”it was with some emotion that I beheld Albert who is beautiful”.
This is the entry in Queen Victoria’s Journal after she clapped eyes on Albert and fell instantly in love with him. This love never wavered and though their marriage has been portrayed as a love match and a happy one, I feel that Albert took full advantage of Victoria’s adoration.
My interest in Queen Victoria began in 1964 when, as a mini skirted teenager, I worked in a library and was in charge of the book reservations. Elizabeth Longford published her seminal work on the Queen that year and it was a huge success. The first warts and all biography of her, previous ones having been overly deferential, it showed the Queen as a living, human being, with frailties and faults like us all. I managed to get hold of it when the reservation list finished and read it through in one weekend and was enthralled.
After reading this, gosh did I feel sorry for Albert having to live with this woman who yelled and shrieked and followed him from room to room haranguing him when they had a row. What a saint putting up with that I thought. Over the years of reading practically every book and biography of V&A that I could lay my hands on, my opinion changed. A year ago I read the excellent biography by Julia Baird which I think is the best since the Longford, and this placed me firmly in Victoria's camp.
And so to the A N Wilson's book Prince Albert The Man who Saved the Monarchy. It seems to be an accepted fact that Albert is entitled to be so named and others have the same opinion, but after reading Wilson I am wondering why. It is made clear throughout that Albert’s endless stream of letters, memoranda, thoughts and ideas were regarded as “interference” and rather annoying by the Prime Minister and Cabinet members and Wilson narrates that many of his suggestions were ignored and that most of his endlless work was totally pointless. At one point the Queen raised the question of Albert’s status (the Prince of Wales was now growing up and would soon outrank his father) and she wanted a title for her husband so he could take precedence over their son. It was mooted that he becreated the Duke of Edinburgh (a title which we know well) but this was turned down as it would mean Albert would have a seat in the House of Lords and a vote, and this was the last thing Parliament wanted. Hence, he became Prince Consort which meant he ranked above his son but, as far as I can make out, is a meaningless title.
Albert’s good looks which had enraptured the Queen soon vanished and he became an unhealthy looking middle aged workaholic, largely self inflicted as he distanced himself from his wife whose love and neediness tired him out. I genuinely feel he loved her and the first years of their marriage were happy and fulfilled, but the endless pregnanancies and the suffering of the Queen after each birth with what would now be diagnosed as post natal depression, exhausted him and he escaped from it as often as he could.
Bear in mind that Queen Victoria had nine children. Yes nine in twenty years. She was tiny, barely five foot and yet she produced child after child and with each pregnancy her dependence on Albert grew so that he was King in all but name. It is clear from correspondence between the Prince and his adviser Stockmar that this was the plan from the start. A young Queen needed a Man and Albert, with his superior intellect and education, was designated for this position from an early age. The fact that Victoria adored him was a bonus. My view is that he traded on this to a huge extent.
Albert had a habit of withdrawing from scenes and leaving the Queen fuming and frustrated. He then took refuge in his study and wrote letters to her. And my goodness these letters are cold and unfeeling and if, after producing my sixth or seventh child, I had received one of these, I would have thrown the Orb and Sceptre at him. Their tone chills me to the bone.
"I am trying to keep out of your way until your better feelings have returned and you have regained control of yourself. You on the other hand want to talk it all over with me again, you make a parade of your suffering before my eyes so as to make me feel your reproaches still more keenly.
I am ready to ignore all that has happened and take a new departure and try in future to avoid anything which might make you unhappy and your state of mind worse. Cure it I cannot. You alone can do that"
and
"I can give you a good certificate this time and am pleased to witness your own improvement. My advice is to be less occupied with yourself and your own feeling"
So did he save the Monarchy? When Victoria came to the throne she had unlimited powers and could interfere as and when she liked as Peel found when he beccame Prime Minister and she scuppered his administraiton in order to get Melbourne back. Albert put a stop to this as he felt the Crown should be separate from politics, though as I have mentioned above this did not stop him bombarding the Prime Minister with notes and suggestions.
Where he did save the monarchy was on the domestic side and how it was viewed by the public. Prior to Queen Victoria’s reign the four Georges and William were hardly an example one would wish to follow. Debauched, spendthrift, they were a pretty horrendous bunch. This all changed when the Queen married Albert and settled down tp producing their family and presenting themselves to the country as a role model of how family life should be. Paintings, and later photogrphs, of this blissful mother, father and children were publicised and over her long reign the monarchy was transformed and, yes, saved. (It wobbled a bit when she withdrew from public life). This model of the Royal Family endures to this day. But before we endow Albert with all the princely virtues let us not forget that the Queen was widowed at 42 and ruled for another forty years on Her Own and was highly respected and revered throughout Europe and the world. Free of Albert's censorius put downs and his view of her educational abilities, she blossomed.
One of my favourite letters I came across when reading the excellent Roger Fulford editions of her letters to her daughter in Prussia, was when I found she had told Vicky;
"I am afraid I am going to do something that Dear Papa would not like"
And I thought YES!
I found this book rather hard going and felt I was wading through it at times and I am not sure I appreciate the author’s style. There was one phrase which really leapt off the page and I found profoundly irritating when he described the newly wed and blissfully happy Victoria as “drooling over Albert”. Drooling? If I had been AN Wilson’s editor I would have whipped that out straight away. It does a total disservice to the Queen and it made me very cross.
Overall, not a biography I will return to though the chapters on the Great Exhibition were fascinating and the best part of the volume. It showed Albert at his best, determined to showcase the industrial talents of the Empire and the amount of work that was undertaken by him and his committe was incredibly daunting. Imagine organising the Olympics in 2012 and you have some idea of the huge tasks which faced them. Only without the internet and email....
A curate’s egg of a book. For me at any rate.
