QUEEN VICTORIA’S PRIME MINISTER
“Good Monarchs we’ve had whom we think on with pride,
Who wisely e’er filled their high station,
But now we’ve a woman, Heaven bless her! beside
She’s a child of our noble nation.
Victoria the First is of virtue the gem,
May sorrow ne’er seek to oppress her,
Then, fill up your goblets once more to the brim,
Long life to the Queen, God bless her!”
_Anon._
“Nobody is more abused by bad people than Melbourne--and nobody
is more forgiving.”--_Queen Victoria._
From the beginning of the reign Melbourne had been in constant
attendance on his Queen, exacting from her an assiduity in State
matters which she was very ready to give, and taking no notice of the
gossipers’ innuendoes which filled the social atmosphere. Nothing
startling had happened, but Court matters had taken a turn which meant
a slow drifting into trouble of various kinds.
There is no doubt at all that Victoria went heart and soul with the
Whigs. She was not a Radical, but she was also not a Tory. Though in
later years she was accused of neglecting Ireland, at that time she was
keen to deal justly with that part of her kingdom. She was interested
in foreign affairs, and she did her successful utmost to understand
the affairs of England. The fears of the Anti-Catholics had not been
verified, though those people seemed to take little comfort in the
fact; Victoria was not influenced by her foreign surrounders; she had
not put Sir John Conroy into a high place of honour; nor had Lord
Durham, the leader of the Radicals, become Master of the Household--in
place of that he was invested with the dignity of a Knight Grand Cross
of the Most Honourable Order of the Garter, and appointed Governor of
Canada, while Lady Durham became one of the Queen’s ladies.
But Queen Victoria introduced certain new customs into her social life
which caused considerable offence. For instance, she gave precedence to
the Diplomatic Corps, and so raised much anger among the aristocracy,
who opposed the innovation and revenged themselves for it whenever and
wherever they got the opportunity, which frequently gave rise to very
disagreeable incidents. This is quite understandable, for if the Queen
always had Melbourne on her left and Bülow or some other foreigner on
her right, the English Dukes and other men of rank had no chance of
being distinguished by her favours. On the other hand, the Queen saw
the Englishmen often, and it must have been more amusing for her to
talk with the strangers.
The Opposition felt gradually obliged to divest itself of the plans
it had made for the new reign, and the Lords, who had assumed that
King William was, without his will, in the hands of a faction from
whose bondage he could not release himself, and had strongly hoped
that Victoria would range herself on their side, had also to realise
that they would receive no special support from the Crown. Indeed, a
gulf of dislike was being formed with the Government and the Queen
on one side, and the Opposition and the House of Lords on the other.
As early as the autumn of 1837, in their spleen the latter started
foolish stories about the Queen and Melbourne. The more thoughtless
would not believe in the real position of affairs, and had, forsooth!
to whisper that at last Melbourne was showing his ambition, and that
it was no mere tutorial care that he was giving to Her Majesty. The
Countess Grey wrote in the October following Victoria’s accession,
“I hope you are amused at the report of Lord Melbourne being likely
to marry the Queen. For my part I have no objection. I am inclined
to be very loyal and fond of her; she seems to be so considerate
and good-natured.” Princess Lieven, too, made in a letter the very
complacent remark about Melbourne’s association with the Queen, “I for
myself cannot help imagining that she must be going to marry him. It
is all, however, according to rule, and I find it both proper and in
his own interest that Lord Melbourne should keep himself absolutely
master of the situation.” It was so absurd an idea that even if the
Queen had heard of it she could not have let it trouble her. A day or
so before Princess Lieven’s letter had been written, Victoria had been
talking in most intimate fashion to Lady Cowper (Melbourne’s sister),
saying to her: “He eats too much, and I often tell him so. Indeed, I do
so myself, and my doctor has ordered me not to eat luncheon any more.”
“And does your Majesty quite obey him?” asked Lady Cowper. “Why yes, I
think I do, for I only eat a little broth.”
Creevy comments upon this in a letter, “Now, I think a little Queen
taking care of a Prime Minister’s stomach, he being nearly sixty, is
everything one could wish! If only the Tory press could get hold of
this fact what fun they would make of it.” It would indeed have been
a much better subject than that Melbourne was anxious to marry his
Sovereign. I must quote a little further from this sprightly diarist,
for he was on the spot, and gives us an account of the Queen which is
frank, and therefore not animated by the servile desire to praise in
spite of everything. He went to dine with Her Majesty when she made her
visit to the Pavilion at Brighton, and having been told that he was
to sit on the Duchess of Kent’s right hand, he said of it later, “Oh,
what a fright I was in about my right ear,” which, however, being deaf,
should not have troubled him, as he would naturally present his left
ear to the Duchess. His account continued:
“Here comes the Queen, the Duchess of Kent the least little bit in the
world behind her, all her ladies in a row still more behind; Lord
Conyngham and Cavendish on each flank of the Queen.... She was told
by Lord Conyngham that I had not been presented, upon which a scene
took place that to me was truly distressing. The poor little thing
could not get her glove off. I never was so annoyed in my life; yet
what could I do? But she blushed and laughed and pulled till the thing
was done, and I kissed her hand.... Then to dinner.... The Duchess
of Kent was agreeable and chatty, and she said, ‘Shall we drink some
wine?’ My eyes, however, all the while were fixed on Vic. To mitigate
the harshness of any criticism I may pronounce upon her manners, let
me express my conviction that she and her mother are one. I never saw
a more pretty or natural devotion than she shows to her mother in
everything, and I reckon this as by far the most amiable, as well as
_valuable_, disposition to start with in the fearful struggle
she has in life before her. Now for her appearance, but all in the
strictest confidence. A more homely little thing 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. Her voice is
perfect, so is the expression of her face, when she means to say or do
a pretty thing.”
One would like to know the sentiments of the passages which have
been left out of this account by the editor of the book; things
a little more plainly spoken than those left in, which are plain
enough perhaps. That the Queen loved a hearty laugh is well known,
and from some current print I have copied this vulgar criticism upon
her: “The extraordinary funny laugh of the little lady is amusing
enough. Her smile is proverbially beautiful; but there is no very
great necessity for such a peculiar display of the ivories, albeit
they are unquestionably excellent.” Her Majesty is said to have eaten
ungracefully all her life. I remember years ago hearing a pert daughter
reprove her father for picking a bone. He turned calm eyes upon her
as he replied, “It is well known that the Queen always picks bones
at table; I like doing it and may surely follow the fashion set by
Her Majesty.” A lady diarist of the day notes that during one of her
tours in the Midlands the Princess was given asparagus, and insisted
upon eating it in her own way, “which was not a very pretty one,” and
it was some time before she would give heed to the Duchess’s repeated
remonstrances.
A little later the genial letter writer who gave so frank a description
of the greatest lady in the land, added to an epistle, “Alas! tho’ last
not least, in truth little Vic. and her mother are _not_ one,
tho’ Melbourne knows of no other cause of this disunion than Conroy,
whom the Duchess of Kent sees still almost daily, and for a long time
together.”
There was one matter which troubled the Queen from the day she began
to reign, and that was the need of money, for the Civil List could not
be arranged until Parliament met in November. Messrs. Coutts, however,
came to the rescue, with a desire that she would draw upon them for
all that she needed. Yet at that time neither she nor anyone else knew
what would be the amount of her income. It was felt generally by the
Ministers that it would be better to show confidence in their Sovereign
than to be niggardly in the allowance made, as the provision of a
good income would take away all excuse in future for the contracting
of Royal debt. So the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the Rt. Hon.
Spring-Rice, who when he first came to Court was said to see everything
_en couleur de rose_, had to bear the burden of this. Melbourne
begged him to “come prepared to act boldly and liberally, and by no
means to fiddle upon small points and about petty salaries.”
Spring-Rice loyally did as he was advised, and made himself still more
unpopular than he had hitherto been. The Economists, the Radicals, and
the Opposition--a coalition which was much more successful three or
four years later when asked to grant an income to Prince Albert--railed
alike at the extravagance; for trade and agriculture were in a state of
depression, and an expensive scheme of Poor Law was being considered
with the hope that it might do something to relieve the worst poverty.
The newspapers taunted and upbraided Spring-Rice to their mischievous
content, and made little verses upon him.
“Your name, Spring-Rice, is not the thing,
To call you so is flummery,
For how can that belong to Spring
Whose treatment should be summery?”
was one comment. A second which I have come across is more spiteful:
“Mr. Spring-Rice is a smart, little, flat-catching thimble-rigger,
full of small tricks and deceptions. Yet whenever he attempts to
practise on a large scale he invariably throws crabs.” I wonder whether
Spring-Rice’s optimism survived all the attacks made upon him during
his political career.
In spite of the grumbling the Civil List was quickly pushed through,
and the Royal maiden found herself the possessor of--in addition to
the Duchies of Lancaster and Cornwall--a total annuity of £385,000 a
year, being £10,000 more than the net income granted to William IV.
This large sum was divided in the following way. Privy Purse, £60,000;
Household salaries, £131,260; Household expenses, £172,500; Royal
Bounty, £13,200; and unappropriated, £8,040. With this the Queen was
very content, and returned thanks to Parliament in person for what it
had done. Then she did a wonderful thing, for by the autumn of the
following year she had transferred to her father’s creditors out of
her privy purse nearly £50,000. This was a noble thing to do, indeed,
seemingly almost impossible, when one remembers the family from which
she had sprung--one King after another, to say nothing of the Princes,
dying deeply in debt, and considering it but a normal condition--and
also remembering the fascination which the spending of money on
personal matters must have had for a girl hitherto almost deprived of
money.
This income, however, gave new soreness to those who were smarting
already, and the better sort, being debarred from criticising their
Queen too openly, turned upon Lord Melbourne, who never troubled
to read strictures upon himself, and who took such criticism, when
he did hear it, with a smile. From the day of Victoria’s accession
until the day that he went out of office, Melbourne was the favourite
object of vilification. The Court was said to be, under his influence,
such a hot-bed of Whiggism “that a Conservative cat was not so much
as permitted to mew in the precincts of the Palace,” and it began
to be hinted that the Queen might remember that she was Queen over
England and not over a party. The first form of attack was directed
against Melbourne’s constant association with her; he was accused
of pleasure-seeking, of idleness, and of irresponsibility. Queen
Victoria, who was most conscientious about business matters, seems to
have shortened her stay at Brighton on his account, for the _Court
Journal_ announced: “Her Majesty arrived at Buckingham Palace from
Brighton, the distance from the latter place being too far for Lord
Melbourne,” which meant, of course, for her to see him each day. Upon
this another journal asked:
“Why will the Queen at Brighton make
So very, very short a stay?
Solely, of course, for Sponge’s sake,
Who cannot _dine_ there every day.”
“Lord Sponge Melbourne” was a favourite form of address for him in the
satiric papers.
However, the real fury did not burst around the Throne until some time
after the Queen’s coronation, and it became a veritable hurricane after
the troubles of 1839. Meanwhile Melbourne did his best, not only to
guide Her Majesty and to educate her in statecraft, but to arrange
the affairs of the realm as far as he could in the face of virulent
opposition. There was really no justification for the comment made by
_The Times_ early in 1838 that Melbourne “was a mere dangler after
the frivolous courtesies of the ball room and boudoir.”
In a conversation with her Prime Minister the Queen once told him
that the first thing which had convinced her that he was worthy of
her confidence was his conduct in the disputes at Kensington the year
before concerning her suggested allowance. Then, though he knew that
the King was near his end, and that he was offending the Duchess, who
might soon be the most important person in the kingdom, he consistently
took the King’s part, in face of that King’s disfavour. This the
then silent but observant young Princess regarded as a proof of his
honesty and determination to do what was right, and it is evident that
she herself sided with the King on that occasion. Indeed, from the
affection with which she always afterwards spoke of her uncle, it can
hardly be doubted that she was with him in many of the quarrels which
occurred. Greville says that when King William made that fierce attack
on her mother at the Windsor banquet, and expressed his earnest hope
that he might live to see the majority of his niece, “Victoria must
have inwardly rejoiced at the expression of sentiments so accordant
with her own.” But this is going too far, for though it may have been
true concerning her concurrence with the King’s hope, it is most likely
that in such a scene the girl’s feelings were those of terror, regret,
and a passionate sympathy with her insulted mother. Afterwards that
particular sentiment may have appealed to her, but scarcely at the time.
Many accounts are given by contemporary writers as to how the Queen’s
evenings were spent in the first years of her reign, and they all tally
with regard to the general details. Her semi-state entry into the
drawing-room just before the announcement of dinner seems always to
have commenced the evening. She would then shake hands with the women
and bow to the men, speaking a few words to everyone. At the table
Melbourne, when present, always sat on her left hand, and a foreign
ambassador or, failing any such, the highest in rank present among the
English, on the other. The men only stayed a quarter of an hour in
the dining-room after the Queen rose, and were then expected in the
drawing-room, where she always stood until they appeared. Then the
Duchess of Kent would be settled at a whist table, and the Queen would
marshal the other guests about a round table--Melbourne, the careless
and easy, sitting bolt upright and keeping a guard upon his tongue,
still at her left hand. There they all remained talking small talk
until the band had finished its music, and the evening was at an end
at about half-past eleven. How a man of the world like Melbourne could
put up with that night after night it is difficult to say, for he might
have been in any one of half a dozen other places where there was real
conversation going on, and where he could have been at his ease.
Among Melbourne’s curious failings was a habit of talking to himself,
a habit which grew with his years. He was once seen coming out of
Brooks’s, saying emphatically, though unaccompanied by anyone, “I’ll
be damned if I do it for you, my Lord.” One day Lord Hardwicke was
writing in the library of the House of Lords, when Melbourne entered
straight from a debate on the Non-Intrusion question in Scotland. The
Prime Minister threw himself into a chair saying, “God bless me! What’s
to be done now? I had only just settled that confounded Irish Church
question, when earth yawns, and here comes up a devilish worse one
about the Scotch Church.”
This peculiarity he seems to have successfully dropped when in the
presence of Queen Victoria, even though he spent about six hours out of
the twenty-four in her society. But there can be no doubt that he had a
feeling of paternal affection for his young Sovereign, which led him to
give up much for her sake. Some malicious writer tried to make a joke
with a sting in it upon the Prime Minister and his constant attendance
upon Victoria, heading it “Royal Quip.” It ran as follows:--“Some
days ago the dinner-seeking Premier, on a drawing-room lounge, was
endeavouring to render himself as amiable as possible to his Royal
Mistress. Among other questions she was asked whether or not she had
read Lady Blessington’s last charming work, ‘The Idler in Italy.’ Her
reply was in the negative; ‘I know not,’ archly continued our youthful
Sovereign, ‘what may have been the exploits of the Idler in Italy, but
I am convinced that the Idler at Home is a great bore.’ Mel. instantly
took leave of Her Majesty. We note, however, that matters have since
been satisfactorily arranged, seeing that the Premier had his feet
under the Royal mahogany on Wednesday last.”
* * * * *
As for the Coronation, we have heard so much during late years of these
celebrations that there is no need to enter into any great detail
about it, but it may be mentioned that the event formed a good excuse
for contention between the two political parties, and others found
it a good peg on which to hang their scorn or their platitudes. The
cry of the Banquet was raised, the Government having decided that as
that picturesque but mediæval custom had been dropped at the preceding
Coronation it should not be revived. This was, of course, sufficient
to make the Tories call for one, and to raise a cry of false economy
and meanness. The Duke of Buckingham wrote, “The Ministers turned a
deaf ear to all representations either of right or of policy, and the
British Empire was condemned to stand in the eyes of foreigners as too
poor to crown her monarch with the state which, when much poorer, the
nation had willingly afforded.”
Yet now, seventy-three years later, we have just been reading of the
amusement caused in foreign circles about the way in which we cling
to old customs in our coronations. And earlier, when William IV. was
crowned _The Times_ published a curious leader in which it more
than justified the curtailment of the various functions. The writer
of the article spoke of the quackeries played off in the course of
the ceremony, “revoltingly compounded of the worst dregs of Popery
and feudalism,” and continued, “What a fuss with palls, and ingots,
and spurs, and swords, and oil for anointing (greasing) their Sacred
Majesties, and whipping off and on of mantles and the rest of it.” The
writer closed with an expression of the hope that when a leisure hour
should arrive the entire character of the solemnity should be re-cast.
It may well be wondered how far the views of _The Times_ of to-day
agree with those it held in that yester-year!
The walking procession of all the Estates of the Realm was also
dispensed with, and for the last time the Queen’s Barge-master with
forty-eight watermen preceded twelve of the Royal carriages.
Marshal Soult, who came as special Ambassador from the King of France,
was so much cheered both in and out of the Abbey that he was overcome,
and seizing the arm of his aide-de-camp, said, “Ah! vraiment, c’est un
brave peuple!” Later he declared publicly that it was the greatest
day of his life, for it proved that the English believed that he had
fought as an honourable man. He brought over with him a State carriage,
which had been used by the Prince of Condé, and had it decorated in
the most costly fashion. It was a curious thing that both in Queen
Victoria’s and King William’s Coronations there was a great competition
in equipages. The Russian Ambassador (Count von Strogonoff) bought for
sixteen hundred pounds a carriage for which the Duke of Devonshire
had given three thousand when he went on his Extraordinary Embassy to
St. Petersburg. Another diplomatist gave two hundred and fifty pounds
merely for the hire of a vehicle for the day.
There was also among the Ambassadors--who had the liberty of dressing
as they would--what might almost have seemed a competition in dress.
Thus the Greek Ambassador was adjudged as the most picturesque, and
Prince Esterhazy, son of the Minister Plenipotentiary from the Emperor
of Austria, was the most gorgeous--one lady said of him that he looked
as though he had been caught in a shower of diamonds and had come in
dripping; she almost expected to see them settling in little pools on
the floor. Prince Paul von Schwartzenberg, the Austrian Ambassador
Extraordinary, wore violet velvet heavily embroidered in seed pearls,
the jewels with which he was covered being worth half a million
florins, while his boots alone cost sixteen thousand florins.
We have all heard that the old Duke of Sussex embraced the Queen on
this public occasion, that old Lord Rolle stumbled and fell down two
steps, giving Her Majesty the opportunity of doing one of her pretty
acts; and that a large bird hovered over the Palace and was regarded as
an omen of good luck. We have all heard, too, of the Coronation ring,
which, though made for the little finger by mistake, the Archbishop
insisted should be placed on the fourth finger--a painful event for the
poor little Queen. As there had been no rehearsal, “little Victory”
never knew what to do next, and said once to John Thynne, “Pray tell me
what to do, for they don’t know.” Someone who “did not know” made her
leave her chair and enter St. Edward’s Chapel before the Archbishop had
finished the prayers, much to that ecclesiastic’s chagrin. Then when
the Orb was put into her hand she asked, “What am I to do with it?”
and on learning that she was to carry it in her left hand, replied,
sighingly, “But it is very heavy!”
All these incidents have been told over and over again, but there are
some things not so well known, and one is that in consequence of the
ceremony extending from noon to five o’clock people would have fainted
from hunger, if caterers had not been allowed to sell their wares in
the Abbey. At a convenient moment the Queen was conducted into St.
Edward’s Chapel, where she found the altar spread with food and bottles
of wine. It disturbs one’s sense of the fitness of things that an
altar, even to a long dead saint, should be used as a dining table, yet
perhaps it is no worse than the irreverent selling of the outsides of
churches for the erection of tiers of seats whenever a Royal Procession
is coming along.
The author of “The Ingoldsby Legends” described the Coronation very
amusingly under the name of Barney Macguire, one verse of which runs:--
“Then the crame and custard, and the beef and mustard,
All on the tombstones like a poulterer’s shop;
With lobsters and white-bait, and other swate-meats,
And wine and nagus, and Imparial Pop!
There was cakes and apples in all the chapels,
With fine polonies and rich mellow pears,--
Och! the Count von Strogonoff, sure he got prog enough,
The sly ould Divil undernathe the stairs.”
In another set of verses on the subject the same author said he was in
the Abbey looking through the wrong end of a pair of binoculars, and--
“At first I saw a little Queen was sitting all alone,
And little Duke and Duchesses knelt round her little throne,
And a little Lord Archbishop came, and a little prayer he said,
And then he popped a little crown upon her little head.”
It is curious to note that the Queen, when writing in her journal of
the Coronation, just mentioned her mother as being there, but of Lehzen
she wrote: “There was another most dear being present at this ceremony,
in the box immediately above the Royal box and who witnessed all: it
was my dearly beloved angelic Lehzen, whose eyes I caught when on the
Throne, and we exchanged smiles.”
Lord Glenelg was Victoria’s Colonial Secretary for a period, and one
imagines that he must have inspired Dickens with the idea of the Fat
Boy, for we often hear of him as asleep at the wrong time. Like other
people, he had to get up very early for the Coronation, and it was
therefore not surprising that he fell asleep in his place in the Abbey.
He awoke for the crowning, and duly put on his coronet, then promptly
fell asleep again, and his head nodding, the heavy thing fell off with
a clatter. Roused by the noise, he sat up, put his hand to his cranium,
and cried aloud, “Oh! I have lost my nightcap!” The “nightcap” had
rolled out of sight, and was not recovered until after the homage, but
the story does not tell how he managed to offer his fealty without it.
This failing of Glenelg’s was constantly being referred to in the
papers in jest or earnest. Here is a sample: “Is it true, Mel., that
railroads rest upon sleepers?” asked Victoria. “Yes, your Majesty,”
replied Mel. “Then pray take care that Lord Glenelg travels only by
the mail coach, as if he goes by the railway he may be mistaken for a
sleeper,” was the Queen’s entreaty. Another joke, even then somewhat
time-worn, ran:--
“‘What, twelve!’ Lord Glenelg, waking cries;
‘How quick the time has passed!’
‘No wonder,’ little John replies,
‘You sleep so very fast.’”
Lyndhurst distinguished himself before the ceremony commenced by
standing on some steps beyond the choir, and with eyeglass up
scrutinising the Peers “and particularly the Peeresses” as they came
from the entrance.
One of the silliest customs of the Coronation was the flinging of
medals about behind the throne, that is to say, between the altar steps
and the choir. On this occasion Lord Surrey, the Lord Treasurer of the
Household, flung them right and left, and there was a pretty scramble;
maids of honour, peers, generals, goldsticks, robed aldermen wrestled
and fought, some getting more than their share, and some less. The
judges, however, felt themselves enclosed in the dignity of the law,
they did not scramble or move, but pathetically wooed the fates by
standing stiffly erect and holding out their hands. Such a “good boy”
attitude ought to have been rewarded, but alas, not one of them caught
a falling piece of silver.
Lord Dalhousie was struck with the absence of popular enthusiasm and of
reverence inside the Abbey, and Carlyle’s commentary upon the event is
scarcely cheerful. He had been invited to the Montagues’ window to see
the procession, and he went there, though he gave away his invitation
ticket to the Abbey.
“Crowds and mummery are not agreeable to me. The Procession was all
gilding, velvet and grandeur; the poor little Queen seemed to have been
greeting; one could not but wish the poor little lassie well; she is
small, sonsy, and modest--and has the ugliest task, I should say, of
all girls in these Isles.” He added to this, “She is at an age when a
girl can hardly be trusted to choose a bonnet for herself; yet a task
is laid on her from which an archangel might shrink.”
C. R. Leslie, the artist, told of her that as soon as she returned to
Buckingham Palace after this long day she hurried to put off all the
splendid signs of royalty that she might give her spaniel Dash its
bath. A similar incident is related of her return from opening her
first Parliament. An old Court official watched her as she re-entered
the Palace, being much impressed with her dignity as she crossed the
rooms of St. James’s. He wondered if this would last when she was
alone, and curiously followed her as she went through a door leading to
the staircase which led to her own apartments. There at the foot of the
staircase he saw her roll her train round her arm, pick up her dress
all round, and run up two steps at a time, calling to her dogs.
This mixture of dignity and girlishness is very endearing, as those who
have watched youthful womanhood well know.
The year of the Coronation was a year of small things as far as
the Court was concerned, a year of steady tramping along the road
of disaffection among the better-class politicians, and a year of
endeavour to do the right thing on the part of the Queen, relieved by
an occasional autocracy of manner which led her to do the wrong thing.
Relations between herself and her mother became more and more strained,
so much so that it was a matter of public comment. Conroy still
hung about the Duchess and was still maligned in the papers, _The
Times_ toward the end of the year being found guilty of libelling
him by saying that he bought property in Wales which he had paid for,
though not with his own money. On the other hand, the tradesmen who
served the Duchess of Kent presented Sir John Conroy with plate to the
value of £400, to show their appreciation of the kindness and urbanity
with which he had invariably treated them.
The _Age_ now changed its tone; instead of vilifying the Duchess
and all her friends, it chose to regard her as a martyr, _against_
whom plots were formed by the foreign Camarilla, which included
Leopold, Lehzen, Stockmar, Sir James Clark (Physician), Sir Henry
Seton, and any foreigners who might be at Court or passing through. It
asserted now that the ruin of Conroy was part of a plot for alienating
mother and daughter, and placing the latter more firmly under foreign
influence; but there are people who would scarcely consider £3,000 a
year pension as ruin.
The Baroness Lehzen, of whom Lady Normanby said that she was a kind and
motherly person to the young Maids of Honour, retained her position
with the Queen, and the more firmly she seemed to be established the
more furiously did one section of the public and the Press hate her.
One or two examples will show the way in which the more outspoken
papers wrote of her; and all had the idea at the back of their anger
that she was pushing forward with all her influence the pretensions of
Albert of Saxe-Coburg, who, surrounded by Catholic belongings, would
do some frightful, undescribed, and impossible deeds when settled in
power. It was all wild, stupid, and hysterical, yet somewhat amusing to
look back to now.
It should be remembered that Fräulein Lehzen was the daughter of a
Lutheran clergyman, and that she came to England with the Duchess
of Kent as a governess or nursery governess to Princess Féodore. A
Lutheran clergyman was not likely to be a man of any particular rank,
but he was at least a man of thought; he may have been very poor,
as a large proportion of clergymen have been all through the ages,
and his daughters may have, most likely did, help in the work of the
house and gardens. This, however, is but surmise in an endeavour to
explain the absurd reproaches levelled at the Baroness. Thus writes the
_Age_, which was bitterly hated by the Whigs, because it published
every little fault and prank of the men of their party; a paper which
they naturally, under the circumstances, said to be simply a lying,
scandalous rag, but which, as a matter of fact, was often very astute,
and told the truth with just that touch of exaggeration which gave it
the necessary allurement.
“On public grounds we are determined to let the country know the
detestable schemes by which a foreign Camarilla rules in the Palace
[now Buckingham, not Kensington, Palace], to which the noble and
virtuous of the land are not invited--nor would they go if they
were. [The last sentence is somewhat reminiscent of the fox and the
grapes.] We do not object to the Baroness because she was originally
a milk girl, but because of her manner and behaviour, especially to
the Duchess of Kent. She has rendered herself most hateful to the
people of England, because her connection with Leopold, through his
creature Stockmar, is calculated to inflict the deepest injury upon
the Sovereign and the country generally; because she is a bad-hearted
woman; and because she is trying to bring about a union at once
mercenary and distasteful.”
As time went on, the Tory section of the Press grew more emphatic in
its utterances, and the extreme Tory clique expressed itself in plainer
and more violent and libellous language. With them the Baroness was
anathema. They affirmed that having in her youth been a milkmaid, she
was now only fit for the housemaid’s table; her sister had been Queen
Caroline’s maid, and she had come as such to the Duchess of Kent for
a few pounds a year. “Yet now she insults the good Duchess, who is
beloved by everyone.” “She has broken up the mother’s influence, and
deliberately taught the child to look coldly on one who has nobly done
her duty to the country by educating that child suitably, and, having
gained the needed ascendency, had come to an understanding with Leopold
and his friends as to the use to be made of her power.” The Duchess
of Kent, who they said was insulted by her _ci-devant_ servant,
should have their protection, they vowed, but did not explain how it
would be given.
A story went around that once at Windsor the Baroness mislaid her keys,
and that in consequence the Queen could not open any of her dispatch
boxes, and thus everyone averred that the secrets of the Empire were
entrusted to “this German spy.” “We demand to know what office this
woman bears about the Sovereign? She may rest assured that this
question will not only be asked, but a reply peremptorily demanded when
Parliament meets.” Her position was denounced as unconstitutional and
dangerous to the personal comfort of Her Majesty, it was said--though
the real meaning was “to the dying hope that the Tories would ever
regain their influence.” When some hireling about the Court made
known the fact that Lehzen had changed her bedroom, taking the next
room to that occupied by Victoria, there being no door but a curtain
between the two rooms, a terrible fear arose, and all the exaggerations
about complete ascendency over the mind of the Queen were started
afresh. “The Constitution does not permit the Sovereign to have an
irresponsible adviser, and if anyone under the guise and specious
title of friend obtains possession of State matters and controls State
proceedings, is a foreigner and in communication with a foreign Court,
that same Constitution will vindicate its outraged fences and expel the
intruder even from the Royal footstool.” To heighten the indignation,
it was said that Louis Philippe was fostering a plot in favour of the
Catholics, and through Leopold was making the Baroness his tool, so
that the “exasperated Protestants of the Empire” were losing their hope
of favour, but “were determined to wrest a satisfactory certainty from
the Crown as their ancestors had done before them.”
Melbourne was naturally blamed, though his influence was by no means
strong enough to allow him to interfere in the Queen’s private
friendships, and he more or less knew that the suggestion that Lehzen
was consulted in State matters was unfounded.
In all this lies the inner cause of that difficulty which arose in 1839
and convulsed politicians, the “Bedchamber Squabble,” as it has been
called. It burst forth without warning, no one probably being more
surprised than the two chief actors, the Queen and Sir Robert Peel.
Though it will be necessary to go back again to events of 1838, it is
better perhaps to detail here the intricacies of this knotty question,
which had such an important, if temporary, effect on politics.