EARLY YEARS OF MARRIED LIFE.
Difficulties and Delicacy of Prince Albert's Position--Early Married
Life--Studies continued--Attempts on the Queen's Life--Courage of the
Queen--Birth of the Princess Royal--Parting from the Whig Ladies of
the Bedchamber--Dark Days for England--Birth of the Prince of
Wales--The Queen described by M. Guizot--A Dinner at Buckingham
Palace--State Dinner at Windsor.
The Queen was now married to the husband of her choice. "It is that," said
Lord Melbourne to her, "which makes your Majesty's marriage so popular, as
they know it is not for state reasons." A few months after the
wedding-day, the Prince wrote to an old college associate--"I am very
happy and contented." After the wedding, the young couple stayed for four
days at Windsor, reading, riding, walking together, and giving small
dinner parties in the evening. They then returned to Buckingham Palace,
where a large crowd had collected to welcome them, and fairly commenced
the common duties of their married life. At first it would appear that
jealousies, in quarters which need not be specified, prevented the Prince
taking his proper position as the head of his home and household. He wrote
to his friend, Prince Loewenstein, in May, 1840--"I am only the husband,
not the master in the house." But the common sense of the Queen, and the
dignity of the Prince, soon set this matter to rights. When urged that
she, as being Sovereign, must be the head of the house, she quietly
rejoined that she had sworn to obey, as well as love and honour, her
husband, and that she was determined to keep all her bridal troth. She
communicated all foreign despatches to him, and frequently he made
annotations on them, which were communicated to the Minister whose
department they affected. He had often the satisfaction of discovering
that the Minister, though he might say nothing on the subject,
nevertheless acted upon his suggestions. His correspondence to Germany
soon bore a very different tone and complexion. To use his own words, and
slightly expand them, he "endeavoured to be of as much use to Victoria as
possible." The Queen now, having received the approval of the Duke of
Wellington, whom she consulted as a confidential friend, for the first
time put her husband in his proper place, by giving him, by Royal Letters
Patent, to which Parliamentary sanction is not required, rank and
precedence next to herself, except in Parliament and the Privy Council.
[Sidenote: EARLY MARRIED DAYS.]
Frequent levees, and "dinners followed by little dances," formed the chief
amusements of the young couple in the earliest stage of their married
life. They went much, too, to the play, both having an especial relish for
and admiration of Shakespeare. The Queen, although now a married woman, by
no means neglected useful or solacing and refining studies. She took
singing lessons from Lablache, and frequently sang and played with the
Prince, sometimes using the piano, sometimes the organ as accompaniment.
They went to Claremont, the Queen's favourite youthful haunt, to celebrate
her birthday, and continued to do so, even after the purchase of Osborne,
until 1848, when Claremont was given as a residence to the ex-Queen of the
French. Both Queen and Prince were extremely glad to get away from the
smoke and grime of London. In fact, these constituted a peculiar source of
physical oppression to both; and they were always glad to retire to the
rural quiet and seclusion of Claremont.
[Sidenote: THE QUEEN SHOT AT.]
The first alarming incident of the Queen's wedded life occurred on the
10th of June, 1840. In her first early days of maiden queenhood, she had
been annoyed by madmen wanting to marry her. On more than one occasion her
saddle-horse was attempted to be stopped in the Park by one of such
maniacs, as she was attended by an equerry; and in two instances similar
attempts were made by innocent lunatics to force their way into Windsor
Castle, in each case armed with nothing more deadly than a proposal of
marriage. But what we are about to narrate was a much more serious matter.
There is no denying the fact, that, after the first two years of her
reign, the Queen was, for a time, by no means so popular as she had been.
Her ministers were eminently unpopular, and to no slight extent she shared
their unpopularity. Appalling distress prevailed, and Chartism and other
more dangerous forms of sedition were rife. The poor asked how so much
money could be spent on the Queen's hospitable entertainments, while they
were starving; and inquired how it was that the name of Lord Melbourne,
who should be supposed to have work enough to do looking after the affairs
of the distressed nation, should appear in the newspapers almost every day
as attending some of Her Majesty's banquets. Occasionally during the
summer she was received in public in silence, and once or twice, in
theatres and elsewhere, disagreeable cries were heard. More than once
during this and one or two succeeding years, pistol-shots were fired at
her. We select one, and the first attack upon her, as a type of the
others. A youth named Oxford, some seventeen or eighteen years of age,
either a fool or a madman, fired two pistol-shots at her, as she and her
husband were driving in a phaeton up Constitution Hill. He was at once
arrested, and it being impossible to assign any conceivable cause for the
act, he was declared insane, and doomed to incarceration for life. Neither
the Queen nor the Prince were injured, and both showed the utmost
self-possession.
Perhaps the best proof of her bravery on the occasion of this outrage, as
it was an unquestionable proof of her tenderness of heart, was the fact
that within a minute or two after the shot of Oxford had been fired, she
had the horses' heads turned towards her mother's house, that her mother
should see her sound and uninjured, ere an exaggerated or indiscreetly
communicated report of the occurrence could reach her. Immediately after,
she drove to Hyde Park, whither she had been proceeding before the outrage
occurred, to take her usual drive before dinner. An immense concourse of
persons of all ranks and both sexes had assembled, and the enthusiasm of
her reception almost overpowered her. Prince Albert's face, alternately
pale and flushed, betrayed the strength of his emotions. They returned to
Buckingham Palace attended by a most magnificent escort of the rank and
beauty of London, on horseback and in carriages. A great crowd of a
humbler sort was at the Palace gates to greet her, and it was said that
she did not lose her composure until a flood of tears relieved her
pent-up excitement in her own chamber. "God save the Queen" was demanded
at all the theatres in the evening, and in the immediately succeeding days
the Queen received, seated on her throne, loyal and congratulatory
addresses from the Peers in their robes, and wearing all their
decorations; from the Commons, from the City Corporation, and many other
public bodies.
Oxford was incarcerated in Bethlehem Hospital, one of the great
metropolitan lunatic asylums, in which he remained many years, and of
which he was made one of the chief "sights" by its visitors. Perhaps it
was this circumstance that induced the authorities to order his removal to
Broadmoor, the state prison in which persons charged with felonious
crimes, whose lunacy has been established, have within recent years been
confined. There he remained until the commencement of the winter months of
1867. During all the weary period which intervened between the
perpetration of his offence and that date his conduct was exemplary, and
no evidence of mental aberration appeared. At various times appeals were
made in his behalf by influential persons who had the opportunity of
watching his demeanour and judging his character. His own representation
from first to last ever was that the pistol which he fired was not loaded.
He attributed the act which so nearly cost him his life and which wasted
the best years of his existence, to inordinate vanity, fostered by a
variety of trivial circumstances in his domestic life, on which it is not
necessary to dwell, and which led to a senseless desire--similar to that
which has perpetuated the name of Erostratus, the incendiary who fired the
Temple of Diana at Ephesus--to gain notoriety by whatever means. To a
certain extent he educated himself during his confinement, and became a
tolerable linguist. He also taught himself that branch of the
house-painter's trade termed "graining," sufficiently well to enable him
to earn a decent livelihood. At last, late in 1867, he received a free
pardon and release, subject only to the very proper provision that he
should expatriate himself and never return to British shores. The same
mania, or silly senselessness, might break out again, and it is manifestly
right that the person of the Sovereign should be protected from the vanity
of a man who, at however distant a period, could commit the cowardly
outrage of which he was the author.
When, a year or two later, the Queen was again providentially saved from
similar felonious attempts, their character being of the same nature as
that of Oxford's, a strong feeling animated the general public mind that
some special deterrent should be devised to prevent or reduce the
likelihood of such maniacal or quasi-maniacal deeds. An Act of Parliament
was accordingly passed, ere the close of the Session of 1843, by which
severe flogging was imposed as part punishment in all such cases. It had
the desired effect. From the period of its enactment until now, attempts
to take the Queen's life, and minor assaults upon her person, have been
almost entirely unknown.
[Sidenote: BIRTH OF THE PRINCESS ROYAL.]
On the afternoon of the 21st of November, the country was gladdened by the
birth of the Queen's first-born, the Princess Royal, now Crown Princess of
Prussia. The event occurred considerably before the period anticipated by
the Queen's medical and other attendants, and preparations had to be made
in a hurry. Nevertheless, the Queen soon regained her accustomed health,
and so rapidly that we find it recorded that on the day before that
appointed for the christening, she and a lady of the Court, exercising
their strength and preserving their presence of mind, rescued the Prince
from a most perilous if not fatal position. He had been skating,
accompanied only by the Queen and one Lady-in-waiting, and had fallen
through the ice in such a position that he could not possibly have
extricated himself.
Two days after the Princess was born, Mr. Selwyn, a gentleman with whom
Prince Albert was reading English law and constitutional history, came to
give his pupil his accustomed lesson. The Prince said to him, "I fear I
cannot read any law to-day, there are so many constantly coming to
congratulate; but you will like to see the little Princess." He took his
tutor into the nursery, as he found that the child was asleep. Taking her
hand, he said, "The next time we read, it must be on the rights and duties
of a Princess Royal."
In 1841 Lord Melbourne was no longer Prime Minister. Sir Robert Peel, who
had gained the largest Parliamentary majority which had been known for
many years, reigned in his stead. The Queen made no difficulty about the
Ladies of the Household now. Her tastes and feelings were consulted with
great delicacy and consideration by the Premier, and the selection of the
Duchess of Buccleuch in the first instance as Mistress of the Robes, which
post may be termed the female Premiership of the Household, was especially
gratifying to Her Majesty. But her heart was, nevertheless, loth to part
with the constant female companions of the first four years of her reign.
Thursday, September the 2nd, was the last evening she spent with them. At
the dinner-table she could scarcely trust herself to speak, and she is
reported to have shed bitter tears when she retired with her ladies.
Everybody pitied the young Sovereign, and saw and felt the hardship
involved. But it was an inevitable accompaniment of her high position.
[Sidenote: BIRTH OF THE PRINCE OF WALES.]
The heir to the throne adorned by Queen Victoria was born in the midst of
one of the very darkest periods of English history. In 1841 the condition
of the people had been declining from the beginning of the year.
Operatives were on half time--at last they had no work at all--and the few
who had had the means or the will to be provident, were living on their
savings. Public meetings were being held to consider what was to be done,
and public subscriptions were opened. Then the idle hands commenced to
meet in large numbers, with a sullen look of despair, waiting for death or
alms--a comparatively small number being employed at the expense of
municipal and other recognised bodies, in road making or road mending.
Crime, which follows pauperism as surely and almost as rapidly as the
obscene vulture pounces upon the carrion which is not yet cold, was rife;
murders came in multitudes, poisonings by wholesale; murders by trades
unionists, murders by thieves. It was when this dark cloud lowered over
England--a cloud never completely dispelled until the rise of the great
and glorious Free Trade sun, five years later--that the Prince of Wales
first breathed. A _London Gazette_ extraordinary, which appeared on
Tuesday evening, November the 9th, ran as follows:--
Buckingham Palace, Nov. 9th.
This morning, at twelve minutes before eleven o'clock, the Queen was
happily delivered of a Prince, His Royal Highness Prince Albert, Her
Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent, several Lords of Her Majesty's
Most Honourable Privy Council, and the Ladies of Her Majesty's
Bedchamber, being present.
This great and important news was immediately made known to the town
by the firing of the Tower and Park guns; and the Privy Council being
assembled as soon as possible thereupon, at the Council Chamber,
Whitehall, it was ordered that a Form of Thanksgiving be prepared by
His Grace the Archbishop of Canterbury, to be used in all churches and
chapels throughout England and Wales and the town of
Berwick-upon-Tweed, on Sunday, the 14th of November, or the Sunday
after the respective ministers shall receive the same.
Her Majesty and the infant Prince are, God be praised, both doing
well.
The joy of the nation at the succession to the crown in the progeny of the
Queen and Prince Albert being thus secured, was excessive. Upon the
announcement of the happy accouchement, the nobility and gentry crowded to
the Palace to tender their dutiful inquiries as to the Sovereign's
convalescence. Amongst others, came the Lord Mayor and civic dignitaries
in great state. They felt peculiarly proud that the Prince should have
been born on Lord Mayor's day; in fact, just at the very moment when the
time-honoured procession was starting from the City for Westminster. In
memory of the happy coincidence, the Lord Mayor of the year, Mr. Pirie,
was created Sir John Pirie, Baronet. On the 4th of December, the Queen
created her son by Letters Patent, Prince of Wales and Earl of
Chester:--"And him, our said and most dear son, the Prince of the United
Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, as has been accustomed, we do
ennoble and invest with the said Principality and Earldom, by girding him
with a sword, by putting a coronet on his head, and a gold ring on his
finger, and also by delivering a gold rod into his hand, that he may
preside there, and direct and defend those parts." By the fact of his
birth as Heir-Apparent, the Prince indefeasibly inherited, without the
necessity of patent or creation, these dignities--the titles of Duke of
Saxony, by right of his father; and, by right of his mother, Duke of
Cornwall, Duke of Rothsay, Earl of Carrick, Baron of Renfrew, Lord of the
Isles, and Great Steward of Scotland.
[Sidenote: AN EMBASSY FROM FRANCE.]
In the early spring of 1840, the distinguished French statesman, M.
Guizot, came over to England, being sent hither by the French Premier,
Marshal Soult, on a special mission with reference to those complications
in the East, which culminated the following year in that war between the
Sultan Mahmoud and his vassal Mehemet Ali, in which British tars under
Stopford and "Charley Napier" played so conspicuous a part. His pacific
mission was a failure, and from its failure dates, first the loosening,
and then the severance, of the close relations which subsisted for eleven
years after 1830 between the Courts of St. James's and the Tuileries.
King Louis Philippe had conveyed to M. Guizot his desire that he should
take the first opportunity of recalling to the Queen the intimacy which he
had maintained with her father, the Duke of Kent; and Guizot resolved to
remind Her Majesty of the circumstance when he was received by her on
presenting his letters of credence. He prudently, however, asked Lord
Palmerston, on whom, as Foreign Secretary, devolved the duty of presenting
him, whether such a communication would be agreeable. Lord Palmerston
instantly replied in the negative. He stated that the reception would be
a purely official formality, and gave him to understand that the Queen
would much prefer not having to reply to any speech. He therefore
determined to abstain from making one. On the last day of February, he
received a note at ten minutes past one from Lord Palmerston, stating that
the Queen would be glad to receive him that day at one o'clock. Guizot
immediately sent to Palmerston "to explain the delay, and his own
innocence." He then dressed with all speed, and reached Buckingham Palace
a little before two. Precisely at the moment of his arrival, Lord
Palmerston's carriage also drove up. He told Guizot that the Queen's
orders had been forwarded to him (Palmerston) too late. Luckily, the Queen
had other audiences to give, which occupied her fully until the appearance
of the two astute and rival diplomats. But another difficulty arose. There
was no Master of Ceremonies at hand to introduce him. Sir Robert Chester,
who held that post, had received his summons, as tardily as that which had
been sent to Lord Palmerston. That gentleman had not hastened his
movements so rapidly as the active Frenchman. Although a breach of form,
Lord Palmerston, therefore, undertook and performed the office of Sir
Robert. The Queen received Guizot "with a gracious manner at once youthful
and serious." He remarked that the dignity of her manner caused one to
forget the smallness of her stature. On entering, he said, "I trust,
Madam, that your Majesty is aware of my excuse, for of myself [that is, if
the blame of unpunctuality rested with me] I should be inexcusable." She
smiled in return, as if little surprised at, and quite used to, the want
of punctuality. After all, in spite of Lord Palmerston's instructions to
him, the Queen did grant him, in the strict and literal sense of the term,
an audience. Though short, it was long enough to enable the Queen to chat
with him, and inquire about his Sovereign, his consort, and their family.
The Queen, of course, was warmly interested about the Orleans family, for
one of the daughters of its head was the second wife of her uncle, King
Leopold, and, therefore, her matrimonial aunt. So that Guizot _did_ find
and embrace the opportunity of reminding the Queen of the intimacy between
his royal master and her father.
[Sidenote: M. GUIZOT AT BUCKINGHAM PALACE.]
As he was retiring, Lord Palmerston, who remained a moment or two with the
Queen, after she had bid M. Guizot adieu, said hastily to him, "There is
something more; I am going to introduce you to Prince Albert and the
Duchess of Kent; you could not otherwise be presented to them, except at
the next levee, on the 6th of March, but it is necessary, on the contrary,
that on that day you should be already old friends." These further
presentations were, accordingly, made; Guizot being struck with the
political intelligence which the conversation of the Prince, in spite of
his constitutional reserve, displayed. Guizot left the palace greatly
pleased with his reception. As he passed through the hall, he saw the
Master of Ceremonies in hot haste descending from his carriage, and
"anxious to apologise to him, with temper somewhat ruffled, for his
involuntary uselessness."
An invitation to dinner at Buckingham Palace for five days after quickly
reached him at his residence, Hertford House. He remarked on the want of
animation and interest in the conversation, whether at the dinner-table or
in the drawing-room. Politics of any kind, home or foreign, were,
apparently to his surprise, strictly avoided. When the gentlemen joined
the ladies, which, throughout the Queen's reign, has been at a very short
interval after the departure of the latter from the dining-room, they all
sat on chairs round a circular table set before the Queen, who occupied a
sofa. Two or three of her ladies engaged themselves in fancy work; Prince
Albert challenged some one to a game at chess. Lady Palmerston and M.
Guizot, "with some effort," carried on a flagging dialogue. The
conversation being thus flat, M. Guizot took to looking at the pictures on
the walls, of which there were but three, hung over the different doors of
the apartment. He was very much astonished at the extraordinary contrasts
in the subjects of these pictures. They certainly were most incongruous.
One was Fenelon, the second the Czar Peter, and the third Anne Hyde, the
discarded wife of James II. He asked one of his fellow-guests whether the
combination was intentional or an accident? But he could get no
satisfaction on the subject. No one had remarked the combination, and no
one could tell the reason for it.
At the levee which he attended the day following, he was still more
astounded and perplexed. He thought its presentations and other
paraphernalia "a long and monotonous ceremony." Yet it inspired this keen
and philosophic student of men and manners with "real interest." We shall
allow M. Guizot, ere we finally leave his companionship, to express his
views on this peculiarly English institution in his own words:--"I
regarded with excited esteem the profound respect of that vast
assembly--courtiers, citizens, lawyers, churchmen, officers, military and
naval, passing before the Queen, the greater portion bending the knee to
kiss her hand, all perfectly solemn, sincere, and awkward. The sincerity
and seriousness were both needed to prevent those antiquated habits, wigs,
and bags, those costumes which no one in England now wears except on such
occasions, from appearing somewhat ridiculous. But I am little sensible to
the outward appearance of absurdity when the substance partakes not of
that character."
[Sidenote: FANCY BALL AT COURT.]
As a companion picture of the Queen at home at this epoch of her reign,
for the lineaments of which we have acknowledged our indebtedness to M.
Guizot, we present these recollections of the Queen in her young married
days, which we condense from a gossiping work by Lord William Lennox. The
Queen had a splendid new ballroom built in Buckingham Palace, and nothing
could exceed the brilliancy of the entertainments which she gave there. To
one of these, in 1842, Lord Lennox received an invitation. It was a _bal
costume_, the first, he believed, which had ever been given in England by
a Prince of the House of Brunswick. A second ball, in which, unlike the
former, the dresses were confined to the reigns of George II. and III.,
was given in the same year. All had to appear in powder--a somewhat trying
ordeal to such ladies and gentlemen as did not possess fine features.
[Sidenote: A STATE BANQUET AT WINDSOR.]
Somewhat about the same time, Lord Lennox dined at Windsor Castle, at the
great banquet given on the Ascot Cup day. A magnificent dejeuner had been
served for luncheon on the course in Tippoo Sahib's tent. At the dinner in
the evening, the first thing which struck one who was a guest for the
first time on such an occasion, was the exact punctuality of the Queen
and Prince. Although necessarily fatigued with the bustle and excitement
of the day, they were in the drawing-room some minutes before the dinner
was announced, and after a courteous greeting to all the guests, proceeded
at once to dinner. Another observable peculiarity was that the Prince left
the table twenty minutes after the ladies. The banqueting-room on this
great occasion was St. George's Hall, splendid with its ceiling emblazoned
with the arms of the Knights of the Garter from the institution of the
order, and the portraits of our kings from James I. to George IV. At each
end of the hall, buffets, seventeen feet high and forty broad, were set.
They were of rich fretted Gothic framework, covered with crimson cloth,
and brilliant with massive gold plate. Immediately opposite the Queen was
set a pyramid of plate, its apex being the tiger's head captured at
Seringapatam, and comprising the "Iluma" of precious stones which Lord
Wellesley, the Governor-General of India, presented to George IV. The
table, which was laid for a hundred guests, extended the whole length of
the hall. All down the centre, epergnes, vases, cups, and candelabra were
ranged, the celebrated St. George's candelabrum being opposite Her
Majesty. The hall was splendidly illuminated, and two bands of the Guards
discoursed sweet music from a balcony. The Yeomen of the Guard stood on
duty at the entrance. The repast, which did ample justice to the merits of
the Queen's renowned _cuisinier_, Francatelli, was entirely served in gold
plate, and the attendance was so faultless that there was less bustle and
confusion than usually attend a repast shared by a party of ten or a
dozen. At a quarter to nine grace was said; and after the dessert and wine
had been placed on the table, the Lord Steward rose and proposed, without
remark, "The Queen." The Queen simply, when the toast had been drunk,
bowed her acknowledgments. After a brief pause, the health of Prince
Albert was drunk standing, as the Queen's had been, the band playing the
"Coburg March." At half-past nine the Queen rose, and, accompanied by the
Duchess of Kent, was followed by all the ladies to the drawing-room. In
about twenty minutes all the gentlemen followed. The Waterloo Chamber was
thrown open, and its rich historical and pictorial treasures were keenly
inspected by groups of the guests. Amongst others of its chief ornaments,
attention was concentrated on the swords of the Pretenders James and
Charles, Prince Rupert's coat of mail, and the magnificent shield, by
Cellini, presented by Francis I. to King Henry VIII., at the Field of the
Cloth of Gold. But the great treat of the evening was the appearance of
Madame Rachel, who, with two or three French actors, gave _morceaux_ from
her principal impersonations. The success of her performance was the more
conspicuous that it was entirely unaided by scenery, dress, or other
histrionic accompaniment. A little before twelve the Queen, after
addressing with the utmost grace some words of courteous appreciation to
the great _tragedienne_, and bowing to the assembled guests, retired,
leaning on her husband's arm.