For their help in a variety of ways I am also deeply indebted to Mr Godfrey Whitelock, Mr R.H. Owen, Mrs John Rae and Mrs Maurice Hill.
Finally I want to say how grateful I am to Mr George Walker and Mr Hamish Francis for having read the proofs and to my wife for having compiled the detailed index.
The text is not documented in the usual way; but the reader curious to discover the source of any previously unpublished material will be able to find it in the notes at the back of the book.
C.H.
PART ONE
PRINCE OF WALES 1841–1901
1
‘Poor Bertie’
In many things savages are much better educated than we are.
Within a few months of the birth of her first child, Queen Victoria discovered herself to be pregnant again. And by the early autumn of 1841 she was feeling thoroughly out of sorts. It was not only that she was often sick and nearly always depressed, that she viewed the prospect of another delivery with both trepidation and distaste; she had had to say good-bye to her beloved Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, a parting that had distressed her deeply, and there now seemed a danger that she might lose the Princess Royal, too. For ‘Pussy’, so fat and healthy a baby at first, was becoming thin and pale, fretful and peevish. The Queen shut her mind to the fear that there was any real danger; but the weakness of the child fussed and worried her much. She felt ‘very wretched … low and depressed’.
On more than one occasion in October there had been a sudden fear that the birth of her second baby might be premature, so that when the pains returned on 8 November, the Queen thought at first that this was another ‘false alarm’. The new Prime Minister, Sir Robert Peel, was coming to dinner the following evening and she decided not to put him off. The next day, however, there could be no further doubt. ‘My sufferings were really very severe,’ the Queen later recorded. ‘And I don’t know what I should have done, but for the great comfort and support my beloved Albert was to me during the whole time. At last at twelve m[inutes] to eleven, I gave birth to a fine large Boy … It was taken to the Ministers for them to see.’
The ministers were delighted to see so obviously robust a baby, and so was the country at large. No heir had been born to a reigning monarch since the appearance of George III’s first child, almost eighty years before; and this new birth led royalists to hope that the monarchy, which the young Queen was once more making respectable and popular, was secure from a decline into its recent disrepute. Salutes were fired, crowds gathered in the streets to cheer and sing ‘God Save the Queen’, and the Prime Minister made reference to the nation’s enthusiasm in a speech at the Guildhall, which was decorated for the occasion with illuminated letters spelling ‘God save the Prince of Wales’. The Times described the ‘one universal feeling of joy which ran throughout the kingdom’. ‘What a joy!’ wrote the boy’s grandmother, the Duchess of Kent, expressing a common opinion. ‘Oh God, what a happiness, what a blessing!’
Nowhere was his arrival more welcome than in the palace nursery, for he was not the least trouble. Healthy, fair and fat, ‘a wonderfully large and strong child’, he smiled readily, digested his food without trouble, and made those gurgling, crowing noises so pleasing to the ears of nursemaids. His mother was very pleased with the look of him, with his ‘very large dark blue eyes’, his ‘finely formed but somewhat large nose’
and his ‘pretty little mouth’.
‘What a pretty boy!’ the people called out when they saw him being taken to be inspected by the Duke of Wellington at Walmer Castle.
‘Bless his little face! … Show him! Turn him this way! … How like his father!’
To his mother, indeed, the resemblance to his father was his principal virtue. And when, on 25 January, he was baptized in St George’s Chapel, Windsor, by the Archbishop of Canterbury, honoured with a christening cake eight feet wide, and given the names Albert Edward, the Queen decided that the best thing about ‘the Boy’ was that he now had his dear father’s name. She had refused to heed Lord Melbourne’s advice that Edward, ‘a good English appellation’, might precede Albert, ‘which had not been so common nor so much in use since the Conquest’. The child was ‘to be called Albert and Edward [was] to be his second name’ — and that was that. But the name was far from enough: he must be made to resemble his father in every way; any tendency to infantile vice must be rigorously suppressed; any hints that he might, if left unchecked, grow up like his mother’s wicked uncles must be carefully watched so that the necessary steps could be taken to counter so appalling, so calamitous a development. ‘You will understand how fervent are my prayers, and I am sure everybody’s must be, to see him resemble his father in every, every respect, both in body and mind,’ the Queen wrote to her Uncle Leopold, King of the Belgians; ‘I hope and pray he may be like his dearest papa.’ The nursery in which ‘the Boy’s’ growth was so anxiously observed was under the supervision of Mrs Southey, a worthy, old-fashioned fogey who declined to make any concessions to modern ideas and still wore a wig. But while Mrs Southey, who had been recommended by the Archbishop of Canterbury, had been considered adequate enough when there was but one child to look after, she was not a suitable person to deal with the added responsibility of two. She went out too often, leaving her charges in the care of underlings inclined to squabble. She was not sufficiently firm or vigilant enough to ensure that the strict rules of the nursery were observed: that the two children must never be left alone for an instant; that no unauthorized person must ever be admitted to see them; that there must not be the slightest variation in the daily routine without prior consultation with the parents. It was felt that a lady of high birth would be better suited to superintend the nursery, to control the tantrums of the Princess Royal and to report intelligently upon the development of the Prince of Wales. And so, after consultation with various advisers, this most important post was offered to Lady Lyttelton, eldest daughter of the second Earl Spencer and widow of the third Baron Lyttelton.
The choice was a fortunate one. Lady Lyttelton was a gifted woman, understanding, good-natured and sensible. ‘Princessy’, as she called her elder charge, did not take to her at first, screaming with ‘unconquerable horror’ when she arrived; and thereafter, though bawling less, treating her new governess with a kind of irritable reserve which was finally overcome by Lady Lyttelton’s patience and tact. With the Prince of Wales, who appeared to like her from the beginning, Lady Lyttelton had no such problems. He continued to flourish, remaining constantly in ‘crowing spirits’ and in the best and calmest of tempers. He looked people full in the face through his ‘large clear blue eyes’.
This early stage of placid equanimity did not, however, last long. As his sister grew stronger in health and less fractious in temper, she was also recognized to be extremely sharp and quick-witted. Precociously forward, active, animated, ‘running about and talking a great deal’, she was, at the same time, ‘all gracefulness and prettiness’, in the opinion of Lady Lyttelton; and in that of her mother’s half-sister, Princess Feodora, an ‘irresistible … treasure … a darling child’. The Prince of Wales, on the contrary, was becoming increasingly difficult. At the age of two he was considered to be ‘as forward as the majority of children of his age’, if ‘no more’; but the next year — although ‘very handsome’ and ‘most exemplary in politeness and manner’, ‘bowing and offering his hand beautifully, besides saluting ? la militaire — all unbidden’ — he was considered ‘very small in every way … not articulate like his sister, but rather boyish in accent [and] altogether backward in language’. Two years later Lady Lyttelton had cause to complain of his being ‘uncommonly averse to learning’ and requiring ‘much patience from wilful inattention and constant interruptions, getting under the table, upsetting the books and sundry other anti-studious practices’. By the age of five he was causing the ‘greatest distress’ to his French governess, Mlle Hollande.