Alice, The Enigma - A Biography of Queen Victoria's Daughter Read online

  It was soon clear, however, that if Vicky had inherited her father’s brilliant brain, Alice had inherited his heart. Her kindness and awareness of the needs of others was frequently commented upon by members of the suite for whom she bought presents with her saved pocket money and the earnings from the sale of her fruit and flowers.

  “At Christmastime,” recalled a German member of the household, “she was most anxious to give pleasure to everybody, and bought presents for each with her own pocket money. She once gave me a little pin cushion, and on another occasion a basket, and wrote on a little card with a coloured border (always in German for me), ‘For dear Frida from Alice’, and brought it to me on Christmas Eve. I felt that she thought how much I must have missed my home that day.”[33]

  Once when Bertie made a rather cutting comment about one of his mother’s very tall dressers, Alice responded within earshot,

  “It is very nice to be tall. Papa would like us all to be tall.”

  Her concern for others went beyond the confines of the palaces. She was genuinely interested in the lives of the tenants at Osborne and Balmoral whose homes she often visited; and on at least one occasion she left the family pew during a church service to sit with the lowlier members of the congregation[34].

  Her sensitivity and empathy was not without disadvantages, since, combined with her passionate nature, it frequently sank into sentimentality and tears. She sobbed when her parents departed for a tour; and could hardly bear to be parted with Lady Lyttelton, when she resigned as Superintendent of the Nursery, causing both the Queen and Prince Albert to speak of her as, “Poor, dear little Alice.”

  The melancholy which often accompanies hypersensitivity, was, though, but one aspect of a personality that was more commonly dominated by cheerfulness and an exquisite sense of humour. Prince Albert called Alice ‘an extremely good and cheerful child’, and, according to Louise of Prussia, she was:

  “…charming, merry and amiable…[Her] cheerful disposition and her great power of observation showed themselves very early in the pleasantest manner, and she had a remarkable gift for making herself attractive to others.”[35]

  Lord Greville, too, described seven-year-old Alice as ‘a singularly attractive child’ and he added:

  “I doubt whether any childhood or youth was ever more joyous and bright, or ever gave a livelier promise of that which was afterwards so amply fulfilled.”[36]

  Nonetheless, like her father, Alice was prone to moods of sadness, springing from her profundity and the desire to delve beyond the superficial. One moment she might delight in pretty dresses and jewellery, but the next she was bewildered by the most profound questions of the meaning and purpose of suffering and life itself. Music and art moved her immensely, and in her lifelong quest for the aesthetic, she closely resembled Prince Albert, who also combined the practicalities of duty with a deep-rooted soul-searching and sense of the Infinite.

  Unsurprisingly, Alice adored her father as the one person who truly understood her, and his example became the yardstick by which she would measure her progress for the rest of her life.

  “It makes me feel myself so small, so imperfect when I think that I am his child and so unworthy of being it.”[37]

  The hours she spent in his company became her happiest memories, and she would look back on them always with a deep sense of gratitude and nostalgia. Unfortunately, as the Prince’s responsibilities increased, he had less and less time to spend with his family but his absences merely strengthened Alice’s admiration, particularly when she saw the fruits of his labours, the greatest of which began when she was seven years old.

  During his tours of numerous factories and farms, it had occurred to Prince Albert that the many technological advances of the Industrial and Agricultural Revolutions could not only increase production and make life easier for workers but also contribute to international peace by bringing people together to share their ideas for the benefit of humanity. The Prince had observed, too, that much of the ugliness of the overcrowded cities could be ameliorated by combining art and science to create havens of industrial activity in aesthetically pleasing settings. By 1850, he had formed an idea of presenting a ‘Great Exhibition’ of the most innovative and beautiful designs, comprising contributions from people of different nations.

  The amount of planning and preparation required for such a venture was immense but, while Prince Albert, with Queen Victoria’s unreserved support, threw himself wholeheartedly into forming a Royal Commission to oversee the project, there were many who did not share his enthusiasm and were quick to pour scorn on his plans. Xenophobes claimed that it was madness to encourage foreigners to travel to Britain since they would undoubtedly cause chaos and spread revolutionary ideas.

  “The strangers…are certain to commence a thorough revolution here,” Prince Albert wrote in disgust, “to murder Victoria and myself and to proclaim the Red Republic in England…For all this I am to be responsible, and against all this I am to make efficient provision.”[38]

  Undeterred, he pressed on, organising a competition to invite designs for a building to house the exhibition. After sifting through various suggestions, the Royal Commission awarded the contract to the architect and landscape gardener, Joseph Paxton.

  Paxton, who had designed the pioneering conservatories at Chatsworth House in Derbyshire, had put forward a proposal for an enormous glass construction – the Crystal Palace. While Prince Albert enthused, many scientists and Members of Parliament sneered that such a building would be far too flimsy to withstand storms or wind, and contemptuously added that, since there would be very little interest in the exhibition anyway, the entire plan was doomed to be an expensive failure.

  Prince Albert remained optimistic but as the day of the opening approached, he met with further disappointment. One by one, the European monarchs and princes declined an invitation on the grounds that security in Britain was too lax and the country was haven for exiled anarchists. Even the heir to the throne of Prussia, who had found refuge in Britain during the uprisings of 1848[d], sent a cautious reply and only after a rather terse response from Prince Albert did he agree to attend. His decision would have far-reaching consequences for Alice and her sister, Vicky[e].

  The Great Exhibition was officially opened by Queen Victoria on 1st May 1851 and, to the delight of the Royal Family and the humiliation of the critics, it proved an instant success. The foreigners converging on the city were, according to Lord Macaulay, all ‘respectable and decent people’; and Alice witnessed crowds of visitors wandering in awe through the nineteen acres of the impressive glass palace, enjoying the beauty of the building with its pink crystal fountain and indoor trees. A hundred thousand displays were on view, from plush French tapestries to Stevenson’s hydraulic press, and from the renowned Kohinoor Diamond to a bed with a timer to eject its sleeping occupant.

  “I made my way into the building;” wrote Macaulay, “a most gorgeous sight; vast; graceful; beyond the dreams of Arabian romances. I cannot think that the Caesars ever exhibited a more splendid spectacle.”[39]

  Queen Victoria was even more overwhelmed and gushed to Uncle Leopold that it was:

  “…the greatest day in our history…the most beautiful, imposing and touching spectacle ever seen, and the triumph of my beloved Albert. Truly it was astonishing, a fairy scene. Many cried, all felt touched and impressed with devotional feelings. It was the happiest, proudest day in my life and I can think of nothing else. Albert’s dearest name is immortalised with this great conception, his own and my own dear country showed she was worthy of it. The triumph is immense…”[40]

  Alice, too, stood in awe of her father’s ability to bring his magical dream to fruition in the face of so much mockery and opposition. Undoubtedly, she was still more impressed when the Prince, realising that the £2-3 price of admission was preventing many working people from attending, arranged for alternative tickets to be made available for only a shilling. From then on, the numbers of visitors rose to
an average of almost fifty thousand per day and, within a very short time, the exhibition had paid for itself and presented a glorious image of Britain to the world. Such a moment of triumph was surely in Alice’s mind when, fourteen years later, she wrote to her mother:

  “The longer I live, the more I see of the world, the deeper my tender admiration grows for such a father…You can understand with what pride and love I talk of him…Dear beloved Papa, he never half knew how much, even when a foolish child, I loved an adored him.”[41]

  In the midst of the triumph, as Alice stood with her family on a plinth in the Crystal Palace, it must have seemed to observers – and to Alice herself – that her privileged upbringing in a loving and healthy environment where her talents were nurtured, had created an idyllic childhood, but, while Alice would always look back nostalgically to those happy days, she was learning, too, the responsibilities and very real dangers of being born into a 19th century royal family.

  Chapter 4 – Our Little Riots

  One bright afternoon in May 1849, six-year-old Alice was returning along Constitution Hill from her mother’s birthday celebrations when suddenly, from the middle of the cheering crowds, an unemployed Irishman, William Hamilton, stepped forwards and fired a pistol point-blank at the Queen. Fortunately, the gun had not been properly loaded and failed to fire but for Alice it was a rude awakening as to the perils faced by royalty.

  A year later, an even more frightening incident occurred while Alice and her brothers, Bertie and Affie, were returning with the Queen from a visit to her uncle, the Duke of Cambridge. As the carriage moved through a crowded thoroughfare, a man named Robert Pate stepped forwards and violently struck the Queen with the brass end of his cane. Instantly, the angry crowds seized the attacker but it was several seconds before the Queen regained sufficient consciousness to stand up and announce to the horrified onlookers that she was not seriously hurt. Nonetheless, the episode was shocking for her children and, indeed, for the Queen herself, who observed that it was brutal for a man to strike a defenceless woman, and an assault with a stick was far more cowardly than if he had attempted to shoot her! Some days later, still suffering the after-effects of the attack, she wrote to King Leopold:

  “I have not suffered except from my head, which is still very tender, the blow having been extremely violent, and the brass end of the stick fell on my head to make a considerable noise. I own it makes me nervous out driving, and I start at any person coming near the carriage, which I am afraid is natural.”[42]

  To protect herself from further blows to the head, the Queen often carried a green silk parasol that was lined with chain-mail, but such a precaution did not remove the constant danger to which she and her family were exposed.[f] Frequently throughout Alice’s childhood disconcerting letters arrived at the palace, threatening to kidnap or murder the royal children, and, while it was assumed that the majority of these were written by ‘mad men’, Prince Albert took them very seriously.

  “The last thing we did before bedtime,” wrote Lady Lyttelton, “was to visit the access to the children’s apartments to satisfy ourselves that all was safe. And the intricate turns and locks and guard rooms, and the various intense precautions, suggesting the most hideous dangers, which I fear are not altogether imaginary, made one shudder! The most important key is never out of Prince Albert’s own keeping, and the very thought must be enough to cloud his fair brow with anxiety.”[43]

  As if threats from madmen and would-be assassins were not distressing enough, Alice and her family were also aware of the perennial possibility of revolution.

  Throughout the early months of 1848, unrest was sweeping through Europe and parts of South America. Rapid industrialisation, inadequate housing, unjust working conditions and overcrowding had led to discontent which turned the cities into the ideal recruiting ground for socialists and communists in their search for supporters. This was the year in which Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels produced their Communist Manifesto, urging the ‘workers of the world’ to unite against the bourgeoisie and ruling classes. Although the pamphlet was not directly responsible for the events which overtook Europe that year, it was symbolic of the emergence of a new group of social revolutionaries who viewed the monarchy and all it stood for as an enemy of the people.

  In a turbulent political climate, when the upper classes were held responsible for the poverty of the masses, any indiscretion or crime on their part could produce a spark to ignite the flame of revolution. Such was the case in France in 1848.

  The previous summer, a sordid tale of murder and adultery across the Channel reached the ears of Queen Victoria. Shortly before dawn on Monday 18th August 1847, blood-curdling screams shattered the silence of the Hôtel Sébastiani, the Parisian residence of the Duc and Duchesse de Praslin. Startled into action, servants scrambled along the corridors to the rooms of the thirty-year-old Duchesse, only to find the doors bolted. As they struggled to force the locks, the screams gradually faded until the door opened from the inside and the Duc appeared in the entrance. Behind him, amid overturned furniture covered in blood, the Duchesse – her throat half-cut, her hands slashed and her head bludgeoned by a candlestick – lay gasping her last.

  The Duc, feigning shock, was quick to state that this was the work of an intruder but, within minutes of the arrival of the Sủreté Nationale, it was established he was the culprit. Not only were his blood-stained clothes and hunting knife found in his adjoining room but the whole of Paris knew he had a definite motive for murder.

  Behind of their façade of domestic harmony, the Duc and Duchesse de Praslin had, for more than five years, endured a strained co-existence. Amid rumours of child abuse, the Duc had forbidden his volatile wife from playing any part in their children’s upbringing, handing over all authority for their welfare and education to their English-trained governess, Henriette Deluzy, who was rumoured to be his lover. While the hysterical Duchesse ranted and raved, French newspapers gloated in reporting details of the alleged affair until, at last, under pressure from his father-in-law, the Duc was compelled to send the unfortunate Henriette on her way. Far from easing the situation, her departure served only to increase the tension in the household, culminating in the frenzied attack on the 18th August.

  “What a mess!” sighed King Louis Philippe as the Duc de Praslin, still protesting his innocence, was brought before a Court of Peers and found guilty of murder. To appease the public’s demand for justice, he was condemned to death but before the sentence could be carried out he poisoned himself with arsenic and died in agony six days later.

  There, the domestic tragedy might have ended, but these were unsettling times and a scandal involving a well-known aristocrat was enough to shake public confidence in an already teetering monarchy.

  “This horrid Praslin tragedy is a subject one cannot get out of one’s head,” Queen Victoria recorded. “The Government can in no way be accused of these murders, but there is no doubt that the standard of morality is very low indeed in France, and that the higher classes are extremely unprincipled. This must shake the security and prosperity of a nation.”[44]

  Her anxiety was justified. Within six months, the security of the nation would be shaken to the core.

  In February 1848, the Queen received the alarming news that King Louis Philippe, father-in-law to her Uncle Leopold, had been compelled to abdicate and was fleeing the country disguised as a common citizen. Within days, a bedraggled band of royal refugees reached England, where Queen Victoria provided them with a home at Clairmont in Surrey. Far from being grateful for such hospitality, the discontented guests lodged numerous complaints while, to Prince Albert’s annoyance, making little effort to use the time of their exile to good effect.

  Meanwhile, the unrest across the Channel, spread into the orderly nurseries of Buckingham Palace and Windsor Castle as the children of the Queen’s French cousins irked the staff by their disruptive behaviour, and unsettled the royal children with stories of their perilous escape from the rev
olution.

  Even without these first-hand accounts, Alice would surely have realised that these were dangerous times. Revolution spread from France to Italy, Denmark and Germany, while civil war erupted in Switzerland. The Austrian Emperor was compelled to abdicate in favour of his eighteen-year-old nephew, Franz Josef; and the heir to the Prussian throne fled to England, disguised as a merchant. The danger of similar scenes being enacted in Britain moved ever closer as riots broke out in various cities and a feeling of unease swept the country.

  “Our little riots are a mere nothing and the feeling here is very good,” Queen Victoria reassured Uncle Leopold, but a month later she was far less convinced as she wrote of the ‘awful sad and heart-breaking times…and the future is very dark.’

  Prince Albert was so alarmed at the prospect of imminent revolution that he began boarding up the windows of Buckingham Palace and preparing escape routes for his family. Although he attempted to shield his wife and children from his fears, the atmosphere was so tense that so sensitive a child as Alice could not have failed to pick up on it.

  Towards the end of March, anxieties increased when it was announced that the Chartists[g] were preparing a mass demonstration in London on 10th April. Although the Chartists themselves were not perceived as a threat, it was feared that a gathering of such magnitude could easily turn hostile and lead to further riots or even revolution. Prince Albert was in a quandary: to leave the city now would be tantamount to fleeing, whereas staying could leave the Queen and his children exposed to violence. After much reflection and a good deal of persuasion from ministers, he finally decided that the wisest course was to evacuate his family to the safety of Isle of Wight. Typically, however, he was equally concerned with remedying the cause of the dissatisfaction and, once settled at Osborne, he wrote earnestly to the Prime Minister, Lord Russell, that:

  “I have enquired a good deal into the state of employment about London, and I find, to my regret, that the number of workmen of all trades out of employment is very large, and that it has been increased by the reduction of all the works under Government owing to the clamour for economy in the House of Commons…Surely this is not the moment for the tax payers to economise upon the working classes…I think the Government is bound to do what it can to help the working classes over the present moment of distress.”[45]