Censoring Queen Victoria (10 page)

It is evident from Benson's letter that if there are only three [volumes] much matter of interest will have to be omitted and this H.M. thinks would be a pity … I think the King was shaken about by Benson – I don't however think he [the King] has any strong views on the subject, and if you saw him, I have no doubt you would bring him over to your way of thinking – at the same time – if you do not consider that 4 volumes will be actually injurious to the sale of the work perhaps it had better be four, unless you like to wait and go through the material again.

Lord Esher replied, setting out quite simply his view for the book:

I want the letters to tell their own story.

This they do.

They exhibit:

(a) the early training of the Queen by Melbourne and Peel

(b) the ‘coming of the Prince Consort'

(c) the influence over him of the King of the Belgians and Stockmar

(d) the growth of their [the Queen's and Prince's] powers

(e) the change in the relations of the Crown to the Ministers after the retirement of Aberdeen [January 1855]

(f) the culmination of the Prince Consort's rule 1859– 1861.

This list in effect summarises the first edition of the book as it eventually appeared, giving a slender narrative outline of her life that differed very little from that used by Sidney Lee in his entry for the
Dictionary of National Biography
and the biography he published in 1902. This narrative focused on the men who surrounded the Queen, and this was the template that made sense to Benson and Esher. (As we shall see, the unpublished letters exhibited many other things.)

Knollys replied to Esher:

If Benson is only inclined to have 4 Vols in order to insert short biographical
sketches and accounts of political questions, I more than agree with you that there should only be three. Cannot you write me a letter which I can forward to the King of the same purport as that which you have sent to me. I feel pretty sure that if you give the reasons which induce Benson to wish for 4 Vols as you have done to me, that H.M. will come into agreement with you on the subject.

Esher, being a master polemicist, did not put Benson's arguments quite accurately to Knollys. Benson's earlier point had not been that he
wanted
to provide ‘short biographical sketches and accounts of political questions', but that if only short excerpts from the letters were included, more extensive explanatory notes would be required.

Three days later, Esher took Knollys's advice and wrote to the King, attaching a copy of the letter he had written to Benson. He reiterated to the King that it would still be possible ‘to get into three volumes everything which is necessary towards exhibiting in its fullness, the development of the Queen's character between 1837–1861, as well as the working of the Monarchical system under the Queen and the Prince Consort.' A reply came from Marienbad, Austria, where the King had gone to take the waters, saying that His Majesty ‘thinks three volumes should meet the case and be preferable to four'. The message was conveyed to Benson, who recorded in his diary: ‘The King decides for 3 vols. This is a relief!' Yet Benson was to raise the issue several more times before the book was published. When another collection of correspondence between Queen Victoria and Lord Melbourne surfaced in January 1906, he asked: ‘I suppose it will not involve a fourth volume?' And when more letters from Lord John Russell were found in May, he was hugely exasperated. He requested that a note be inserted in the preface, stating that the correspondence was found too late to be included.

This ongoing debate about the number of volumes had one positive outcome. In order to convince both Benson and the King of the strength of his opinion and his command over the project, Esher finally set down the parameters for the book in its entirety, elaborating on the summary he had sent to Knollys. On 20 August 1905 he wrote:

My dear A.C.B.,

I quite realize the difficulties, but I am SURE that we shall do wisely to stick to three volumes.

The great thing is to get in our minds what we want to do. The main object, almost the sole object, is to exhibit the true relation between the character of the Queen and the government of her people.

(a) the formation of her character

(b) the early experience of power

(c) her schooling in the art of government

(1) Melbourne

(2) King Leopold

(3) Prince Consort

(d) her method of government

(e) her sense of ‘Kingship'

(f) her motherly view of her people

(g) her guiding principles

(h) the controlling Power of the Sovereign

It is impossible for us to give full accounts of political and historical episodes and personages. They come in partly as

(a) illustrations

(b) scenery and
dramatis personae

The central figure moving through it all is that of the Queen herself.

All of the work in these three volumes is preparatory, to the other volumes which some day will follow – WHEN THE QUEEN IS ALONE.

The book must be dramatic, or rather possess a dramatic note. If we keep these main ideas in view, (and if you agree with them), all cutting must be subordinate to them.

I am roughly working along these lines. Of course I am making mistakes, but we can correct them together.

Yours ever,

Esher

Esher thus set out his goals for the project in a form that would both appeal to the King and be persuasive of Benson. Before he did so, however, eighteen months of selecting, rejecting, incorporating and cutting had already taken place. It is impossible to ascertain whether Esher was simply restating previous decisions or whether it was the first time he had conceptualised the parameters so clearly. He also wrote with conspiratorial bravado to Knollys, ‘As you say, Arthur Benson is undecided as to what the general purpose of the book is to be. I am quite clear that it
ought
to be what I have said …' Even so, Esher made a copy of his letter for his own records, something he rarely did. (He retained and filed thousands of letters, but very few letters written by him are in his archive.) Esher clearly attached great significance to this document.

Benson was pleased to have such a succinct summary of the book. He replied:

3 vols!!

Your analysis of the object of the book is masterly; I will, if I may, embody your points in the introduction. I wholly and entirely concur, … but to aim at bringing out
her character
and not illustrating history that is the exact aim.

When I go through the second vol again, which I shall do in the next few days, I shall ask myself not ‘Is this important?' but ‘Is this characteristic?'

At the same time, as you say,
it must be dramatic
.

Esher had given Benson a useful framework, a checklist against which he could judge the relevance of each letter and justify its inclusion or excision. By now, the two editors had come a long way from allowing the Queen to speak for herself. Most ‘Life and Letters' biographies were, as Strachey complained, shapeless. But if they contained all or most of the subject's letters, readers could at least form their own opinions. The Queen's correspondence, however, was so immense that the editors had now decided firmly against shapeless comprehensiveness: the book was to tell a dramatic story, the shape and significance of which they would determine.

 

N
OT TO GIVE OFFENCE AND NOT TO CREATE
scandal, but to make each of the three volumes of the book dramatic: these were the aims of the editors. Episodes which might have added drama to the book were sacrificed in order to avoid scandal and the King's displeasure. Benson grasped this dilemma early in the process: ‘We are between the devil and the deep blue sea. The King will be furious if we violate confidence, and displeased if the book is dull.' The task was made even more difficult because they were not dealing with the authoritative, older woman they had both known; instead they had to portray a much younger Victoria, in her first forty-two years.

Benson and Esher generated drama by producing a romantic idealisation of Victoria's life – of a young girl, pure, petite and innocent, under some duress; then her awakening as she flowered as a constitutional monarch, under the fortunate tutelage of particular and gifted gentlemen. To highlight this process, they portrayed Victoria's girlhood as one of feminine isolation. Her queenship they depicted as one of youthful vitality and a keenness to learn from older men, especially from Lord Melbourne, the Prime Minister of the first years of her reign. In this narrative, the throne brought liberation from her mother's control, but this independence was soon overtaken by marriage and a husband's influence. Victoria's correspondence with other women was omitted, Benson said, to avoid triviality. Her European correspondence was minimised in order to avoid suggesting undue foreign influence. There was little mention of her children.

And so the image of the Queen that emerged was shaped by a series of factors: by the documents that survived and were readily available; by omissions resulting from loss, oversight or rejection; and then by further excisions and deletions as the editing proceeded.

V
ICTORIA'S FATHER
, E
DWARD
, D
UKE
of Kent, had died suddenly when she was eight months old. On his deathbed he had asked his equerry, John Conroy, to care for his widow and child. The Duchess of Kent had very limited English and even more limited funds. Her husband left her with an income of £6000 per year and debts of £50,000. Her brother Leopold, later to be named King of the Belgians, provided her with some financial assistance and her brother-in-law, King George IV, allowed her to keep some of her husband's rooms at Kensington Palace. The Conroy family lived nearby and the children played frequently with Victoria.

John Conroy was a very ambitious man. He later came to be comptroller of the affairs of Victoria's two unmarried aunts, who also lived at Kensington Palace. As Victoria moved closer to the throne, he insinuated himself further into her mother's affairs. Conroy sought to direct Victoria's education and began to suggest that she had various infirmities that would preclude her ruling alone. He organised tours through the provinces to ‘show her to the people'; she was
made to stand on platforms and podiums but, as was the custom of the day, was not allowed to say anything. Many years later, in a letter to Lord John Russell, she vividly described her abhorrence of being ‘a spectacle' to be ‘gazed at, without delicacy or feeling'. Being ‘on display' was something Victoria would dislike for the rest of her life. When her older half-sister, Feodore (her mother's daughter from her first marriage), left England to marry the Prince of Hohenlohe-Langenburg, Victoria – then nine years old – became even more isolated and came to rely on her governess, Louise Lehzen, for company and support.

The division within the household increased when Lady Flora Hastings became the Duchess of Kent's Lady of the Bedchamber. Lady Flora colluded with Conroy and the Duchess to enforce what came to be known as the ‘Kensington System'. This strict program for the Princess's education was designed to distance her from the Court, and became a vehicle for the political aspirations of the Duchess and of Conroy. Two factions now developed within the household: the Duchess and her allies versus Victoria and Lehzen. The factions were irrevocably established by the time Victoria was sixteen. While on holiday at Ramsgate that year, Victoria contracted an illness. Elizabeth Longford suggested that it was typhoid fever but other historians, such as Stanley Weintraub, have attributed it to the
psychological warfare in the household
. During this illness Conroy tried to persuade Victoria to sign a statement asking that her mother rule as regent until Victoria was twenty-one and guaranteeing that Conroy would be given the post of private secretary when she acceded the throne. With Lehzen's help Victoria resisted his bullying, but the episode remained with her. The steely resolve noted throughout her life was forged during this time.

The situation persisted for the next two years. In the months before Victoria's eighteenth birthday, her uncle King William IV offered financial help to establish her own household. In doing so, he may have hoped to relieve her of Conroy's influence. There is a series of letters between Queen Adelaide, Feodore and the Duchess of Northumberland (Victoria's official governess, a ceremonial role distinct from the day-to-day duties of Louise Lehzen) expressing their grave concerns for Victoria's mental and physical wellbeing.
In 1836, Feodore hid a note to the Duchess of Northumberland
in a letter to Queen Adelaide, which she sent in the care of a private citizen; she hoped to avoid it being intercepted by Conroy. In this note she urged the Duchess to try to ascertain Victoria's ‘health and spirits'; she ‘has suffered a good deal, as you will know … her caracter [sic] might be completely spoiled by this continual warfare'.

By late 1836 or early 1837, Uncle Leopold in Belgium had also heard about the ‘Kensington System'. He too began to discuss the logistics of creating a separate household for the Princess. But King William's health was deteriorating. Less than a month after Victoria's eighteenth birthday, he died and Victoria acceded the throne in her own right. Almost immediately, she moved decisively to isolate herself from her mother and from Conroy. Her handling of the delicate situation of Lady Flora Hastings showed how high tensions ran.

In 1838, Lady Flora developed an abdominal swelling which Queen Victoria and Lord Melbourne attributed to pregnancy. They cast their suspicions upon Conroy; Flora and Conroy were flirtatious with one another and had shared a long coach journey several months prior. As rumours flew around the court, Victoria's doctor, Sir James Clark, was consulted and Lady Flora was persuaded to agree
to a medical examination. The exam confirmed that she was a virgin. The doctors were puzzled and met with Lord Melbourne, who passed their reports on to the Queen. Victoria told her mother that ‘though [Flora] is a virgin … there was an enlargement in the womb like a child'. Lady Flora's family criticised Victoria and Melbourne in the press for casting such scurrilous aspersions on Flora's reputation, and for subjecting a lady to the indignity of such an examination. Sadly Lady Flora died several months later from a liver tumour.