Queen Victoria — Chapter 3, part 2

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 L385,000 was settled upon her.

When the expenses of her household had been discharged, she was left with L68,000 a year of her own.

She enjoyed besides the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster, which amounted annually to over L27,000. 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 1/2 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;(*) 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.

(*) 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).

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.