Far from the passive, politically detached monarch she is often painted as, Victoria was a driving force in making Britain a leading world power
When Victoria ascended the throne, the monarchy was in a precarious position. Radicalists had grown in strength throughout the 18th and early 19th centuries, many of them calling for an end to the Crown. Meanwhile in Europe and its colonies, republicanism had taken hold, first with the American Revolution and then with the French. The power of the British monarchy had been in steady decline ever since the Glorious Revolution of 1688, when the Bill of Rights had made clear that the king or queen ruled only with the consent of Parliament. But it was the Reform Crisis of 1830-32, during which Victoria’s predecessor William IV refused to pass new reform acts, that caused support to plummet. If the British monarchy was to survive, it would need to be satisfied serving a primarily ceremonial function, with only nominal involvement in state affairs.
So when the king died five years later, few could have imagined a better successor. His niece, Princess Alexandrina Victoria of Kent, was just 18 years old. Slim, fair and fresh-faced, with little knowledge of politics, she bore no resemblance to her domineering uncles, and for that the public loved her.
But there was more to this young girl than met the eye. Victoria was quick-witted, practical and, most of all, strong-willed. Within hours of receiving the news of her uncle’s death, she had ordered her overbearing mother, the Duchess of Kent, to be moved into an entirely separate suite of apartments. The move had likely been encouraged by Victoria’s governess, Baroness Lehzen, who believed that the queen should think independently from her mother and her allies. In response, the duchess could barely conceal her rage and disappointment, exclaiming, “There is no more future for me.” It was the beginning of the end for her influence over the new queen.
During the first few years of Victoria’s reign, Lehzen exerted a strong but subtle influence over the queen’s private and political affairs. But she was not the only person in court to wield power over the new monarch. Baron Stockmar had been sent to Buckingham Palace by King Leopold I of Belgium, Victoria’s uncle, to act as an advisor to the young queen, but he was also an emissary.
Leopold hoped that through Stockmar he would be able to influence British foreign policy; his country was caught in the middle of Franco-Prussian conflicts and he feared invasion from both sides. He needed the British to support Belgian neutrality by means of a treaty that would promise to protect the country’s position should such an invasion occur. Leopold regularly corresponded with Victoria, providing her with encouragement, general reflections and gentle advice on foreign policy, while Stockmar became a permanent presence in the palace.
But these three figures of influence paled in comparison one man, who from the very beginning of her reign came to dominate Victoria’s life. William Lamb, more commonly known as Lord Melbourne, had been prime minister for three years, and was a man renowned for his calm and sensitive temperament, charm and good looks. From the very start he treated her with the utmost respect, and Victoria returned his high favour. When she received Melbourne the day after her uncle’s death, she told him that it had long been her intention to retain both him and his Whig government, and that the country “could not be in better hands.”
As time went on, Melbourne became the queen’s most trusted advisor, and his manner towards her combined the watchfulness and respect of a statesman with the tender care of a parent. He regularly informed her of the goings-on in Parliament,тand she wrote, “I have so many communications from the Ministers, and from me to them, and I get so many papers to sign every day, that I have always a very great deal to do. I delight in this work.”
Meanwhile, King Leopold’s correspondence had become more frequent and insistent than ever. The situation in Europe was worsening and he believed it was vital that England expressed its support; to not be with Belgium was, he believed, to be against it. Maybe by putting a little pressure on Victoria he could persuade England to sign a treaty. He wrote, “All I want from your kind Majesty is that you will occasionally express to your Ministers, and particularly to good Lord Melbourne, that, as far as it is compatible with the interests of your own dominions, you do not wish that your Government should take the lead in such measures as might in a short time bring on the destruction of this country, as well as that of your uncle and his family.” After a week of reflection, she replied, ‘It would, indeed, my dearest Uncle, be very wrong of you, if you thought my feelings of warm and devoted attachment to you, and of great affection for you, could be changed – nothing can ever change them.” Her references to foreign politics, though lengthy and elaborate, were decidedly noncommittal, and simply assured her uncle that “both Lord Melbourne and Lord Palmerston are most anxious at all times for the prosperity and welfare of Belgium.”
“Melbourne became her most trusted advisor, and his manner towards Victoria combined the respect of a statesman with the tender care of a parent”
Despite this, a few months later, Leopold wrote once again urging for the support of her government. She replied, “My dear Uncle, though you seem not to dislike my political sparks, I think it is better not to increase them, as they might finally take fire, particularly as I see with regret that upon this one subject we cannot agree. I shall, therefore, limit myself to my expressions of very sincere wishes for the welfare and prosperity of Belgium.” The conversation was over, and Victoria had demonstrated that the foreign policy of England was not his province. This was even more impressive given the respectfulness and affection she had maintained throughout the exchange. It was a soft power that had rarely been seen before.
Victoria’s public support took a turn for the worse when, in 1839, she accused Lady Flora Hastings – her mother’s lady-in-waiting – of having an affair with Sir John Conroy, her mother’s comptroller. This arose from rumours of Lady Flora’s seemingly pregnant figure, which were proved wrong when she died a few months later of a cancerous tumour. Victoria expressed her regret, but failed to dismiss Sir James. The public were outraged, and the popularity with which she had begun her reign quickly ebbed away.
Her situation worsened when she heard news that Lord Melbourne and his Whig government were to resign following to a dispute in the House of Commons. She was asked to summon the Tory leader, Sir Robert Peel – a man whom Victoria disliked immensely. When he tentatively asked for some of her Whig ladies-in-waiting to be replaced with Tories, she refused. The dispute that unravelled would come to be known as The Bedchamber Crisis. Peel refused to form a government and Lord Melbourne remained prime minister. The queen had won, but the hearts of the British had been lost.
It was shortly after The Bedchamber Crisis that Victoria’s German cousin, Prince Albert, arrived at Windsor. Unbeknownst to her, the wheels that had been polished and primed for so long were set in motion. The queen immediately fell for her handsome European relative, and within days sheIt was shortly after The Bedchamber Crisis that Victoria’s German cousin, Prince Albert, arrived at Windsor. Unbeknownst to her, the wheels that had been polished and primed for so long were set in motion. The queen immediately fell for her handsome European relative, and within days she had asked for his hand in marriage. He gladly accepted and wedding plans commenced. But again, the Tories stepped in to burst her bubble of happiness when they refused to grant Albert the £50,000 annual settlement that Victoria had requested for him. They reminded her that the majority of the population were suffering from extreme poverty, so a sum of £30,000 would be more than adequate. The queen was fuming, and swore not to invite a single Tory to her wedding.
Even after marriage, the prince failed to gain any sort of power, either in Parliament or indeed his own household. In the palace, Baroness Lehzen was the dominant force; she remained Victoria’s closest advisor, retaining a private doorway into the royal bedroom, and Albert detested her for it. The birth of their first child, Victoria, Princess Royal, helped his position, and when the child became seriously ill under the watch of Lehzen, he insisted that she be dismissed. Reluctantly, Victoria agreed. The arrival of the children also helped to rebuild the queen’s reputation. The couple regularly commissioned paintings of their family in intimate settings, giving the public the impression that they were just like them. Victoria became an icon of 19th-century femininity and was described as the ‘mother of the nation’.
In 1841 the Tories came to power under Sir Robert Peel, and Albert persuaded the queen to take a less hostile view of her new prime minister. Finding Peel to be not dissimilar to himself, Albert began to take a more active role in politics. In the ministerial crises of 1845 and 1846, the prince played a dominating role. Everybody recognised that he was the real centre of the negotiations. By the end of Peel’s administration, Albert had become, in effect, the king of England.
Victoria, too, strove to influence domestic and foreign policy from the 1840s onwards, intervening when necessary. Although she never vetoed legislation or contested election results, she made clear that she was ambivalent about democracy, and informed her ministers when she disagreed with their decisions. In 1845, when Ireland was hit by a potato famine, she personally donated £2,000 to famine relief – more than any other individual donor. She became known as the ‘Famine Queen’. Internationally, she took a keen interest in improving relations between France and Britain, making and hosting several visits between the British royal family and the House of Orléans.
When Peel resigned in 1846, he was replaced by the Liberal Lord John Russell. Victoria found him to be stubborn, opinionated and graceless. But worse than this, he either could not or would not curb the impudence of his foreign minister, Lord Palmerston. Many important Foreign Office despatches were either submitted to the queen so late that there was no time to correct them, or they were not submitted to her at all. Even if she was given a chance to see them in time, they were sent off in their original form, regardless of whether changes had been suggested. Victoria demanded on several occasions for his dismissal, but her requests fell on deaf ears. It wasn’t until 1851, after he announced the British government’s approval of President Louis- Napoléon Bonaparte’s coup in France, without informing or consulting the prime minister, that he was finally removed.
However, less than a year later Palmerston was back in the cabinet under the leadership of Lord Aberdeen. But the Crimean War was brewing, and due to disagreements within Parliament he resigned. The public was furious. They had been reassured that this man would lead them through the terrible war, and now he was gone. They desperately sought someone to blame, and they found him sitting on the throne – a foreigner in one of Britain’s highest positions of power. Albert was declared a traitor, and a constitutional crisis ensued. Whispers circulated that the prince had been seized, found guilty of high treason and was to be taken to the Tower of London. The queen herself, some claimed, had been arrested, and large crowds gathered at the Tower to watch their imprisonment. Palmerston eventually returned to cabinet and, in 1855, Victoria was forced to appoint him prime minister, considered to be the only man capable of leading Britain to victory.
Contrary to the queen’s expectations, she and Albert agreed that of all her prime ministers, Palmerston gave her the least trouble. It was fortunate that his temperament had mellowed, for it was he who had to deal with the queen when Albert died in December 1861. Victoria was inconsolable and vowed to withdraw from all affairs of state. She told Palmerston that he would have to conduct his business through one of her daughters, or her private secretary. Palmerston urged that this was impossible, and they came to a strange compromise: at privy council meetings the queen would sit in the next room with the door between them open, and would then authorise the clerk to give her assent to the matters laid before the councillors for their approval.
As time went by, Victoria slowly got back into the stride of state affairs, pushing for the construction of the South Kensington museums, participating in discussions about army reform, and cheering on the expansion of the British Empire. She was also deeply interested in relations with Prussia, and cautioned her ministers against waging war with the state.
When Conservative Benjamin Disraeli became prime minister in 1868, and again in 1874, he formed a close bond with the queen. For the next six years, the duo would exploit their closeness for mutual advantage. Victoria had long wished to have an imperial title that reflected Britain’s increased stature in the world. The title Empress of India had been used informally with regard to Victoria, and Disraeli succeeded in passing the Royal Titles Bill through the House of Commons. Though the Representation of the People Act of 1884 helped to give the Commons the upper hand, in the colonies the sovereign remained a powerful figure, with many believing that it was the ‘Great White Queen’ who controlled their fates.
Victoria’s relationship with Disraeli’s rival, the Liberal William Gladstone, was stony. He was prime minister four times between 1868 and 1894. Her final prime minister, the Tory Lord Salisbury, was much more amenable, and upon her death in 1901 he credited her for the country’s rising wealth, civic order and the growth of the Empire. As the queen had so firmly believed, the prime minister was merely the temporary head of the cabinet, while the monarch was the permanent premier. It was a belief that, in the years following her reign, the monarchy would be forced to abandon.
“Victoria strove to influence domestic and foreign policy from the 1840s onwards, intervening when necessary”