Censoring Queen Victoria

by Yvonne M. Ward

  … odd passages with oak arches and an area of open space in the centre … My own room is a big room hung with Hogarth engravings and good furniture – a white chair with pink satin on wheels was used by the Queen. I did not use [the room] today as it was not ready, but worked in the strong room and went through an interesting volume of Melbourne’s letters – beginning with one on the morning of the Accession. His writing is very hard to read. It was odd to sit in this big room, all surrounded with shelves, with the deep embrasure filled with ferns … The wind roared and the rain lashed the windows. I was amused and happy.

  Although the next day was Saturday, he hurried back to read more of Melbourne’s letters. However, Sunday brought

  a very bad hour of despair on waking, about the book. I had roughly catalogued the volumes on Saturday and found that there were about 460! and out of this we are to make quite a little book. Que faire! And how am I to know what is interesting and what is not – However my course is at present: to go ploughing on with the papers & then decide.

  Benson found himself enjoying the view from the Tower, especially of the Long Walk with its row of elms, and he sketched it in his diary. He even felt that he began to ‘see the light – to issue a volume at a time, and to cut out a definite subject. It is the thing to do. Hope returns.’

  Benson’s mood swings – from confusion to despair and then resolve – were in direct contrast to Esher’s steady character. Benson’s resolutions frequently had little chance of success, being ill formed and premature, and therefore doomed to lead to further despair. Throughout the editing process, Benson would ‘get a rush of blood,’ confident that the task was nearing completion, only to be confronted with some new obstacle. Bundles and boxes of previously unknown letters would surface from other collections in the Royal Library, or from a distant room of the castle.

  His domestic life did not help his mood. Benson was lodging at Mustians, the home of A.C. Ainger in nearby Eton. Ainger had tutored Esher at Eton and remained a guide and mentor throughout Esher’s adult life; in the 1880s and 1890s, Esher’s two sons had lived at Mustians, when they started at Eton. Here, billiards rather than conversation occupied the evenings. Benson hated billiards. And he had ‘the strange experience of mingling with old friends who were no longer colleagues, of meeting daily boys over whom he no longer had any responsibility, and of living the life of a revenant …’ As February progressed, he felt much worse: ‘I have not had such an acute attack of depression since I was at Cambridge, in 1882. It dogs me all day – though I can work and read it is all without savour or intellect.’ He sadly described his condition as a ‘neuralgia of the soul’.

  As the month went on, however, Benson was relieved to be able to record something resembling a daily routine:

  I get to the Castle by 10.30 and I am let in by one of my faithful henchmen. It astonishes me to find how pleasant the Castle servants all are. Then I go to the Strong room to select a few volumes for upstairs; see what Miss Williams is doing: and then begin work. I write a letter or two, and then just read and select. The work is very interesting and time flies past … lunch … walk … tea at 5.00, work till 8.00 reading and writing. I suppose I do about 6 hours work a day, but very concentrated work. I see a glimmer of light with regard to the book now. One must have a brief introduction & plunge into the letters at once – There is certainly no lack – & plenty of good footnotes must be appended to explain people. I have written a sketch of much of my Introduction already.

  On finding how many volumes of letters were to be gone through, Benson soon realised that he would need an assistant. Esher suggested that a soldier might be suitable. Instead, Benson’s old Eton friend, Hugh Childers, offered to do the job for £100 per year and to be at Windsor four days per week. Childers was ‘a good worker’ and knew political history well. He was the son of H.C. Childers, a politician who had begun his career in Australia before returning to take up a seat in Westminster. In the editorial note to the first published volume, Hugh Childers is recognised for his ‘ungrudging help in the preparation of the Introductory annual summaries, and in the political and historical annotation, as well as for his invaluable co-operation at every stage of the work’. He also supported Benson as a friend and they holidayed together in 1905.

  It is possible that in suggesting a soldier for the position of assistant, Esher was hoping to have Maurice appointed. By this time, Maurice had served in the Coldstream Guards for nearly two years, during which time his father had pulled ‘every string for his advancement’ while still obsessively seeking out his company. Esher had an inflated view of Maurice’s abilities (Benson described Maurice as ‘stolid and rosy’). Considering the range of tasks undertaken by Childers, had Maurice been Benson’s assistant, the book might never have been published. The tone of the editors’ correspondence on this issue suggests some coolness, although Esher later complimented Benson on Childers’ work.

  Benson agonised over the working conditions for his staff. He worried that some of the rooms were too dark for long hours of reading. There were logistical problems concerning keys and access to the Round Tower. On one occasion, he found himself locked in and had ‘a ten minute walk around the whole Castle’ in order to find someone to let him out. Further, there were major interruptions to the work when the King visited Windsor, as the editors’ workrooms were required to accommodate the King’s retinue. Benson was relieved, however, that the work was at last underway. ‘I hear the typewriter clicking next door,’ he reported with satisfaction.

  As there was no single repository for royal papers, aside from the limited storage space in the Royal Library (there was no Royal Archive yet) and the strong room, Benson and Esher soon realised that accurately ascertaining what material was available was going to be difficult. In addition to the 460 volumes that Benson had ‘roughly catalogued’ on that first day, additional boxes of letters were continually ‘being turned up’. Benson reported to Esher that Mr Vaughan, the library bookbinder, found letters from Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter, Empress Frederick, in a box on the landing by his window; other boxes were discovered in a stone vault under the Grand Staircase in the Upper Ward of Windsor Castle, a building adjacent to the Round Tower. More letters from Victoria’s uncle, King Leopold I of the Belgians, arrived just as Benson was getting the first batch straight, which was ‘rather a ghastly business’. ‘Are there any more papers among those which came out of the Library which concern us?’ he asked Esher. The problem was so acute that by the first week of March 1904, Benson conceded, ‘I am very grateful now the King vetoed applying for private papers’; the documents already in royal possession would keep them busy enough.

  In these early days, the editors decided to ignore ‘a very large series of volumes entitled GERMANY, which we decided would be foreign to our purpose’, and, rather strangely, the papers of the Prince Consort. Later Benson had second thoughts and ‘glanced through 2 or 3 volumes and found some very important and interesting things … so I am working through them’. Following this discovery, Benson suggested to Esher that although it would cause some delay, they must also go through Albert’s papers, ‘as it seems he annexed drafts and letters [of Queen Victoria’s correspondence] for his collection’. Both editors admired Prince Albert’s ‘industry and intelligence’. There is no evidence that they ever requested materials from other archives or European courts or that they even thought of doing so. They were Englishmen, and did not recognise the extent to which Victoria had been a European.

  Accessing materials could be difficult. Vaughan, as well as being the bookbinder, was the custodian of the keys to various locked volumes of letters, and would only hand them over to Benson on Esher’s express orders. Benson had to ask Esher to intervene with the ‘incorruptible Vaughan’ on several occasions. For example:

  Would you kindly authorise Vaughan to let me have the series of the Queen’s letters to the King of the Belgians, of which I already have 7 vols? … Also would you instruct him just to s
ee that there are no papers dating back earlier than 1844. We shall soon have the material made up; and it would be a bore if a new lot were to be plumped on the scales!

  After the letters were located, they were catalogued, and then Benson made his selections. These selections were typed, or ‘copied’ as Benson called it, and assembled into chronological order. From these typed copies Benson, and later Childers, had to identify the individuals mentioned and contextualise the contents in order to judge their significance. Benson then made further selections and excisions, and the letters were retyped and sent to Esher for further editing. Benson agreed that he would then ‘go through the whole thing again very carefully and follow your [Esher’s] directions’ before the letters were retyped and sent to John Murray for printing. (This constant retyping was necessary to ensure that no material deemed unsuitable for publication was seen by the publisher or by the humble typesetters.)

  When there were French or German passages or phrases to be translated, Benson asked Mr Hua to verify phrases in the proofs. Esher forcefully directed Benson that the proofs must not be given to Hua without his approval. This was impractical and probably unnecessarily cautious. Hua had impeccable credentials. He had previously been employed by the Royal family to instruct the two sons of the Prince of Wales, Princes Eddy and George (later King George V), in French, and in 1883 he had accompanied them on a trip to France and Switzerland. Further, until the passages were translated, neither Benson nor Esher could judge their meaning or their value.

  The typeset proofs were later made available to John Morley (biographer of Gladstone and later 1st Viscount Morley of Blackburn) and to Arthur Bigge (private secretary to Queen Victoria, later Lord Stamfordham), in preparation for the King’s eye and a final edit before publication.

  Throughout this process, Benson, Esher and John Murray referred to the whole project, comprising three volumes, as ‘the book’. The general time frame (1837–61, from Victoria’s accession to the throne to Albert’s death) was established from the start, but the exact scope of each volume was altered several times. In the end, Volume I began with an introductory section on the origins of the Houses of Hanover and Coburg and details of Victoria’s early life and family, followed by selections of correspondence from 1821 to 1843; Volume II contained correspondence from 1844 to 1853; and Volume III 1854 to 1861.

  A major constraint, one which had to be determined as early as possible, was the space available. In the early stages, Benson sent some sample letters to John Murray to be typeset and printed, in order to ascertain how much room they would occupy as a guide to further editing. In March 1904, an introductory passage and letters up to May 1838 (that is, only ten months in to the 24-year range of the book) were estimated to take up 357 pages, which was ‘in great excess of our space’. In the final published work, May 1838 is reached by page 113 of Volume I, which means further editing reduced the selection by almost 70 per cent.

  There were also decisions to be made about the page setting, including the size and choice of typeface. Murray sent specimens for Benson and Esher to look over, including some samples from his recent edition of The Creevey Papers, a selection of the letters and diaries of Thomas Creevey, an English politician of the early nineteenth century. The ‘small print of the Creevey page was not at all agreeable,’ Benson complained to Esher.

  Then there were footnotes and an index to consider. Most of the notes were prepared by Hugh Childers; he also contributed some of the introductory passages outlining the major political events of each year; Benson referred to this material, borrowing from Kant, as the ‘Prolegomena’. Benson wanted to submit this introductory material to J.W. Headlam at Cambridge for his opinion. When Esher expressed surprise at the suggestion, Benson placated him, somewhat tongue in cheek: ‘It is essential that this part should be impeccable, and I have therefore arranged that he should criticise … such an arrangement is necessary, even for such gifted amateurs as ourselves!’ Esher and Knollys became anxious whenever ‘outsiders’ were given any access to royal material.

  In preparing these explanatory notes, Childers drew heavily on his own political knowledge and on the networks of Benson and Esher. Trying to ascertain the identity of people mentioned in the letters, as well as the senders and recipients, was often difficult, given so many Christian names were used repeatedly among cousins and down the generations. Making sense of these personages was an essential step; without it, the editors, the King and eventually the book’s readers would have no way of knowing whether a letter was important, irrelevant, or potentially scandalous.

  The dramatis personae of the letters comprised an immense assembly. Victoria lived for eighty-one years, from 1819 until 1901. She corresponded with (and about) other members of the royal family, courtiers and aristocrats, as well as politicians, churchmen and representatives of the military, the universities and the arts; there were letters from manufacturers and magnates, Chartists, Lords and the lowliest villagers; and there were many letters from female relatives, friends, aristocrats and colonials. Even though the book would only include letters written before the death of the Prince Consort in December 1861, older and more recent history still had to be considered: the letters referred to members of earlier generations, and the sensitivities of their descendants also had to be taken into account. Benson and Esher therefore needed a thorough knowledge of who was who.

  Sometimes, however, identifying her correspondents proved impossible. Although Victoria and Albert were first cousins and shared one branch of their family tree, that of the Saxe-Coburgs, there had been seven children in their parents’ generation, all of whom married and produced children. On Victoria’s Hanoverian side, her grandfather, King George III, had fifteen children, five of whom had produced legitimate offspring. There were also many illegitimate offspring, some of whom had been given positions at court and in the army and hence needed to be identified by the editors. Although Victoria herself had an encyclopaedic knowledge of her own and others’ genealogy, it soon became apparent that few members of the royal family in 1905 knew the names of their many great-uncles and great-aunts, or their numerous descendants. Childers consulted the College of Arms with some success: his visit led to an up-to-date Royal Pedigree being compiled. Several times he went to great lengths to ascertain the identity of someone named in Victoria’s correspondence, only to discover that the name referred to a pet!

  There were also to be illustrations, prepared by John Murray’s brother, Hallam. Planning for these began simultaneously with the editing. As early as March 1904, Benson and Hallam drew up an ‘exhaustive list of all possible illustrations for Vol. 1 – people mentioned in letters &c &c’. Hallam was keen to have photographs made of portraits of these people promptly, as he was exploring various new technologies for their reproduction. He was particularly interested in a new method of producing plates that would maintain the quality of the reproduction over a print run of five thousand copies. Benson wrote to Esher:

  Saw Hallam Murray … He showed me some new copper-plates, by a new process. He is going very carefully into the question as to whether it will be well to use it. It is much more expeditious & much less expensive than the old – and the pictures he showed me are admirable. He is going however to get more specimens, & I will submit them to you …

  In his diary for the same day, Benson was more exuberant:

  Hallam showed me a new copperplate process. It has always before needed to be inked and pressed by hand. This does it by machinery. He told me that if they would adopt it, it would save £4000 in this book alone!!! That shows what a scale we shall work on …

  The men were all impressed by the various tints that were becoming available, ranging from ‘old browns’ to ‘warm browns’ to ‘hotter browns’. In a climate of rapid technological development, the possibilities seemed endless.

  Selecting the illustrations brought more trouble for Benson. After consulting Esher, he sent a list of possible subjects to Lionel Cust, keeper of the King’s
pictures and director of the National Portrait Gallery, asking his advice as to ‘which were the best pictures’. He would then need to seek the King’s permission to have the portraits photographed. Unbeknown to Benson, however, Hallam Murray had already asked Cust if Benson might be admitted to Buckingham Palace to view some portraits in the King’s private sitting rooms. Cust asked Lord Knollys, the King’s secretary. Knollys ‘consents, not very graciously,’ Benson recorded in his diary; protocols had been upset. Trying to smooth things over, Benson wrote to Esher:

  Cust is very anxious that he should not be thought to have interfered. As matters stand he is at present engaged to take me to Buckingham Palace some day soon at 10 a.m. … Will you put this right on Monday? There is no necessity to visit Buckingham Palace in this solemn way, as if we were going to value for probate.

  Meanwhile Knollys complained to Esher about ‘Cust’s interference’ and Esher summoned Benson to his room, insinuating that the King was annoyed. Esher referred waspishly to Cust as an ‘awful meddler, always asking for things’ and offered Benson some advice: ‘“No greater mistake,” said E. smiling, “than to ask for anything in this world unless you are nearly sure to get it.”’ Whereupon Benson was at pains to distance himself from Cust’s inept assertiveness.

  In an elegant display of power and savoir faire, Esher then airily conducted Benson down to the King’s private rooms ‘to see what pictures there were …’ Benson soon forgot his discomfiture and was captivated:

  There are some lovely things. There is a little audience chamber of QV’s fitted up so by Prince Albert with pictures and miniatures – very Victorian but such treasures. A row of heads of George III’s children by Gainsborough. So strange to see those fussy, absurd, big, voluble men as graceful boys with low collars. The Dukes of Cambridge and Sussex are simply charming. Then to the Queen’s rooms – such exquisite things and to the King’s room where there is a Winterhalter of Queen Victoria with an unbound tress of hair – such a touching, intime thing – and a ludicrous Landseer where Prince Albert sits in a drawing room in shooting clothes, with the ribbon of the Garter and a table covered with hares, ducks and kingfishers. It is high day, but the Queen stands beside him dressed for dinner.