COURTSHIP AND BETROTHAL.
Desire of the Coburg Relatives for a Marriage between Victoria and
Albert--Favourable Impressions mutually made by Victoria and
Albert--Prince Albert's Letter on the Queen's Accession--Opposition of
King William IV. to the Marriage--Correspondence between the
Cousins--King Leopold urges on the Marriage--The Queen's Reluctance to
become Betrothed--Her subsequent Regret at this--The Prince craves a
definite Determination--His Second Visit to England--Betrothed at
last--Returns to Germany to say Farewell.
We have already seen that the marriage of Prince Albert with his cousin
was strongly desired by their common relatives from a very early period of
their lives. It was the "ardent wish" of their grandmother, and she freely
communicated that wish to her son and daughter, Prince Leopold and the
Duchess of Kent. There are strong indications that the astute King Leopold
never lost sight of this end from the date of his mother's death in 1831.
Soon after the visit of the brothers to their "aunt Kent" in 1836, the
rumour began to prevail in England that Prince Albert was the _fiance_ of
the future Queen. The idea, however, was premature. So we know on the
Queen's authority, who has caused it to be stated that "nothing was then
settled."
In the letters which the Prince sent to his father and others, during his
stay at Brussels and elsewhere, immediately after his first visit to
England, he made frequent reference to the general impressions thence
derived, and especially to his young cousin. Of such allusions, this is a
fair specimen:--"A few days ago I received a letter from aunt Kent,
enclosing one from our cousin. She told me I was to communicate its
contents to you, so I send it on with a translation of the English. The
day before yesterday I received a second and yet kinder letter from my
cousin, in which she thanks me for my good wishes on her birth-day. You
may easily imagine that both these letters gave me great pleasure." And
when the news of the death of King William and the accession of Victoria
arrived, he informed his father, on the authority of his uncle Leopold,
that the new reign had commenced most successfully (this, perhaps, in
allusion to the anticipated attempt at a _coup d'etat_ by the Duke of
Cumberland), that his cousin Victoria had shown astonishing
self-possession, although English parties were violently excited, and that
the Duchess of Kent had found strenuous support against "violent attacks
in the newspapers." This last statement we have, however, good reasons for
saying had reached the young Prince in a somewhat exaggerated form; we
mean, so far as the "violence" of the attacks was concerned.
To the Queen herself the Prince wrote a letter, consolatory in her
bereavement, and congratulatory on her accession. This was the first
letter which he sent her written in English. He prayed Heaven to assist
her now that she was "Queen of the mightiest land in Europe," with the
happiness of millions in her hand, and asked her "to think sometimes of
her cousins in Bonn [where they were then pursuing their University
studies], and to continue that kindness you favoured them with till now."
[Sidenote: RUMOURS ABOUT MARRIAGE.]
On the accession of the Queen, the rumour of her marriage with Prince
Albert became ten times more prevalent. The judicious King Leopold thought
it wise, for a time at least, to discourage this expectation, and to
withdraw the attention of the English from the Prince. Hence it was that
he counselled those journeys into Austria, South Germany, Switzerland, and
Italy, in which we have already traced the steps of the Prince. This was
chiefly dictated by the distracted state of parties in England, which the
King of the Belgians thought it better to permit time to allay ere the
matrimonial project was brought specifically forward. "United as all
parties are," wrote Prince Albert to his father, from the inspiration of
his uncle, "in high praise of the young Queen, the more do they seem to
manoeuvre and intrigue with and against each other. On every side there is
nothing but a network of cabals and intrigues, and parties are arrayed
against each other in a most inexplicable manner."
Whilst making his "grand tour," the Prince kept up an occasional
correspondence with his cousin. From Switzerland he sent her an album of
the places which he visited, from the top of the Rigi a dried Alpine rose,
and from Ferney an autographic scrap of Voltaire, which he received from
an old servant of the great philosopher.
By the early part of 1839, the tour was concluded, and we find the Prince
once more at Brussels with his uncle. Leopold now spoke to him more fully
and definitely than he had hitherto done about his prospects in life and
the state of his affections. It very clearly appears that the marriage
with the Queen had been gradually becoming more and more an understood
thing. It appears equally clear that the Queen was averse, as yet, to
committing herself to a distinct and final engagement. She was willing to
marry, but wished to defer the contraction of the union. She thought both
herself and her cousin too young; and the interests of her people, rather
than any personal backwardness, influenced her wish that both she and her
husband should be older ere they became man and wife. She regretted
afterwards this delay, and felt that the harassments of the Bedchamber
Plot and other still more painful incidents which we have thought it
preferable not to rake up and reproduce in these pages, would have been
borne by her with more equanimity had she had the natural protection of a
husband six months or a year ere the date of her marriage. It was probably
this postponement of any definite settlement that occasioned Prince
Albert's absence from England at the Coronation, in June, 1838. His father
was invited, and received at the hands of his niece the honour of the
Order of the Garter. The Dowager Duchess of Gotha was very proud of this,
and proud also to recollect that her son-in-law possessed the noblest
knightly order of Christendom, which her own father of Hesse-Cassel, and
her father-in-law of Gotha, had also worn and treasured.
[Sidenote: OBJECTIONS TO THE MARRIAGE.]
In more than one quarter the marriage, which all members of the Coburg
family felt to be so eligible, and in which their feelings were so much
involved, met with a considerable amount of opposition. By a curious
coincidence, a Prince of Orange had been the suitor favoured by George IV.
for the hand of his daughter; but she selected the man of her own
choice--Leopold, a Coburg Prince. And a Prince of Orange (nephew of the
rejected aspirant to the hand of the Princess Charlotte) was the man
thought by William IV., as long as he lived, to be the best future husband
of his niece and successor; and his niece, too, selected, like her cousin
Charlotte, as the man of her choice, a Prince of the House of Coburg. King
William did all in his power to discourage the attachment between Victoria
and Albert. He was so strongly set against this match that he did all that
he could even to prevent Prince Albert's visit to England in 1836; and
although he never spoke to his young niece on the subject himself, she
afterwards learned that he had devised no fewer than five matrimonial
alternatives for her selection--that of the late Prince Alexander of the
Netherlands always having the preference and priority. In justice to the
memory of King William it must, however, be stated that the Dowager Queen
Adelaide afterwards told her niece that her uncle would never have striven
to control or restrain her affections if he had had any idea that they had
been strongly bestowed in any particular quarter.
It was in the early part of 1839, that King Leopold first wrote seriously
to his niece on the subject--about the same time that we have seen that he
made a similar verbal communication to his nephew. He received a
favourable response from both, but with this difference, that the lady
craved an indefinite delay. This idea of delay the Prince dealt with in a
very honest and manly manner. He had, he said, no objections to
postponement; but, nevertheless, thought he had a fair right, if he were
to keep himself free, and thereby be compelled to decline any other career
or line of life which might open itself out to him, to have some definite
assurance or understanding that the engagement would be without doubt
contracted. This concession, however, the equally natural bashfulness of
the Queen would not suffer her to make. However, all came right in the
end, and the Queen has very candidly confessed in her riper years, that if
she had known as a girl what she afterwards learned as a woman, that she
even seemed to be _playing_ with her somewhat undemonstrative but not the
less devoted lover, she would not have exacted the semi-sacrifice which
the Prince's self-respect caused him to feel uneasy at, but to which the
true courtesy of his nature induced him to submit. He _did_ wait till
1839, but the Queen afterwards learned that he came to England in that
year prepared to declare that, in the case of further postponement, he
must decline to consider himself bound in any way for the future.
[Sidenote: FIRST MEETING WITH PRINCE ALBERT.]
In October, 1839, Prince Albert, with his brother, set out from Brussels
to England, to urge his final suit. Ere leaving Germany, he had spent a
very pleasant time with his cousin, Count Albert Mensdorff, who was doing
military duty with the garrison of Mayence. They then made a short journey
together, in the course of which the one cousin confided the great secret
to the other. "During our journey," writes the Count, "Albert confided to
me, under the seal of the strictest confidence, that he was going to
England to make your acquaintance, and that if you liked each other you
were to be engaged. He spoke very seriously about the difficulties of the
position he would have to occupy in England, but hoped that dear uncle
Leopold would assist him with his advice." The Princes--Albert bearing
with him a shrewd and significant letter to the Queen from King
Leopold--arrived at Windsor on the 10th of October, where they were
cordially received by their cousin and aunt. The Queen was much struck
with the greatly improved appearance of the Prince, in the interval of
three years since she had last seen him. Gay and festive entertainments
had been arranged in their honour immediately upon their arrival. The
Queen became more and more charmed with her cousin, and within a week
after his arrival, she informed her Premier, Lord Melbourne, that she had
made up her mind to the marriage. In reply, he indicated his own perfect
satisfaction, and added that the nation was getting anxious that its
sovereign should be married; and then he said, in a kindly way, "You will
be much more comfortable; for a woman cannot stand alone for any time, in
whatever position she may be."
The following we present, without professing either to confirm or question
its accuracy, but simply as being the commonly-received report, at the
time, of the manner in which the engagement was finally effected between
the parties directly interested:--
The Prince, in his turn, played the part of a royal lover with all the
grace peculiar to his house. He never willingly absented himself from
the Queen's society and presence, and her every wish was anticipated
with the alacrity of an unfeigned attachment. At length Her Majesty,
having wholly made up her mind as to the issue of this visit, found
herself in some measure embarrassed as to the fit and proper means of
indicating her preference to the Prince. This was a perplexing task,
but the Queen acquitted herself of it with equal delicacy and tact. At
one of the Palace balls she took occasion to present her bouquet to
the Prince at the conclusion of a dance, and the hint was not lost
upon the polite and gallant German. His close uniform, buttoned up to
the throat, did not admit of his placing the Persian-like gift where
it would be most honoured; so he immediately drew his penknife and cut
a slit in his dress in the neighbourhood of his heart, where he
gracefully deposited the happy omen. Again, to announce to the Privy
Council her intended union was an easy duty in comparison to that of
intimating her wishes to the principal party concerned; and here, too,
it is said that our Sovereign Lady displayed unusual presence of mind
and female ingenuity. The Prince was expressing the grateful sense
which he entertained of his reception in England, and the delight
which he experienced during his stay from the kind attentions of
royalty, when the Queen, very naturally and very pointedly, put to him
the question upon which their future fates depended: "If, indeed, your
Highness is so much pleased with this country, perhaps you would not
object to remaining in it, and making it your home?" No one can doubt
the reply.
[Sidenote: THE BETROTHAL.]
The day after the Queen's communication to her Premier, she caused an
intimation to be conveyed to her lover that she desired to see him in
private. The Prince at once waited upon her, and after a few minutes'
general conversation, the Queen told him why she had sent for him, and
modestly but plainly said that she was quite willing now to undertake the
bond of betrothal. Of course, there was only one possible response, and
the Prince joyously wrote the next day to his trusty friend and tried
counsellor, Baron Stockmar, "on one of the happiest days of his life, to
give him the most welcome news." The betrothal was at once communicated to
Prince Ernest, to King Leopold, and to the Duke of Coburg. From these and
other relatives to whom the news, as yet to be kept a family secret, was
sent, the warmest felicitations quickly poured in. Leopold wrote,
commending Albert in the highest terms, and emphatically congratulating
Victoria on having secured an unmistakably good husband, concluding with
the prayer, "May Albert be able to strew roses without thorns on the
pathway of life of our good Victoria!"
The Queen had intended to make her first formal announcement of her
intended marriage to her Parliament; but on second thoughts, she altered
her resolve, and selected her Privy Council as the first official
recipients of the tidings. Of course, the Ministers had been already
confidentially informed of the Queen's purpose; and they strongly
counselled an early union, and both Queen and Prince acquiesced in the
proposal. After happy and rapturous days of undoubted and now
freely-acknowledged attachment, the Princes returned to Germany, on the
14th of November, after a visit lasting just five weeks; Ernest to return
to his military duties, Albert to say farewell to friends and fatherland,
ere finally returning to the region of his new life and love.