Of the three daughters of George III., one was Princess Sophia, who went blind after being operated on for cataract, and who, whatever the scandal associated with her name, always kept the affectionate respect of her niece Victoria. She was one of the sponsors to the Queen’s eldest son, and also to the Princess Alice. She died in 1848, six months before Lord Melbourne. Princess Augusta died in September of 1840, and “the dear old Duchess of Gloucester,” the last of the generation, who was looked upon by Victoria and her family as “a sort of grandmother,” lived until 1857. She had always been very energetic, and there is an account of her calling upon the Queen, and reporting upon a round of gaieties indulged in within a day or two, parties at the Duchess of Sutherland’s, the Duke of Wellington’s, and at Cambridge House, and luncheon with the Duke of Sussex, followed with the call upon Her Majesty.
The young Queen was naturally affectionate, and felt much grief at the deaths of these relatives, who had surrounded her all her life, yet a fuller, richer, if not less troubled, existence was forming about her. Her troubles were not of the kind which devastate, but of the recurring, irritating sort which neither rest nor sleep. Albert never did quite please the English people, and in her endeavour to make him acceptable she sometimes wounded him, and sometimes did injudicious things. Her naturally quick temper induced Leopold to write her a grave warning before the marriage, telling her not to let a single day pass over with a misunderstanding between them, and pointing out that if such arose she would find Albert gentle and open to reason, so that things could be easily explained; begging her to remember that he was not sulky but inclined to be melancholy if he thought he was not justly treated, and adding “But as you will always be together, there can never arise, I hope, any occasion for any disagreements even on the most trifling subjects.”
It is open to wonder whether such disagreements did at first arise. If so, they were so slight as not to affect the abiding love between the two. The satiric papers recorded a constant succession of them, but who is to believe such? One report ran that the Prince annoyed his wife by contradicting her over the tea table, “and whether by accident or design, the Queen sprinkled the contents of her cup over his face, which led to an estrangement for the whole evening.” On another occasion we are told that Albert was admiring a bouquet which Miss Pitt, a Maid of Honour, carried, and while he was holding it the Queen entered, and, having praised the flowers, asked him whence they came. Then “the presence of Miss Pitt was dispensed with, Victoria seized the bouquet, and scattered its fragments over the room.” Whether such incidents were true or not, Victoria never forgot that she was Queen, and to the end she sometimes unduly pressed that fact upon the mind of her husband. Melbourne said that the Queen was very proud of the Prince’s utter indifference to the attractions of ladies, and when he suggested that they were early days to boast, she was indignant. The Prime Minister, watching her with his shrewd, fatherly air, saw with amusement, however, that she was really somewhat jealous if the Prince talked much even with any man. What would she have said if he had followed George the Fourth’s plan of kissing all ladies who pleased him on their presentation?
But there was one thing which gradually weighed more and more upon the Prince’s spirits and really hurt him. He found himself shut out as had been the Duchess of Kent. The Queen did not discuss affairs of State with him; she carried her reticence so far as to cause him to make serious complaints and to need the help both of Melbourne and Stockmar. In this again is to be traced the insidious influence of Baroness Lehzen, who was still always in the background, but whose name never passed the Queen’s lips in her conferences with Melbourne. When that good friend reasoned with her about the want of confidence both in trivial and great matters that she showed in her husband, she replied that it was caused by indolence, that when she was with the Prince she preferred talking of other and pleasanter things. Upon which Melbourne told her to try to alter that, for there was no objection to her telling the Prince all things. Melbourne’s private opinion was that she feared difference of opinion. But really the Queen was the counterpart of the mid-Victorian husband, who thought it his duty to save his wife from any knowledge of his business, whether it worried or pleased him—a rather foolish position for her to take up, even though she had been Queen for three years.
Stockmar, in a conversation with George Anson, made the memorable remark, seeing how the Prince had fought against Anson’s appointment: “The Prince leans more on you than on anyone else and gives you his entire confidence; you are honest, moral, and religious, and will not belie that trust. The Queen has not started upon a right principle.” The Baron thought that Victoria was influenced more than she knew by Lehzen, and that in consequence of that influence she was not so ingenuous as she had been two years earlier.
However, a new aspect of life had opened up for Her Majesty at that time, and it is doubtful whether she was as engrossed in State matters as she seemed to be, whether while she was listening to disquisitions upon foreign affairs, she was not dreaming of more personal things. She trusted her Ministers without question, and may well be excused if for a time she relied entirely upon their judgment, and had not the power even to explain to her young husband the arguments to which she listened. These things changed slowly, but for two years Albert’s only share in his wife’s work was that after many months he was allowed to go through official papers with her. He felt the position to be one of humiliation, and wrote to his friend, Prince William of Löwenstein, that in his house he was the husband and not the master. What Leopold had said of his nature was true, and this trouble filled him with melancholy. This difference between the Queen and the Prince, however, got abroad, and was commented on in light and airy fashion. It was said that Victoria sometimes drove her husband out in her pony carriage, and this was applied somewhat spitefully in the following verse:—
“‘Thus to be driven!’ exclaim some folks,
‘Prince Albert’s a mere nincom.’
But spite of all their passing jokes
The boy enjoys his income.