Yet although Prince Albert declined to employ a tutor of the kind suggested by Sir George Combe, he was not entirely satisfied with Mr Birch, who, conscious of the disapproval, offered to resign at once if his employers ‘knew of anyone who would be more likely to succeed in the management of so young a child’. Relations between Birch and the parents were further strained by his wish to become ordained. The Queen, who had strongly disapproved of Lady Lyttelton’s High Church views, thought that Birch’s ‘Puseyism’ might well render him an unsuitable tutor once he had taken Holy Orders. She agreed to his remaining only on condition that he promise not to be ‘aggressive’ in his religion, that he attend Presbyterian services when the royal family were in Scotland, and that he not foreswear ‘innocent amusements’ such as dancing and shooting. Although assured that Birch was ‘plain straightforward Church of England’, Prince Albert could not agree to his retaining his appointment should he be ordained. It was settled, therefore, that he would not respond to his vocation for the time being. He continued as tutor until January 1852 when, having entered Holy Orders, he resigned.
The Prince of Wales, who in the end had grown attached to Mr Birch, was very upset to see him go. ‘It has been a trouble and sorrow to the Prince of Wales who has done no end of touching things since he heard he was to lose him,’ wrote Lady Canning, one of the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting. ‘[The Prince] is such an affectionate dear little fellow; his notes and presents which Mr Birch used to find on his pillow were really too moving.’
Birch, too, was sorry to have to say good-bye, for he had grown fond of the boy in return and had at last ‘found the key to his heart’. ‘The boy is influenced by me just as my Eton pupils used to be,’ Birch told Stockmar before his departure, ‘and in a way that I dared not expect, and I feel that I am very sincerely attached to him which for some time I could not feel.’
‘I saw numerous traits of a very amiable and affectionate disposition,’ Birch added later. ‘He always evinced a most forgiving disposition after I had occasion to complain of him to his parents, or to punish him. He has a very keen perception of right and wrong, a very good memory, very singular powers of observation.’ There was every reason to hope that he would eventually turn out a ‘good’ and, in Birch’s ‘humble opinion, a great man’.
Birch’s successor was Frederick Waymouth Gibbs, a rather staid, unhumorous, unimaginative, fussy and opinionated barrister of twenty-nine who had been a Fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge. His mother being insane and his father bankrupt, he had been brought up with the sons of his mother’s friend, Sir James Stephen, Professor of Modern History at Cambridge and grandfather of Virginia Woolf. He was to receive a salary of £1,000 ‘with any addition to that sum which Baron Stockmar [might] decide to be just and reasonable’.
Gibbs soon learned that his task would not be an easy one. On his arrival the Queen summoned him for an interview at which, so he recorded in his diary,
she spoke a good deal about the Princes and bade me notice two peculiarities in the Prince of Wales. First, at times he hangs his head and looks at his feet, and invariably within a day or two has one of his fits of nervous and unmanageable temper. Secondly, riding hard, or after he has become fatigued, has been invariably followed by outburst of temper.
He had been ‘injured by being with the Princess Royal who was very clever and a child far above her age,’ the Queen continued. ‘She puts him down by a look — or a word — and their natural affection [has been] impaired by this state of things.’
The new tutor’s early contacts with the Prince himself, however, were pleasant enough. The day after his predecessor’s departure he went for a walk with both the Prince of Wales and Prince Alfred, and the elder boy, now ten years of age, politely apologized for their silence. ‘You cannot wonder if we are somewhat dull today,’ he said. ‘We are sorry Mr Birch has gone. It is very natural, is it not?’ Mr Gibbs could not deny that it was, indeed, very natural. ‘The Prince is conscious of owing a great deal to Mr Birch,’ he commented, ‘and he really loves and respects him.’ Gibbs no doubt expected in his self-satisfied way that in time the Prince would develop the same kind of affection and respect for himself. But the Prince never did. On the contrary, he grew to detest him, and was soon as unruly and unpredictable as he had ever been in the worst days of Mr Birch. In outbursts of uncontrolled fury he took up everything at hand and threw it ‘with the greatest violence against the wall or window, without thinking the least of the consequence of what he [was] doing; or he [stood] in the corner stamping with his legs and screaming in the most dreadful manner’.
Gibbs discussed his unmanageable pupil with Baron Stockmar, who gloomily agreed that he was ‘a very difficult case’ and required ‘the exercise of intellectual labour and thought’. ‘You must do anything you think right,’ Stockmar said, ‘and you will be supported.’
But Gibbs could do nothing to make his charge more tractable. And his diary entries reveal their shared frustration.
The P. of W. still in an excited state. In the morning it was difficult to fix his attention … In the afternoon he quarrelled with Prince Alfred … Began better — we finished the sums left unfinished yesterday — but walking, he was excited and disobedient — trying to make Prince Alfred disobedient also — going where I wished not to go … and breaking and plucking the trees in the copse. I played with them but it only partially succeeded. On the Terrace he quarrelled with, and struck, P. Alfred, and I had to hasten home … P. of W. very angry with P. Alfred, and pulled his hair, brandishing a paper-knife … A very bad day. The P. of W. has been like a person half silly. I could not gain his attention. He was very rude, particularly in the afternoon, throwing stones in my face … Afterwards I had to do some arithmetic with the P. of W. Immediately he became passionate, the pencil was flung to the end of the room, the stool was kicked away, and he was hardly able to apply at all. That night he woke twice. Next day he became very passionate because I told him he must not take out a walking stick … Later in the day he became violently angry because I wanted some Latin done. He flung things about — made grimaces — called me names, and would not do anything for a long time … During his lesson in the morning he was running first in one place, then in another. He made faces, and spat. Dr Becker complained of his great naughtiness. There was a great deal of bad words.
In the opinion of Dr Becker, Prince Albert’s librarian, who taught the Prince German, the principal reason for these fits of violent rage was the excessively demanding nature of his pupil’s time-table. The Prince was not obstinately perverse by nature; any child might be expected to react in the same way if his mind and body were overtaxed so continuously. ‘To anyone who knows the functions performed by the nerves in the human body,’ Becker concluded, ‘it is quite superfluous to demonstrate that these outbursts of passion, especially with so tender a child as the Prince of Wales in his moments of greatest mental exhaustion, must be destructive to the child.’ Becker had tried kindness in such moments, but this had elicited no response; he had tried severity, but this had led to another outburst of violence.
Although he diagnosed the reasons for the Prince’s alarming behaviour outspokenly enough, Becker shrank from suggesting a radical cure. He did not really think it ‘necessary y’ to stop the lessons ‘altogether for a sufficiently long period whenever such a state of weakness’ occurred. All that was required was ‘to make the instruction interesting and then to afford it in convenient intervals of time … After every exertion of at most one hour, a short interruption of, perhaps, a quarter of an hour ought to be made to give rest to the brain.’