Prince Albert

by Robert Rhodes James

  The popularity of the couple was again substantially increased by two more assassination attempts in London. In May 1842 they were shot at in their carriage by a John Francis. Albert saw Peel at 6 pm on the evening of the 29th in the garden of Buckingham Palace to describe how he had seen ‘a man of the age from 26 to 30, with a shabby hat and of dirty appearance, stretch out his hand and snap a small pistol at the carriage window.’ The pistol was about a yard from the window. ‘The noise of the snap was distinctly heard by the Prince, and confirms his impression that he could not possibly be mistaken, that that which the man held in his hand was a pistol.’ He described his position, and his appearance as ‘that of silliness amounting almost to idiocy.’ A boy of fourteen, George Pears of 7 Castle Street, Holborn, reported seeing a man at the scene who muttered to himself ‘they may take me if they like, I don’t care, I was a fool that I did not shoot,’ and a mysterious ‘elderly gentleman’ whom he followed to St James’s. As he was not apprehended, the Royal couple deliberately drove out again later to draw his fire. ‘You may imagine’, Albert wrote to his father, ‘that our minds were not very easy. We looked behind every tree, and I cast my eyes round in search of the rascal’s face’. Francis – ‘a little, swarthy, ill-looking rascal’, in Albert’s account – did shoot again, missed, and was arrested. This episode can be regarded as one of extraordinary courage or extraordinary folly. Contemporary opinions emphatically favoured the first interpretation.

  Prince Albert believed at once, although both Anson and Stockmar were very doubtful, that the King of Hanover was behind these attempts on the Queen’s life, and he took very seriously an affidavit by a Mrs. Blow who claimed she had overheard a conversation between ‘a female, a tall dark man [with] large black Moustachios, and a third person a shorter man of a shallow complexion’ several months before, in November 1841 in London, and that the latter had said ‘the Queen’s life must be decided upon before the birth of the Child, as there must be no Prince borned, he made use of that exact term . . . One of the men said remember, remember that the £30,000 is the sum. He then added when do you suppose will be the time, alluding to the Queen’s confinement, because I must go to Hanover first. There seemed a deal of determination about him.’ Mrs Blow claimed that she saw the woman and one of the men in the Park just before Francis’ attempt. After careful investigation Mrs Blow’s account was dismissed as maliciously fraudulent by the police and Home Office, and Albert, after his initial keen interest in the possibility that Hanover was behind the assassination attempt, came to the conclusion on July 1st, that the ‘proneness of the People to committ (sic) attempts upon the person of the Sovereign is increased in our times by the increase of democratical & republican Notions & the licentiousness of the Press.’

  The aftermath was interesting and instructive. Queen Victoria regarded attempts on her life with remarkable tolerance, almost as an inevitable aspect of the job she had inherited. She was always casual about her personal security, rode openly in her carriage in London, Windsor, and on the couple’s ‘expeditions’ around the country – much of which was in violent, if sporadic, ferment – and spurned anything approximating to the security which nervous monarchs throughout Europe insisted upon. Of all her qualities, perhaps that of her physical courage has received less attention than it merits, and it was certainly a major element in the restoration of her popularity. No previous modern Sovereign, not even King William IV, had travelled so openly or frequently, and with such manifest enjoyment. She liked this freedom, and enjoyed being cheered; she never forgot being hissed at Ascot, and always regarded her reception as her carriage went down the course on the opening day of the summer meeting as a touchstone of her popularity. It was natural, human, and unfeigned. It was Prince Albert who transformed the security at Buckingham Palace and Windsor – especially for the children – and was constantly worried, and with good reason, about the dangers to her life. But he also understood and respected her attitudes, and her admirable, if perilous, indifference to danger.

  Francis was sentenced to death, but the strong wish of the Queen and Prince that the sentence should not be carried out was supported by the Law Officers, whose advice was sought by the Cabinet. It was very doubtful indeed whether the pistol had been loaded, and one Judge, when consulted, gave it as his opinion that he had been a member of the Jury he would have voted for acquittal. In these circumstances Ministers found no difficulty in acceding to the Queen’s proposal that the death sentence should be commuted to transportation for life. In Albert’s papers there is a deeply moving letter of gratitude from Francis’s father for having spared his son. Also, on the urging of the Queen and Prince Albert, new legislation was quickly passed to deal with the crime of attempted assassination of the Sovereign, and which did not include the death penalty. In an age of public executions, which both the Queen and Prince abhorred, and the widespread – if gradually diminishing – use of the death penalty, this may be regarded with particular interest.

  In July another shot was fired at their carriage by ‘a hunch-backed lad named Bean’, and Peel was so distraught and his concern moved the Queen so deeply that all her prejudices were removed, to the point that she now described him as ‘a great statesman, who thinks but little of party, and never of himself’. Not long after, Peel’s secretary was assassinated, in mistake for himself. This tragedy, also, made the relationship between Queen and Prime Minister even closer.34

  In the summer and early autumn of 1843 Victoria and Albert discussed at length the possibility of buying a home of their own. The difficulties over Buckingham Palace were acute, with Ministers expressing concern at the constant requests for more funds for rebuilding and improving a Palace for which the Royal couple had little affection, but which they accepted must be their State residence in the capital. Whenever the Prince raised the issue of money Peel expressed ‘extreme embarrassment’, and on one occasion, in Prince Albert’s account, Peel ‘spoke for some time without in fact saying anything, with his eyes turned away.’ The Prince’s efficient stewardship of the finances of the Royal Family entitled him to raise the issue, which he did frequently, but with a meagre response.

  But now that Lehzen and Uxbridge had gone, Prince Albert had been able to hand over the administration and reconstruction of Buckingham Palace and the Court to a new and capable Master of the Household, and his careful management and economies had so improved the Royal finances that the purchase of their own home was now a practical possibility.

  Windsor Castle, for all its many attractions was, as the Queen wrote, ‘beautiful and comfortable, but it is a palace’, whereas what she and her husband wanted was a home. Also, Prince Albert’s ambitions for designing, planting, gardening and farming were constantly frustrated by the fact that the real authority was vested in the Office of Woods and Forests, whose approval had to be sought for every change. Claremont, which they liked, had its disadvantages, and it remained the personal property of King Leopold. Albert’s design of the Royal Dairy at Windsor was one of his most deeply satisfying and successful creations, and in addition to the management of the farm and the Duchy of Cornwall estates he immersed himself in examining the extraordinary Royal art collections, to which he was beginning to make his own contribution. It was largely the influence of Ludwig Gruner that drew him to the ‘primitives’ of the Early Renaissance, but he also recognised the outstanding talents of Franz-Xavier Winterhalter, and he shared his wife’s admiration for the skills of Edwin Landseer and George Hayter. One of his most charming initiatives was the decoration of a little garden pavilion in the grounds of Buckingham Palace, which Gruner described as ‘picturesque and fantastic, without any regular style of architecture’. It contained three rooms and a kitchen, the principal one being an octagon, and Albert commissioned eight Royal Academicians to design frescoes for them. The result, although it delighted the Queen and the Prince, has generally been adjudged to be artistically disappointing; unhappily, it no longer exists, as it fell into su
ch poor condition through damp and neglect that it was demolished in 1928, and we only have Gruner’s record of its lightness and colour.

  This was not, however, satisfying enough for a man of such exceptional and restless talents. Neither he nor the Queen liked the glittering extravaganza of King George IV’s and Nash’s masterpiece, the Brighton Pavilion, indeed so much so that Queen Victoria wrote that her husband was rendered speechless when he first beheld it. The Pavilion was also manifestly highly inconvenient and unsuitable for a young and growing family, and the rapid development of Brighton into a popular spa had resulted in much building in the vicinity of the Pavilion that shut off the view of the sea. In addition to these considerable disadvantages the Brighton crowds were so inquisitive and pressing when the Royal Family visited the town that they became seriously upset. ‘We are more disgusted with Brighton than ever’, Prince Albert wrote to Peel on February 8th 1845. ‘We were mobbed this morning at our walk in too disagreeable a way’.

  In these circumstances it was not surprising that the Prince did not appreciate at all the real qualities of the drama and romance of the Pavilion’s design and decorations, and it was systematically stripped of its valuables, which were transferred to Windsor and Buckingham Palace, and public auctions disposed of what was not required by the Royal Family. The shell itself was due to be demolished until local sentiment and public protests prompted the Brighton Corporation to purchase and save it. Gradually it was restored to something of its former grandeur, and a lamentable act of vandalism was prevented. Prince Albert’s indifference to the fate of the Pavilion may dismay later generations, but the complete unsuitability of this bizarre and wonderful creation as a Royal residence is obvious.

  Thus, there was Buckingham Palace, bleak, formal, too large, and too official; Windsor, where complete privacy was difficult, and over which the Office of Woods and Forests held authority; Claremont, which was not theirs; and the hopelessly inadequate and disliked Brighton Pavilion. In the autumn of 1843 the Queen and the Prince spoke to Peel about their desire to have their own home.

  The Queen and her mother had visited the Isle of Wight in 1831 and 1833, when they had stayed at Norris Castle, to the east of Cowes and occupying a dominant position over the Solent. The Isle was verdant, quiet, and thinly populated, and in her explorations with the Duchess of Kent the young Princess had been delighted by it. She would have bought Norris, but ‘had not the means’, and in the summer of 1843 she and Prince Albert visited the Isle, which revived her pleasure in it and aroused his strong interest. The transport revolution provided by the railway and the steam ferry no longer made it impossibly remote for the Household or for Ministers or communications with London.

  Peel had fortuitously learnt that Lady Isabella Blatchford wished to sell Osborne House and its estate, which adjoined that of Norris Castle. The house itself first charmed the Queen, who described it happily as ‘so complete and snug’, but this was not the opinion of her husband, not that of Anson or other observers. But the estate, with eight hundred acres and a wonderful situation commanding a magnificent view of the Solent, perfectly suited the ambition of Queen and Prince for, in her words, ‘a place of one’s own, quiet and retired’, and his for a real opportunity for design and farming and planting ‘free from Departments, Crown, Woods & Forests etc’, as he wrote to Stockmar.

  Lady Isabella was a difficult and disagreeable vendor, and initially Osborne was rented, although eventually bought for £26,000, with an additional £20,000 to be paid in eighteen years for land purchased from Winchester College. The final Osborne Estate constitued 600 acres of parkland, 400 of woodland, and 700 of arable, and was finally over 2,000 acres.

  This gave the Prince his setting, in which he and Thomas Cubitt created one of the most remarkable buildings of the nineteenth century. It was such a close partnership between the Prince, Gruner, and Cubitt that it is impossible to regard them other than as an inspired trio. The vision of an Italianate façade, with twin ‘campaniles’ and terraces, was Prince Albert’s, as was the site. Cubitt provided his unequalled capacities of draughtsmen and technicians; Prince Albert and Gruner worked closely on the details that make Osborne so personal and original. Cubitt’s hand is to be seen in the structure – strong, with the use of iron girders instead of wooden beams, an excellent and efficient heating system (a matter of indifference to Queen Victoria, but not to Prince Albert or the Household), and insulation that used crushed sea-shells – and Prince Albert’s in the façade and the private ‘Pavilion’, which is the heart of the house. The tiled floor in the Marble Corridor clearly shows the influence, and probably the hand, of Gruner, as do many of the details, notably the door-furniture, that gives Osborne so much of its charm.

  The Pavilion, with its own ‘campanile’ tower, was built first. Imposing on the outside, internally it is surprisingly modest. The ground floor consisted principally of the drawing and billiard rooms – the billiard table, with its slate top and, unusually, slate legs, was designed entirely by Prince Albert – with large windows, and dining room. The billiard room and drawing room are in fact one L-shaped room, which was highly unusual and of particular interest to modern architects, many of whom have assumed that such open-planning was a creation of the present century. The dining room, which leads immediately off the drawing room, has such wide doors that it, also, forms part of the whole. Each room is admirably proportioned, and at night – a touch of which Thomas Jefferson would have particularly approved – large concealed shutters with mirror glass on the inside were drawn across the windows to make best advantage of the light, particularly from the chandeliers designed by Gruner and Prince Albert. Although very large and stoutly constructed, these shutters can to this day be opened and closed at a touch, so perfectly are they balanced.

  The private rooms of the Queen and the Prince are immediately above. On the landing there is a waiting room for pages, and then two large and light dressing rooms for the Prince and the Queen, with what was officially known as The Queen’s Sitting Room between them, but which was a private drawing room and study, with a bow window leading onto a balcony from which, on summer evenings, Albert would call to the nightingales and rejoice in their responses. There are two bathrooms, with deep baths and running water – luxuries as yet unknown at Windsor or Buckingham Palace – and efficient water closets, again a significant rarity in the country homes and Palaces of England. The principal and only bedroom, which like all the other rooms is not large, faces due East to receive the morning sun. On the West, next to the Prince’s dressing room, was the children’s schoolroom and a sitting room for their Governess, while on the floor above were the children’s bedrooms and playrooms and Nursery, and accommodation for their staff.

  This was the Pavilion, the real part of Osborne. The main wing for official purposes contained on its ground floor an Audience Room, a Council Room, a suite for the Duchess of Kent, and accommodation for the Household, with family rooms above. On the ground floor it was linked to the Pavilion with the tiled and pillared marble corridor, and on the other floors with arcades, the open upper one earning a deserved reputation for extreme coldness until an ingenious removeable iron and glass protective screen was designed and installed. Over a century later it is daily praised by those who have to make the journey from the main wing to the Pavilion.

  It is one of the remarkable features of Osborne that it looks much larger than it is, and Prince Albert’s original design did not incorporate the Durbar Room – on whose merits opinions vary – and which was added long after the Prince’s death. The texture is also deceptive. Osborne looks as though it is made of stone, when in fact it was built of brick with ‘Roman cement’ applied to the surface, and then lightly etched to give the appearance of stone, whose cost would have been prohibitive. So well was the deception achieved that only close inspection reveals it, and the problems of maintenance only arose many years later.

  The siting, which required considerable moving
of earth and new and deep foundations, is that of an artist, as are the apparently but in reality complementary towers. Almost all the now massive trees that visitors and experts so admire were chosen, planned, and planted by Prince Albert. It was also he who conceived the idea of the ‘Swiss Cottage’ for the children, in reality more of a large chalet than a cottage, brought over from Switzerland in components and erected in the Osborne grounds close – but not too close – to the house. It is the first pre-fabricated building of any size erected in Britain. Here, the children had their own working house and gardens, with their own tools, and the boys their own fort and model guns. Prince Albert also designed a small but delightful building on the beach which can hardly be described as a beach-hut where, protected from the prevailing winds, the Solent view could be particularly appreciated. A large bathing-hut for the use of the Queen was bought, and a special ramp built for its use.

  It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of the design and building of Osborne on the lives of the Royal couple, and especially for Prince Albert. On May 12th 1845 Victoria wrote that ‘It does my heart good to see how my beloved Albert enjoys it all, and is so full of admiration of the place, and of all the plans and improvements he means to carry out. He is hardly to be kept at home for a moment’. Albert described his life at Osborne in those early, very happy, years as ‘partly forester, partly builder, partly farmer and partly gardener’. He was eager that the farms be as well managed and efficient as possible, and that he and the Queen be the best of employers. Like Jefferson, he was a farmer – once described by the highly outspoken head keeper of Windsor, in Albert’s presence, as ‘that damned farmer’ – with a passionate, almost sensual, feeling for nature, its hazards, constant surprises, frustrations, and joys. He wrote to his eldest daughter many years later that ‘the art of gardening’ had had ‘extraordinary attractions for me of late years, indeed I may say from earliest childhood’, and his letter continued: