Her Majesty was very fond of dancing, and of organising country dances for the evening home party; and sometimes after dinner would take one of her ladies round the waist to polka with her. The polka, originally a Bohemian peasant dance and very different from the present-day polka, had just been introduced, so that it was the rage among dancers.
“Oh! sure the world is all run mad,
The lean, the fat, the gay, the sad—
All swear such pleasure they never had,
Till they did learn the Polka.”
She was young, happy, and light-hearted, and her Court was particularly free from extravagant amusements, yet these little frolics brought grumbles and troubles in their train, and in the curiously short-sighted ideas of economy which then obtained, her State balls were regarded as nothing short of criminal. For Victoria was accused of flinging away money while many of her people were starving, and her popularity went down to zero. Some papers printed parallel columns describing the fancy dresses at the Queen’s balls, the banquets, Royal purchases, &c., in one, and in the other cases of death from want, of suicides, and of failures. When this was at its worst the Royal pair were making magnificent preparations for christening the Prince of Wales, and Sir Robert Peel is said to have advised them to make haste and practise economy, advice which was good when the general standard of ignorance was considered, but all wrong from the point of trade and work. It was the Queen’s custom when she gave a ball to tell her Equerry in waiting in the morning with whom she desired to dance, so that everything should run smoothly. She loved the brightness and the youthfulness which such functions brought around her, and would on occasions permit children to sit quietly and watch her dress. Thus Lady Cardigan speaks of getting introduced by General Cavendish sometimes to Buckingham Palace when Her Majesty was giving a State ball, which meant no less a privilege than being allowed to sit in the Royal dressing-room and look at the pretty young Queen being attired in her ball dress. “We were too awestruck as a rule even to whisper, but I think the Queen found more honest admiration in our childish eyes than in all the honied flatteries of a Court.” Miss Cavendish afterwards became a Maid of Honour.
In 1840 Victoria marked her sense of Mrs. Norton’s innocence by allowing her to be presented at Court by her sister, Lady Seymour, who was the Queen of Beauty at the Eglinton Tournament. Mrs. Norton was so nervous that the Queen herself remarked upon it to King Leopold, who said he could well believe that she was much frightened having so many eyes upon her, some of which, perhaps, not with the most amiable expression.
Mrs. Norton had many things to endure from her husband, the loss of her children for one, for though the woman was innocent, the law allowed a man at that time, no matter how bad he might be, the sole control and power over the little ones. Later on, when things were easier for her in this respect, scandal once again arose in a most unwarrantable manner, accusing her of selling to The Times the secret of Peel’s intended change of attitude on the Corn Laws. As a matter of fact, Lord Aberdeen, influenced by Colonial policy, and in view of the departure of the mails, had imparted this bit of hidden news to Delane the editor, with the result that it appeared the next day in the columns of the paper. Speculation was rife as to how The Times knew, and then it was whispered by jealousy, for Mrs. Norton was a very beautiful and a very popular woman, that Delane had paid Mrs. Norton a large price for the knowledge which she had learned from one of her admirers. Later, of course, came the story of “Diana of the Crossways,” which was regarded as an absolute confirmation of the scandal. George Meredith himself has emphatically denied that his romance was based upon anything in the life of Mrs. Norton, as the facts themselves, when known, disposed of it, but scandal dies hard.
Fanny Kemble, too, attended a Drawing Room in 1842 in consequence of an inquiry by the Queen as to why she did not come, and wrote of the event: “If Her Majesty has seen me, I have not seen her; and should be quite excusable in cutting her whenever I met her. ‘A cat may look at a king,’ it is said, but how about looking at the Queen? In great uncertainty of mind on this point, I did not look at my sovereign lady. I kissed a soft white hand which I believe was hers; I saw a pair of very handsome legs, in very fine silk stockings, which I am convinced were not hers, but am inclined to attribute to Prince Albert; and this is all I perceived of the whole Royal Family of England.”
Prince Albert was something of a dandy in his dress, and the remark that “there was not a tailor in England who could make a coat” was attributed to him. In 1843 he invented, or was godfather to, a new hat for infantry, something like the Hessian cap introduced into the German service. Punch gave a picture of this hat, which is said not to be exaggerated, and devoted a column to a description of it, saying that “the Prince proposed to encase the heads of the British soldiery in a machine which seemed a decided cross between a muff, a coal-scuttle, and a slop-pail, making it necessary for the honour of the English Army that Punch should interfere. The result has been that the headgear has been summarily withdrawn by an order from the War Office, and the manufacture of the Albert hat has been absolutely prohibited.”