Long life to the Queen, God bless her!”
Anon.
“Nobody is more abused by bad people than Melbourne—and nobody is more forgiving.”—Queen Victoria.
From the beginning of the reign Melbourne had been in constant attendance on his Queen, exacting from her an assiduity in State matters which she was very ready to give, and taking no notice of the gossipers’ innuendoes which filled the social atmosphere. Nothing startling had happened, but Court matters had taken a turn which meant a slow drifting into trouble of various kinds.
There is no doubt at all that Victoria went heart and soul with the Whigs. She was not a Radical, but she was also not a Tory. Though in later years she was accused of neglecting Ireland, at that time she was keen to deal justly with that part of her kingdom. She was interested in foreign affairs, and she did her successful utmost to understand the affairs of England. The fears of the Anti-Catholics had not been verified, though those people seemed to take little comfort in the fact; Victoria was not influenced by her foreign surrounders; she had not put Sir John Conroy into a high place of honour; nor had Lord Durham, the leader of the Radicals, become Master of the Household—in place of that he was invested with the dignity of a Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Order of the Garter, and appointed Governor of Canada, while Lady Durham became one of the Queen’s ladies.
But Queen Victoria introduced certain new customs into her social life which caused considerable offence. For instance, she gave precedence to the Diplomatic Corps, and so raised much anger among the aristocracy, who opposed the innovation and revenged themselves for it whenever and wherever they got the opportunity, which frequently gave rise to very disagreeable incidents. This is quite understandable, for if the Queen always had Melbourne on her left and Bülow or some other foreigner on her right, the English Dukes and other men of rank had no chance of being distinguished by her favours. On the other hand, the Queen saw the Englishmen often, and it must have been more amusing for her to talk with the strangers.
The Opposition felt gradually obliged to divest itself of the plans it had made for the new reign, and the Lords, who had assumed that King William was, without his will, in the hands of a faction from whose bondage he could not release himself, and had strongly hoped that Victoria would range herself on their side, had also to realise that they would receive no special support from the Crown. Indeed, a gulf of dislike was being formed with the Government and the Queen on one side, and the Opposition and the House of Lords on the other. As early as the autumn of 1837, in their spleen the latter started foolish stories about the Queen and Melbourne. The more thoughtless would not believe in the real position of affairs, and had, forsooth! to whisper that at last Melbourne was showing his ambition, and that it was no mere tutorial care that he was giving to Her Majesty. The Countess Grey wrote in the October following Victoria’s accession, “I hope you are amused at the report of Lord Melbourne being likely to marry the Queen. For my part I have no objection. I am inclined to be very loyal and fond of her; she seems to be so considerate and good-natured.” Princess Lieven, too, made in a letter the very complacent remark about Melbourne’s association with the Queen, “I for myself cannot help imagining that she must be going to marry him. It is all, however, according to rule, and I find it both proper and in his own interest that Lord Melbourne should keep himself absolutely master of the situation.” It was so absurd an idea that even if the Queen had heard of it she could not have let it trouble her. A day or so before Princess Lieven’s letter had been written, Victoria had been talking in most intimate fashion to Lady Cowper (Melbourne’s sister), saying to her: “He eats too much, and I often tell him so. Indeed, I do so myself, and my doctor has ordered me not to eat luncheon any more.” “And does your Majesty quite obey him?” asked Lady Cowper. “Why yes, I think I do, for I only eat a little broth.”
Creevy comments upon this in a letter, “Now, I think a little Queen taking care of a Prime Minister’s stomach, he being nearly sixty, is everything one could wish! If only the Tory press could get hold of this fact what fun they would make of it.” It would indeed have been a much better subject than that Melbourne was anxious to marry his Sovereign. I must quote a little further from this sprightly diarist, for he was on the spot, and gives us an account of the Queen which is frank, and therefore not animated by the servile desire to praise in spite of everything. He went to dine with Her Majesty when she made her visit to the Pavilion at Brighton, and having been told that he was to sit on the Duchess of Kent’s right hand, he said of it later, “Oh, what a fright I was in about my right ear,” which, however, being deaf, should not have troubled him, as he would naturally present his left ear to the Duchess. His account continued:
“Here comes the Queen, the Duchess of Kent the least little bit in the world behind her, all her ladies in a row still more behind; Lord Conyngham and Cavendish on each flank of the Queen.... She was told by Lord Conyngham that I had not been presented, upon which a scene took place that to me was truly distressing. The poor little thing could not get her glove off. I never was so annoyed in my life; yet what could I do? But she blushed and laughed and pulled till the thing was done, and I kissed her hand.... Then to dinner.... The Duchess of Kent was agreeable and chatty, and she said, ‘Shall we drink some wine?’ My eyes, however, all the while were fixed on Vic. To mitigate the harshness of any criticism I may pronounce upon her manners, let me express my conviction that she and her mother are one. I never saw a more pretty or natural devotion than she shows to her mother in everything, and I reckon this as by far the most amiable, as well as valuable, disposition to start with in the fearful struggle she has in life before her. Now for her appearance, but all in the strictest confidence. A more homely little thing you never beheld, when she is at her ease, and she is evidently dying to be always more so. She laughs in real earnest, opening her mouth as wide as it can go, showing not very pretty gums.... She eats quite as heartily as she laughs, I think I may say she gobbles.... She blushes and laughs every instant in so natural a way as to disarm anybody. Her voice is perfect, so is the expression of her face, when she means to say or do a pretty thing.”
One would like to know the sentiments of the passages which have been left out of this account by the editor of the book; things a little more plainly spoken than those left in, which are plain enough perhaps. That the Queen loved a hearty laugh is well known, and from some current print I have copied this vulgar criticism upon her: “The extraordinary funny laugh of the little lady is amusing enough. Her smile is proverbially beautiful; but there is no very great necessity for such a peculiar display of the ivories, albeit they are unquestionably excellent.” Her Majesty is said to have eaten ungracefully all her life. I remember years ago hearing a pert daughter reprove her father for picking a bone. He turned calm eyes upon her as he replied, “It is well known that the Queen always picks bones at table; I like doing it and may surely follow the fashion set by Her Majesty.” A lady diarist of the day notes that during one of her tours in the Midlands the Princess was given asparagus, and insisted upon eating it in her own way, “which was not a very pretty one,” and it was some time before she would give heed to the Duchess’s repeated remonstrances.