Victoria Victorious: The Story of Queen Victoria (51 page)

And I believe it was. Mr. Birch reported that Bertie was by no means dull. His interest was easily aroused; he was improving in his lessons and was finding study quite absorbing.

I saw Bertie once or twice with his tutor. Bertie was smiling happily; he had lost his stutter; and it was clear to me that he was not in the least in awe of Mr. Birch.

I did not tell Albert this because I thought that he might be of the opinion that the boy
should
be afraid of his tutor if the tutor was doing his work properly; but in view of the progress he was making Albert did not raise this point.

As for Lady Lyttelton she seemed very happy about the arrangements. She could not say enough that was good about Mr. Birch.

I was very pleased. I hoped there would be no more trouble. It was so distressing for Albert to have to chastise Bertie.

O
SBORNE WAS A
great consolation during those difficult days.

We had decided that charming as it was, it was scarcely fit for a royal residence; and Albert was planning extensive alterations.

As everything Albert did was done with absolute thoroughness, he was completely absorbed in the project.

He was in consultation with Thomas Cubitt, that very modern
builder, and they discussed the alterations at length before the plans were made.

The Solent reminded Albert of the Bay of Naples.

“So,” he said, “we will have a Neapolitan villa—high towers, with perhaps a loggia on the first floor. There should be a pavilion wing and two eastern wings, with accommodation for servants and officials of the country who may have to come down from time to time.”

Albert had worked out how all this should be paid for. I had sold the Pavilion at Brighton to the Brighton Town Commissioners; and thanks to all the savings Albert had made on the household economies at Buckingham Palace, we had about a quarter of a million pounds to spend on this new Osborne.

Albert found great pleasure, not only in the rebuilding, but in the laying out of the gardens. He had tried to work on those of Buckingham Palace but the Commissioners had made such a fuss. Here it was different. We had our own house. I even had my own bathing-machine on the beach; it had a curtained veranda and was really charming. Albert had fir trees—Christmas trees, we called them now—imported from Germany; and we had a playroom sent over from Switzerland that we called the Swiss Cottage; and as he was anxious that the children should not be idle here, the girls learned to cook and do all sorts of domestic tasks, while the boys had tools and did woodwork. That was later on though.

We could see the ships sailing by and Albert said that perhaps the Prince of Wales would be impressed by them and want to join the Navy.

Osborne, the scene of many a delightful holiday, was precious to me because of Albert's creations.

While the work was progressing, he was constantly inspecting it. He would go out, even at night, because some little detail occurred to him.

There was an amusing incident that happened one night when he had thought of something he wanted to see in the grounds and had gone out in the dark to look at it.

A policeman, seeing him, arrested him.

Albert protested, but the policeman refused to listen to him; and as the servants' quarters were quite near, he took Albert to them.

The poor policeman was overcome with shame.

The next day Albert summoned him to appear before him. Albert was unsmiling and I am sure the poor man thought he was going to lose his job. Then Albert commended him on his prompt action and told him that he had recommended him for promotion.

The poor man went away bemused. Albert and I laughed a great deal over the incident.

“I should have been impulsive,” I said. “I should have complimented him immediately. Just think what agonies he must have suffered during the night.”

“It would do him no harm,” said Albert. “And it makes my approval even more appreciated.”

Dear Albert, he always thought of what was
good
for people.

T
O MY HORROR
, dismay, and fury, I was once more pregnant. This would be my sixth child. It was too much. I hated the entire business. I had been enjoying life so much—and could have done so completely if there had not been so many unpleasant State matters which seemed to flare up every now and then.

I did not like the new Foreign Secretary, Lord Palmerston. How different from dear Lord Aberdeen! I was sure Lord Palmerston withheld information from us; and he and Albert were not on very good terms.

And now … another baby, which was due in April!

Then came terrible news.

There was revolution again in France. This was a repeat performance of what had happened at the end of last century. I had read of that in horror; I had wept for poor vain Marie Antoinette, whom I had seen as not unlike myself in my early days before I had learned so much from Albert, and poor Louis, her husband, who wanted to be good but was so weak. But this was different. These were people I knew.

The mob was marching on the Tuileries.

Poor Aunt Louise! She would be frantic. She was devoted to her family, and what would the mob do to her poor father? Not what they had done to his predecessor, I prayed.

News drifted in. How at midnight the tocsins had rung out, which was the sign of the people to revolt. Then the French King had abdicated.

I kept thinking of myself in similar circumstances. It is true that “uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”

Lord Palmerston came to see me. He was rather supercilious. Why had I ever thought I liked him? He used to pay me extravagant compliments and Lord Melbourne had told me stories about his amours, which had seemed amusing then, but which would have shocked Albert and, therefore, now shocked me.

Albert was with me but Palmerston addressed himself to me as though counting Albert of no consequence.

He said, “The King of France will doubtless attempt to leave his country. The Foreign Office would not object to a ship's being put at his disposal; but I must point out that, in my opinion, the country would object to harboring members of the French Royal family on this soil.”

“I have family connections with the King of France,” I said.

“Most unfortunate, Ma'am. But you must remember how matters stand in this country at the moment. Your Majesty knows that there have been signs of unrest. It would not be wise to provoke them by taking sides in this foreign conflict.”

“You are advising me to desert my family,” I said.

Lord Palmerston lifted his shoulders, and began to speak slowly and clearly, as though to children. “Unrest of this nature in our neighbors, who are so close to us, must make us pause to think. Revolution spreads like fire. We have to take precautions. We have to act with the utmost care.”

“In England—” I began.

He had the temerity to interrupt which was typical of Lord Palmerston. “Even in England, Ma'am, and most certainly, I should say, in some of the smaller states of Europe.”

Alarm was in Albert's eyes. He murmured, “This is true.”

“You say I may offer them a ship…”

How degrading to have to ask the permission of this man to help my friends! I knew that he was right, of course; but that did not make me like him any more.

S
HORTLY AFTERWARD HE
called on us again. Albert was with me when I received him. He told me that the King and Queen of France were in England.

“They landed at Newhaven,” he said, “having been brought over in the Steam Packet Express onto which they embarked at Le Havre yesterday evening. When they heard that a Republic had been declared they thought it unsafe to stay in France. I understand that the King's intentions are to remain in England in the strictest incognito; and he and the Queen will assume the titles of the Count and Countess of Neuilly.”

I thought that the odious man was going to suggest that we send them back, but he did not.

He went on, “Perhaps Your Majesty could offer them Claremont. It is, after all, almost a private residence.”

“We shall do that,” I said fervently, looking at Albert, who nodded, lowering his head, so great was his grief.

“They will leave Newhaven tomorrow,” added Lord Palmerston.

“At least,” I said to Albert when Lord Palmerston had left, “we can offer them shelter here.”

There were letters from Uncle Leopold and Aunt Louise, and I was blinded by my tears as I read them. I was so desperately sorry for Aunt Louise for I knew how fond she was of her parents.

As she was sealing her letter she heard that they had arrived in England, and enclosed a letter for her mother that she begged me to give to her.

Uncle Leopold wrote most pathetically, telling me how unwell the news from Paris had made him. “What will become of us, God knows. Great efforts will be made to incite a revolution in this country. We have a right to claim protection from England and other powers. I can write no more. God bless you.”

Poor poor Uncle Leopold and even poorer Aunt Louise!

There was great uneasiness in the air. Life never seems to deal one blow at a time. We heard that our dear Grandmother Coburg had died. Albert who had been her special boy in his early days—and always—was grief-stricken. There was no question of his going to Coburg for the funeral. This was not a time to leave me and the children.

There was more to follow.

Lord John Russell came to the Palace in a state of great perturbation. The Chartists were massing in Trafalgar Square and he feared they might decide to come to the Palace.

I was quite advanced in my pregnancy at this time and I felt utterly weary and very worried about the children.

I said they should be kept in the schoolroom and not told what was happening unless it was absolutely necessary. When Albert came in I clung to him, for if the mob broke into the Palace I feared he was the one they would attack. They had always hated him, jeered at him for being a German and refused to see all the good he had done; they shut their eyes to his fine character and called him smug.

In my imagination, I could hear the shouts of the people in the distance. I saw them surging up the Mall. I sat down, Albert beside me, holding my hand.

“If it comes,” I said, “you will be beside me.”

“I shall protect you,” he replied.

“They will not harm me…in this condition.”

“I would not trust them.”

We sat there waiting as time passed. I listened. It seemed very quiet. Lord John was shown in. He looked exhausted.

He said, “I have come to tell Your Majesty that all is well. The crowds are dispersing. They had no real heart for revolution. Our people are not made of the same stuff as the French, Ma'am.”

“Thank God they are not,” I said with feeling.

Albert put his arm round me.

“They left Trafalgar Square shouting slogans,” said Lord John. “Then they rushed into the Mall. There, some of them seemed to lose heart and drifted away. It was the signal for others to do so. I heard some of them say, ‘It is not the Queen's fault. It is her government and…'”

He did not finish and I knew he meant Albert.

I was indignant, but my relief was greater than all other emotions. I just leaned against Albert and gave myself up to the luxury of having him and the family safe.

A
MONG ALL THESE
emotional disturbances, I did not forget Lord Melbourne. I wrote to him regularly. I had heard that he hardly ever emerged from Brocket these days and that he had become a little absentminded at times, believing he was living in the past, remembering old glories, thinking of the days no doubt when he had been the confidant of the Queen. Dear Lord Melbourne, although I now looked back on my relationship with him with tender amusement, I still cherished many memories.

I wrote to him:

A few days after I wrote that letter my child was born—another little girl: Louise, Caroline, Alberta. It had not been such a very difficult birth but it left me exhausted. I did not want to leave my bed but lay there listlessly, thinking of the terrible things that were happening in the world.

I felt so limp and ill; and I was growing quite fat which was distressing. Albert used to carry me from the bed to the sofa. I think he was very sorry for all I had to go through, bearing children. It must have seemed unfair—even to him—that women should have to bear the entire burden, and when the child was born the husband had such delight in her as Albert had in Vicky. He was obviously her favorite, too, as she was his, yet I had been the one who had had to suffer for her.

Ignoble thoughts, no doubt. But then that was my nature. Albert would have been shocked if I spoke some of my thoughts aloud and would have pointed out the error of them. Well, I would indulge them while I pondered on the hateful process of giving birth. Something more dignified might have been devised.

It was April. Soon I should have another birthday. How quickly they seemed to come nowadays. I remembered how long I had waited for my eighteenth. Now the years sped by.

Albert was with me and about to read to me when Lord John arrived. I only had to look at his face to see his concern.

“Not fresh trouble, Lord John, I hope?” I said.

“I fear so, Your Majesty. The Chartists are to have a meeting on the tenth of this month and it will take place in London. It seems to your Cabinet that this time they may be bent on trouble.”

“Lord John,” I said, “I am not yet recovered from the birth of the Princess. How can they do this?”

“They are concerned only with their rights, Ma'am. I have come to tell you that we shall take every precaution to protect you, your family, and the Palace.”

“Do they say they are coming to me?”

“No, Ma'am. To the House of Commons. But mobs are unpredictable. One can never be sure what they will do. I thought you should be warned without delay. I shall return with Cabinet plans for the protection of you and the Palace.”