Prisoners in the Palace (29 page)

The Duke of Kent, Victoria’s father, was especially profligate and spent most of his life in debt. In fact, he had so many debts, he fled to France to live in Paris. After Charlotte’s death, he abandoned his French mistress of twenty-five years to marry Victoria’s mother in 1818. (His mistress learned he had left her through the newspapers.) When the Duchess became pregnant, he insisted they travel to Britain, despite terrible traveling conditions, so his child could be born on British soil. When they arrived, King George IV refused to pay his brother’s debts, so the family moved into shabby quarters at Kensington Palace. The Duke racked up more debts to renovate his rooms, including designing the famous double staircase where Victoria first sees Albert. Victoria was born on May 24, 1819.

There is a story the Duke consulted a psychic who told him he would never become King, but his daughter would be the greatest Queen England had ever known. The psychic knew what she was talking about, because the Duke died when Victoria was eight months old. She idealized her father’s memory and one of her first acts as Queen was to pay all his debts. He is buried in St. George’s Cathedral, in the same chapel of the Knights of the Garter, where Liza finds the Queen to tell her of Victoria’s plight.

William IV succeeded his brother George IV in 1830. He was a sailor and a buffoon. No one took him very seriously. He proposed to three women before poor Adelaide accepted him. His wife was never appreciated by the British people, who saw her as a dowdy German housewife. Although he had ten illegitimate children with his mistress, a notorious
actress, William and Adelaide never had children. He often complained bitterly the Duchess was keeping Victoria from his court.

Sir John Conroy worked for the Duke of Kent. After the Duke’s death, Sir John appointed himself the Duchess’s comptroller. Speculation at court and in the press claimed Sir John was the Duchess’s lover, but people close to the household felt their relationship was more complicated. The Duchess was a handsome woman who was left very lonely by her husband’s death. She was alone and afraid in a strange land. She spoke English very poorly. Sir John exploited her vulnerability until she was totally under his thumb.

Sir John is a great character because he really was a villain. After she became Queen, Victoria called him a demon and noted his cruel and abusive treatment of her in her diaries, especially during her illness at Ramsgate and in the months just before she became Queen. But he was clever enough to fool the outside world; his Kensington System was considered a great success by everyone except Victoria. She thought of her childhood as the worst time of her life.

Unfortunately, because Sir John was her mother’s employee, Victoria couldn’t just wave her royal scepter and get rid of Sir John when she became Queen. He delayed his departure, holding out for his Irish peerage (a higher rank which would entitle him to be called Lord Conroy). He never got it, although he did enjoy spending his enormous pension. He was never called to account for his embezzlement of the Duchess’s funds.

Liza Hastings lived only in my imagination, but a maid named Annie Mason was dismissed from Kensington Palace
for lewdness and immorality. What happened to maids like Annie, without a character reference, was almost inevitable. Annie’s death was inspired by accounts of young maids throwing themselves off the London Monument. A broadsheet, much like the one Will prints for Liza, showed a drawing of a young girl diving off the top. In 1842, a cage was built at the top to prevent any more suicides. You can climb to the summit today, but I recommend it only for the stout of heart: there are 311 steps!

The duties I assigned to Liza were typical of the time. A lady’s maid was required for status, not for hard work. She was supposed to be young and pretty, preferably French or Swiss. She would wear her mistress’s discarded clothing and her rank was just below a housekeeper or butler. There wasn’t much of a career path; a successful lady’s maid was one who married before she lost her looks. Often, she married a footman. These male servants were chosen for their handsome looks and how well their thighs looked in tight breeches. They often behaved arrogantly, so Simon, although a fictional character, runs true to type.

Only a lady of fine birth could be expected to be a lady in waiting to the Princess or the Queen. However, there is precedent for Victoria’s extraordinary offer to Liza of the post of gentlewoman of the bedchamber. Victoria created this job to reward the daughter of her tutor, the Reverend Davys. I took the liberty of offering Liza the same.

Will Fulton is a fictional character but very representative of the new class of entrepreneurial publishers emerging in Britain at this time. Broadsheets were very profitable and used to publicize everything from the latest scandal to a political point
of view. I invented the broadsheets about Victoria and Queen Adelaide, but they were typical of the time, as were wickedly funny political cartoons. Liza envisions an enormous Victoria chasing a tiny Sir John out of the room with her royal scepter. I took this image from a political cartoon of the time.

Newspapers in 1837 were heavily taxed, making them too expensive for the working class. In the next few years, the newspaper tax would be eliminated, paper made from inexpensive wood pulp would become available, and public education would be made compulsory, dramatically increasing the literacy rate. The resulting explosion in publishing would produce tens of thousands of specialized periodicals by the 1860s. So Will’s prospects are rosy.

The real Inside Boy Jones was discovered lurking in the royal nursery at Buckingham Palace, after Victoria came to the throne and had her first child. He was imprisoned but soon after his release he returned and broke into the Palace again. This time he was shipped off to sea. The last history hears of him, Inside Boy was jumping ship off the coast of Algiers for reasons unknown. I took the liberty of starting his career as a royal housebreaker when Victoria was still at Kensington Palace.

Flash patter is a documented language (search for “flash dictionary” at www.victorianlondon.org), which is closely allied to cockney rhyming slang in London’s East End. In case you are interested, Liza’s message to Inside Boy can translate as “Simon is a villain. He’s conspiring with the Irishman (Sir John). If you can, save me and unlock the door to the storage room. But if you can’t, tell the whole story to Will.”

Many of the events described in the book took place over a
three-year period before Victoria became Queen. I condensed these events to fit into a single year. The public events, such as Albert’s visit, Victoria’s birthday ball, and Victoria’s brush with typhoid, are all documented. It is also true that the King received secret messages shortly before his death about Sir John’s treatment of Victoria. From his sickbed the King wrote to his niece offering her an independent income and her own house. Victoria refused the King’s offer, probably because she knew it was only a matter of weeks before she inherited the throne and an enormous fortune.

The morning Victoria was informed of the King’s death happened much as I described it. Lord Conygham and the Archbishop had a difficult time gaining entry to the Palace and the Duchess, in a last desperate bid to keep her self-importance, tried to make them wait. Victoria finally came to meet them, dressed simply, with her hair down. She carried a silver candlestick. Many years later, this same candlestick was sold by Sir John’s son, suggesting that Conroy was up to his thieving tricks even on that momentous night.

True to her word, Victoria always met her ministers alone and her mother was never permitted a voice in affairs of state. Queen Victoria’s first official piece of correspondence was a letter of condolence to her aunt, which she signed as Victoria, omitting Regina, or “Queen,” as a gesture of respect to the former Queen. The mourning dress she wore that day was very shabbily made and is preserved with all its fraying seams in the Royal Costume Archives.

One last note about Kensington Palace: within a month of becoming Queen, Victoria left Kensington, vowing never to return. Refusing to go to Windsor Castle because she didn’t
want to intrude on her Aunt Adelaide’s grief, Victoria insisted Buckingham Palace be completed a year ahead of schedule so she could live there. Her ministers demanded she live under the same roof as her mother until Victoria married. She acquiesced, but placed her mother’s room on the opposite side of the Palace from her own. The Baroness Lehzen was allotted the room next to the Queen. The Baroness would stay with Victoria until forced out of the household by Albert after the birth of Victoria’s second child.

Victoria was persuaded to come back to Kensington on her eightieth birthday when the state apartments, the site of her seventeenth birthday ball, were restored. They are open to the public. The rest of the Palace has been used to this day as living quarters for members of the royal family, most notably Diana, the Princess of Wales, and her two sons, Prince William and Prince Henry.

I consulted many sources to write Prisoners in the Palace, including biographies, novels by Dickens, books about publishing and histories of Kensington Palace and London. If you are interested in learning more, I suggest you start with the following books:

Queen Victoria: A Personal History by Christopher Hibbert. Basic Books, New York (2000).

Hibbert writes obsessively readable history, and this is no exception. He also draws heavily on Victoria’s diaries and letters.

Queen Victoria: An Illustrated Biography by Lytton Strachey. Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, New York (1978).

This was originally published in 1921, but I recommend the illustrated edition because it has wonderful pictures of Victoria and her intimate circle. You can find the text online by searching for “Strachey and Victoria.”

Queen Victoria: Born to Succeed by Elizabeth Longford. Harper and Row, London (1964).

Perhaps the most popular and enduring of Queen Victoria’s biographies.

Victoria and Albert by David Duff. Taplinger Publishing Company, New York (1973).

A fascinating discussion of Victoria’s love affair with Albert. Duff is very opinionated and paints a convincing portrait of the two young people who are destined to be together.

Her Little Majesty: The Life of Queen Victoria by Carolly Erickson. Simon and Schuster, New York (1997).

Erickson writes fun biographies and tries to capture the heart of a teenager being groomed to be Queen.

Life Below Stairs: Domestic Servants in England in Victorian Times by Frank Huggett. Book Club Associates, London (1977).

A useful reference for the duties and responsibilities of a servant.

For primary sources about Victorian London, I cannot recommend a Web site more highly than www.victorianlondon.org. Whenever I needed a flash patter dictionary, a restaurant recommendation, or pictures of young maids throwing themselves off the Monument, I started here.

Thank goodness I don’t write in a vacuum! I must thank…

My writing group who was with me at every stage of this novel: Sari Bodi for always finding romantic comedy in a scene, Christine Pakkala for making me figure out what my main character has lost, and Karen Swanson for forcing me to get rid of all that history and focus on the story. Thank you, gracious ladies!