the thirteenth of December.

  Bertie was
worse.

  We had heard that both Lord Chesterfield and the groom whose name was Blegge had died. Alexandra had made certain that Blegge had the best attention—so we all feared the worst.

  The fourteenth was close. That would be the day.

  Sir Henry Ponsonby said that he must recover, because it would be too much of a coincidence if he died on the same date as his father.

  I clung to hope, but I greatly feared. I prayed incessantly that my son might be spared.

  The dreaded fourteenth arrived. The whole country was waiting; and Bertie lay battling for life.

  And then… the miracle happened. He came through the crisis. The fourteenth slipped into the fifteenth. The day of sorrow had passed.

  The next day I saw him and he recognized me.

  He smiled at me and kissed my hand. “Dear Mama,” he said, “I am so glad to see you. Have you been here all the time?”

  “Oh Bertie, Bertie,” I cried, and I could not restrain my tears.

  All past differences were forgotten. He was alive.

  * * *

  I SAID THERE must be a thanksgiving service at which the whole country could rejoice.

  I had a letter to the people published in which I thanked them for their concern. We were very popular. I wondered what that odious Charles Dilke was feeling now. His horrible schemes for destroying us had come to nothing—beaten by typhoid! We would show him and his kind that whatever he might think, the people still loved the monarchy. The concern that had been shown for Bertie proved that.

  By the end of February, Bertie had recovered sufficiently to take part in the ceremony of rejoicing. I sat beside him in the carriage and it was heartwarming to see the people and hear their shouts.

  “God bless the Queen! God bless the Prince of Wales.”

  They were pleased with us because they had come near to losing Bertie.

  It was a miracle, said the doctors. Few could have been so sorely smitten with the disease and come through. It had been God's will. He had listened to the people when they had cried, “God save the Prince of Wales.”

  At Temple Bar the crowd was most dense. It halted the carriages and I took Bertie's hand in mine and kissed it. There was a brief silence and then the cheers rang out.

  As we went on to St. Paul's I thought of Gladstone's prophecies. This would show him that the monarchy had a deeper hold on the affections of the people than he was aware of. But it had taken a near-tragedy, such as this which had happened to the Prince of Wales, to show them how much a part of their lives we were.

  But it was very gratifying all the same.

  As Albert would have said: Often great joy comes out of suffering.

  * * *

  ON THE FOLLOWING day a very alarming incident took place.

  I was riding in the carriage with Arthur. Brown was on the box, and I was thinking of how well the thanksgiving service had gone off and hoping that Bertie's terrible experience might have had some effect on his character. Alexandra had been so unswerving in her devotion to him. I hoped he would realize that he owed it to her to give up those fast women who had such attraction for him and to devote more time to his beautiful and virtuous wife.

  It amazed me how fond Alexandra was of him, and his children were the same. I had seen them romping around him, not showing the least respect; and he was free and easy with them. In a way it was quite pleasant to watch, but I was not sure whether it was good for the children. Albert had been so different.

  Then suddenly I saw a young man by the carriage…very close. He was looking straight at me and in his hand was a gun.

  Everything seemed to stand still. It was not the first time I had looked death in the face—and in very similar circumstances.

  In a flash Brown had leaped from the box; he was grappling with the young man and had thrown him to the ground. Arthur also had leaped from the carriage. He was grasping the man whom Brown had already overpowered.

  I felt shaken. People were rushing up. The man who had wanted to shoot me was taken away.

  Brown looked at me anxiously. “You all right, woman?”

  “Oh, Brown,” I said. “You saved my life.”

  Brown grunted and the carriage drove me back to the Palace.

  * * *

  I WENT TO bed. They said I must. I was thinking that this was the sixth time someone had tried to kill me. Each time they had been foiled. Of course they had not all intended to kill me. But the shock was the same. I wondered about this latest young man. What was his motive?

  It was not long before Mr. Gladstone arrived.

  The man was Arthur O'Connor, an Irishman, and this had not been a serious attempt on my life as the pistol had not been loaded.

  I said, “That does not make the prompt action of John Brown any less commendable.”

  Gladstone bowed his head.

  “What loyalty!” I went on. “What service!”

  “O'Connor said he wished to frighten you into releasing Fenian prisoners. He was not going to shoot, he said. Only to frighten you.”

  After Gladstone had gone I thought fondly of John Brown and I wondered how I could show my gratitude. I decided I would give him a medal to commemorate the occasion and an extra twenty-five pounds a year.

  When this was known, Bertie—who like the rest of the family did not care for John Brown—said that Arthur had also leaped from the carriage and grappled with O'Connor.

  “After John Brown had him in his grasp, yes.”

  “Arthur acted bravely and he seems to be getting no recognition. It all seems to be going to that fellow Brown.”

  “Certainly it is not. I shall have a gold pin made for Arthur so that he will know how much I appreciate his efforts to save me.”

  “Well,” said Bertie, “that is something. Not to be compared with a gold medal and twenty-five pounds a year, but something.”

  “What would Arthur want with a medal and twenty-five pounds a year! I have worked hard to get him his annuity. You children are a little ungrateful at times and I do not understand why you are all so unkind to poor Brown. He gives me much more care and attention than I get from my family.”

  Bertie raised his eyes to the ceiling and said, “Good John Brown! Not a word against him.”

  Bertie was becoming quite unmanageable. All the care and attention he had when he was ill, all that adulation afterward had gone to his head.

  Gladstone came to tell me that O'Connor had been sentenced to a year's imprisonment.

  I was rather alarmed.

  “One year!” I cried. “What when he comes out? What if he tries again? I should like to hear that he has been transported. It is not that I want him more severely punished; I know that he is mad. But I do not want to think of him here in this country.”

  Gladstone made one of his speeches about the points of law and how the court's sentence could not be changed. However, because I felt so strongly and they understood my fears, O'Connor was offered his fare to another country so that he could leave England instead of serving his sentence.

  This he accepted with alacrity. When he left I felt safer because he was out of the country.

  * * *

  I RECEIVED A very sad letter from Feodore. She begged me to come and see her for she feared that if I did not come soon she would never see me again.

  “I am very ill,” she wrote, “and something tells me that I have not long to live. I want to see you before I go. I want to say goodbye.”

  When I told Mr. Gladstone that I proposed visiting Baden-Baden he shook his head and made one of his long speeches.

  Recent events, he pointed out, such as the Prince's illness and the O'Connor attack, had increased our popularity. We must hold on to it. We must see that we did not lose what we had gained. We must do nothing to diminish it.

  I said, “My sister is very ill. I am going to see her.”

  And I went.

  My dear Feodore! How she had changed from that bright and beautiful girl who used to sit in the garden while
I watered the plants and she conducted her love affair with Cousin Augustus.

  She had grown rather fat; she had lost her bright color; and I saw at once that she was indeed very ill.

  “I am so glad I came,” I said.

  She became very sentimental talking of the past. She said, “You were such a dear little child—so warm, so loving, so innocent. I was delighted with my little sister.”

  It was a sad visit because we both knew we should not meet again. So we talked of the past, which was the best way of not looking into the future.

  “My Uncle George was very interested in you,” I reminded her. “You might have been Queen of England. I believe you could have been if Mama had wished it.”

  “Mama wanted that role for you.”

  “Yes,” I said. “She wanted to rule through me, whereas she would never have been able to had you been Uncle George's Queen.”

  “Does it ever strike you, little sister, what hundreds of possibilities there are in our lives? If you did this…if you did that at a certain time the whole course of your life could be changed.”

  I admitted that I had thought of it.

  The days sped past; we drove out in the carriage now and then. Feodore was not strong enough to walk or ride. She said I must not spend the whole time with her.

  “Dear sister,” I replied, “that is what I have come for. You have no idea what black looks I received from my Prime Minister when I told him I was coming. But I was determined to come all the same.”

  “You are not happy with Mr. Gladstone. He is highly thought of here. They think he is a very strong man.”

  “Strong he may be, but I find him most uncomfortable and difficult to talk to. How I wish people had had the sense not to send Mr. Disraeli away.”