In 1834 Oliver Wendell Holmes was in England, and he also went to the Opera one night when the King was present. His impressions are to the full as uncomplimentary and as outspoken as those of the jovial Creevy.
“I went last night to the Royal Opera, where they were to be in state. I had to give more than two dollars for a pit ticket,[2] and had hardly room to stand up, almost crowded to death. The Duchess of Kent and the Princess Victoria—a girl of fifteen—came in first on the side opposite the King’s box. The audience applauded somewhat, not ferociously.... The Princess is a nice, fresh-looking girl, blonde, and rather pretty. The King looks like a retired butcher. The Queen is much such a person as the wife of the late William Frost, of Cambridge, an exemplary milkman, now probably immortal on a slab of slatestone as a father, a husband, and a brother. The King blew his nose twice, and wiped the royal perspiration repeatedly from a face which is probably the largest uncivilised spot in England.” The critic adds, in excuse for his plain speaking, “I have a disposition to tartness and levity which tells to the disadvantage of the Royal living and advantage of the plebeian defunct, but it is accidental and must be forgiven.”
But to return to the reasons for the animosity between the King and the Duchess of Kent. There was another person besides Conroy about the Duchess’s household who was generally regarded as injudicious, and whose name was speedily written in the King’s bad books. This was John George Lambton, created Earl of Durham in 1833, a man of whom Lord Brougham said that he had many good and some great qualities, but all were much obscured, and even perverted, by his temper, which was greatly affected by the painful liver disease from which he suffered. Creevy speaks of him, soon after the death of his first wife, as an excellent host, as full of good qualities, and possessing remarkable talents, adding that “his three little babies are his great resource.” Durham once said that he thought £40,000 a year a moderate income—one which a man might just jog on with; and the phrase was never forgotten, he being called “Old Jog” or “King Jog” by some of his friends ever after.
Before his elevation to the peerage Durham had been very friendly with the Duke of Kent, for they thought alike in politics, both being Whigs. Thus from the start Durham was associated with the Kent household; and as he was arrogant and tactless, with tremendous ideas about money, he must have been one of the worst advisers that the Duchess could have secured. He seems to have been particularly active in small matters before the commencement of William’s reign, becoming Leopold’s right-hand man when he thought of accepting the position of King of Greece, drawing up all his papers for him, and being “his bottle-holder ever since.” Greville styles him the Duchess of Kent’s “magnus Apollo.” When Leopold left England, Durham became more useful still to the Duchess, and is heard of constantly in connection with the affairs at Kensington. In 1831 the Duchess hired Norris Castle, in the Isle of Wight, for the autumn, and Lord Durham is mentioned as being there as a guest; one malicious commentary upon the matter being that “Lord Durham was acting the part of Prime Minister to the Duchess of Kent and Queen Victoria, who were all together making their arrangements for a new reign”; and it was a general opinion that when the Princess ascended the throne Durham would be first favourite with her and her mother. On his return from an Extraordinary Embassy to St. Petersburg the King gave him an audience, which, says Greville, “must have been very agreeable to him (the King), as he hates him and the Duchess of Kent.”
There are many little stories told of this man’s pettishness; his second wife was the daughter of Lord Grey, and it is said that he harassed the life out of his father-in-law during the Reform agitation. Once when Lord Grey was speaking he rudely interrupted him. Grey paused, and said, “My dear Lambton, only hear what I am going to say,” whereupon the other jumped up, replying, “Oh, if I am not to be allowed to speak, I may as well go away”; so, ordering his carriage, he departed.
In a bad mood he once said evil things about Lady Jersey, accusing her of defaming his wife to the Queen, and declaring that Lady Durham should demand an audience of Her Majesty to contradict these scandals. For once he had met his peer in bad temper, for Lady Jersey, at the Drawing Room which was the cause of little Victoria’s first appearance at William’s Court, saw him standing at the opposite side of the room. She went close to him, and said loudly:
“Lord Durham, I hear that you have said things about me which are not true, and I desire that you will call upon me to-morrow with a witness to hear my denial.”
She was in a fury, and put Lord Durham into the same state. He, turning white, muttered that he would never go into her house again, but she had flounced back to her seat, and did not hear him.
Durham naturally made an enemy of a man like Brougham, who was too extreme himself to like the same quality in another, and when Durham resigned office a popular couplet ran:
“Bore Durham fell—(ye Whigs his loss deplore)—