Random Jottings

Queen Victoria and her Prime Ministers - Anne Somerset

in 1964 Elizabeth Longford  published a biography of Queen Victoria which was the first warts and all story of her life. Lady Longford, who was fairly well connected,  was granted access to materials that others had not been privy to and the book made fascinating reading. I still have my copy on my shelf. I was fascinated by QV who came across as a feisty, opiniated, humerous, bad tempered, irritable woman. In other words, human. All biographies up to then had been extremely reverential.  

Since then I have more or less read every book written about her - her servants, the food she ate, her relations with her family spread across Europe, her marriage (the more I read about Albert the less I like him), and now we have a book about her prime ministers throughout her long reign written by Anne Somerset.

Queen Elizabeth II had fifteen prime ministers during her reign. Queen Victoria had fourteen.

The weekly meetings between Queen Elizabeth were one on one and during her long reign very little information regarding these discussions were leaked.   There was the odd newspaper article surmising which one she liked least or best but most of this was speculation and we never knew the Queen’s thoughts on her individual ministers.   The late Queen kept a daily diary but whether this will ever see the light of day is doubtful.

On the other hand Queen Victoria wrote copious diary and journal entries and she certainly did not hold back on her opinions, likes and dislikes of her ministers. This book makes fascinating and hugely entertaining reading as well as giving detailed and enlightening political backgrounds to each government tenure.

Her first Prime Minister after  ascending the throne at the age of 18 was Melbourne, a dashing, handsome and sophisticated man with whom it is widely agreed she fell in love. One courtier felt their relationship had something sexual about it, but after years of being supressed and under the influence of her mother and Conroy, the Comptroller and rumoured lover of the Duchess,  at Kensington Palace who made her life a misery, I think it was more likely that she just developed what we would now call a crush on him.  He was charming and used to dealing with women and it was inevitable that she would become somewhat obsessed with him. They spent hours together each day. The author makes the point that for all Melbourne’s worldly success there was an emotional void in his life which Victoria filled completely.   Charles Greville commented “I have no doubt he is passionately fond of her as he might be of a daughter if he had one, and the more because he is a man with capacity for loving without having anything in the world to love”

Inevitably, after her marriage to Albert, Melbourne was not so important to her as hitherto and years later when she read her old journals and her entries regarding Lord M, as she called him, she annotated the pages with the comment “I cannot forbear remarking what an artificial happiness mine was then and what a blessing it is I now have in my beloved husband real and solid  happiness which no politics or worldly reverses can change”

After her marriage Prince Albert tried to make sure that the Crown was above politics and Victoria should not show her partisanship.  The Bedchamber Crisis in which Victoria refused to changer her ladies in waiting forced Robert Peel to give up the idea of forming a government and bringing Lord M back into power.   A blatant misuse of sovereignty and one which Albert wanted to ensure did not happen again.

Robert Peel was her next Prime Minister and after her initial dislike of him, the Queen and the Prince Consort became close friends and she appreciated him as a man of integrity.

What is fascinating about this book is the blatant disregard the Queen and, yes Albert too, gave to non interference as their opinions on what the government should or should not do were made very clear, much to the exasperation of the Cabinet.   Both of them loathed Lord Palmerston who as Foreign Minister totally ignored anything they said and blithely went his own way.  He sounds a complete loose cannon but at the same time a hugely entertaining character.

Gladstone she did not get on with at all and the Queen said that he “spoke to her as if addressing a public meeting”

Disraeli flattered and enchanted her calling her the Faery an affectionate nickname in keeping with his allusions  to a Midsummer Night’s Dream. It was affectionate and reverential “but simultaneously contained the merest hint of mockery”.   After all it was he who said that with Royalty flattery should be laid on with a trowel.    As a way of ensuring that the Queen supported him and agreed with his policies it was a masterstroke though some of his colleagues sometimes felt he went too far.

After Albert’s death Victoria, though engulfed in grief, did not neglect her royal duties though the public perception was that she was the Widow of Windsor and spent her days in seclusion and mourning. In fact, it has always been clear to me that once free of Albert’s controlling yoke and feeling inferior to his superior intellect, she blossomed.   Her grasp of policy and her thoughts and comments show that she understood more than was assumed and, as the years went by, her vast knowledge, as with Queen Elizabeth II, were of great help to her various government ministers.

She interfered, she badgered, she cajoled and at times members of the House of Commons and the Cabinet were infuriated by her and this is why I love her. Sounds as if at times she drove them mad.

One thing which I observed  while reading this admirable book is that nothing changes. A coalition government in 1852 had cracks in it from the start as Lord John Russell held the position of Foreign Secretary on the understanding that Lord Clarendon would take over “whenever Lord John ought to be relieved from it”.  However, Lord John had other ideas and he had believed that Aberdeen, the then Prime Minister, would step down and make way for him and went into a terminal sulk when he failed to do so.

Shades of Blair and Brown….

At the time of writing we are in the throes of campaigning for a General election and it is clear from reading the current newspapers and listening to debates and discussions from all parties, that nothing has changed. The ins and outs, rivalries, back biting and double dealing shown by all concerned during Victoria’s reign, are mirrored today.  

It is a truly dispiriting thought…..

Springtime ramble

I say Springtime but I am currently sitting on my sofa with a heated throw over my legs and lap and feeling cold. Seems to take longer and longer each year before the cold weather departs and the warmth comes.  The mornings are nice and sunny and then by midday the cloud comes in and the temperature drops.

Easter was bitterly cold and I spent most of it hunkering down indoors with some chocolates which I decided was essential and reading.   I stumbled upon a 99p special offer for Kindle by an author called Rachel Lucas and ended up reading my way through all that she has published. I suppose I should call them chick lit as they are clearly marketed in that category, but I always feel this sounds a trifle slighting. Yes they are romantic with a happy ending but they are very well written with interesting and funny characters and I loved every single one. They got me through the Easter week beautifully,

I have a few books to read for review on my pile all of which look interesting,

First up, Queen Victoria and her Prime Ministers by Anne Somerset. No doubt some future historian will write about Elizabeth II and her Prime Ministers as the numbers are pretty similar. Of course, we know nothing about the late Queen's thoughts about her Ministers as these
meetings are kept secret, but Queen V was far less discreet and had no compunction in saying what she thought. I am looking forward to this one.

I am Not afriad of Looking into the Rifles - Women of the Resistance in World War one by Rick Stroud. While this is an interesting subject and one which attracts me, I have started reading it and not quite sure about it. I am finding the style slightly offputting but I shall continue and see how I get on.

The Invention of Charlotte Bronte: Her last years and the scandal that made her by Graham Watson.  I will read anything on the Brontes and am enjoying this but am slightly puzzled by the strap line the scandal that made her. I presume this is a reference to Jane Eyre which was regarded as a shocking book when it was published, but not sure  that this is relevant to the area covered by this book. Mrs Gaskell features prominently as she and Charlotte became great friends and I find myself warming to her. In fact, I have just picked up a second hand paperback by Jenny Uglow on Mrs Gaskell as she seems to me an interesting woman.

I am off to London tomorrow for a few days and as I will be with family and grandchildren I shall probably not have much reading time but I always take a book with me in the vain hope that I can open it...

Back soon.

 

Prince Albert - A N Wilson

”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.

Queen Victoria - Julia Baird

Back in the sixties when I was a mini skirted young thing, I worked in Highgate Library. Bliss for me as it meant I had access to as many books as I wanted. While I was working there a biography of Queen Victoria by Elizabeth Longford was published, we had three copies and a waiting list a mile long. It was the first major biography of the Queen for some forty years and Lady Longford, who was pretty well connected, had access to archives and papers that nobody had seen for decades. It was a huge best seller and once it was off the reservations list I brought it home with me and read it.

And that was it. I was hooked on this marvellous woman and I wanted to find out more. On my shelves as I write this I can see biographies of both Victoria and Albert by Stanley Weintraub, David Duff, Cecil Woodham-Smith, Christopher Hibbert et al. Other related works, Victoria on the Riviera, Becoming Queen, Magnificent Obsession by Helen Rappaport and several battered old volumes of letters between the Queen and her eldest daughter, Vicky who became Empress of Prussia also take pride of place.

A fascinating and amazing woman. A woman whose reign was only eclipsed in longevity by our own Queen Elizabeth II this year. A woman who seems to subsume her entire personality into that of her Beloved Albert, who produced nine children, who suffered the most appalling grief and heartbreak when Albert died and yet who endured, who came through, whose strength of character and love of live was irrepressible even in the depths of despair – in short, a tough, feisty woman who I have come to love and admire the more I read about her.

I have not read a full biography of her for some time and, freely admit, that I wondered if there was anything more to learn about Victoria and did we really need yet another tome to add to the shelves? Well, after reading this book the answer is yes. From page one this biography by Julia Baird gripped me and I could not put it down. In the end I forced myself to take a break and I stopped reading for a day or two after Albert’s Death.  I cannot read of his passing without a lump in my throat and feel for the Queen in her loss. The most heart breaking thing of all is her saying ‘there is nobody to call me Victoria any more’.  That sentence encapsulates her loneliness and distance from everyone even her children.

Her love and adoration for Albert and total giving of self must surely hark back to her miserably unhappy childhood when she was hedged and confined and badly treated by her mother and her comptroller, John Conroy, who were plotting for power and hoped to run the country as a Regency. But King William, who was determined to live until Victoria reached the age of eighteen managed it, and from that moment Victoria took control. She rejoiced in her freedom and her ability to do exactly what she wanted ‘from the first she showed a disposition to conform strictly to her own standard of conduct rather than adapt herself to expected standards’. This attitude vanished as soon as she fell in love with Albert and married him. She only regained her self-reliance and self-confidence when she was single again.

I have always admired Albert for his hard work, for his intellectual mind and the enormous breadth of his interests, and all in such a young man who was only twenty one when he married Victoria. But as the years have passed and I have read more I find myself less and less sympathetic towards him. Albert wanted power, he had been trained for it. This is an extract from a letter from Albert to the Duke of Wellington:

He believed it was his duty to “fill up every gap which, as a woman, the Queen would naturally leave in the exercise of her regal function, continually and anxiously to watch every part of public business, in order to be able to advise and assist her in any moment in any of the difficult questions brought  before her, personal or social, to place all his time and powers at her command as the natural  head of the family (my emphasis on natural), superintendent of her household, manager of her private affairs, her sole confidential adviser in politics and the only assistant in her communications with the officers of the government, her private secretary and her permanent visitor”

In other words he wanted total control and as Victoria produced child after child and was happy to hand over all this to Albert, he got it.

Julia Baird makes it clear that there was also plenty of support for Albert as major intellectuals of the time agreed with him that a woman’s natural state was ‘wifely subjection’.  Albert encouraged her into thinking her education and abilities were lesser than his and her confidence, shattered after years of childbearing and comparison with Albert’s knowledge, gradually wore away .     I cannot help wondering what would have happened if Albert had not died as young as he did leaving the Queen to find herself and her confidence once more.

And thought she was Dubbed the Widow of Windsor and people got cross and angry with the Queen they never saw, she never stopped working. She was nervous of being seen in public, she claimed her nerves would not allow her to be seen and refused to open parliament and show herself.  This feeling grew stronger over the years but her grasp of politics and world affairs never faltered.  

This is a wonderful book and my copy is bristling with yellow post it notes and underlinings to remind me of my thoughts as I read it, but I simply cannot write about every single item else this review will be pages long. I just wanted to capture the essence of Queen Victoria and how much I love and admire her.

 Forget this awful view of her being humourless and disliking her children. It is simply not true.

In a letter to Charlotte Canning Victoria says 'I have so much to thank God for. Such a husband - such affectionate children that I will not murmur at what I have lost'. 

Charlotte described the Queen's letter as 'simple and true' and says that the Queen 'has had credit for qualities not hers and that nobody knew what real softness and feelings she has in some ways'. 

Yes, she and the future Edward VII had a combative relationship to say the least, but she never failed him in times of scandal and trouble and supported him throughout.  She found some of her children annoying and irritating at times – well with nine of them it would be incredible if she didn’t. She was a doting grandmother who allowed them much more leeway than she did her own children. As a grandmother myself, I can understand that.

She could be demanding and selfish and thoughtless, but knew when she was wrong. In a book I read a few years ago by Kate Hubbard Serving Queen Victoria,  she was humble enough to admit her faults. After a particularly wearing and difficult time her doctor James Reid had to take time off as he was suffering from exhaustion. A letter from Her Majesty greatly distressed at his becoming ill 'from the worry I caused you the last few months and especially the last week which might all have been prevented but for my senselessness and want of thought'.  

And her people loved her. She connected with them and knew it. Albert may have had the intellect and the brains but he lacked the common touch which the Queen had in spades.

At the time of her Jubilee in 1887 the Queen sat in her carriage outside Westminster Abbey listening to a thanksgiving service for her long reign. She sat, her eyes full of tears. Before her were her rows of her royal men, sons and sons in law and grandchildren.

“A mob of workmen ran alongside Victoria’s carriage cheering and shouting as loudly as they could ‘You go it old girl! You done it well! You done it well!”

She had indeed.

A wonderful book.

The Mystery of Princess Louise - Lucinda Hawksley

It is that time of year when we all seem to be running around and getting nothing done and Random has certainly taken a back seat at the mo and am feeling a bit guilty about it.   So back to a book review and a great book too.

This biography of Princess Louise by Lucinda Hawksley is immensely readable and totally engrossing.  About this time last year I was raving about Magnificent Obsession by Helen Rappaport and, despite everything, feeling sorry for Queen Victoria.   Since then I have read Jane Ridley's biography of Edward VII and now this and I am really struggling to maintain my sympathy for the Queen.    Yes a traumatic and appalling loss when your husband dies and you are left bereft at 42 with no idea how you are to carry on, but so sad that her children were no comfort to her and that she seemed to actively dislike most of them most of the time.  She resented Albert spending time with them when he could have been with her and once they started to lead their own lives she tried her best to make them as miserable as she by her rules and restrictions.  Seems to me plain jealousy that they were young and had their lives to make and she resented that deeply. Why should they be happy when she was not?

Princess Louise was one of the children in the nursery who seemed to have been overlooked as she did not stand out in anyway. Vicky was the clever one, Bertie the poor beleagured dunce, Arthur a favourite and Louise came nowhere.   She formed a close relationship with Leopold, her haemophiliac brother, whose life was even more restricted than hers and this closeness continued as they grew into adulthood, another thing for Victoria to spoil.   When Leopold was seriously ill when he was older he wished for his favourite sister to visit him,  but even though the doctors said it would do him good,  the Queen would not allow it. Unbelievable cruelty.

Louise was also close to Bertie and his wife Alexandra and, as the Princess of Wales found herself unable to carry out royal duties because of her increasing ill health and deafness, the brother and sister found themselves stepping into the limelight and keeping the royal show on the road in the absence of their mother. Princess Louise was pretty, graceful and charming with an easy going manner that endeared her to all she met and she was regarded as one of the most popular members of the Royal Family.

The author found it difficult to obtain access to certain archives and documents relating to the Princess because it seemed she might have had a colourful past.   Beggars belief that this is still being concealed when one looks at the junketing and behaviour of some of the Windsors over the last 60 years or so.

Louise was a sculptor and a painter and mixed with the pre-Raphaelites and was a keen member of the Aesthetic movement.  She had an affair with her sculpting tutor Joseph Edgar Boehm and there has also been a hint that she might or might not have had an affair with Princess Beatrice's handsome husband, Liko. As he and his wife had to live with the Queen as she would not part with Beatrice, it would hardly be suprising if he was not attracted to his lovely sister-in-law to add a bit of excitement in his life.  

The matter of a husband for her seemed to be of paramount importance and the Queen was most anxious to see her settled. Bertie seemed to agree and a comment from him that Louise should be married and needs to be was rather pointed. Bertie's robust sexual appetite has been well documented and it seems he recognised that Louise had a similar temperament.    What made the marriage imperative was the rumour that Louise had given birth to a son.

In 1866 a young army officer was appointed as Leopold's new tutor. He was handsome and charming and, as Louise was frequently with her brother, she spent a great deal of time with George Stirling. The Queen approved of him and declared herself 'much pleased' and so it was a shock when he was dismissed just four months after being appointed.   The reason given was that Leopold needed somebody more used to dealing with persons of 'delicate health'.   The rest of this year Louise travelled abroad with her mother and kept out of the public eye.   The archives on this period are hidden away so no proof of this is available but it is odd, that despite being dismissed, Stirling continued to receive a salary from the royal purse and  a generous annuity for years to come. In return, he was silent.

Louise married Lorne, the son of the Duke of Argyll and the British public were delighted that their most popular princess was not being married off to yet another German princeling. It was portrayed as a love match which is certainly as far from the truth as it is possible to be. Lorne was handsome and charming but there had been rumours about his sexuality for some time and it was clear that he was not really interested in women, but marrying a daughter of Queen Victoria was a feather in the family's cap and she had to marry somebody, on this the Queen was adamant.

Poor Louise.    Not many of the Queen's children had happy marriages and she was no exception. She spent as much time as possible away from her husband becoming very proactive in her campaign for women's education and was supportive of rights for women. She painted and sculpted and scandalised her mother by visiting George Eliot, who was barred from society.  She had a constant battle with the Queen to lead her life the way she wanted and refused to toe the line.

And then there was the death of her long term lover, Boehm and the circumstances surrounding it. Found dead in his studio by the Princess, there are many reports that he was, in fact, in bed with Louise when he had his fatal attack and had to be smuggled back into his studio to be 'discovered' by a close friend.

Unputdownable and despite the restrictions placed on the author, well researched with a general lack of my most unfavourite words in a biography, to wit 'it seems probable that' or 'it seems likely' which sometimes haunt a second rate book.

This is far from that and gives us yet another aspect of the fascinating life of Queen Victoria and another viewpoint on how she influenced, or blighted, the lives of her children .   Marvellous stuff.

The Windsors are often referred to as a 'dysfunctional family'.   After reading this all I can say it that it is obviously in their genes....

Serving Victoria - Kate Hubbard

I seem to have fallen into a period of Victorian/Edwardian history reading at the moment.   This was quite by accident and not planned, rather that interesting books covering this period have arrived in one fell swoop.  Not complaining, au contraire, this is my favourite area of history so am thoroughly enjoying it.

Bertie by Jane Ridley just before Christmas, then the wonderful programme on the BBC on Queen Victoria's Children which I loved and now, Serving Victoria by Jane Hubbard, the sub title of which is Life in the Royal Household which I finished the other day.   It is simply wonderfully readable and totally engrossing and so interesting to read the view of the Queen taken by her household.

As you all know by now, I love Queen Victoria, warts and all and what is most disarming about her is her self-knowledge and her admission that she can be headstrong and dictatorial and can get things wrong.  Takes a brave man or woman however to tell her so, but those who did found that she usually backed down and even apologised for her behaviour.   While I think Albert kept her conscious of her faults and her temperament and rages, he also rather squashed the side of her that loved life and as the years passed and her grief lessened its intensity, she began to enjoy herself more.  On her own terms of course, she planned what she wanted to do and the household had to jog along behind whether it was suffering tedious boring evenings where no contentious subjects were allowed for discussions at the dining table, to long carriage drives in the cold and the wet, the Queen impervious to the elements, or being constantly on call so that exhaustion set in.  The Queen's maids were constantly being sent home in a state of nervous collapse because they were up and down all night keeping an eye on Her Maj and answering her calls. They also slept on the sofa...

Sarah Lyttleton who supervised the nursery and all of the children was in royal service all her life and the excerpts from her diaries and letters are fascinating; Charlotte Canning a lady of the Bedchamber who reluctantly went to India with her husband and longed to return and who, tragically, died just as she was about to embark on her much longer for journey home; Mary Ponsonby a Maid of Honour married to Henry Ponsonby, one of Albert's equerries who loyally served his Queen until his death; Sir James Reid her doctor and many more are featured in this delightful book and they all have their own view of their mistress.

The Queen relied on her household for companionship and comfort and time and time again she stresses her loneliness. We must remember that after Albert's death she said 'There is nobody to call me Victoria now' and she leant heavily on those around her for support.   After the portrayal of the Queen on the BBC the other week as a mother who rather disliked her children I feel I must quote from a letter written to Charlotte Canning after the death of her mother 'I have so much to thank God for. Such a husband - such affectionate children that I will not murmur at what I have lost'. 

Charlotte described the Queen's letter as 'simple and true' and says that the Queen 'has had credit for qualities not hers and that nobody knew what real softness and feelings she has in some ways'.   Lovely to read this.

The charm of this book is seeing another side to Victoria and I find this from Henry Ponsonby on trying to persuade the Queen of a certain point of view, as rather amusing. In response to his wife accusing him of having no opinions and not standing up to the Queen he takes a rather pragmatic view: "She says 2 and 2 make 5. I humbly point out that no doubt she has some good reason for thinking so but I cannot help but think they make 4.   She replies that there may be some truth in what I say but she knows they make 5. Thereupon I drop the discussion..."

After a particularly wearing and difficult time her doctor James Reid had to take time off as he was suffering from exhaustion. A letter from Her Majesty greatly distressed at his becoming ill 'from the worry I caused you the last few months and especially the last week which might all have been prevented but for my senselessness and want of thought'.  

Her sense of humour.  Fritz Ponsonby, son of Henry, gave her a memorandum in which her approval was asked for the Royal Irish Fusiliers to wear a green hackle in their busbies.  Instead of busbies she read 'breeches' and wondered 'on what portion of these garments a hackle could be worn'.  She laughed so much 'I was afraid she would have a fit'.   So much for 'We are Not Amused'.

I so loved this book and, as I always do when I read about the death of the Queen, I become very moved and get a lump in my throat.  Sir James sat up with her through the night when she was dying and administered oxygen to her to ease her breathing 'She often smiles when she hears my voice and says she will do anything I like. The whole things is pathetic and gives me a lump in my throat'.

It was Sir James who she entrusted with the task of placing a picture of John Brown in the coffin with her, which he did, covering it up so that the family would not see it, and she asked him for this favour knowing he was loyal and loved her enough to carry out this task.

Odd though it may sound to some, I find Queen Victoria very lovable, she was not perfect, she was full of faults, could be arrogant and obstinate and difficult to deal with, but she was also devoted to her servants, took care of them, overlooked their many faults (it appears that most of the staff at Balmoral spent most of their time totally off their heads) and could totally disarm with her charm and her admission that she knew she was wrong.  

I find it rather sweet that she spoke to one of her granddaughters and said that she was looking forward to seeing Grandpa again when she died 'but she was also rather nervous as she knew she had done things he might not like'.   One hopes that Albert did not write her one of his reproving letters when she arrived at the Pearly Gates....

A lovely lovely book.