The Queen's Husband

Chapter XVIII LORD PALMERSTON OFFENDS THE QUEEN

The Queen was happy to see the dawn of another year. That of 1848 had not exactly been a comfortable one. The shadow of revolution seemed to have passed and although there were troubles enough, revolution, the greatest horror of all, seemed remote.

Lord Palmerston was a constant cause of irritation. The Queen had had to reprimand him for withholding state papers from her; his excuse was that during the difficult period when it was feared that the mob might march on Buckingham Palace and the Queen had gone first to the Isle of Wight and then to Scotland it had not been easy to have these papers brought to her. It was absolutely impossible to snub the man. He was impervious to royal darts and behaved as though they had been administered by some irresponsible child. His greatest fault was making a decision, acting on it and then presenting it as fait accompli.

‘How I should like to be rid of that man Palmerston!’ sighed the Queen.

But she must be thankful that life was comparatively peaceful and that she was not pregnant … at the moment. She was nearly thirty. Really I am getting old, she thought; she had been Queen for twelve years, a wife for nine and was the mother of six. Looking back, she could say that life had been eventful.

The political situation was as always unsteady. How she wished that Sir Robert were back in office. It was a most extraordinary state of affairs for the House seemed to be divided between the free traders and the protectionists and Lord John’s Ministry was kept in office by the support of Sir Robert and his supporters. The Leader of the House, Lord George Bentinck, had died suddenly and his place taken by that flamboyant man who seemed always to be calling attention to himself, Benjamin Disraeli.

Then … the Queen was pregnant again. Was there to be no end of this child-bearing? Certainly this had been a slightly longer respite than usual. It was not that she did not want more children, but she did want a little rest.

Last summer had been such fun at Osborne. The children had enjoyed it so much and she was delighted that Bertie was so much better than he used to be. He had lost that frightful stammer and she had excellent reports from Mr Birch. It was true that when Albert asked questions, which he often did, Bertie sometimes stumbled or gave the most ridiculous answers, but she insisted that he had improved.

She herself gave the children reading lessons; and she was so happy when they sat together each reading a paragraph and passing the book round as they went along. Albert would sit there smiling at them, correcting them when they mispronounced a word, for they read a great deal in German. Then they would say the poem they had learned, and even little Helena had her piece to say.

Vicky usually scored. She was such a clever child and, as the Queen said to Albert, they mustn’t be hard on poor Bertie because he couldn’t compete with such a clever sister. Albert was not sure and inclined to be a little severe, and Victoria accused him, when they were alone, of favouring Vicky a little too obviously.

Albert always hotly denied this and one of their little storms might blow up but it would soon be over, and the Queen felt that it was a pleasant family quarrel – after all, Albert’s fault was only in loving their darling daughter too much.

Albert was all for making the children do useful things, so they all had their patch of garden at Osborne, each with a spade and trowel, their own flowerpots and working aprons with their initials on them.

Osborne was growing more and more beautiful every year and there was great excitement about planning the gardens. Albert of course did everything so well.

There was sea bathing too, which was said to be so good for one. Victoria, clad in an all-enveloping bathing costume, would slip out of her bathing machine which had been drawn right down to the sea, and have a dip before climbing back.

It was a wonderful life at Osborne. She was so snug in the little rooms – so different from Windsor Castle or Buckingham Palace; she had had two writing tables placed side by side in her study so that she and Albert could do what work had to be done together.

Once she said to him: ‘Albert, sometimes I wish we could leave the children behind so that we could be quite alone together.’

Albert was pleased but he did not think it very becoming in a parent to wish to be without her family. But he agreed they were too rarely quite alone.

‘Perhaps,’ said Albert, ‘it is because it happens so rarely that it is so precious to you.’

She denied it. If she was with Albert alone every hour of the day those hours would still be as precious to her.

And then there was Balmoral.

The summer was for the Isle of Wight; the autumn, when the hills were purple with heather, was the time for Scotland.

She began to feel that Balmoral excited her even more than Osborne. The country was more wild and rugged; the people more strange. Albert was continually comparing it with the Thuringian forest which meant that he loved it – and so did she.

She ordered that the children be dressed in kilts; Albert wore one too. As for herself she had dresses made in soft satin or royal Stuart tartan. She found the Scottish accent charming; the gillies were such good people; they treated her with a rough sort of courtesy. They might refer to her as ‘me dear’ which was a most unseemly manner in which to address a queen, but she felt so safe with them and she knew that while they would not accord her the dignity of her rank they would give their lives to save her from danger.

Dear good people! she called them. She decided to learn their country dances and took lessons. They were very strenuous but this was before she was sure that she was pregnant again; and when the dancing master told her to try and dance ‘like a lady, me dear’, she took it all in good part and laughed hilariously with Albert about it afterwards.

They must all try to speak in Gaelic; it would help them to understand the people better. ‘The dear Highlanders are such a dignified people,’ she said. ‘They are so strong and so faithful.’

Albert agreed with her. He would take them fishing with him and come back in a good mood if he had caught something big and quite silent if he had failed.

‘No need to ask,’ Victoria would cry gaily. ‘We know by your face.’

Albert always seemed much better when he was in the Highlands. The climate suited him. She was sure he would not get those dreadful winter colds which he sometimes had during the winter if he could live all the time in the country.

‘The winter would be rather severe up here,’ she reminded him, but Albert was used to the icy winters of Germany and he said he would like to skate on the lake.

‘I shall never forget the time of Pussy’s christening when you were skating on the lake at Buckingham Palace. Do you remember?’

The Prince remembered it very well, how the ice had broken under him and he had gone down into the icy water.

‘I had the fright of my life,’ said the Queen.

‘But you were very brave, my dear love,’ said Albert. ‘Very different from your attendants, who almost had hysterics.’

‘I was so concerned for you. Do you know, Albert, I think that was the start of your colds. You seem to get several every winter.’

‘I should be all right in the country.’

‘Skating?’ she asked laughing. ‘I should feel content only if one of these dear Highlanders was with you. John Brown is a very fine young man. So trustworthy.’

Albert agreed that he was and he talked wistfully of life up in the Highlands and heartily wished, as she did, that they could spend more time there.

But it seemed there always had to be trouble. Ireland was giving great cause for concern. Conditions where the potato famine had brought ruin and starvation were terrible, and the stories of hardship made her weep; she thought it was most unchristian that people should be unable to afford coffins to be buried in and had to be thrown into pits and covered over with earth, so great was the mortality.

The Irish were in a state of revolt – like the rest of Europe, and although she pitied them she was horrified to hear of the murder of landlords.

One day in May she was driving down Constitution Hill when an Irishman named William Hamilton fired at her. When he was captured it was found that his pistol was not loaded, but he was transported for seven years.

The Queen was a little shaken but less so than she had been on previous occasions; and when later in the year it was suggested that she pay a visit to Ireland she did not flinch from it.

Strangely enough the visit was a great success. The Irish, who a short time before had been on the edge of revolution, found their sentimental hearts were touched by the sincere concern of the little Queen.

Soon after the return from Ireland there was good news from India. The Punjab had been taken into the British Empire and the Maharajah, to show his immense respect for the Queen whom he accepted as his ruler, presented her with the Kohinoor diamond.

‘The finest I have ever seen,’ said the Queen. She showed it to the children. ‘But it is what it stands for which is the most important thing.’

The following May, a few weeks before her thirty-first birthday, the Queen gave birth to another child, a son. Albert was delighted and the Queen struggled out of the lethargy which always followed childbirth in her case to rejoice with him.

A few days later all the children were brought in to see the new baby, led by ten-year-old Vicky and nine-year-old Bertie. Alice, Alfred, Helena and Louise stared wide-eyed at the infant boy in their mother’s arms.

The Prince said they must all kneel and thank God for the blessing of another brother, which they did, and the Prince and the Queen looked on, finding it difficult, as the Queen said afterwards, to restrain their tears at such a touching scene.

Albert had become very excited at the prospect of a great Exhibition to be set up in Hyde Park. This, said Albert, would be a great boon to industry, it would provide work for many people and he could see nothing but good coming from it. There would be a great deal of work to be done and they would need a year to do it, but he believed that the whole of Europe would be talking of it and it would be remembered as the greatest spectacle as yet to have been staged.

The Queen caught his enthusiasm and listened to his talk of projects.

Dear Albert, he was as excited as a child. He had called in Paxton, the great planner of gardens, and between them they were considering an idea to build a big house of glass – a kind of conservatory – no, more than that. It should be the centre of the Exhibition. A glass palace, one might say.

The Queen caught his excitement. She was sure it would be a very good thing. How much better if the ministers could plan this kind of thing instead of always being at each other’s throats on some issue or other.

But even about this project they had to argue and try to spoil it. Albert and his committee had decided that the great exhibition should be held in Hyde Park and several of the Members of Parliament were arguing against this. Poor Albert was in despair when The Times too came down against it.

‘It’s such folly,’ groaned Albert. ‘If we are turned out of the park, the work is done for.’

But such a terrible tragedy occurred that all the thoughts of the Exhibition were driven temporarily not only from the Queen’s mind but from Albert’s too.

On the 28th of June Sir Robert Peel was riding in Constitution Hill when his horse suddenly shied and he was thrown to the ground. He was so badly injured that he could not move and lay on the ground until some people passing in a carriage saw him, pulled up and recognising him, took him home to his house in Whitehall Gardens.

He could not be taken to his room but was put on a sofa in one of the downstairs rooms and there he remained for four days until he died.

The Queen was very upset; so was Albert.

‘He was a great man,’ said Albert. ‘I shall never forget what he did for me in the days when I was so bitterly misunderstood.’

The Queen thought with remorse of those meetings with Sir Robert when she had believed he was about to replace Lord Melbourne. She had been so beastly to him and had called him ‘the dancing master’. But that was when she had been so blind and looked upon Lord Melbourne as a sort of god, so that anyone who dared to attempt to replace him must seem like a monster.

She wrote condolences to heart-broken Lady Peel. How sad! There was so much trouble. Poor Aunt Sophia had died two years ago; Aunt Gloucester was behaving very oddly and was clearly feeble in the mind, for at Louise’s christening she had forgotten where she was and, leaving her seat in the middle of the service, came to the Queen and knelt before her. It had all been very distressing and she had managed to coax Aunt Gloucester back to her seat but not before everyone present had noticed such odd behaviour. And now Uncle Cambridge was very ill and it seemed likely that he would not be long for this world. All the aunts and uncles were slowly going, dropping off the tree of life like over-ripe fruit. Then came the news from Belgium that dear Aunt Louise, who had suffered so terribly when her family were driven out of France, was herself ill and incurable, which hurt Victoria most of all, for Uncle Leopold’s wife was dearer to her than any of the old aunts and uncles.

The Queen said that she and some of the children must go to visit Uncle Cambridge, who was very ill, and they must do their best to cheer him up. So with Bertie, Alfred and Alice and one lady-in-waiting, she set out. Uncle Cambridge was too ill for them to remain long and on their way back she was telling the children about the days when she lived in Kensington Palace. As they were turning in at the gates of Buckingham Palace the crowd came very close to the carriage. In view of those occasions when she had been shot at, the Queen felt a little nervous and was leaning forward to protect the children if necessary when suddenly a man stepped close to the Queen and lifting his heavy-handled cane brought it down with great force on her head. The fact that she was wearing a bonnet may well have saved her life. Before she lost consciousness she saw Bertie’s face flush scarlet and a bewildered Alfred and Alice staring at her in dismay.

Almost immediately she recovered from the faint and heard her lady-in-waiting say: ‘They’ve got him.’

People were crowding round the carriage. She cried: ‘I’m all right. I’m not hurt.’

This was not true; she was badly bruised and it was clear that the padded bonnet had saved her from great injury.

She had arranged to go to the Opera that evening and declared that she would not be put off by a few bruises delivered by a madman. Her reception at the Opera was such that it almost made it all worth while. Her forehead yellow and blue, a black eye and a throbbing headache could be forgotten in the loyal demonstrations of the people.

Her assailant turned out to be a certain Robert Pate, a man of good family whose father had been High Sheriff of Cambridge, and who himself had held a commission in the Army for five years. He was sentenced to seven years transportation. It was rather an alarming incident because it seemed without motive and Pate had shown no sign of insanity on any other occasion. Many people had often seen him strolling in the park, a dandy who swaggered somewhat but otherwise was normal.

The Queen did not believe he was insane, and she thought it was horrid that defenceless women should be so exposed. An attempt to kill her because of some imagined grievance or antagonism to monarchy would have been understandable, but to strike a defenceless young woman on her head with a cane was brutal and inhuman.

She shrugged the incident aside and thought of that unhappy wife, Lady Peel, and when she contemplated what widowhood meant she could not grieve long because of a knock on the head.

Uncle Cambridge died as they had expected he would and that was sad. She wrote to tell Uncle Leopold of it and added:

Poor dear Peel was buried today. The sorrow and grief at his death are so touching, and the country mourns over him as over a father. Everyone seems to have lost a personal friend … My poor dear Albert, who has been so fresh and well when we came back from Osborne, looks pale and fagged. He has felt, and feels, Sir Robert’s loss dreadfully. He feels he has lost a second father.

It was true. Albert was very depressed. He did get depressed rather easily. And what with this terrible attack on her, Uncle Cambridge’s death, the people who were so dreadfully carping about the proposed Exhibition and now the loss of Sir Robert, he thought the outlook was very gloomy indeed.

‘There were so many we could have spared more easily,’ he said; and she knew he was thinking of all those short-sighted people who were trying to foil his plans – and of course Lord Palmerston.

There was no doubt about it, Lord Palmerston was very trying.

For instance the affair of General Haynau was dreadfully mishandled by him. It was true that the General had come to England uninvited after being involved in the suppression of the Hungarian rising, during which he had become notorious for his excessive cruelty. There were rumours of his conduct which in the hands of the press were exaggerated no doubt, thought the Queen. In any case he was said to have hanged soldiers whom he captured, to have burned people alive in their houses and gone so far as to flog noblewomen. The cruelty practised by this man was an echo of mob behaviour during the French revolution.

Cartoons of him appeared in the press. Although these were caricatures the General had several distinguishing features (tall and thin, deep-set eyes and bushy brows) which were accentuated and he was immediately recognizable when one day he visited Barclay’s Brewery which he wanted to inspect. Unfortunately he wrote his name in the visitors’ book and this coupled with his rather striking appearance made it clear to the brewer’s employees that he was the notorious General. They were incensed and decided to show their disapproval and one man threw a load of straw down on his head which sent him sprawling in the yard.

There was a cry of: ‘Down with the Austrian butcher!’ and the workmen seized him and rolled him in the dirt; they let him get up and as he ran they ran with him; he escaped into a public house and ran upstairs, but the mob caught him and chased him down to the river’s edge and were about to throw him in when he was rescued by a police launch.

When the Queen heard what had happened she discussed it with Albert.

She was horrified, she declared. Whatever the man had done he was a visitor to these shores and he had been treated most inhospitably.

To ill-treat such a personage as the General was an insult to Austria and an apology must be sent without delay.

The Foreign Secretary was fully aware of this and when the Queen sent for him he took with him the draft of the apology. He arrived at the palace urbane and smiling, bowed to the Queen and gave that rather insolent greeting to the Prince which was almost a nod.

‘A very regrettable incident,’ said the Queen.

‘Very, Ma’am,’ agreed Palmerston. ‘And lucky it was for the fellow that the police came along, otherwise …’ Palmerston smiled almost with relish.

‘You have prepared the apology?’ She held out her hand, regal, as always, with this man whom she disliked.

He handed it to her.

It was worded to show that Palmerston had no sympathy with the General; it did express a certain mild regret that he had been mishandled but the final paragraph pointed out that he had been unwise to visit England in view of the reputation he had recently acquired.

When she came to the last paragraph the Queen was flushing hotly.

‘That will be considered quite insolent,’ she said. ‘It must be removed at once before the apology is sent.’

Palmerston smiled. ‘That cannot be,’ he said.

How dared he tell the Queen what could and could not be!

‘It has already gone, Your Majesty.’

She was speechless. So was Albert. How dared he send such a document without their approval.

‘We must immediately send a further apology,’ cried the Queen. Palmerston bowed his head, and said nothing.

‘So,’ went on the Queen, ‘you will prepare a draft, Lord Palmerston, and bring it to me for my approval, which will explain to the Austrian Government that there has been a slight error.’

Palmerston smiled blandly and shook his head.

‘No, Ma’am, it would not be possible for Your Majesty’s Foreign Secretary to take such an action.’

‘You mean you will not obey my wishes?’

‘I mean, Ma’am, that were you to insist on your Foreign Secretary’s taking such an action, I should no longer be Your Majesty’s Foreign Secretary.’

He then asked leave to retire and it was readily given. When he had gone the Queen’s wrath exploded. How dared he! She would accept his resignation. Master Palmerston should understand that he could not behave towards his Queen in such a manner.

It was Albert who had to soothe her, Albert who hated Palmerston as much as she did.

‘You cannot dismiss your Foreign Secretary, my love. That is for Lord John Russell to do. He is the Prime Minister.’

‘Then I shall make my wishes clear to him.’

‘My love, this fellow Palmerston is the strongest man in the government, alas. Russell could not stand against him. This is not the way.’

Of course she knew that Albert was right. Palmerston could not be dismissed as easily as that.

They discussed the man frequently.

‘If only Sir Robert were here,’ wailed the Queen. ‘He at least was a strong man.’

But Albert doubted whether even Sir Robert would have been able to stand up against Lord Palmerston.

There was tragic news from Uncle Leopold. Aunt Louise, who had been getting weaker for some time, had died.

Victoria, who had called her the best beloved of all her aunts, was desolate.

‘Poor dear Uncle Leopold,’ she cried. ‘It is the second time in his life that he has been left alone.’

It was very tragic and the Queen could not help thinking of the dear children who were left motherless.

‘How I wish we were nearer,’ she sighed.

As it was, there was nothing to be done but write long and loving letters to Uncle Leopold, assure him that both she and Albert thought of him constantly, read through his dear letters and remember the happy times she had spent in the company of dear dead Louise.