The early court of Queen Victoria

by Clare Jerrold

However, the first thing for her to do was to announce to her Privy Council, which was summoned to Buckingham Palace for the 23rd of November, her decision to accept Prince Albert as her husband. There were eighty-three Councillors present, among them being the Duke of Wellington, who had just alarmed the country by having a serious attack—supposed to be paralytic—on the previous Monday, and the results of which were visible in a slight twist of the right corner of his mouth, and some constraint in using the left arm. When all the Privy Councillors were assembled, the doors were thrown open, and the Queen, dressed in a plain morning gown, wearing a bracelet in which the Prince’s portrait was set, was handed in by the Lord Chamberlain. She bowed to her Councillors, sat down and said, “Your Lordships will be seated.” Then she unfolded a paper and read, with “a mixture of self-possession and feminine delicacy,” her declaration, which ran:—

“It is my intention to ally myself in marriage with the Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. Deeply impressed with the solemnity of the engagement which I am about to contract, I have not come to this decision without mature consideration, nor without feeling a strong assurance that, with the blessing of Almighty God, it will at once secure my domestic felicity, and serve the interests of my country.”

She read, we are told, in a clear, sonorous, sweet-toned voice, but her hands trembled excessively, though her eyes were bright and calm, neither bold nor downcast, but firm and soft. Several times she looked towards the Duke of Wellington, for he was still ill, and she had been anxious about him; and when it was all over she wrote in her journal: “Lord Melbourne I saw, looking at me with tears in his eyes, but he was not near me.... I felt that my hands shook, but I did not make one mistake. I felt more happy and thankful when it was over.” In a letter to Prince Albert she wrote: “I wish you could have seen the crowds of people who cheered me loudly as I left the Palace for Windsor. I am so happy to-day! Oh, if only you could be here!”

For three months Victoria’s emotions alternated between happiness and annoyance, for she could by no means get all she desired for her beloved Albert. The political animus against herself made the Opposition captious, and they and the Lords behaved like naughty children, finding fault with everything. From the very first, from the day that it was known that Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha was coming to England as the Queen’s husband, the Prince’s character was calumniated and his prospects treated with contempt. Our enmity to the German race, begun when we were obliged to see our Throne filled with Germans—for even the later Georges were more German than English—and continued with something of the rancour of a conquered nation, as one German alliance after another took place; which has been fed of late years by commercial jealousy, and by a latent fear of what our cousin the Kaiser might do; this enmity was gaining strength seventy years ago, and found its whole expression in diatribes against the young man who, being one of the most amiable people in existence, had been forced into his position as surely as a Japanese tree is forced into its pygmy development. This may sound exaggerated, but it is true nevertheless. From his boyhood Albert was educated, moulded, pruned, into the shape—morally and mentally—that seemed most suitable for the Consort of the Queen. There was no escape for him, and so carefully had he been prepared that he did not even think of escape. It has always been held that England did very well for the poor, undistinguished Prince who was allowed the supreme honour of marrying England’s Queen; and to make him feel how magnanimous they had been, the English people and the newspapers comported themselves as the street boy now bears himself when he feels that a foreigner is pressed upon his notice. I once had two French servants, who often together took my children out, but they never appeared in the street without the youth of the neighbourhood pelting them with ribald remarks and sometimes with stones. In this way did the vulgar among the well-bred treat Albert, and some of them did it even to the time of his death.

The first stone thrown was one picked from the Declaration which Her Majesty made before Parliament, in which no mention had been made of the Prince’s religion. At once the most lying and libellous articles were written, asserting that Albert was a Catholic, and, if not, that he belonged to a sect which made it impossible that he could ever take the Communion in the English Church; and if he could bring himself to do that his religious beliefs were of that light type that he could be a Catholic to Catholics, but for the sake of his advancement he could also be a Protestant to Protestants. To this was added that at heart he was an infidel and a radical—evidently interchangeable terms with these violent supporters of a man who stood for the most prejudiced and retrograde views, Ernest, King of Hanover. There seems to have been little doubt that he was at the bottom of the reports about Albert; he still hoped to be King of England, or at least to know that his son would wear its crown; and it was at the time an open secret that he was doing his best to upset the marriage.

The angry and younger Tories needed little goading, and they acted as a spur to their leaders. One feels really sorry that such a man as the Duke of Wellington should have led the attack in the House of Lords. The Duke knew as everyone knew that Albert was a Protestant, yet he and Peel, chafed by the events of the past year, felt that some stratagem must be employed to discredit the Ministry. “It proceeds from the boiling impatience of the party, indoors and out. The Tory masses complain that nothing is done; and so, to gratify them, an immediate assault is resolved upon.” Peel suggested to Wellington that some hostile movement must be made against the Government, adding, “It might be ungracious to cause conflict in an address congratulating a Queen Regnant on her marriage.” The Duke agreed with this, yet took the first opportunity which came along of sinking his loyalty to the Crown in party politics and personal feelings. After some acrid speeches and many columns in the papers, this quarrel, which was entirely one of bluff, was soothed by Baron Stockmar’s affirmation that the Prince was a Protestant who could take Communion in the English Church as though he were in his own Lutheran Church. Greville, a good Tory, says of this: “The Duke moved an amendment, and foisted in the word Protestant—a sop to the silly. I was grieved to see him descend to such miserable humbug, and was in hopes that he was superior to it.” As the Queen said in a letter to her uncle, “There was no need to affirm such a fact, as by law it was impossible that I could marry any but a Protestant.”

This made a certain amount of stir, but not sufficient to satisfy the rank and file of the Tory party and the men who desired office; so it was unfortunate that the next Bill before the House should be one concerning the allowance to be given to the Prince. Here a new element came in, our delightful English snobbery. Had Albert come to us as a millionaire, his life would have been one of roses in our midst, but his total income then was about £2,500, and he had only a small estate in Germany. Was not this enough justification for putting him in his place? Tories and Radicals alike thought so, and when it came to considering the income suitable for a Prince Consort they practically said so. The sum asked for as an allowance was £50,000 a year. This had been given to the husband of Queen Anne, to the Queens Consort of George III. and William IV., and to Prince Leopold when he married the Princess Charlotte, but as soon as it was suggested in Parliament that Queen Victoria’s husband should have the same amount an outcry was raised. So far as can be judged from all the arguments put forward, this was simply an indication that at that moment a feminine Sovereign could be treated with less consideration than a King. Had it been a Queen Consort for whom provision was needed, it is certain, to judge by the Parliamentary speeches, that the sum asked for would have been granted, and it is also certain that had the Queen chosen George of Cambridge, neither the Duke of Wellington nor any other leader of the Opposition would have opposed the proposal. Even the frivolous Prince of Orange would have been accorded more favour. However, fortunately for England, Victoria was not intending to make her simple-minded cousin King, and the Prince of Orange had found no favour with her, also fortunately for England—and for her.

An amendment was proposed by Joseph Hume, the Radical, allowing the Prince the magnificent income of £21,000 a year, whereupon Colonel Sibthorp, who was, as Sir Sidney Lee says, “a Tory of a very pronounced kind, who warmly championed every insular prejudice,” moved another amendment to make the sum stand at £30,000.

This was carried by a junction of extremes, the Tories and the Radicals; a year earlier the former had been as insistent in their demands that the Coronation expenses should be increased by a tremendous amount that Royal dignity should be sustained. Now so bitter was their feeling against the Government that they were ready to strike the Queen over Melbourne’s head. Victoria wrote of this: “It is a curious sight to see those who, as Tories, used to pique themselves upon their excessive loyalty, doing everything to degrade their young Sovereign in the eyes of the people. Of course, there are exceptions.”

Stockmar says that after the division he met Melbourne on the staircase of the House, and that the Prime Minister said to him, “The Prince will be very annoyed with the Tories, but it is not only the Tories who have lessened his income; there were beside Radicals and some of our own people who voted against him.” It was said that the less honest Whigs did this because they thought that as the whole blame of the proceedings would fall upon the Tories, the reduction of the Prince’s income would widen the breach between the Queen and the Opposition. Both the Whigs and Tories of the baser sort were ready to go to any dishonourable length in their desire to secure or to hold power, only those who had for long been out of office went a little further than their opponents and cried their sentiments in a very much louder voice, and thus we hear more about them. Melbourne at least proved himself an honest man, and he was guilty of that stupidity which is much the same thing as wickedness; he knew the spirit of the politicians, yet he did not take necessary precautions, while he seemed always ready to take unnecessary risks: “There is no doubt that all will go through easily,” was his feeling, and so he allowed matters to slip into public discussion and recrimination.