Empress
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Crown Orders
While Lytton was proclaiming her new title to thousands in Delhi, the queen sat down to a small celebration dinner party of her own at Windsor Castle. Around the table were some of her immediate family and courtiers, including Disraeli. Lytton had telegraphed earlier with news of the proceedings at Delhi, and she had already used her new signature for the first time: ‘V. R. & I.’ That evening she wore only Indian jewels: the Star of India and the pearls, diamonds and rubies that had been gifted to her via the Prince of Wales from the Maharajas of Indore and Gwalior, and from Sir Jung Bahadur, the prime minister of Nepal. Arthur, her son, led the toast, ‘to the Queen and Empress of India’.75 It was a quiet affair but there was no dampening of the queen’s enthusiasm for India.
India, and the role of the Crown in India, was plunged into further controversy in 1878, as Disraeli’s ministry manoeuvred for position around the ‘eastern question’, attempting to check Russian influence on either side of the enfeebled Ottoman Empire. Matters came to a head at the Berlin congress of the European powers held in the midsummer. From the east, in India, Lytton switched from diplomacy to armed intervention in an attempt to counter Russian influence over the Emir of Afghanistan. And, from the west, ostensibly to protect Constantinople, Britain augmented its forces in the Mediterranean. A large contingent of some 5,000 Indian cavalry and troops arrived in Malta in May 1878, and, when the diplomats at Berlin agreed that the island of Cyprus should come under British protection, the India regiments were sent there. In his usual blithe way, Disraeli assured the queen that the acquisition of Cyprus was vital, as it meant the ‘welding together’ of the Indian empire with Britain.76 It became a family affair. The Duke of Cambridge, the queen’s cousin and commander-in-chief of the Forces, went out to inspect the troops, including the Indian contingent. Prince Alfred sailed by in his yacht, and, most significantly of all, the Duke of Connaught led his own regiment during the occupation of the island.77 At home the Indian empire was swept up into the anti-Russian warmongering mood of the moment, as jingoistic songs rang out in the music halls, and cartoonists punned and penned away, depicting the carving-up of Turkey, lest Russia’s predatory instincts were repelled.78 Without much effort (or indeed resistance) on her part, Queen Victoria was once again being identified as a ‘warrior queen’.
One man was not amused. William Gladstone, leader of the opposition, stepped up the Liberal attack on Disraeli’s foreign policy towards the end of 1878 as war unfolded in Afghanistan. As in 1839 the British responded to the appearance of a Russian envoy in Kabul by despatching a force to fight the emir, Sher Ali Khan, once he made it clear he would not accept a similar delegation from British India.79 This aggressive move was very much Lytton’s own. He skirted around both political and military advice in India. Lytton justified the forward policy to the queen and kept her informed at every stage.80 Although the emir died, and his son, Mohammad Yaqub Khan, signed a treaty agreement with the British in May 1879, war broke out again later in the year, when the new emir’s younger brother, Ayub Khan, led a rebellion, forcing the emir’s abdication and taking over rule for himself. Ayub Khan was a different proposition from his brother. His forces defeated the British and Indian troops at Maiwand in July 1880, and he laid siege to Kandahar later that year. In dealing with the new emir, who was eventually seen off by troops under the command of Major-General Frederick Roberts, Lytton was once more instrumental in making decisions about strategy and tactics, which he reported directly to Victoria.81 Gladstone was appalled, accusing Disraeli of ‘abridging the rights of Parliament’ by making use of the treaty- and war-making powers of the Crown to invade Afghanistan.82 If this was the new imperial style, then it was time to put the genie back in the lamp.
In this way, the Afghan war became central to the general election, held in the spring of 1880. There was much debate too about the queen’s new title and the different tone it had given to foreign and imperial policy under Disraeli. Once the outcome of the election was known – a sizeable majority for Gladstone’s Liberal party – Disraeli and Lytton both resigned on the same day, their Indian foreign policy amongst other things repudiated by the electorate. The queen recorded her state of shock at this news. Not only would she have Gladstone to contend with, but, for the first time since the beginning of her reign, a new Liberal prime minister had appointed a Liberal viceroy. Writing to Lord Hartington, the new secretary of state for India, she voiced fears lest India be mixed up in party politics, as had happened too much of late.83 Too much party politics, or was the queen simply backing the wrong party?
The Afghan war did not go away with the advent of a new administration under Gladstone. However, the queen cut a lonelier figure in ministerial discussions over the summer of 1880 and beyond. She persistently badgered Hartington over not giving up Kandahar, suggesting at one point that the proclamation of 1858 did not rule out further annexation if necessary.84 This was an extraordinary interpretation of a document that she and Prince Albert had infused with the language of harmony. When the Cabinet proved resolute and set on withdrawing forces from Kandahar, she insisted that the timing of the announcement be delayed until a stable ruler was in place in Kabul. In particular, she tried to keep any mention of Afghanistan out of the queen’s speech at the opening of the 1881 session of Parliament.85 Ultimately, Gladstone’s Cabinet prevailed, and in March 1881, the withdrawal of British forces was confirmed. Later that year, a renewed assault on Kandahar by Ayub Khan was repelled, and relative calm returned to the region.
The queen’s stance on Afghanistan was untypically forward, and supplies the only occasion when she personally recommended an extension of her Indian realm. She was emboldened by what she heard from officers returning from the campaign.86 She undoubtedly felt hubris at Gladstone, his Midlothian campaign, and the way in which he had made her monarchy an election issue. She was rueful over the demise of her prized prime minister, Disraeli, whose last contribution in Parliament was a question in the House of Lords about Kandahar on 18 March (he died on 19 April). Above all, the reawakening of her martial tendencies suggests that she had been taken in to a certain extent by the rhetoric and pretensions of Disraeli and Lytton. They convinced her that the proclamation of her new title had smoothed over criticism of the Crown both in India and Britain, and they impressed upon her just how vulnerable India was in the great power struggles of the late 1870s. Different voices in the queen’s ear might have made her less hawkish.
A further legacy of Lytton and Disraeli’s foreign policy remained: the bombardment of Alexandria and the subsequent occupation of Egypt late in 1882. Together with France, Britain invaded Egypt in order to depose Ahmed ‘Urabi (known by the British as ‘Arabi Pasha’), an army colonel who had seized power in 1878.87 Once more, a large Indian expeditionary force, including 5,700 native officers and troops, was sent via the Suez Canal, with 1,360 kept in reserve at Aden, again under the command of General Sir Herbert Macpherson. The queen’s son, the Duke of Connaught, also had a command – as an honorary colonel of the 13th Bengal Lancers – and was active in the battle of Tell-el-Kebir, a role that caused the queen great anxiety, and then relief, when she was able to read aloud his letters written just after the battle had been won. She later commissioned a painting of his heroic role.88 Queen Victoria proved as proud of her Indian troops as she was of her son. On a ‘never-to-be-forgotten day’, 18 November 1882, she watched the parade at Horse Guards of the victorious regiments from Egypt, the Bengal Lancers led by the Duke of Connaught.89 A few days later she met a selection of the officers and men of the Indian contingent – thirty-nine officers, including twelve Indians – and presented them with an Egyptian campaign medal that incorporated, for some of them, a special Tell-el-Kebir clasp.90 Her old idea of getting ‘an Indian guard’ to be permanently based at the court was rekindled, and a new scheme took shape: a military command in India for Arthur, her soldier son.
His eyes on a bigger prize, the Duke of Connaught himself first devised the idea
of serving in India. Back in September 1881 he told Lord Hartington that, as he wanted eventually to succeed the Duke of Cambridge as commander-in-chief in Britain, some further Indian experience was desirable. An appointment was duly found, as a regimental commander in the North-West Provinces, and Arthur and Louischen, his consort, travelled out in 1882. Queen Victoria pressed for a political officer to accompany the Duke of Connaught so that he might gain a grasp of civil affairs as well as those of the army. Naturally, the Whigs sidestepped that request.91 The queen bided her time, and waited for the Tories to return to office. In the summer of 1885 she pressed for Arthur to be given a larger challenge, the command of the Bombay army. She solicited support in India, and at home found Lord Salisbury not opposed to the move. All seemed set for the elevation of Prince Arthur to the upper echelons of the armed forces of India.92 There was a problem. Cometh the hour, cometh Lord Randolph Churchill, Lord Salisbury’s secretary of state for India. When he threw a tantrum over the plan to give a command to the Duke of Connaught – only calmed apparently by a dose of calomel – Salisbury was forced to listen. Not only did Churchill oppose the duke’s appointment, he was also surprised to find out that the queen communicated directly with her viceroys. A full Cabinet meeting was held, with fourteen out of sixteen supporting Churchill’s insistence that the duke could not go to Bombay, as his role would spill over into civil matters and become politicised. ‘A good deal annoyed’, Queen Victoria accepted an alternative post for Arthur at Rawalpindi. A year later, when Bombay finally fell vacant, Randolph Churchill had moved on and the duke was appointed without any fuss.93 There, he proved a diligent commander, with some diplomacy thrown in. He joined Governor Reay’s Legislative Council, attending only during the sessions of March 1888, never speaking, but casting his vote when required.94 The Duke of Connaught arrived too late to see action in the queen’s latest Indian conquest: Burma, that is to say, the kingdom of Ava. Queen Victoria treated the Burmese annexation as a royal acquisition nonetheless. Apologising for being ‘greedy’, she asked Lord Dufferin, the viceroy, to find her some jewels to mark the defeat of the Konbaung dynasty. King Thibaw’s crown was duly sent on, as well as captured guns, to her evident pleasure.95 The old warrior instincts were alive and well. Now there was more than just booty to signify the queen’s Indian empire. She had at last got her way, her persistence had paid off, and Prince Albert’s wishes had been fulfilled. India had a resident royal prince.
In the end, the queen’s new title meant more in India than in Britain. Certainly, the British liked empire, but they did not like to be thought of as an imperial people, and they abhorred mixing up their ancient island constitution with the trappings of Continental absolutism. So the queen’s title was for export only. In India, the idea of an ‘empress’ was also a novelty. Lytton did his creative best to mark the inauguration of the new Indian empire. He need not have tried quite so hard. Without too much orchestration from above, the pronouncement of the imperial title in India produced a wave of popular endorsement, presaging new opportunities for co-operation and collaboration with colonial rule, and reform and development under the eye of a watchful matriarch.
CHAPTER 9
MOTHER OF INDIA
‘The regeneration of civilisation in India must come from the women,’ declared the Duke of Connaught, Queen Victoria’s third son, soon after he arrived in India.1 It was an odd statement for a soldier-prince to make. By the 1880s, the ‘woman’ question was beginning to dominate Indian social reform movements in India. A variety of issues preoccupied campaigners: the age of consent and the institution of child marriage, the treatment of widows, female education and health, and the control of prostitution in army cantonments (the notorious ‘Contagious Diseases’ legislation). Some of these were causes particular to India; others were extensions of pressure-group activity back in Britain.2 The Duke of Connaught’s view also embodied western stereotypes about the ‘effeminate’ Bengali man, and the enervated state of Indian men in general, physically inferior and morally backwards compared to their imperial rulers. From this colonising perspective, it was a small step to envisage a future for India in which women, suitably enlightened by British influence, might lead the way.3
Even so, the Duke of Connaught’s intervention was unusual. At home, the royal family was not known for intervening in public debates about the place of women in contemporary society. Queen Victoria herself was a confirmed anti-suffragist: she opposed votes for women. She also disliked widowed women who remarried. In India, however, it was a different story. Royals were less restrained. The Duke of Connaught and his consort, Princess Louise of Prussia (known in the family as ‘Louischen’), became prominent supporters of opening up the public sphere to Indian women – through schools and hospitals. Queen Victoria herself took an active interest in female education in India, one legacy of which was the large number of schools named after her. She also endorsed the provision and training of European and Indian nurses, an activity channelled through the Countess of Dufferin, whose husband was viceroy between 1884 and 1888. Most significantly of all, Queen Victoria became an unlikely role model for a diverse range of women and women’s organisations in late nineteenth-century India, from queens and princesses, to Hindu social reformers, and on to missionary and other European societies active in south Asia in these years. As this chapter describes, in the last quarter of Queen Victoria’s reign, the royal touch in India was increasingly a woman’s touch.
Widow
With her new status as Queen of India in 1858 quickly followed by the death of Prince Albert at the end of 1861, Queen Victoria’s settled image became that of a widow. Widowhood in Britain was a common enough state, although the queen set new standards for grief in the way she observed mourning for the rest of her life. In India, widowhood was even more salient, especially in Hindu culture.4 This softer image was based on the narrative the queen and her courtiers constructed of her life with and without Albert. The projection of the queen as a devoted widow, continuing the work of her late consort, Prince Albert, did not come from the Government of India, although it observed official mourning on the death of the queen’s consort at the end of 1861. Flags were lowered to half-mast, officials and British subjects were expected to dress in black, with the period of mourning effectively extended into the following May, as the queen’s birthday ball due towards the end of that month was cancelled. In Bombay a memorial to Albert quickly took shape as the planned ‘Victoria Museum’ was given an injection of £10,000 by the government and the name of the new institution adjusted accordingly to the ‘Victoria and Albert Museum’. Albert was remembered as devoted to the ‘nobler branches of the Arts’ and the ‘humbler classes of a great industrial community’.5 Indian responses followed. They focused far more on Albert the family man. For example, an 1863 memorial poem, ‘largely read by the Gujarati-speaking community’ of Bombay presidency, devoted one-third of the whole text to Albert’s marriage, children and the education he gave to the Prince of Wales, his son and heir.6
However, it was the queen herself who, indirectly, gave the greatest stimulus to the Albert industry in India. India, she told Sir John Lawrence in 1864, was her late husband’s sacred legacy. She wished his name to be looked upon with love by her Indian subjects.7 Telling her version of their life together was a means to this end. In the two decades after his death, three studies of Albert’s life and influence were published in England: Charles Grey’s Early Years of the Prince Consort (1867), the queen’s own Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands (1868) – followed by a further instalment in 1884 – and Theodore Martin’s Life of the Prince Consort, published in five volumes between 1875 and 1880. Queen Victoria had a hand in all of these. Charles Grey was the prince’s former secretary and now the queen’s, and his memoir was written under her ‘direction’. She used Arthur Helps, clerk to the Privy Council, to prepare her own Highland journals for publication, and in 1866 she commissioned Martin to be the prince’s biographer.8 All three of
these works made their way to India. Grey’s volume, together with the edition of her Scottish Highland journals, became the queen’s gift of choice in the exchange of presents with Indian royalty for the next thirty years. The Highland journals themselves were translated into three Indian editions: into Marathi by Ganapatarava Jadhava in 1871, then into Hindi by the Maharaja of Benares in 1875, and finally into Gujarati by Mancherjee Bhownagree in 1877. More Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands, 1862–1882 was also translated into Gujarati in 1886, and presented by Bhownagree to the queen that year. Martin’s biography appeared in an abridged Hindi version in 1892 (replete with a different subtitle in which Prince Albert was described as ‘father of the future emperors of India’).9 What image of the royal couple did these narratives convey?