3: Lord Melbourne
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Lord Melbourne
I
The new queen was almost entirely unknown to her subjects. In her public appearances
her mother had invariably dominated the scene. Her private life had been that of a novice
in a convent: hardly a human being from the outside world had ever spoken to her; and no
human being at all, except her mother and the Baroness Lehzen, had ever been alone with
her in a room. Thus it was not only the public at large that was in ignorance of
everything concerning her; the inner circles of statesmen and officials and high-born
ladies were equally in the dark. When she suddenly emerged from this deep obscurity, the
impression that she created was immediate and profound. Her bearing at her first Council
filled the whole gathering with astonishment and admiration; the Duke of Wellington, Sir
Robert Peel, even the savage Croker, even the cold and caustic Greville—all were
completely carried away. Everything that was reported of her subsequent proceedings seemed
to be of no less happy augury. Her perceptions were quick, her decisions were sensible,
her language was discreet; she performed her royal duties with extraordinary facility.
Among the outside public there was a great wave of enthusiasm. Sentiment and romance were
coming into fashion; and the spectacle of the little girl-queen, innocent, modest, with
fair hair and pink cheeks, driving through her capital, filled the hearts of the beholders
with raptures of affectionate loyalty. What, above all, struck everybody with overwhelming
force was the contrast between Queen Victoria and her uncles. The nasty old men, debauched
and selfish, pig-headed and ridiculous, with their perpetual burden of debts, confusions,
and disreputabilities—they had vanished like the snows of winter, and here at last,
crowned and radiant, was the spring. Lord John Russell, in an elaborate oration, gave
voice to the general sentiment. He hoped that Victoria might prove an Elizabeth without
her tyranny, an Anne without her weakness. He asked England to pray that the illustrious
Princess who had just ascended the throne with the purest intentions and the justest
desires might see slavery abolished, crime diminished, and education improved. He trusted
that her people would henceforward derive their strength, their conduct, and their loyalty
from enlightened religious and moral principles, and that, so fortified, the reign of
Victoria might prove celebrated to posterity and to all the nations of the earth.
Very soon, however, there were signs that the future might turn out to
be not quite so simple and roseate as a delighted public dreamed. The "illustrious
Princess" might perhaps, after all, have something within her which squared ill with
the easy vision of a well-conducted heroine in an edifying story-book. The purest
intentions and the justest desires? No doubt; but was that all? To those who watched
closely, for instance, there might be something ominous in the curious contour of that
little mouth. When, after her first Council, she crossed the ante-room and found her
mother waiting for her, she said, "And now, Mamma, am I really and truly Queen?"
"You see, my dear, that it is so." "Then, dear Mamma, I hope you will grant
me the first request I make to you, as Queen. Let me be by myself for an hour." For
an hour she remained in solitude. Then she reappeared, and gave a significant order: her
bed was to be moved out of her mother's room. It was the doom of the Duchess of Kent. The
long years of waiting were over at last; the moment of a lifetime had come; her daughter
was Queen of England; and that very moment brought her own annihilation. She found
herself, absolutely and irretrievably, shut off from every vestige of influence, of
confidence, of power. She was surrounded, indeed, by all the outward signs of respect and
consideration; but that only made the inward truth of her position the more intolerable.
Through the mingled formalities of Court etiquette and filial duty, she could never
penetrate to Victoria. She was unable to conceal her disappointment and her rage. "I1
n'y a plus d'avenir pour moi," she exclaimed to Madame de Lieven; "je ne suis
plus rien." For eighteen years, she said, this child had been the sole object of her
existence, of her thoughts, her hopes, and now—no! she would not be comforted, she
had lost everything, she was to the last degree unhappy. Sailing, so gallantly and so
pertinaciously, through the buffeting storms of life, the stately vessel, with sails still
swelling and pennons flying, had put into harbour at last; to find there nothing—a
land of bleak desolation.
Within a month of the accession, the realities of the new situation
assumed a visible shape. The whole royal household moved from Kensington to Buckingham
Palace, and, in the new abode, the Duchess of Kent was given a suite of apartments
entirely separate from the Queen's. By Victoria herself the change was welcomed, though,
at the moment of departure, she could afford to be sentimental. "Though I rejoice to
go into B. P. for many reasons," she wrote in her diary, "it is not without
feelings of regret that I shall bid adieu for ever to this my birthplace, where I have
been born and bred, and to which I am really attached!" Her memory lingered for a
moment over visions of the past: her sister's wedding, pleasant balls and delicious
concerts and there were other recollections. "I have gone through painful and
disagreeable scenes here, 'tis true," she concluded, "but still I am fond of the
poor old palace.
At the same time she took another decided step. She had determined that
she would see no more of Sir John Conroy. She rewarded his past services with liberality:
he was given a baronetcy and a pension of £3000 a year; he remained a member of the
Duchess's household, but his personal intercourse with the Queen came to an abrupt
conclusion.
II
It was clear that these interior changes—whatever else they
might betoken—marked the triumph of one person—the Baroness Lehzen. The pastor's
daughter observed the ruin of her enemies. Discreet and victorious, she remained in
possession of the field. More closely than ever did she cleave to the side of her
mistress, her pupil, and her friend; and in the recesses of the palace her mysterious
figure was at once invisible and omnipresent. When the Queen's Ministers came in at one
door, the Baroness went out by another; when they retired, she immediately returned.
Nobody knew—nobody ever will know—the precise extent and the precise nature of
her influence. She herself declared that she never discussed public affairs with the
Queen, that she was concerned with private matters only—with private letters and the
details of private life. Certainly her hand is everywhere discernible in Victoria's early
correspondence. The Journal is written in the style of a child; the Letters are not so
simple; they are the work of a child, rearranged—with the minimum of alteration, no
doubt, and yet perceptibly—by a governess. And the governess was no fool: narrow,
jealous, provincial, she might be; but she was an acute and vigorous woman, who had gained
by a peculiar insight, a peculiar ascendancy. That ascendancy she meant to keep. No doubt
it was true that technically she took no part in public business; but the distinction
between what is public and what is private is always a subtle one; and in the case of a
reigning sovereign—as the next few years were to show—it is often imaginary.
Considering all things—the characters of the persons, and the character of the
times—it was something more than a mere matter of private interest that the bedroom
of Baroness Lehzen at Buckingham Palace should have been next door to the bedroom of the
Queen.
But the influence wielded by the Baroness, supreme as it seemed within
its own sphere, was not unlimited; there were other forces at work. For one thing, the
faithful Stockmar had taken up his residence in the palace. During the twenty years which
had elapsed since the death of the Princess Charlotte, his experiences had been varied and
remarkable. The unknown counsellor of a disappointed princeling had gradually risen to a
position of European importance. His devotion to his master had been not only
whole—hearted but cautious and wise. It was Stockmar's advice that had kept Prince
Leopold in England during the critical years which followed his wife's death, and had thus
secured to him the essential requisite of a point d'appui in the country of his adoption.
It was Stockmar's discretion which had smoothed over the embarrassments surrounding the
Prince's acceptance and rejection of the Greek crown. It was Stockmar who had induced the
Prince to become the constitutional Sovereign of Belgium. Above all, it was Stockmar's
tact, honesty, and diplomatic skill which, through a long series of arduous and
complicated negotiations, had led to the guarantee of Belgian neutrality by the Great
Powers. His labours had been rewarded by a German barony and by the complete confidence of
King Leopold. Nor was it only in Brussels that he was treated with respect and listened to
with attention. The statesmen who governed England—Lord Grey, Sir Robert Peel, Lord
Palmerston, Lord Melbourne—had learnt to put a high value upon his probity and his
intelligence. "He is one of the cleverest fellows I ever saw," said Lord
Melbourne, "the most discreet man, the most well-judging, and most cool man."
And Lord Palmerston cited Baron Stockmar as the only absolutely disinterested man he had
come across in life, At last he was able to retire to Coburg, and to enjoy for a few years
the society of the wife and children whom his labours in the service of his master had
hitherto only allowed him to visit at long intervals for a month or two at a time. But in
1836 he had been again entrusted with an important negotiation, which he had brought to a
successful conclusion in the marriage of Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg, a nephew of King
Leopold's, with Queen Maria II of Portugal. The House of Coburg was beginning to spread
over Europe; and the establishment of the Baron at Buckingham Palace in 1837 was to be the
prelude of another and a more momentous advance.
King Leopold and his counsellor provide in their careers an example of
the curious diversity of human ambitions. The desires of man are wonderfully various; but
no less various are the means by which those desires may reach satisfaction: and so the
work of the world gets done. The correct mind of Leopold craved for the whole apparatus of
royalty. Mere power would have held no attractions for him; he must be an actual
king—the crowned head of a people. It was not enough to do; it was essential also to
be recognised; anything else would not be fitting. The greatness that he dreamt of was
surrounded by every appropriate circumstance. To be a Majesty, to be a cousin of
Sovereigns, to marry a Bourbon for diplomatic ends, to correspond with the Queen of
England, to be very stiff and very punctual, to found a dynasty, to bore ambassadresses
into fits, to live, on the highest pinnacle, an exemplary life devoted to the public
service—such were his objects, and such, in fact, were his achievements. The
"Marquis Peu-à-peu," as George IV called him, had what he wanted. But this
would never have been the case if it had not happened that the ambition of Stockmar took a
form exactly complementary to his own. The sovereignty that the Baron sought for was by no
means obvious. The satisfaction of his essential being lay in obscurity, in
invisibility—in passing, unobserved, through a hidden entrance, into the very central
chamber of power, and in sitting there, quietly, pulling the subtle strings that set the
wheels of the whole world in motion. A very few people, in very high places, and
exceptionally well-informed, knew that Baron Stockmar was a most important person: that
was enough. The fortunes of the master and the servant, intimately interacting, rose
together. The Baron's secret skill had given Leopold his unexceptionable kingdom; and
Leopold, in his turn, as time went on, was able to furnish the Baron with more and more
keys to more and more back doors.
Stockmar took up his abode in the Palace partly as the emissary of King
Leopold, but more particularly as the friend and adviser of a queen who was almost a
child, and who, no doubt, would be much in need of advice and friendship. For it would be
a mistake to suppose that either of these two men was actuated by a vulgar selfishness.
The King, indeed, was very well aware on which side his bread was buttered; during an
adventurous and chequered life he had acquired a shrewd knowledge of the world's workings;
and he was ready enough to use that knowledge to strengthen his position and to spread his
influence. But then, the firmer his position and the wider his influence, the better for
Europe; of that he was quite certain. And besides, he was a constitutional monarch; and it
would be highly indecorous in a constitutional monarch to have any aims that were low or
personal.
Lord Palmerston
As for Stockmar, the disinterestedness which Palmerston had noted was
undoubtedly a basic element in his character. The ordinary schemer is always an optimist;
and Stockmar, racked by dyspepsia and haunted by gloomy forebodings, was a
constitutionally melancholy man. A schemer, no doubt, he was; but he schemed
distrustfully, splenetically, to do good. To do good! What nobler end could a man scheme
for? Yet it is perilous to scheme at all.
With Lehzen to supervise every detail of her conduct, with Stockmar in
the next room, so full of wisdom and experience of affairs, with her Uncle Leopold's
letters, too, pouring out so constantly their stream of encouragements, general
reflections, and highly valuable tips, Victoria, even had she been without other guidance,
would have stood in no lack of private counsellor. But other guidance she had; for all
these influences paled before a new star, of the first magnitude, which, rising suddenly
upon her horizon, immediately dominated her life.
III
William Lamb, Viscount Melbourne, was fifty-eight years of age, and
had been for the last three years Prime Minister of England. In every outward respect he
was one of the most fortunate of mankind. He had been born into the midst of riches,
brilliance, and power. His mother, fascinating and intelligent, had been a great Whig
hostess, and he had been bred up as a member of that radiant society which, during the
last quarter of the eighteenth century, concentrated within itself the ultimate
perfections of a hundred years of triumphant aristocracy. Nature had given him beauty and
brains; the unexpected death of an elder brother brought him wealth, a peerage, and the
possibility of high advancement. Within that charmed circle, whatever one's personal
disabilities, it was difficult to fail; and to him, with all his advantages, success was
well-nigh unavoidable. With little effort, he attained political eminence. On the triumph
of the Whigs he became one of the leading members of the Government; and when Lord Grey
retired from the premiership he quietly stepped into the vacant place. Nor was it only in
the visible signs of fortune that Fate had been kind to him. Bound to succeed, and to
succeed easily, he was gifted with so fine a nature that his success became him. His mind,
at once supple and copious, his temperament, at once calm and sensitive, enabled him not
merely to work, but to live with perfect facility and with the grace of strength. In
society he was a notable talker, a captivating companion, a charming man. If one looked
deeper, one saw at once that he was not ordinary, that the piquancies of his conversation
and his manner—his free-and-easy vaguenesses, his abrupt questions, his lollings and
loungings, his innumerable oaths—were something more than an amusing ornament, were
the outward manifestation of an individuality that was fundamental.
The precise nature of this individuality was very difficult to gauge:
it was dubious, complex, perhaps self—contradictory. Certainly there was an ironical
discordance between the inner history of the man and his apparent fortunes. He owed all he
had to his birth, and his birth was shameful; it was known well enough that his mother had
passionately loved Lord Egremont, and that Lord Melbourne was not his father. His
marriage, which had seemed to be the crown of his youthful ardours, was a long, miserable,
desperate failure: the incredible Lady Caroline, "With pleasures too refined to
please, With too much spirit to be e'er at ease, With too much quickness to be ever
taught, With too much thinking to have common thought," was very nearly the
destruction of his life. When at last he emerged from the anguish and confusion of her
folly, her extravagance, her rage, her despair, and her devotion, he was left alone with
endless memories of intermingled farce and tragedy, and an only son, who was an imbecile.
But there was something else that he owed to Lady Caroline. While she whirled with Byron
in a hectic frenzy of love and fashion, he had stayed at home in an indulgence bordering
on cynicism, and occupied his solitude with reading. It was thus that he had acquired
those habits of study, that love of learning, and that wide and accurate knowledge of
ancient and modern literature, which formed so unexpected a part of his mental equipment.
His passion for reading never deserted him; even when he was Prime Minister he found time
to master every new important book. With an incongruousness that was characteristic, his
favourite study was theology. An accomplished classical scholar, he was deeply read in the
Fathers of the Church; heavy volumes of commentary and exegesis he examined with
scrupulous diligence; and at any odd moment he might be found turning over the pages of
the Bible. To the ladies whom he most liked, he would lend some learned work on the
Revelation, crammed with marginal notes in his own hand, or Dr. Lardner's
"Observations upon the Jewish Errors with respect to the Conversion of Mary
Magdalene." The more pious among them had high hopes that these studies would lead
him into the right way; but of this there were no symptoms in his after-dinner
conversations.
The paradox of his political career was no less curious. By temperament
an aristocrat, by conviction a conservative, he came to power as the leader of the popular
party, the party of change. He had profoundly disliked the Reform Bill, which he had only
accepted at last as a necessary evil; and the Reform Bill lay at the root of the very
existence, of the very meaning, of his government. He was far too sceptical to believe in
progress of any kind. Things were best as they were or rather, they were least bad.
"You'd better try to do no good," was one of his dictums, "and then you'll
get into no scrapes." Education at best was futile; education of the poor was
positively dangerous. The factory children? "Oh, if you'd only have the goodness to
leave them alone!" Free Trade was a delusion; the ballot was nonsense; and there was
no such thing as a democracy.
Nevertheless, he was not a reactionary; he was simply an opportunist.
The whole duty of government, he said, was "to prevent crime and to preserve
contracts." All one could really hope to do was to carry on. He himself carried on in
a remarkable manner—with perpetual compromises, with fluctuations and contradictions,
with every kind of weakness, and yet with shrewdness, with gentleness, even with
conscientiousness, and a light and airy mastery of men and of events. He conducted the
transactions of business with extraordinary nonchalance. Important persons, ushered up for
some grave interview, found him in a towselled bed, littered with books and papers, or
vaguely shaving in a dressing-room; but, when they went downstairs again, they would
realise that somehow or other they had been pumped. When he had to receive a deputation,
he could hardly ever do so with becoming gravity. The worthy delegates of the
tallow-chandlers, or the Society for the Abolition of Capital Punishment, were distressed
and mortified when, in the midst of their speeches, the Prime Minister became absorbed in
blowing a feather, or suddenly cracked an unseemly joke. How could they have guessed that
he had spent the night before diligently getting up the details of their case? He hated
patronage and the making of appointments—a feeling rare in Ministers. "As for
the Bishops," he burst out, "I positively believe they die to vex me." But
when at last the appointment was made, it was made with keen discrimination. His
colleagues observed another symptom—was it of his irresponsibility or his wisdom? He
went to sleep in the Cabinet.
Probably, if he had been born a little earlier, he would have been a
simpler and a happier man. As it was, he was a child of the eighteenth century whose lot
was cast in a new, difficult, unsympathetic age. He was an autumn rose. With all his
gracious amenity, his humour, his happy-go-lucky ways, a deep disquietude possessed him. A
sentimental cynic, a sceptical believer, he was restless and melancholy at heart. Above
all, he could never harden himself; those sensitive petals shivered in every wind.
Whatever else he might be, one thing was certain: Lord Melbourne was always human,
supremely human—too human, perhaps.
And now, with old age upon him, his life took a sudden, new,
extraordinary turn. He became, in the twinkling of an eye, the intimate adviser and the
daily companion of a young girl who had stepped all at once from a nursery to a throne.
His relations with women had been, like everything else about him, ambiguous. Nobody had
ever been able quite to gauge the shifting, emotional complexities of his married life;
Lady Caroline vanished; but his peculiar susceptibilities remained. Female society of some
kind or other was necessary to him, and he did not stint himself; a great part of every
day was invariably spent in it. The feminine element in him made it easy, made it natural
and inevitable for him to be the friend of a great many women; but the masculine element
in him was strong as well. In such circumstances it is also easy, it is even natural,
perhaps it is even inevitable, to be something more than a friend. There were rumours and
combustions. Lord Melbourne was twice a co-respondent in a divorce action; but on each
occasion he won his suit. The lovely Lady Brandon, the unhappy and brilliant Mrs.
Norton... the law exonerated them both. Beyond that hung an impenetrable veil. But at any
rate it was clear that, with such a record, the Prime Minister's position in Buckingham
Palace must be a highly delicate one. However, he was used to delicacies, and he met the
situation with consummate success. His behaviour was from the first moment impeccable. His
manner towards the young Queen mingled, with perfect facility, the watchfulness and the
respect of a statesman and a courtier with the tender solicitude of a parent. He was at
once reverential and affectionate, at once the servant and the guide. At the same time the
habits of his life underwent a surprising change. His comfortable, unpunctual days became
subject to the unaltering routine of a palace; no longer did he sprawl on sofas; not a
single "damn" escaped his lips. The man of the world who had been the friend of
Byron and the regent, the talker whose paradoxes had held Holland House enthralled, the
cynic whose ribaldries had enlivened so many deep potations, the lover whose soft words
had captivated such beauty and such passion and such wit, might now be seen, evening after
evening, talking with infinite politeness to a schoolgirl, bolt upright, amid the silence
and the rigidity of Court etiquette.
IV
On her side, Victoria was instantaneously fascinated by Lord
Melbourne. The good report of Stockmar had no doubt prepared the way; Lehzen was wisely
propitiated; and the first highly favourable impression was never afterwards belied. She
found him perfect; and perfect in her sight he remained. Her absolute and unconcealed
adoration was very natural; what innocent young creature could have resisted, in any
circumstances, the charm and the devotion of such a man? But, in her situation, there was
a special influence which gave a peculiar glow to all she felt. After years of emptiness
and dullness and suppression, she had come suddenly, in the heyday of youth, into freedom
and power. She was mistress of herself, of great domains and palaces; she was Queen of
England. Responsibilities and difficulties she might have, no doubt, and in heavy measure;
but one feeling dominated and absorbed all others—the feeling of joy. Everything
pleased her. She was in high spirits from morning till night. Mr. Creevey, grown old now,
and very near his end, catching a glimpse of her at Brighton, was much amused, in his
sharp fashion, by the ingenuous gaiety of "little Vic." "A more homely
little being you never beheld, when she is at her ease, and she is evidently dying to be
always more so. She laughs in real earnest, opening her mouth as wide as it can go,
showing not very pretty gums... She eats quite as heartily as she laughs, I think I may
say she gobbles... She blushes and laughs every instant in so natural a way as to disarm
anybody." But it was not merely when she was laughing or gobbling that she enjoyed
herself; the performance of her official duties gave her intense satisfaction. "I
really have immensely to do," she wrote in her Journal a few days after her
accession; "I receive so many communications from my Ministers, but I like it very
much." And again, a week later, "I repeat what I said before that I have so many
communications from the Ministers, and from me to them, and I get so many papers to sign
every day, that I have always a very great deal to do. I delight in this work."
Through the girl's immaturity the vigorous predestined tastes of the woman were pushing
themselves into existence with eager velocity, with delicious force.
One detail of her happy situation deserves particular mention. Apart
from the splendour of her social position and the momentousness of her political one, she
was a person of great wealth. As soon as Parliament met, an annuity of £385,000 was
settled upon her. When the expenses of her household had been discharged, she was left
with £68,000 a year of her own. She enjoyed besides the revenues of the Duchy of
Lancaster, which amounted annually to over £27,000. The first use to which she put her
money was characteristic: she paid off her father's debts. In money matters, no less than
in other matters, she was determined to be correct. She had the instincts of a man of
business; and she never could have borne to be in a position that was financially unsound.
With youth and happiness gilding every hour, the days passed merrily
enough. And each day hinged upon Lord Melbourne. Her diary shows us, with undiminished
clarity, the life of the young sovereign during the early months of her reign—a life
satisfactorily regular, full of delightful business, a life of simple pleasures, mostly
physical—riding, eating, dancing—a quick, easy, highly unsophisticated life,
sufficient unto itself. The light of the morning is upon it; and, in the rosy radiance,
the figure of "Lord M." emerges, glorified and supreme. If she is the heroine of
the story, he is the hero; but indeed they are more than hero and heroine, for there are
no other characters at all. Lehzen, the Baron, Uncle Leopold, are unsubstantial
shadows—the incidental supers of the piece. Her paradise was peopled by two persons,
and surely that was enough. One sees them together still, a curious couple, strangely
united in those artless pages, under the magical illumination of that dawn of eighty years
ago: the polished high fine gentleman with the whitening hair and whiskers and the thick
dark eyebrows and the mobile lips and the big expressive eyes; and beside him the tiny
Queen—fair, slim, elegant, active, in her plain girl's dress and little tippet,
looking up at him earnestly, adoringly, with eyes blue and projecting, and half-open
mouth. So they appear upon every page of the Journal; upon every page Lord M. is present,
Lord M. is speaking, Lord M. is being amusing, instructive, delightful, and affectionate
at once, while Victoria drinks in the honied words, laughs till she shows her gums, tries
hard to remember, and runs off, as soon as she is left alone, to put it all down. Their
long conversations touched upon a multitude of topics. Lord M. would criticise books,
throw out a remark or two on the British Constitution, make some passing reflections on
human life, and tell story after story of the great people of the eighteenth century. Then
there would be business a despatch perhaps from Lord Durham in Canada, which Lord M. would
read. But first he must explain a little. "He said that I must know that Canada
originally belonged to the French, and was only ceded to the English in 1760, when it was
taken in an expedition under Wolfe: 'a very daring enterprise,' he said. Canada was then
entirely French, and the British only came afterwards... Lord M. explained this very
clearly (and much better than I have done) and said a good deal more about it. He then
read me Durham's despatch, which is a very long one and took him more than ½ an hour to
read. Lord M. read it beautifully with that fine soft voice of his, and with so much
expression, so that it is needless to say I was much interested by it." And then the
talk would take a more personal turn. Lord M. would describe his boyhood, and she would
learn that "he wore his hair long, as all boys then did, till he was 17; (how
handsome he must have looked!)." Or she would find out about his queer tastes and
habits—how he never carried a watch, which seemed quite extraordinary. "'I
always ask the servant what o'clock it is, and then he tells me what he likes,' said Lord
M." Or, as the rooks wheeled about round the trees, "in a manner which indicated
rain," he would say that he could sit looking at them for an hour, and "was
quite surprised at my disliking them. M. said, ' The rooks are my delight.'"
The day's routine, whether in London or at Windsor, was almost
invariable. The morning was devoted to business and Lord M. In the afternoon the whole
Court went out riding. The Queen, in her velvet riding—habit and a top-hat with a
veil draped about the brim, headed the cavalcade; and Lord M. rode beside her. The lively
troupe went fast and far, to the extreme exhilaration of Her Majesty. Back in the Palace
again, there was still time for a little more fun before dinner—a game of battledore
and shuttlecock perhaps, or a romp along the galleries with some children. Dinner came,
and the ceremonial decidedly tightened. The gentleman of highest rank sat on the right
hand of the Queen; on her left—it soon became an established rule—sat Lord
Melbourne. After the ladies had left the dining-room, the gentlemen were not permitted to
remain behind for very long; indeed, the short time allowed them for their wine-drinking
formed the subject—so it was rumoured—of one of the very few disputes between
the Queen and her Prime Minister;(2) but her determination
carried the day, and from that moment after-dinner drunkenness began to go out of fashion.
When the company was reassembled in the drawing-room the etiquette was stiff. For a few
moments the Queen spoke in turn to each one of her guests; and during these short uneasy
colloquies the aridity of royalty was apt to become painfully evident. One night Mr.
Greville, the Clerk of the Privy Council, was present; his turn soon came; the
middle-aged, hard-faced viveur was addressed by his young hostess. "Have you been
riding to-day, Mr. Greville?" asked the Queen. "No, Madam, I have not,"
replied Mr. Greville. "It was a fine day," continued the Queen. "Yes,
Madam, a very fine day," said Mr. Greville. "It was rather cold, though,"
said the Queen. "It was rather cold, Madam," said Mr. Greville. "Your
sister, Lady Frances Egerton, rides, I think, doesn't she?" said the Queen. "She
does ride sometimes, Madam," said Mr. Greville. There was a pause, after which Mr.
Greville ventured to take the lead, though he did not venture to change the subject.
"Has your Majesty been riding today?" asked Mr. Greville. "Oh yes, a very
long ride," answered the Queen with animation. "Has your Majesty got a nice
horse?" said Mr. Greville. "Oh, a very nice horse," said the Queen. It was
over. Her Majesty gave a smile and an inclination of the head, Mr. Greville a profound
bow, and the next conversation began with the next gentleman. When all the guests had been
disposed of, the Duchess of Kent sat down to her whist, while everybody else was ranged
about the round table. Lord Melbourne sat beside the Queen, and talked
pertinaciously—very often a propos to the contents of one of the large albums of
engravings with which the round table was covered—until it was half-past eleven and
time to go to bed.
Occasionally, there were little diversions: the evening might be spent
at the opera or at the play. Next morning the royal critic was careful to note down her
impressions. "It was Shakespeare's tragedy of Hamlet, and we came in at the beginning
of it. Mr. Charles Kean (son of old Kean) acted the part of Hamlet, and I must say
beautifully. His conception of this very difficult, and I may almost say incomprehensible,
character is admirable; his delivery of all the fine long speeches quite beautiful; he is
excessively graceful and all his actions and attitudes are good, though not at all
good-looking in face... I came away just as Hamlet was over." Later on, she went to
see Macready in King Lear. The story was new to her; she knew nothing about it, and at
first she took very little interest in what was passing on the stage; she preferred to
chatter and laugh with the Lord Chamberlain. But, as the play went on, her mood changed;
her attention was fixed, and then she laughed no more. Yet she was puzzled; it seemed a
strange, a horrible business. What did Lord M. think? Lord M. thought it was a very fine
play, but to be sure, "a rough, coarse play, written for those times, with
exaggerated characters." "I'm glad you've seen it," he added. But,
undoubtedly, the evenings which she enjoyed most were those on which there was dancing.
She was always ready enough to seize any excuse—the arrival of cousins—a
birthday—a gathering of young people—to give the command for that. Then, when
the band played, and the figures of the dancers swayed to the music, and she felt her own
figure swaying too, with youthful spirits so close on every side—then her happiness
reached its height, her eyes sparkled, she must go on and on into the small hours of the
morning. For a moment Lord M. himself was forgotten.
V
The months flew past. The summer was over: "the pleasantest
summer I ever passed in my life, and I shall never forget this
first summer of my reign." With surprising rapidity, another summer was upon her. The
coronation came and went—a curious dream. The antique, intricate, endless ceremonial
worked itself out as best it could, like some machine of gigantic complexity which was a
little out of order. The small central figure went through her gyrations. She sat; she
walked; she prayed; she carried about an orb that was almost too heavy to hold; the
Archbishop of Canterbury came and crushed a ring upon the wrong finger, so that she was
ready to cry out with the pain; old Lord Rolle tripped up in his mantle and fell down the
steps as he was doing homage; she was taken into a side chapel, where the altar was
covered with a table-cloth, sandwiches, and bottles of wine; she perceived Lehzen in an
upper box and exchanged a smile with her as she sat, robed and crowned, on the Confessor's
throne. "I shall ever remember this day as the proudest of my life,"
she noted. But the pride was soon merged once more in youth and simplicity. When she
returned to Buckingham Palace at last she was not tired; she ran up to her private rooms,
doffed her splendours, and gave her dog Dash its evening bath.
Life flowed on again with its accustomed smoothness—though, of
course, the smoothness was occasionally disturbed. For one thing, there was the
distressing behaviour of Uncle Leopold. The King of the Belgians had not been able to
resist attempting to make use of his family position to further his diplomatic ends. But,
indeed, why should there be any question of resisting? Was not such a course of conduct,
far from being a temptation, simply "selon les regles?" What were royal
marriages for, if they did not enable sovereigns, in spite of the hindrances of
constitutions, to control foreign politics? For the highest purposes, of course; that was
understood. The Queen of England was his niece—more than that—almost his
daughter; his confidential agent was living, in a position of intimate favour, at her
court. Surely, in such circumstances, it would be preposterous, it would be positively
incorrect, to lose the opportunity of bending to his wishes by means of personal
influence, behind the backs of the English Ministers, the foreign policy of England.
He set about the task with becoming precautions. He continued in his
letters his admirable advice. Within a few days of her accession, he recommended the young
Queen to lay emphasis, on every possible occasion, upon her English birth; to praise the
English nation; "the Established Church I also recommend strongly; you cannot,
without pledging yourself to anything particular, say too much on the subject."
And then "before you decide on anything important I should be glad if you would
consult me; this would also have the advantage of giving you time;" nothing was more
injurious than to be hurried into wrong decisions unawares. His niece replied at once with
all the accustomed warmth of her affection; but she wrote hurriedly—and, perhaps, a
trifle vaguely too. "Your advice is always of the greatest importance
to me," she said.
Had he, possibly, gone too far? He could not be certain; perhaps
Victoria had been hurried. In any case, he would be careful; he would draw
back—"pour mieux sauter" he added to himself with a smile. In his next
letters he made no reference to his suggestion of consultations with himself; he merely
pointed out the wisdom, in general, of refusing to decide upon important questions
off-hand. So far, his advice was taken; and it was noticed that the Queen, when
applications were made to her, rarely gave an immediate answer. Even with Lord Melbourne,
it was the same; when he asked for her opinion upon any subject, she would reply that she
would think it over, and tell him her conclusions next day.
King Leopold's counsels continued. The Princess de Lieven, he said, was
a dangerous woman; there was reason to think that she would make attempts to pry into what
did not concern her, let Victoria beware. "A rule which I cannot sufficiently
recommend is never to permit people to speak on subjects concerning
yourself or your affairs, without you having yourself desired them to do so." Should
such a thing occur, "change the conversation, and make the individual feel that he
has made a mistake." This piece of advice was also taken; for it fell out as the King
had predicted. Madame de Lieven sought an audience, and appeared to be verging towards
confidential topics; whereupon the Queen, becoming slightly embarrassed, talked of nothing
but commonplaces. The individual felt that she had made a mistake.
The King's next warning was remarkable. Letters, he pointed out, are
almost invariably read in the post. This was inconvenient, no doubt; but the fact, once
properly grasped, was not without its advantages. "I will give you an example: we are
still plagued by Prussia concerning those fortresses; now to tell the Prussian Government
many things, which we should not like to tell them officially,
the Minister is going to write a despatch to our man at Berlin, sending it by post;
the Prussians are sure to read it, and to learn in this way what we wish
them to hear. Analogous circumstances might very probably occur in England. I tell you the
trick," wrote His Majesty, "that you should be able to guard against
it." Such were the subtleties of constitutional sovereignty.
It seemed that the time had come for another step. The King's next
letter was full of foreign politics—the situation in Spain and Portugal, the
character of Louis Philippe; and he received a favourable answer. Victoria, it is true,
began by saying that she had shown the political part of his letter to Lord
Melbourne; but she proceeded to a discussion of foreign affairs. It appeared that she was
not unwilling to exchange observations on such matters with her uncle. So far so good. But
King Leopold was still cautious; though a crisis was impending in his diplomacy, he still
hung back; at last, however, he could keep silence no longer. It was of the utmost
importance to him that, in his manoeuvrings with France and Holland, he should have, or at
any rate appear to have, English support. But the English Government appeared to adopt a
neutral attitude; it was too bad; not to be for him was to be against him, could they not
see that? Yet, perhaps, they were only wavering, and a little pressure upon them from
Victoria might still save all. He determined to put the case before her, delicately yet
forcibly—just as he saw it himself. "All I want from your kind Majesty," he
wrote, "is, that you will occasionally express to your Ministers, and
particularly to good Lord Melbourne, that, as far as it is compatible with the
interests of your own dominions, you do not wish that your Government should take
the lead in such measures as might in a short time bring on the destruction of
this country, as well as that of your uncle and his family." The result of this
appeal was unexpected; there was dead silence for more than a week. When Victoria at last
wrote, she was prodigal of her affection." It would, indeed, my dearest Uncle, be very
wrong of you, if you thought my feelings of warm and devoted attachment to you,
and of great affection for you, could be changed—nothing can ever change
them"—but her references to foreign politics, though they were lengthy and
elaborate, were non-committal in the extreme; they were almost cast in an official and
diplomatic form. Her Ministers, she said, entirely shared her views upon the subject; she
understood and sympathised with the difficulties of her beloved uncle's position; and he
might rest assured "that both Lord Melbourne and Lord Palmerston are most anxious at
all times for the prosperity and welfare of Belgium." That was all. The King in his
reply declared himself delighted, and re-echoed the affectionate protestations of his
niece. "My dearest and most beloved Victoria," he said, "you have written
me a very dear and long letter, which has given me great pleasure
and satisfaction." He would not admit that he had had a rebuff.
A few months later the crisis came. King Leopold determined to make a
bold push, and to carry Victoria with him, this time, by a display of royal vigour and
avuncular authority. In an abrupt, an almost peremptory letter, he laid his case, once
more, before his niece. "You know from experience," he wrote, "that I never
ask anything of you... But, as I said before, if we are not careful we may see
serious consequences which may affect more or less everybody, and this ought to
be the object of our most anxious attention. I remain, my dear Victoria, your affectionate
uncle, Leopold R." The Queen immediately despatched this letter to Lord Melbourne,
who replied with a carefully thought-out form of words, signifying nothing whatever,
which, he suggested, she should send to her uncle. She did so, copying out the elaborate
formula, with a liberal scattering of "dear Uncles" interspersed; and she
concluded her letter with a message of "affectionate love to Aunt Louise and the
children." Then at last King Leopold was obliged to recognise the facts. His next
letter contained no reference at all to politics. "I am glad," he wrote,
"to find that you like Brighton better than last year. I think Brighton very
agreeable at this time of the year, till the east winds set in. The pavilion, besides, is
comfortable; that cannot be denied. Before my marriage, it was there that I met the
Regent. Charlotte afterwards came with old Queen Charlotte. How distant all this already,
but still how present to one's memory." Like poor Madame de Lieven, His Majesty felt
that he had made a mistake.
Nevertheless, he could not quite give up all hope. Another opportunity
offered, and he made another effort—but there was not very much conviction in it, and
it was immediately crushed. "My dear Uncle," the Queen wrote, "I have to
thank you for your last letter which I received on Sunday. Though you seem not to dislike
my political sparks, I think it is better not to increase them, as they might finally take
fire, particularly as I see with regret that upon this one subject we cannot agree. I
shall, therefore, limit myself to my expressions of very sincere wishes for the welfare
and prosperity of Belgium." After that, it was clear that there was no more to be
said. Henceforward there is audible in the King's letters a curiously elegiac note.
"My dearest Victoria, your delightful little letter has just arrived and
went like an arrow to my heart. Yes, my beloved Victoria! I do love
you tenderly... I love you for yourself, and I love in you the dear
child whose welfare I tenderly watched." He had gone through much; yet, if life had
its disappointments, it had its satisfactions too. "I have all the honours that can
be given, and I am, politically speaking, very solidly established." But there were
other things besides politics, there were romantic yearnings in his heart. "The only
longing I still have is for the Orient, where I perhaps shall once end my life, rising in
the west and setting in the east." As for his devotion to his niece, that could never
end. "I never press my services on you, nor my councils, though I may say with some
truth that from the extraordinary fate which the higher powers had ordained for me, my
experience, both political and of private life, is great. I am always ready to be
useful to you when and where and it may be, and I repeat it, all I want in return is
some little sincere affection from you."
VI
The correspondence with King Leopold was significant of much that
still lay partly hidden in the character of Victoria. Her attitude towards her uncle had
never wavered for a moment. To all his advances she had presented an absolutely unyielding
front. The foreign policy of England was not his province; it was hers and her Ministers';
his insinuations, his entreaties, his struggles—all were quite useless; and he must
understand that this was so. The rigidity of her position was the more striking owing to
the respectfulness and the affection with which it was accompanied. From start to finish
the unmoved Queen remained the devoted niece. Leopold himself must have envied such
perfect correctitude; but what may be admirable in an elderly statesman is alarming in a
maiden of nineteen. And privileged observers were not without their fears. The strange
mixture of ingenuous light-heartedness and fixed determination, of frankness and
reticence, of childishness and pride, seemed to augur a future that was perplexed and full
of dangers. As time passed the less pleasant qualities in this curious composition
revealed themselves more often and more seriously. There were signs of an imperious, a
peremptory temper, an egotism that was strong and hard. It was noticed that the palace
etiquette, far from relaxing, grew ever more and more inflexible. By some, this was
attributed to Lehzen's influence; but, if that was so, Lehzen had a willing pupil; for the
slightest infringements of the freezing rules of regularity and deference were invariably
and immediately visited by the sharp and haughty glances of the Queen. Yet Her Majesty's
eyes, crushing as they could be, were less crushing than her mouth. The self-will depicted
in those small projecting teeth and that small receding chin was of a more dismaying kind
than that which a powerful jaw betokens; it was a self—will imperturbable,
impenetrable, unintelligent; a self-will dangerously akin to obstinacy. And the obstinacy
of monarchs is not as that of other men.
Within two years of her accession, the storm-clouds which, from the
first, had been dimly visible on the horizon, gathered and burst. Victoria's relations
with her mother had not improved. The Duchess of Kent, still surrounded by all the galling
appearances of filial consideration, remained in Buckingham Palace a discarded figure,
powerless and inconsolable. Sir John Conroy, banished from the presence of the Queen,
still presided over the Duchess's household, and the hostilities of Kensington continued
unabated in the new surroundings. Lady Flora Hastings still cracked her malicious jokes;
the animosity of the Baroness was still unappeased. One day, Lady Flora found the joke was
turned against her. Early in 1839, travelling in the suite of the Duchess, she had
returned from Scotland in the same carriage with Sir John. A change in her figure became
the subject of an unseemly jest; tongues wagged; and the jest grew serious. It was
whispered that Lady Flora was with child. The state of her health seemed to confirm the
suspicion; she consulted Sir James Clark, the royal physician, and, after the
consultation, Sir James let his tongue wag, too. On this, the scandal flared up sky-high.
Everyone was talking; the Baroness was not surprised; the Duchess rallied tumultuously to
the support of her lady; the Queen was informed. At last the extraordinary expedient of a
medical examination was resorted to, during which Sir James, according to Lady Flora,
behaved with brutal rudeness, while a second doctor was extremely polite. Finally, both
physicians signed a certificate entirely exculpating the lady. But this was by no means
the end of the business. The Hastings family, socially a very powerful one, threw itself
into the fray with all the fury of outraged pride and injured innocence; Lord Hastings
insisted upon an audience of the Queen, wrote to the papers, and demanded the dismissal of
Sir James Clark. The Queen expressed her regret to Lady Flora, but Sir James Clark was not
dismissed. The tide of opinion turned violently against the Queen and her advisers; high
society was disgusted by all this washing of dirty linen in Buckingham Palace; the public
at large was indignant at the ill-treatment of Lady Flora. By the end of March, the
popularity, so radiant and so abundant, with which the young Sovereign had begun her
reign, had entirely disappeared.
There can be no doubt that a great lack of discretion had been shown by
the Court. Ill-natured tittle-tattle, which should have been instantly nipped in the bud,
had been allowed to assume disgraceful proportions; and the Throne itself had become
involved in the personal malignities of the palace. A particularly awkward question had
been raised by the position of Sir James Clark. The Duke of Wellington, upon whom it was
customary to fall back, in cases of great difficulty in high places, had been consulted
upon this question, and he had given it as his opinion that, as it would be impossible to
remove Sir James without a public enquiry, Sir James must certainly stay where he was.
Probably the Duke was right; but the fact that the peccant doctor continued in the Queen's
service made the Hastings family irreconcilable and produced an unpleasant impression of
unrepentant error upon the public mind. As for Victoria, she was very young and quite
inexperienced; and she can hardly be blamed for having failed to control an extremely
difficult situation. That was clearly Lord Melbourne's task; he was a man of the world,
and, with vigilance and circumspection, he might have quietly put out the ugly flames
while they were still smouldering. He did not do so; he was lazy and easy-going; the
Baroness was persistent, and he let things slide. But doubtless his position was not an
easy one; passions ran high in the palace; and Victoria was not only very young, she was
very headstrong, too. Did he possess the magic bridle which would curb that fiery steed?
He could not be certain. And then, suddenly, another violent crisis revealed more
unmistakably than ever the nature of the mind with which he had to deal.
VII
The Queen had for long been haunted by a terror that the day might
come when she would be obliged to part with her Minister. Ever since the passage of the
Reform Bill, the power of the Whig Government had steadily declined. The General Election
of 1837 had left them with a very small majority in the House of Commons; since then, they
had been in constant difficulties—abroad, at home, in Ireland; the Radical group had
grown hostile; it became highly doubtful how much longer they could survive. The Queen
watched the development of events in great anxiety. She was a Whig by birth, by
upbringing, by every association, public and private; and, even if those ties had never
existed, the mere fact that Lord M. was the head of the Whigs would have amply sufficed to
determine her politics. The fall of the Whigs would mean a sad upset for Lord M. But it
would have a still more terrible consequence: Lord M. would have to leave her; and the
daily, the hourly, presence of Lord M. had become an integral part of her life. Six months
after her accession she had noted in her diary "I shall be very sorry to lose him
even for one night;" and this feeling of personal dependence on her Minister steadily
increased. In these circumstances it was natural that she should have become a Whig
partisan. Of the wider significance of political questions she knew nothing; all she saw
was that her friends were in office and about her, and that it would be dreadful if they
ceased to be so. "I cannot say," she wrote when a critical division was
impending, "(though I feel confident of our success) how low, how sad I feel, when I
think of the possibility of this excellent and truly kind man not remaining my Minister!
Yet I trust fervently that He who has so wonderfully protected me through such manifold
difficulties will not now desert me! I should have liked to have expressed to Lord M. my
anxiety, but the tears were nearer than words throughout the time I saw him, and I felt I
should have choked, had I attempted to say anything." Lord Melbourne realised clearly
enough how undesirable was such a state of mind in a constitutional sovereign who might be
called upon at any moment to receive as her Ministers the leaders of the opposite party;
he did what he could to cool her ardour; but in vain.
With considerable lack of foresight, too, he had himself helped to
bring about this unfortunate condition of affairs. From the moment of her accession, he
had surrounded the Queen with ladies of his own party; the Mistress of the Robes and all
the Ladies of the Bedchamber were Whigs. In the ordinary course, the Queen never saw a
Tory: eventually she took pains never to see one in any circumstances. She disliked the
whole tribe; and she did not conceal the fact. She particularly disliked Sir Robert Peel,
who would almost certainly be the next Prime Minister. His manners were detestable, and he
wanted to turn out Lord M. His supporters, without exception, were equally bad; and as for
Sir James Graham, she could not bear the sight of him; he was exactly like Sir John
Conroy.
The affair of Lady Flora intensified these party rumours still further.
The Hastings were Tories, and Lord Melbourne and the Court were attacked by the Tory press
in unmeasured language. The Queen's sectarian zeal proportionately increased. But the
dreaded hour was now fast approaching. Early in May the Ministers were visibly tottering;
on a vital point of policy they could only secure a majority of five in the House of
Commons; they determined to resign. When Victoria heard the news she burst into tears. Was
it possible, then, that all was over? Was she, indeed, about to see Lord M. for the last
time? Lord M. came; and it is a curious fact that, even in this crowning moment of misery
and agitation, the precise girl noted, to the minute, the exact time of the arrival and
the departure of her beloved Minister. The conversation was touching and prolonged; but it
could only end in one way—the Queen must send for the Duke of Wellington. When, next
morning, the Duke came, he advised her Majesty to send for Sir Robert Peel. She was in
"a state of dreadful grief," but she swallowed down her tears, and braced
herself, with royal resolution, for the odious, odious interview.
Peel was by nature reserved, proud, and shy. His manners were not
perfect, and he knew it; he was easily embarrassed, and, at such moments, he grew even
more stiff and formal than before, while his feet mechanically performed upon the carpet a
dancing-master's measure. Anxious as he now was to win the Queen's good graces, his very
anxiety to do so made the attainment of his object the more difficult. He entirely failed
to make any headway whatever with the haughty hostile girl before him. She coldly noted
that he appeared to be unhappy and "put out," and, while he stood in painful
fixity, with an occasional uneasy pointing of the toe, her heart sank within her at the
sight of that manner, "Oh! how different, how dreadfully different, to the frank,
open, natural, and most kind warm manner of Lord Melbourne." Nevertheless, the
audience passed without disaster. Only at one point had there been some slight hint of a
disagreement. Peel had decided that a change would be necessary in the composition of the
royal Household: the Queen must no longer be entirely surrounded by the wives and sisters
of his opponents; some, at any rate, of the Ladies of the Bedchamber should be friendly to
his Government. When this matter was touched upon, the Queen had intimated that she wished
her Household to remain unchanged; to which Sir Robert had replied that the question could
be settled later, and shortly afterwards withdrew to arrange the details of his Cabinet.
While he was present, Victoria had remained, as she herself said, "very much
collected, civil and high, and betrayed no agitation;" but as soon as she was alone
she completely broke down. Then she pulled herself together to write to Lord Melbourne an
account of all that had happened, and of her own wretchedness. "She feels," she
said, "Lord Melbourne will understand it, amongst enemies to those she most relied on
and most esteemed; but what is worst of all is the being deprived of seeing Lord Melbourne
as she used to do."
Lord Melbourne replied with a very wise letter. He attempted to calm
the Queen and to induce her to accept the new position gracefully; and he had nothing but
good words for the Tory leaders. As for the question of the Ladies of the Household, the
Queen, he said, should strongly urge what she desired, as it was a matter which concerned
her personally, "but," he added, "if Sir Robert is unable to concede it, it
will not do to refuse and to put off the negotiation upon it." On this point there
can be little doubt that Lord Melbourne was right. The question was a complicated and
subtle one, and it had never arisen before; but subsequent constitutional practice has
determined that a Queen Regnant must accede to the wishes of her Prime Minister as to the
personnel of the female part of her Household. Lord Melbourne's wisdom, however, was
wasted. The Queen would not be soothed, and still less would she take advice. It was
outrageous of the Tories to want to deprive her of her Ladies, and that night she made up
her mind that, whatever Sir Robert might say, she would refuse to consent to the removal
of a single one of them. Accordingly, when, next morning, Peel appeared again, she was
ready for action. He began by detailing the Cabinet appointments, and then he added
"Now, ma'am, about the Ladies-" when the Queen sharply interrupted him. "I
cannot give up any of my Ladies," she said. "What, ma'am!" said Sir Robert,
"does your Majesty mean to retain them all?" "All," said the Queen.
Sir Robert's face worked strangely; he could not conceal his agitation. "The Mistress
of the Robes and the Ladies of the Bedchamber?" he brought out at last.
"All," replied once more her Majesty. It was in vain that Peel pleaded and
argued; in vain that he spoke, growing every moment more pompous and uneasy, of the
constitution, and Queens Regnant, and the public interest; in vain that he danced his
pathetic minuet. She was adamant; but he, too, through all his embarrassment, showed no
sign of yielding; and when at last he left her nothing had been decided—the whole
formation of the Government was hanging in the wind. A frenzy of excitement now seized
upon Victoria. Sir Robert, she believed in her fury, had tried to outwit her, to take her
friends from her, to impose his will upon her own; but that was not all: she had suddenly
perceived, while the poor man was moving so uneasily before her, the one thing that she
was desperately longing for—a loop-hole of escape. She seized a pen and dashed off a
note to Lord Melbourne.
"Sir Robert has behaved very ill," she wrote, "he
insisted on my giving up my Ladies, to which I replied that I never would consent, and I
never saw a man so frightened... I was calm but very decided, and I think you would have
been pleased to see my composure and great firmness; the Queen of England will not submit
to such trickery. Keep yourself in readiness, for you may soon be wanted." Hardly had
she finished when the Duke of Wellington was announced. "Well, Ma'am," he said
as he entered, "I am very sorry to find there is a difficulty." "Oh!"
she instantly replied, "he began it, not me." She felt that only one thing now
was needed: she must be firm. And firm she was. The venerable conqueror of Napoleon was
outfaced by the relentless equanimity of a girl in her teens. He could not move the Queen
one inch. At last, she even ventured to rally him. "Is Sir Robert so weak," she
asked, "that even the Ladies must be of his opinion?" On which the Duke made a
brief and humble expostulation, bowed low, and departed.
Had she won? Time would show; and in the meantime she scribbled down
another letter. "Lord Melbourne must not think the Queen rash in her conduct... The
Queen felt this was an attempt to see whether she could be led and managed like a
child."(3) The Tories were not only wicked but
ridiculous. Peel, having, as she understood, expressed a wish to remove only those members
of the Household who were in Parliament, now objected to her Ladies. "I should like
to know," she exclaimed in triumphant scorn, "if they mean to give the Ladies
seats in Parliament?"
The end of the crisis was now fast approaching. Sir Robert returned,
and told her that if she insisted upon retaining all her Ladies he could not form a
Government. She replied that she would send him her final decision in writing. Next
morning the late Whig Cabinet met. Lord Melbourne read to them the Queen's letters, and
the group of elderly politicians were overcome by an extraordinary wave of enthusiasm.
They knew very well that, to say the least, it was highly doubtful whether the Queen had
acted in strict accordance with the constitution; that in doing what she had done she had
brushed aside Lord Melbourne's advice; that, in reality, there was no public reason
whatever why they should go back upon their decision to resign. But such considerations
vanished before the passionate urgency of Victoria. The intensity of her determination
swept them headlong down the stream of her desire. They unanimously felt that "it was
impossible to abandon such a Queen and such a woman." Forgetting that they were no
longer her Majesty's Ministers, they took the unprecedented course of advising the Queen
by letter to put an end to her negotiation with Sir Robert Peel. She did so; all was over;
she had triumphed. That evening there was a ball at the Palace. Everyone was present.
"Peel and the Duke of Wellington came by looking very much put out." She was
perfectly happy; Lord M. was Prime Minister once more, and he was by her side.
VIII
Happiness had returned with Lord M., but it was happiness in the
midst of agitation. The domestic imbroglio continued unabated, until at last the Duke,
rejected as a Minister, was called in once again in his old capacity as moral physician to
the family. Something was accomplished when, at last, he induced Sir John Conroy to resign
his place about the Duchess of Kent and leave the Palace for ever; something more when he
persuaded the Queen to write an affectionate letter to her mother. The way seemed open for
a reconciliation, but the Duchess was stormy still. She didn't believe that Victoria had
written that letter; it was not in her handwriting; and she sent for the Duke to tell him
so. The Duke, assuring her that the letter was genuine, begged her to forget the past. But
that was not so easy. "What am I to do if Lord Melbourne comes up to me?"
"Do, ma'am? Why, receive him with civility." Well, she would make an effort...
"But what am I to do if Victoria asks me to shake hands with Lehzen?" "Do,
ma'am? Why, take her in your arms and kiss her." "What!" The Duchess
bristled in every feather, and then she burst into a hearty laugh. "No, ma'am,
no," said the Duke, laughing too. "I don't mean you are to take Lehzen in your
arms and kiss her, but the Queen." The Duke might perhaps have succeeded, had not all
attempts at conciliation been rendered hopeless by a tragical event. Lady Flora, it was
discovered, had been suffering from a terrible internal malady, which now grew rapidly
worse. There could be little doubt that she was dying. The Queen's unpopularity reached an
extraordinary height. More than once she was publicly insulted. "Mrs.
Melbourne," was shouted at her when she appeared at her balcony; and, at Ascot, she
was hissed by the Duchess of Montrose and Lady Sarah Ingestre as she passed. Lady Flora
died. The whole scandal burst out again with redoubled vehemence; while, in the Palace,
the two parties were henceforth divided by an impassable, a Stygian, gulf.
Nevertheless, Lord M. was back, and every trouble faded under the
enchantment of his presence and his conversation. He, on his side, had gone through much;
and his distresses were intensified by a consciousness of his own shortcomings. He
realised clearly enough that, if he had intervened at the right moment, the Hastings
scandal might have been averted; and, in the bedchamber crisis, he knew that he had
allowed his judgment to be overruled and his conduct to be swayed by private feelings and
the impetuosity of Victoria. But he was not one to suffer too acutely from the pangs of
conscience. In spite of the dullness and the formality of the Court, his relationship with
the Queen had come to be the dominating interest in his life; to have been deprived of it
would have been heartrending; that dread eventuality had been—somehow—avoided;
he was installed once more, in a kind of triumph; let him enjoy the fleeting hours to the
full! And so, cherished by the favour of a sovereign and warmed by the adoration of a
girl, the autumn rose, in those autumn months of 1839, came to a wondrous blooming. The
petals expanded, beautifully, for the last time. For the last time in this
unlooked—for, this incongruous, this almost incredible intercourse, the old epicure
tasted the exquisiteness of romance. To watch, to teach, to restrain, to encourage the
royal young creature beside him—that was much; to feel with such a constant intimacy
the impact of her quick affection, her radiant vitality—that was more; most of all,
perhaps, was it good to linger vaguely in humorous contemplation, in idle apostrophe, to
talk disconnectedly, to make a little joke about an apple or a furbelow, to dream. The
springs of his sensibility, hidden deep within him, were overflowing. Often, as he bent
over her hand and kissed it, he found himself in tears.
Upon Victoria, with all her impermeability, it was inevitable that such
a companionship should have produced, eventually, an effect. She was no longer the simple
schoolgirl of two years since. The change was visible even in her public demeanour. Her
expression, once "ingenuous and serene," now appeared to a shrewd observer to be
"bold and discontented." She had learnt something of the pleasures of power and
the pains of it; but that was not all. Lord Melbourne with his gentle instruction had
sought to lead her into the paths of wisdom and moderation, but the whole unconscious
movement of his character had swayed her in a very different direction. The hard clear
pebble, subjected for so long and so constantly to that encircling and insidious fluidity,
had suffered a curious corrosion; it seemed to be actually growing a little soft and a
little clouded. Humanity and fallibility are infectious things; was it possible that
Lehzen's prim pupil had caught them? That she was beginning to listen to siren voices?
That the secret impulses of self-expression, of self-indulgence even, were mastering her
life? For a moment the child of a new age looked back, and wavered towards the eighteenth
century. It was the most critical moment of her career. Had those influences lasted, the
development of her character, the history of her life, would have been completely changed.
And why should they not last? She, for one, was very anxious that they
should. Let them last for ever! She was surrounded by Whigs, she was free to do whatever
she wanted, she had Lord M.; she could not believe that she could ever be happier. Any
change would be for the worse; and the worst change of all... no, she would not hear of
it; it would be quite intolerable, it would upset everything, if she were to marry. And
yet everyone seemed to want her to—the general public, the Ministers, her Saxe-Coburg
relations—it was always the same story. Of course, she knew very well that there were
excellent reasons for it. For one thing, if she remained childless, and were to die, her
uncle Cumberland, who was now the King of Hanover, would succeed to the Throne of England.
That, no doubt, would be a most unpleasant event; and she entirely sympathised with
everybody who wished to avoid it. But there was no hurry; naturally, she would marry in
the end—but not just yet—not for three or four years. What was tiresome was that
her uncle Leopold had apparently determined, not only that she ought to marry, but that
her cousin Albert ought to be her husband. That was very like her uncle Leopold, who
wanted to have a finger in every pie; and it was true that long ago, in far-off days,
before her accession even, she had written to him in a way which might well have
encouraged him in such a notion. She had told him then that Albert possessed "every
quality that could be desired to render her perfectly happy," and had begged her
"dearest uncle to take care of the health of one, now so dear to me, and to take him
under your special protection," adding, "I hope and trust all will go on
prosperously and well on this subject of so much importance to me." But that had been
years ago, when she was a mere child; perhaps, indeed, to judge from the language, the
letter had been dictated by Lehzen; at any rate, her feelings, and all the circumstances,
had now entirely changed. Albert hardly interested her at all.
In later life the Queen declared that she had never for a moment dreamt
of marrying anyone but her cousin; her letters and diaries tell a very different story. On
August 26, 1837, she wrote in her journal: "To-day is my dearest cousin Albert's 18th
birthday, and I pray Heaven to pour its choicest blessings on his beloved head!" In
the subsequent years, however, the date passes unnoticed. It had been arranged that
Stockmar should accompany the Prince to Italy, and the faithful Baron left her side for
that purpose. He wrote to her more than once with sympathetic descriptions of his young
companion; but her mind was by this time made up. She liked and admired Albert very much,
but she did not want to marry him. "At present," she told Lord Melbourne in
April, 1839, "my feeling is quite against ever marrying." When her cousin's
Italian tour came to an end, she began to grow nervous; she knew that, according to a
long-standing engagement, his next journey would be to England. He would probably arrive
in the autumn, and by July her uneasiness was intense. She determined to write to her
uncle, in order to make her position clear. It must be understood she said, that
"there is no no engagement between us." If she should like Albert, she could
"make no final promise this year, for, at the very earliest, any such event could not
take place till two or three years hence." She had, she said, "a great
repugnance" to change her present position; and, if she should not like him, she was
"very anxious that it should be understood that she would not be guilty of any breach
of promise, for she never gave any." To Lord Melbourne she was more explicit. She
told him that she "had no great wish to see Albert, as the whole subject was an
odious one;" she hated to have to decide about it; and she repeated once again that
seeing Albert would be "a disagreeable thing." But there was no escaping the
horrid business; the visit must be made, and she must see him. The summer slipped by and
was over; it was the autumn already; on the evening of October 10 Albert, accompanied by
his brother Ernest, arrived at Windsor.
Albert arrived; and the whole structure of her existence crumbled into
nothingness like a house of cards. He was beautiful—she gasped—she knew no more.
Then, in a flash, a thousand mysteries were revealed to her; the past, the present, rushed
upon her with a new significance; the delusions of years were abolished, and an
extraordinary, an irresistible certitude leapt into being in the light of those blue eyes,
the smile of that lovely mouth. The succeeding hours passed in a rapture. She was able to
observe a few more details—the "exquisite nose," the "delicate
moustachios and slight but very slight whiskers," the "beautiful figure, broad
in the shoulders and a fine waist." She rode with him, danced with him, talked with
him, and it was all perfection. She had no shadow of a doubt. He had come on a Thursday
evening, and on the following Sunday morning she told Lord Melbourne that she had "a
good deal changed her opinion as to marrying."
Next morning, she told him that she had made up her mind to marry
Albert. The morning after that, she sent for her cousin. She received him alone, and
"after a few minutes I said to him that I thought he must be aware why I wished them
to come here—and that it would make me too happy if be would consent to what I wished
(to marry me.)" Then "we embraced each other, and he was so kind, so
affectionate." She said that she was quite unworthy of him, while he murmured that he
would be very happy "Das Leben mit dir zu zubringen." They parted, and she felt
"the happiest of human beings," when Lord M. came in. At first she beat about
the bush, and talked of the weather, and indifferent subjects. Somehow or other she felt a
little nervous with her old friend. At last, summoning up her courage, she said, "I
have got well through this with Albert." "Oh! you have," said Lord M.
______________________________
2. The Duke of Bedford told Greville he was "sure there was a
battle between her and Melbourne... He is sure there was one about the men's sitting after
dinner, for he heard her say to him rather angrily, 'it is a horrid custom-' but when the
ladies left the room (he dined there) directions were given that the men should remain
five minutes longer." Greville Memoirs, February 26, 1840 (unpublished).
3. The exclamation "They wished to treat me like a girl, but I
will show them that I am Queen of England!" often quoted as the Queen's, is
apocryphal. It is merely part of Greville's summary of the two letters to Melbourne. It
may be noted that the phrase "the Queen of England will not submit to such
trickery" is omitted in "Girlhood," and in general there are numerous
verbal discrepancies between the versions of the journal and the letters in the two books.
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