Censoring Queen Victoria (17 page)

I always imagined that it was the political correspondence that would be given to the public – for instance all the Prime Ministers' letters, reports of Cabinet meetings, &c tho' of course some of these are included in the papers now under discussion.

I quite see your comparisons of the intervals which separate us from Melbourne and that between James I and Queen Anne, and between Geo II and Queen Victoria. But on the other hand, Queen Victoria has not been dead 6 years – Her memory is loved and venerated by all English-speaking people; in India it is positively a worship – and if I were the King, both from the point of view of son and Mother and also for the sake of the monarchical idea and ‘Culte' I would publish nothing which could tend to shake the position of Queen Victoria in the minds of her subjects.

This distinction between personal and public was of course contentious, and was something Benson and Esher had struggled with themselves. In a later letter to Esher, Knollys rather perceptively reminded him that the Queen herself had authorised the publication of many of the Prince Consort's letters in Martin's biography: ‘With respect to Bigge's objections, I wonder what the Prince Consort would have said to the publication of his letters and diaries in Martin's
Life
, which remember was brought out under the direct authority of Queen Victoria …' No doubt he was intending to reassure Esher. Reading Martin today, however, one is struck by how little of the Prince's voice is heard and how few of his personal letters or journal extracts were included. Much of the material comprises letters written about the Prince by others, including Victoria.

Bigge also questioned some of Benson and Esher's editorial decisions, including an apparent attempt to avoid provoking
The Times
. Leopold had often complained to Victoria of the ‘scurrilous abuse [heaped] on the Coburg family' by the English press, especially following his marriage to Princess Charlotte, and commended Victoria's principle of not minding what the newspapers said. In a letter written just prior to Victoria's accession, he sought to instruct her about the power of the press and launched an attack – unwarranted, in Benson and Esher's view – on
The Times
. This letter contained a very idiosyncratic but perceptive account of the paper's editorial positions on several political topics, as well of its occasional criticisms of Leopold himself. Benson and Esher must have appended a footnote to this letter criticising Leopold, with which Bigge disagreed. Bigge thought that Leopold's ‘severe strictures … [were] more or less historical' and unobjectionable as they are ‘those of a foreign onlooker'. The editors did not agree with him, and only one paragraph of this interesting six-page letter was eventually published, omitting any direct reference to
The Times
.

John Murray may have been behind this decision. The editor of
The Times
had recently begun to publish anonymous articles critical of the production and pricing of the
Letters of Queen Victoria
and accusing Murray of seeking exorbitant profits. Murray launched a libel action against
The Times
and its editor, which was finally concluded in Murray's favour in May 1908.

Meanwhile, Esher privately sounded out his second possible reader, John Morley:

I have finished Vol I and Vol II of
Queen Victoria's Correspondence
, the penultimate revise. It has been difficult work, as,
since the book is to be issued by the direct authority of the King, much care must be taken not to allow anything to slip in which can give pain or offence. The latter term in its most catholic sense. Between ourselves, the King wishes you to look through the final proofs. Will you, when asked, consent?

(There is, unsurprisingly, no evidence that Esher actually consulted the King before making this request to Morley.)

On the same day, 17 August 1906, he wrote to John Murray, saying: ‘I return the proofs of Volume I. The King has gone through them and by H.M.'s directions I have cut out certain passages.' These deletions were not restricted to Bigge's list and included several long excisions. Murray replied, ‘From the editorial point of view the excisions seem to be not serious. From the printer's point of view I fear they will be very serious.' Murray sent a similar letter to Benson, who was at his mother's home at Horsted Keynes, Sussex. In his diary Benson recorded:

20 Aug 1906

Woke feeling better then opened letter from Murray which had arrived on Sat – not new proofs but the King's copy!! Many omissions, some very serious – long serious letter from Murray. Went up to Town to see Murray – went solidly through [it all].

Such lengthy excisions at this stage were a technical nightmare. There were more than a thousand pages already typeset, sitting in trays at the printers. The material to be deleted had to be located in the trays of type and that type removed. A decision had then to be made whether the remaining
type should be physically moved up to fill the gaps, or whether alternative text of the same length should be found as a replacement. Either option was time-consuming and expensive, and would have repercussions for the publication dates of the book. It also meant additional work for the indexers, as the indexes for Volume I and II were by now almost complete. After spending half a day with Murray, Benson wrote to Esher:

I have just been through the proofs with Murray. There are three serious omissions. If these omissions are met simply by closing up the pages, the whole pagination of the book will have to be altered, and the index thrown out of gear. It will mean breaking up every page [of type] from the point of the first alteration [on page 8] to the end of the book – this will waste time and be of course very expensive.

What I would suggest is that we should find some unemphatic passages of letters of a purely historical kind to fill up the gaps – It will be quite easy to do this out of the cancelled proofs or the MSS. The introductions [i.e., the replacement material] need not come chronologically exactly where the omissions come, but a few pages earlier or later; and thus only a few pages need be disarranged … – but you can trust me to find absolutely colourless passages.

This solution may well have been Murray's. Benson now set about collecting lines of ‘absolutely colourless' text. Considering the agony he had felt at having to delete so much interesting material in the earlier stages of the project, he must have felt a huge frustration at this point. But his pragmatism came to the fore; he took Esher at his word and
believed that these changes had been requested by the King, and that once they were made they could finally send the book to print.

Meanwhile, Esher had received Morley's response to the proofs:

My dear Esher,

I have read it all with the utmost interest and gratification.

Success in biography obviously depends on three things – subject, material and handling.

As for subject, Queen Victoria stands in the first place, for not only was her rank and station illustrious, but her personality was extraordinary – in its vigour, tenacity, integrity, and in the union of all these stubborn qualities with the suppleness and adaptability required from a Sovereign in a Constitutional system.

Second, your material was evidently rich and copious, and I cannot think but that the King was right not to pinch you. I hope the same liberal spirit will help future volumes.

Thirdly, I thoroughly applaud your
plan
. A biography of the three-decker stamp, filled out with dead history, would have been, I believe a great mistake. I always thought Theodore Martin went too far in that direction. What people want to know, and will always want to know, about Queen Victoria, is her character, her ways in public business, her relations with her Ministers and her times.

You give quite enough in your excellent introduction to the chapters, to let people know where they are; and if they seek more, there are plenty of books already where they can find it.

I have kept a keen look-out, as you wished me to do, for references or quotations that might touch sore places. I find
none such. The air of the whole book is good-natured as it should be and I see nothing to give pain to anybody. It will doubtless be harder to walk quite safely as you come nearer our own day. Meanwhile I feel pretty sure about you. Of course, I do not overlook the responsibility that falls in a special degree upon the King. So far, I do not hesitate to say, if I am any judge, that there is not a line with which from this point of view anybody can quarrel.

The industry and exactitude with which the elucidating notes etc., have been prepared, command my real admiration. I know well how much pain is meant by these things. I have jotted down on a separate piece of paper one or two most minute and trivial points that struck me.

One word I should like to add, though it is not within my commission: don't publish one volume by itself. I am sure, and my publishers agree, that one distinct element in the success of my
Gladstone
was that people sat down to the whole meal at once. You may choose, or may not be able, to do as much as this. But pray try to approach my counsel of perfection, if and in so far as you can.

I congratulate you, dear Esher, on your associations with a book that all the world one day will read, study, admire and greatly like (which is more than admiring) as now does,

Yours most sincerely,

John Morley

Most of Morley's recommendations were corrections to errors in names and titles, and Benson was grateful to have his imprimatur. With Morley's seal of approval, Esher felt he could confidently proceed with Volume I. He promptly sent Morley's letter to the King and suggested that he approve the volume
to go to press. The King complied, giving his full consent, albeit briefly:

Mr Morley's letter is a most cheering and complimentary one. His advice should also be followed and
not
produce one volume by itself. It is likely to be a great success.

Edward R.I.

Having Morley as a reader was Esher's trump card. King Edward, despite being claustrophobically surrounded by intellectuals and learned men in his boyhood, maintained an admiration for certain men of learning all his life; John Morley was one of them. Finally, on 24 October 1906, after both Benson and Murray had checked it through one last time, the first volume went to be stereotyped. Volume II still awaited the King's approval, and Volume III was yet to be set into type.

Esher now turned his attention to Volmes II and III. He did not seek outside readers for these volumes; he and Knollys would instead act as the King's censors. Although when Esher discussed these final changes with Benson and Murray, he spoke as though they were the King's, correspondence confirms that Esher and Knollys were busy drawing up the ‘King's excisions' in Scotland while the King himself was on the Continent.

Benson gently put to Esher that many of the proposed excisions for Volume II were ‘quite unnecessary & even pointless & to garble some of the letters very much. I suppose there is no appeal?' Esher forwarded Benson's protest to Knollys, who haughtily replied:

I return Benson's letters. Literary recluses are not always the best judges of what is good taste in these matters and I think
we have been very indulgent in our excisions. I shall be curious to know to what particular ones he objects to as ‘pointless'. He forgets that the work will be published under the direct auspices of the King.

Tellingly, Knollys referred to ‘our' excisions rather than ‘the King's'. Esher's response to Benson has not been located, but it was persuasive enough for Benson to acquiesce: ‘I quite see your point about H.M.'s position in the matter.'

Upon his return from holiday, however, Benson had second thoughts. He tried again to have Esher reconsider the deletions. He put specific arguments against some of them, filling nine foolscap pages with a list of the proposed excisions and his objections. For example, some were simply, he contended, ‘historical facts'; others changed the meaning or intent of the Queen's comments. Esher responded forcefully:

My dear ACB,

I have gone very carefully through your suggested restorations of the original text and have spoken to the King about them.

H.M. says that it is not a question of ‘well known historical facts' or the ‘great historical value' of passages. The point is that this book is published under the King's authority. Take for instance your suggestion in regard to page 17. You would not feel that the King would be justified in allowing a passage to be printed in which his mother characterises a living sovereign, one of the most respected and a great personal friend of the King, as an ‘
utter nullity
'.

The same class of objection holds good in all cases where excisions have been made. The principle all along has
been to avoid giving pain to living servants or friends of the King, or umbrage to foreign states. I am sure you will feel that this is the right view, even if the book should suffer, which in my judgment it will not.

Yours always,

E

The ‘utter nullity' was the Austrian Emperor. The phrase was not Victoria's; she was repeating to King Leopold an opinion of Tsar Nicholas I, although we can assume it was a view shared by Victoria, Albert and possibly also Leopold. But the reference was not, as Esher suggested, to Emperor Franz Josef, who was indeed a ‘great, personal friend' of King Edward VII. It referred to his elderly uncle, Ferdinand I, who became emperor in 1835 and who abdicated during the Revolution of 1848 (to be succeeded by Franz Joseph). He was known to be mentally deficient, so Benson was justified in saying this was ‘a perfectly well-known historical fact'. And he had died in 1875, so Esher was wrong to say that the words described a ‘living Sovereign'. These misunderstandings confirm that Esher had not in fact ‘spoken to the King' about these excisions. For all his shortcomings, Edward VII was pedantic about such personal details and would have corrected Esher on this point (he once sent an equerry to correct Esher's son, Maurice, after Maurice, within the King's earshot, had referred to Nicholas II as ‘the Russian Emperor' instead of ‘the Emperor of Russia'). Yet again, Esher assumed an authority which in reality he did not have.