The Queen and Lord M Read online

  Through the streets she rode in the golden coach with its glass windows specially designed so that the spectators could have a good view of their sovereign. It was indeed a magnificent coach with its elaborate carvings of lions’ heads and the great crown on the roof. Lord Melbourne, that mine of information, had told her that it had been built for her grandfather and used for the first time at his Coronation.

  How pleasant to sit and not feel conscious of her lack of inches; she bowed her head and smiled and now that she was sitting she felt as fresh as when she had started, although the crown was so heavy and her finger still smarted from that foolish Archbishop’s bumbling mistake.

  The cheers, the bands, the trumpets, the smiling faces of her people – all proclaimed her triumph. She felt exultant and her determination was intensified to do her duty by this dear country and her dear people for as long as she lived and to do all in her power to make sure that they never, never regretted this day.

  The coach had arrived at the Palace. The crowds keeping their respectful distance, cheered wildly. She smiled, showing her delight and yet never losing that regality which was so much a part of her.

  What a relief though to be in her own room, to remove the heavy crown and to say to herself: It is over and I did it well.

  Dash came running to her barking fiercely. He had been in the garden digging again.

  ‘Oh you dirty Dash!’ she cried. ‘Now you will have to be bathed at once.’

  Lehzen was in the room. They flew at each other.

  ‘My precious little Queen. I am so proud.’

  ‘Oh, dear Lehzen, I was all right, wasn’t I?’

  Being overcome with emotion, Lehzen could only nod.

  ‘I saw you watching me, dear Lehzen.’

  ‘I didn’t have my eyes off you one moment.’

  ‘And I was remembering lots of things … how we used to play with the dolls … our reading while my hair was being done … It was a strange time to remember things like that.’

  Lehzen could only repeat: ‘I was so proud … so proud.’

  ‘Now look at this wicked Dashy. He is filthy.’

  ‘Someone will have to bath him,’ said Lehzen.

  ‘Someone! You know Dashy never allows anyone to bath him but me. Come, help me out of these things.’

  ‘But not on your Coronation day!’

  Victoria shrugged objections aside and half an hour after her return from the Abbey was seated at the bath with an unrepentant and resentful Dash sending his mistress into shrieks of laughter because he would not stay still and had made up his mind that if he were going to be immersed in his bath he would at least see that she had a good drenching.

  The sound of her laughter and Dash’s occasional barks filled the room. Lehzen, hearing it, shook her head.

  ‘Who would believe she had just been crowned Queen of England,’ she said.

  * * *

  There was not much respite, for dinner was at eight. Not that it was a ceremonial occasion, for just the family were present with one or two guests, including Lord Melbourne. The sight of him made Victoria’s spirits rise. He was at her side immediately.

  ‘I must congratulate Your Majesty,’ he said, and the tears were in his eyes. ‘It was a brilliant day. Everything went off well.’

  ‘Everything?’ she laughed, showing her pink gums.

  ‘Well,’ said Lord Melbourne, putting his head on one side in what seemed to her a very comical way, ‘John Thynne didn’t know which way to turn; the Bishop of Bath and Wells did cut out a piece of the service; the Archbishop wasn’t sure what had happened to the orb and put the ring on the wrong finger; the Bishop of Durham wasn’t sure of anything; the trainbearers were too much involved with their own trains to manage the Queen’s; and Lord Rolle gave a charade of his own name.’

  Oh how amusing was Lord Melbourne!

  ‘And you call that going well?’

  ‘Yes, because the performance of these minor players only accentuated the perfection of the leading role.’ Lord Melbourne could switch from rather cynical fun to sentiment with the agility of an acrobat. Tears trembled in his eyes. ‘It was a magnificent Coronation, and I was so proud to be part of it.’

  At dinner Victoria was delighted to have Lord Melbourne beside her; on his other side was her half sister Feodora and it was such a pleasure to talk to her and Lord Melbourne of the old days. Lord Melbourne knew so much about them and could entertain them with endless stories of Victoria’s relations which were often so amusing. The manner in which he could turn from the serious to the comic was so comforting (as she remarked later to Feodora) because he made everything so amusing and after one had laughed immoderately one would find oneself discussing some very serious matter, which prevented one feeling too frivolous.

  The sword of state, he told them, had been very heavy and he had been glad to lay it down. ‘I do not use the term metaphorically,’ he added. ‘I hope I shall continue in my position as long as Her Majesty desires.’

  ‘I shall always desire it,’ the Queen vehemently assured him.

  Then he discussed some of the peers in that light and chatty way of his and how far some of them could trace back their ancestry. Such and such came over with the Conqueror and somebody else had descended direct from the Black Prince. Victoria was glad that Feodora was discovering what a clever man Lord Melbourne was and as she said afterwards, his erudition sat so lightly on him.

  After dinner the Queen sat on a sofa and chatted with her half brother, Prince Charles of Leiningen, and of course Lord Melbourne joined them.

  The Duke of Wellington was giving a ball at Apsley House that evening in honour of the Coronation and Lord Melbourne said that he supposed he was expected to put in an appearance.

  ‘You must be very tired,’ said the Queen solicitously.

  ‘Not as tired as Your Majesty. When I consider the weight of those robes, not taking into account the crown and the regalia, I marvel. And you did it all so beautifully … every part of it, with so much taste.’

  ‘It was your advice which was so useful to me.’

  ‘Oh, good taste is something no one person can give another advice about. It must be left to a person.’

  As she said afterwards to Charles, to hear such compliments from a kind impartial friend was so gratifying.

  He gently advised her that she should go to bed. ‘For,’ he added, with that charming solicitude, ‘you are far more tired than you think you are.’

  ‘Well, I did sleep rather badly last night.’

  ‘The Coronation was on your mind,’ he replied. ‘Nothing keeps people awake more than the awareness of a great event and being somewhat agitated about it.’

  So Lord Melbourne took his leave and there was nothing after that to stay up for.

  Several of the party had gone on to one of the balconies to see the illuminations. Victoria did not join them but went alone to the balcony of her mother’s apartments, where she could watch the firework display in Green Park.

  As she stood there, she went over the events of the day, feeling very solemn and dedicated and so thankful that she had her precious Lehzen beside her and her dear good, kind, impartial friend, Lord Melbourne, to guide her.

  She slept soundly that night and as soon as she was awake she thought of Lord Melbourne and wrote to him:‘The Queen is very anxious to hear if Lord Melbourne got home safe, and if he is not tired and quite well this morning.’

  Chapter VII

  PALACE GOSSIP

  Nothing was quite the same after the Coronation. When she had ridden through the streets the people had adored their charming young Queen and she had reached the top of her pedestal, but it was going to be very difficult to stay there.

  There had always been scandals about the lives of Royalty; the people had come to expect them; and though it might be difficult to imagine that anything shocking could be happening in the life of a young girl who was so clearly innocent, that did not stop malicious people from speculating on the
situation at the Palace.

  Victoria in her innocence was unaware of this. She was enjoying her role, applying herself to it assiduously. She was sure that she possessed a natural aptitude for it and as long as she had her dear Prime Minister to guide her in public life and her precious Lehzen in private, what more could she ask?

  When the Court was at Windsor, naturally Lord Melbourne and any other visiting Ministers had their own apartments there, but this was not the case in Buckingham Palace where it was easy for a minister to pay a brief visit whenever he was required to do so. As far as Lord Melbourne was concerned though, he was so often at the Palace that it seemed advisable for a set of apartments to be put at his disposal there; and he did in fact live more often at Buckingham Palace than Melbourne House. This was an ideal arrangement, said the Queen, for it meant that she could call on him so easily at any time. Lord Melbourne agreed with her.

  Trouble was brewing in the Palace and at the heart of it was Sir John Conroy, whom Victoria had suspected of treachery before her accession. Her suspicions were now confirmed.

  ‘It is not only the Duchess’s financial affairs which are controlled by him; she herself seems to be,’ commented Lord Melbourne.

  He spoke very frankly to Victoria now because as he said they understood each other and it was only if he spoke his mind that he could let her know what was in it. The Duchess showed quite clearly that she disliked Lord Melbourne, so Lord Melbourne retaliated; and as he explained to the Queen, there was no point in his saying what he did not mean out of deference to convention.

  ‘I should like to see Sir John out of the Palace,’ said the Queen.

  ‘We could not agree to his demands. You remember they were exorbitant. To do so would be submitting to blackmail.’

  ‘Odious creature! I always knew I was right to hate him. Sometimes I think that it would be a good idea to get rid of him at any price. Suppose we made it worth my mother’s while to go abroad? Back to Leiningen perhaps. Then That Man could go with her.’

  Lord Melbourne considered this. ‘Would she go? And if she did, you could not live alone without some chaperone. It might make trouble too. The people would not like to see an open rift between you and your mother. You manage everything so well by being affectionate towards her in public. It is best to continue like that.’

  ‘It seems so insincere. I don’t like it.’

  ‘Ah, you are open and frank by nature,’ said Lord Melbourne admiringly, ‘but sometimes we all have to do things we don’t much like … particularly queens.’

  ‘Mamma has been much more humble lately. I think she would like a reconciliation.’

  ‘Let her begin negotiating for it by sending Conroy away.’

  ‘She has written to Lehzen – such a friendly letter.’

  ‘I don’t doubt she is trying to win you back,’ said Lord Melbourne. ‘But it would be best for the Baroness to acknowledge the letter and leave it at that.’

  So the battle continued and like good soldiers the ladies-in-waiting and other servants of the Palace fell in behind their leaders. On one side was the Queen, with Lord Melbourne, Lehzen and Baron Stockmar; and on the other side the Duchess with Conroy and Lady Flora Hastings who, because of her rather serious nature and a certain gift for acid comment, led the ladies.

  The strained situation with the Duchess drove Victoria into an even closer relationship with Baroness Lehzen. She even declared that she thought of her as Mother and sometimes called her by that name; but of course, reasoned Victoria to herself, she is not my mother, so I shall call her Daisy which I think is a lovely faithful name.

  The Baroness was delighted by these outward signs of the Queen’s favour. She could endure the sly allusions to her origins from sharp-tongued Lady Flora; and the sneers about her German habits and her caraway seeds were shrugged aside. All that mattered was that Victoria loved her and had sworn that nothing could ever separate them.

  Meanwhile plots fermented in the opposite camp.

  Items in the press – not very prominent it was true – were suggesting that there was too much foreign influence at Court. The names Stockmar and Lehzen were mentioned, and of course King Leopold.

  ‘This has been started by J.C., Mamma and her ladies,’ said Victoria vehemently.

  ‘It’s nonsense,’ replied Lord Melbourne lightly. ‘Everyone knows that it is Your Majesty’s ministers from whom you take advice.’

  ‘One of my ministers at any rate,’ smiled Victoria. ‘It is true that dear Stockmar is kind and so devoted.’

  ‘He is a good intermediary for dealing with Conroy.’

  ‘Oh how I wish we could rid ourselves of J.C.!’

  ‘He would go if we acceded to his blackmail. That is what he is waiting for.’

  ‘I cannot understand why Mamma does not see through him.’

  ‘If I may be very indiscreet … ?’

  ‘Dear Lord M, you never are.’

  ‘Then if I may be exceptionally frank …’

  ‘You have my permission.’

  ‘Then I will say that I find the Duchess not very strong-minded and easily led by some. I do not think she is capable of any deep feeling.’

  Of course it was wrong to discuss one’s own mother in such a way, but Mamma had become a State matter and this was the Prime Minister.

  ‘I fear you are right, Lord Melbourne.’

  ‘Therefore, we must not allow her to dictate our actions.’

  ‘Most certainly not. Lord Melbourne, what do you think of Lady Flora Hastings?’

  ‘Frank again?’ smiled Lord Melbourne.

  ‘Yes, please.’

  ‘I find her a disagreeable young … or not so young … woman. She must be past thirty. Her family are staunch Tories.’

  ‘I could well imagine so,’ replied Victoria distastefully. ‘She seems to be very friendly with J.C.’

  ‘That is understandable. I have always thought there was not an ounce of sense in the entire Hastings family.’

  ‘I do not find Lady Flora handsome either.’

  ‘She is positively plain.’

  ‘I am at a loss to understand why Mamma thinks so highly of her.’

  ‘A few simple deductions would make the answer clear,’ said Lord Melbourne, and they laughed.

  Then they talked of other things – light, frivolous things, and Lord M was so amusing that she could not get to her Journal quickly enough to record some of his witticisms before she forgot them.

  * * *

  The Duchess came to the Queen’s apartments.

  ‘I thought,’ she said, ‘that my daughter might perhaps wish to see me.’

  ‘I always wish to see you agreeable, Mamma.’

  The Duchess fingered one of the many bows on her dress. ‘My dearest angel,’ she said, ‘isn’t it time to put an end to this sad state of affairs?’

  ‘What state of affairs is this, Mamma?’

  ‘This animosity between us.’

  ‘It is not between us exactly Mamma. It is due to the people who surround us.’

  The Duchess leaned forward in her chair.

  ‘That is exactly true. You see far too much of Lord Melbourne.’

  ‘My Prime Minister!’

  ‘Is he not a little more than that?’

  ‘I don’t think you understand these matters, Mamma.’

  ‘Oh, I understand very well. You think very highly of that man, now don’t you?’

  ‘It is of the greatest importance that the Queen should have confidence in her Prime Minister.’

  The Duchess’s trouble was that she was unable to control her temper and, as Victoria had inherited a similar one, when these two clashed there were what the Duchess had called in Victoria’s childhood, ‘storms’.

  ‘Well,’ said the Duchess, ‘that is one way of describing it.’

  ‘Describing what and at what are you hinting, pray?’

  ‘Your friendship with that man. He is no friend to me.’

  ‘It is only necessary that he
should be a friend to the Queen.’

  The Duchess should have been warned that when her daughter continued to refer to herself as the Queen she was reminding her companion that she expected the respect the title demanded.

  ‘Take care!’ cried the Duchess. ‘There are some who are saying that he is the King … or would like to be … and that you would like him to be.’

  Victoria did not realise the significance of these words; she was only angry that her mother, who had come ostensibly to seek a reconciliation, should think she would obtain it by attacking Lord Melbourne.

  ‘I am managing very well without your advice, Mamma!’ said the Queen coldly.

  ‘Yes.’ The Duchess was in a storm of rage now. ‘Then there is the way you obviously enjoy riding out and always doing it … so that the people can cheer you. And you eat far too much and show too much pleasure in your food. You gobble.’

  ‘If I wish to ride out, Mamma, I shall ride out, and if I wish to gobble, gobble.’

  ‘You laugh too loudly.’

  ‘I shall laugh as I please.’ Victoria rose. ‘And now,’ she said regally, ‘the Queen sees no reason why this interview should continue.’

  The Duchess felt impotent to protest. This was the Queen and there was no doubt of that.

  She rose and went back to her apartments.

  ‘I felt as though she would have ordered me to be sent to the Tower of London if I stayed longer.’

  ‘She is quite capable of it,’ retorted Sir John.

  Lady Flora, who was present – she was often in the company of Sir John – hurried to find smelling salts.

  ‘Of course, Your Grace,’ she said, ‘the Queen’s unkind attitude towards her own mother comes from that ill-bred Baroness. Did you know that Her Majesty is now calling the woman Mother?’

  ‘Oh, it is shameful … shameful!’ moaned the Duchess.

  ‘We shall get even with them, never fear,’ promised Sir John.

  * * *

  Victoria was in the blue closet listening entranced to Lord Melbourne’s racy conversation. She had begun by scolding him, for during the recent thunderstorm she had seen him from a window standing under a tree.