Victoria Confesses (9781442422469) (26 page)

I hated our parting. It would be a VERY long three months until I would see my beloved again. I thought I could not bear it, I felt SO wretched, but dearest Albert consoled me and kissed me
so
tenderly that I shed tears but did not break down in sobs as I so often had at partings. I loved him so ardently, so intensely, and I knew he loved me just as passionately and devotedly, and that he would return, and from that day on my life would be perfection.

Then he was gone, almost like in a dream, and in the meanwhile, there was much to be done in preparation for the wedding. Soon after he departed, he wrote from Calais:

I need not tell you that since we left all my thoughts have been with you. Your image fills my whole soul. Our days together flew by so
quickly, but our separation will fly equally so.

A few days later I read these words:

Dearly beloved Victoria, I long to talk to you. Your dear picture stands on my table, and I can hardly take my eyes off it.

And this:

Love of you fills my heart. Where love is, there is happiness. Even in my dreams I never imagined I should find so much love on earth. My greatest wish is to walk through life, with all its joys and all its storms, with you, my dearest, at my side.

His letters, arriving almost daily, sustained me. I kissed the pages, danced off to share a line or two with dearest Daisy, and put the letters in a box by my pillow, to read and to kiss again and again.

A week after bidding good-bye to dearest Albert at Windsor, I rode up to London to present a formal declaration of marriage to my Privy Council. I did not need Lord Melbourne's assistance in writing this speech; I felt perfectly capable of doing it myself. I could not stop my hands from trembling and the paper from shaking—it was rather an awful moment—but my voice was firm and did not betray my nervousness.

What would I have done without the advice of dearest Daisy? She agreed with me that the wedding should be held at Buckingham Palace and not at Westminster Abbey, where it would seem like a second coronation. I made list after list, deciding on which young ladies should attend me and who was to be invited to the ceremony and to the wedding breakfast—lists with many additions and crossings-out. But I was VERY
firm and unwavering about one thing:
no Tories to be invited.

In January, my household left Windsor and moved back to London. Buckingham Palace had been newly painted and gilded, and pretty flowered chintz curtains and furniture brought in.
This is where my dearest Albert and I shall live,
I thought, and I could not help smiling.

But my pleasure was soon blighted by the wretched Tories. In mid-January I opened Parliament and read a speech to the House of Lords. I was less nervous than I had ever been and thought it went well. Then, within a week, arguments had begun about the size of dearest Albert's household and his allowance. I had assumed that Parliament would provide my future husband with the annual sum of fifty thousand pounds, the same amount my uncle Leopold was promised when he married poor Princess Charlotte. But the despicable Tories claimed that the country was TOO POOR to provide my consort with so much. Even that nasty wretch, Sir Robert Peel, stood up and opposed it. They decided that
thirty thousand
was enough for Prince Albert!

Naturally, I was furious, and so was dearest Albert. “Those nice Tories have cut my income nearly in half,” he wrote to me. “It is inconceivable that they could behave so insultingly to you and to me. I have little respect for them, and everyone here in Coburg is indignant at my treatment.”

Making me even angrier was the suggestion by some in Parliament that Prince Albert might possibly have Roman Catholic leanings. As queen, I was forbidden to marry any but a Protestant. The duke of Wellington made quite an issue of it and was among those who opposed giving dearest Albert the fifty thousand pounds he deserved. Everyone fawned over him
for his defeat of Napoleon at Waterloo, but I did not, for he was a wicked Tory. He said that the people deserved to know more about the German prince and be absolutely sure that he was a Protestant!

I vowed that I would not speak to the foolish old duke EVER AGAIN, and when I heard that he had fallen ill, I refused to visit him or even send a message.

“I beg you to reconsider, your majesty,” said Lord Melbourne. “You must not be disrespectful to the duke, Tory or not. Wellington is considered a national hero. I suggest that you immediately send him a note to wish him well.”

Reluctantly, I scribbled the note and dispatched it, telling Lord Melbourne, “I have done this as you requested, but I will
not
invite him to my wedding. It is
my
marriage, and I will have only those who are sympathetic to me and to Albert.”

My contempt for the Tories deepened further over the matter of precedence for dearest Albert. I wanted to have him named king consort, but if that were not immediately possible, then certainly he should be given precedence over everyone except myself—meaning that, in any state procession, Albert should walk ahead of the royal dukes, my uncles.

When the Tories objected, I flew into a fury. “What monsters! They are scoundrels, capable of every villainy!” I raged while Lord Melbourne stood by, waiting for my anger to burn itself out. “Poor dear Albert, how cruelly they are ill-using him. Those Tories shall be punished! I shall have my revenge!”

Lord Melbourne, trying to calm me, managed to put his foot in his mouth in every way possible. He suggested that foreigners had always been a source of difficulties, and that remark made me crosser than ever.

Then, to my great surprise, the duke of Wellington reversed himself. Deciding that I had a perfect right to grant my husband whatever precedence I pleased, he persuaded others to concur. I got over my temper and decided that Wellington should receive an invitation to the wedding after all. But not to the wedding breakfast—that was simply asking too much.

Unsurprisingly, Mamma behaved badly too, complaining to any who would listen that her ungrateful daughter was threatening to order her out of her apartments in Buckingham Palace. Perhaps I should have had that conversation with her when I told her of my marriage. The matter might well have been settled.

These were trying times, but I had certainly not expected dearest Albert to make matters worse. Imagine, then, my chagrin when I received a letter from that very best of men stating that he wished to appoint the members of his household to include some Germans. And there was more to come.

“Also,” he wrote, “it is very necessary that members of my household should be chosen from both sides, an equal number of Whigs and Tories.” It was wrong, he said, for the Crown to favor one party over the other, and he planned to demonstrate that he favored neither.

I was shocked nearly speechless. Dear Daisy happened by as I was reading dearest Albert's letter for the second time. “I cannot imagine where he gets these ideas!” I sputtered, and waved the letter at her. “Read it and you will see why I am so upset!”

Daisy took the letter from me, read it slowly, and returned it. “How do you intend to respond, Victoria?” she asked.

“With great firmness,” I said. “I do not intend to let my future husband and consort harbor the notion that he can simply do
as he pleases when what he pleases is directly contrary to my wishes.”

“Quite right,” Daisy replied. “You must make that very clear to him from the start. You are the queen.”

“That's right,” I agreed. “I am the queen.”

I wrote back immediately.

That will not do at all, my dear Albert. You may entirely rely upon me that the people around you will be of high standing and good character. Lord Melbourne has already mentioned several to me who are very suitable.

I believed that I had put my case reasonably enough, and I considered the matter settled. To my consternation, dearest Albert did NOT agree. In fact, he disagreed quite forcefully.

I am very sorry that you have not been able to grant my first request, which I know was not an unfair one. Think of my position, dear Victoria: I am leaving my home and my friends and going to a country where everything is new and strange to me. I have no one to confide in but you. Can you not concede to me that the two or three persons in charge of
my private affairs should be those I already know and trust?

I called for Daisy and showed her the latest letter on the subject. “What a stubborn man!” I exclaimed. “I had not expected to be challenged!”

Daisy smiled. “I have known you for a very long time, Victoria,” she said. “I have complete confidence that you have an equal measure of stubbornness in your character.”

“But I am right!” I insisted. “It has nothing to do with stubbornness. It has to do with the simple fact that I am right and Albert is wrong.”

I sent off my reply.

My dearest and most excellent Albert, I fear you do not like it, but I am insisting upon this for your own good.

Then Uncle Leopold interfered, taking Albert's part, which I refused to accept.

Back and forth our letters flew. I had expected letters expressing Albert's love and devotion, and though I received those as well and treasured them, I was stunned at his show of obstinacy. Why could Albert not see that Lord Melbourne and I knew best in this situation? I did yield to a small degree and allow the appointment of one German to a minor post, but I felt I was doing absolutely the correct thing when I prevailed upon dearest Albert to accept Lord Melbourne's private secretary, George Anson, as his own. At first Albert resisted—more
of that German stubbornness! Finally he yielded, on the condition that Anson first resign his position with Lord Melbourne, and at last that matter was settled.

The days passed slowly, tediously—Christmas, the New Year, then the bleak days of January. I tried to hold on to the happiness that had once filled my heart to bursting but now felt cold and shriveled.
I love him
, I told myself.
My dearest Albert loves me. All will be well, all will be perfect.

But in the meantime I was feeling quite
un
well. My head throbbed, and again I suffered from sleeplessness. I wept to dearest Daisy, “Oh, my dear Albert is so unbending! He does not see that I know best in these matters. My advice must be taken, or he will be perceived as a foreigner, another German bringing his German friends with him, just as Lord Melbourne warned me.”

“Ah, yes,” Daisy said sympathetically. “I understand how Prince Albert feels. I have felt myself to be a foreigner here as well, and it is a difficult thing. But you are right, dear Victoria, you
do
know best, and you have Lord Melbourne to guide you. The prince must be grateful for that.”

“But what if he's not?” I cried. “What if he's simply resentful?”

“Then he must get over it,” Daisy said forcefully, “and you must remain firm.”

It was SUCH a trying time! On the one hand I was caught up in the delightful duty of preparing for my wedding, enduring the final fitting of my gown, deciding on the dresses to be worn by my maids of honor, choosing the dishes to be served at the wedding breakfast. With Skerrett's help I ordered a number of new dresses and bonnets and gloves and riding clothes, in addition to silk stockings and underthings and the nightgown I would wear on my wedding night. It was all VERY time-consuming and would have been amusing as well if I had not begun to harbor many misgivings about marriage in general. Perhaps Queen Elizabeth had been right. How would she have handled a bridegroom who insisted on having his own way? No differently, I was certain. Elizabeth was never weak.

But what about dearest Albert? Who is this man I am about to marry?

On the seventh of February I received word that my dearest Albert and his family had arrived at Dover and that all of them, but Albert especially, were suffering the ill effects of a rough crossing. Our wedding was to take place in three days, scarcely giving us time to become reacquainted, and my nerves were on edge.

Lord Melbourne, in our last private meeting before my marriage, tried to reassure me. “It's right to marry, it's most natural. Difficulties may arise, but they arise from everything.”

And what if those difficulties cannot be overcome?

The next day at four o'clock, I waited anxiously at the door of Buckingham Palace to welcome my future husband. The moment I saw my beloved Albert's
dear, dear
face, all my doubts and worries were immediately put to rest. We embraced again and again, and as soon as dearest Albert had settled into his rooms, we began to talk over the particulars of our wedding day.

We also argued just a little, but very lovingly, about his insistence that the mothers of my trainbearers must be of impeccable character. Not just the girls themselves—that went without saying—but their mothers as well! This seemed to me to be overly strict. “I think one ought always to be indulgent toward other people,” I told him. “If we hadn't been well brought up, we might also have gone astray.”

Then we kissed, and kissed again, and joyfully counted the hours that remained until we would become man and wife in the eyes of God. Oh, I was so very, VERY happy!