Queen Victoria: A Personal History. Christopher Hibbert

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СКАЧАТЬ over the Duchess of Kent – an influence which King Leopold was later to describe as ‘witchcraft’ – Stockmar began to agree with his master that Conroy’s conduct was ‘madness’ and ‘must end in his own ruin’.

      Certainly Conroy’s machinations became almost desperate as King William’s health rapidly deteriorated and the accession of Princess Victoria as Queen grew ever closer.

      On 22 May Sir Henry Halford, the King’s doctor, reported that his 72-two-year-old patient was ‘in a very odd state and decidedly had the hay fever and in such a manner as to preclude his going to bed’. Four days later Lord Palmerston, the Foreign Secretary, wrote of the King being in ‘a very precarious state’ and, ‘though he would probably rally’, it was not likely he would last long. ‘It is desirable he should wear the crown some time, however,’ Palmerston added, ‘for there would be no advantage in having a totally inexperienced girl of eighteen, just out of strict guardianship, to govern an Empire.’

      In the meantime, Conroy was doing all he could to ensure that his guardianship was maintained, while the Princess, supported by Baroness Lehzen and Baron Stockmar, was doing all she could to break free from her guardian’s control. He again proposed to her that he be appointed her Private Secretary, a proposal which she naturally again rejected. After a conversation with her on 9 June, Stockmar reported to King Leopold:

      I found the Princess fairly cool and collected, and her answers precise, apt and determined. I had throughout the conversation, the impression that she is extremely jealous of what she considers to be her rights and her future power and is therefore not at all inclined to do anything which would put Conroy into a situation to be able to entrench upon them. Her feelings seem, moreover, to have been deeply wounded by what she calls ‘his impudent and insulting conduct’ towards her. Her affection and esteem for her mother seem likewise to have suffered by Mama having tamely allowed Conroy to insult the Princess in her presence, and by the Princess having been frequently a witness to insults which the poor Duchess tolerated herself in the presence of her daughter…O’Hum [Conroy] continues the system of intimidation with the genius of a madman, and the Duchess carries out all that she is instructed to do with admirable docility and perseverance…The Princess continues to refuse firmly to give her Mama her promise that she will make O’Hum her confidential adviser. Whether she will hold out, Heaven only knows, for they plague her, every hour and every day.¹⁸

      The Princess also managed to have a private conversation with the moderate Tory, Lord Liverpool, of whom she was so fond. Like Stockmar, Lord Liverpool urged her not to consider for a moment appointing Conroy her Private Secretary, a post for which he was quite unsuited. She must rely on the Ministers at present in office, particularly Lord Melbourne, the Prime Minister, to advise her. Of course for the moment she must continue to live with her mother. To all this the Princess agreed. With Lord Liverpool, Baron Stockmar and King Leopold all supporting her, she now felt quite capable of resisting Sir John Conroy’s threats and blandishments. Lord Liverpool suggested that, as a compromise, the Princess might consider appointing Sir John her Privy Purse, provided he did not stray from that department. But, primed by Lehzen, the Princess protested that Lord Liverpool ‘must be aware of many slights & incivilities Sir John has been guilty of towards her, but besides this she knew things of him which rendered it totally impossible for her to place him in any confidential position near her…She knew things which entirely took away her confidence in him, & that she knew this of herself without any other person informing her.’¹⁹

      Before parting from Lord Liverpool she suggested he spoke to Baron Stockmar who would tell him many things she did not like to talk about herself. Also, Lord Liverpool’s daughter, Lady Catherine, would confirm what she had told him about Sir John Conroy’s intolerably rude behaviour towards herself.

      The day after this conversation with Lord Liverpool, Baron Stockmar reported that ‘the struggle between the Mama and daughter’ was still going on and that the Duchess was ‘being pressed by Conroy to bring matters to extremities and to force her Daughter to do her will by unkindness and severity’. Conroy claimed he had been advised by James Abercromby, a former Judge-Advocate-General and the future Lord Dunfermline, that the girl must be ‘coerced’, if she would not listen to reason. But, so he later maintained, he decided not to go to such lengths because he ‘did not credit the Duchess of Kent with enough strength for such a step’.²⁰

      The King was now very close to death. When told this on 19 June the Princess ‘turned pale and burst into tears’. The next morning, her mother woke her at six o’clock to tell her that the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chamberlain, Lord Conyngham, whose horses had galloped all the way, had come to the Palace and wished to see her. She got out of bed and went downstairs, the Duchess holding her hand and carrying a candle in a silver candlestick, Lehzen following with a bottle of smelling salts. ‘I went into my sitting room (only in my dressing gown) and alone’, she wrote in her diary, ‘and saw them. Lord Conyngham then acquainted me that my poor Uncle, the King, was no more, and had expired at 12 minutes past 2 this morning and consequently that I am Queen.’²¹

       7 THE YOUNG QUEEN

      ‘Got such a letter from Mama, oh, oh such a letter.’

      ‘I CANNOT RESIST TELLING YOU,’ Thomas Creevey wrote to his step-daughter, Elizabeth Ord, ‘that our dear little Queen in every respect is perfection.’¹

      A few weeks later Creevey gave an example of the little Queen’s good nature by relating a story of her encounter with one of her ladies, Lady Charlemont, well known to be a bluestocking, who had asked Lady Tavistock, the Queen’s Lady of the Bedchamber, if she might take books out of the library at Windsor. ‘“Oh yes, my dear,” said Lady Tavistock, not knowing what reading means, “as many as you like.”’

      Upon which Lady Charlemont swept away a whole row, and was carrying them away in her apron. Passing thro’ the gallery in this state, whom should she meet but little Vic! Great was her perturbation, for in the first place a low curtsy was necessary, and what was to come of the books, for they must curtsy too. Then to be found with all this property within the first half hour of her coming and before even she had seen Vic!…But Vic was very much amused with the thing altogether, laughed heartily and was as good humoured as ever she could be.²

      Creevey’s good opinion of the Queen was commonly shared. Charles Greville, never a man to pay an idle or ill-considered compliment, had an opportunity to study her closely when, acting in his office as Clerk to the Privy Council, he attended a meeting of the Council in the Red Saloon at Kensington Palace soon after eleven o’clock on the morning of her accession, and was much impressed by her behaviour.

      She had already had a conversation with ‘good, faithful’ Baron Stockmar over breakfast, written to her uncle, King Leopold, signing herself for the first time ‘your devoted and attached Niece, Victoria R.’ and to Princess Feodora, assuring her that she would ‘remain for life’ her ‘devoted attached Sister, V.R.’.^* She had also written a letter of condolence to her aunt, Queen Adelaide, whom she addressed as ‘Her Majesty the Queen, Windsor Castle’ and, when it was intimated to her that she should have written ‘Her Majesty, the Queen Dowager’, she replied, ‘I am quite aware of Her Majesty’s altered status, but I would rather not be the first person to remind her of it.’СКАЧАТЬ