The Victoria Letters: The official companion to the ITV Victoria series

VICTORIA’S JOURNAL, 3 MAY 1836

IN PREPARATION FOR his niece’s accession, King William ordered that an English aristocrat, the Duchess of Northumberland, be appointed to work with Lehzen on teaching Victoria court and ceremonial etiquette and training her in deportment and the social graces. But despite this Victoria continued to gravitate ever more to her governess.

Lehzen remained her closest companion, her trusted friend and ally, so much so that Kensington Palace became clearly divided into two camps, with the Duchess and Sir John Conroy in one and Victoria and Lehzen in the other. Although Sir John Conroy’s daughter Victoire was brought occasionally to play with her, Victoria spent much of her time alone with her treasured dolls: wooden ones, paper ones, dolls made of leather and expensive wax dolls sent from Berlin –132 of them in all, carefully organised and listed in her childlike hand in a small copy book. Each doll had its own name, an explanation of which person it represented – if based on a real person – and who made her costume (herself or Baroness Lehzen).

Victoria’s favourites were the plain wooden jointed dolls of 3–9 inches long with ‘small, sharp noses, and bright vermilion cheeks’ that would fit in her dolls’ house. She based their costumes on those of real-life actors, opera singers and ballet dancers she admired, sewing tiny ruffles ‘with fairy stitches’ and making ‘wee pockets on aprons embroidered with red silk initials’. The dolls were fitted onto a long board full of pegs by their feet so that Victoria could position them and rehearse court receptions, drawing rooms and levées with them.

When she reached the age of fourteen she packed them all away, but she kept them safely stored in a box even after she came to the throne. Recording one of her first conversations with her future favourite Lord Melbourne, she described how, even then, they ‘spoke of my former great love of dolls’.

Script quote:

Conroy:

Still playing with dolls, Your Majesty?

Duchess:

You must put away such childish things now, Drina. I am afraid that your carefree days are over.

Character Feature:

BARONESS LOUISE LEHZEN

- Victoria’s Governess -

‘Dear Lehzen who has done so much for me’

– Victoria –

LOUISE LEHZEN, ALONG WITH UNCLE LEOPOLD, was one of the guiding presences in Victoria’s early life. One of nine children of a Lutheran pastor, the plain, long-nosed Lehzen had lived in obscurity until the age of 35 when she was appointed governess to the Duchess of Kent’s daughter Feodora and brought to England with the family. In service to Victoria from 1824, she rose from subgoverness to friend and adviser and then to lady of the Bedchamber and effective private secretary during those crucial formative years. George IV rewarded her with the honorary title of Hanoverian baroness in 1827 – a title that rather went to Lehzen’s head. Her overweening manner thereafter antagonised many members of the household, who resented the lowly-born Lehzen’s tyranny. They made cruel jokes about her, among them Lady Flora Hastings, who derided the Baroness’s eccentric habit of sprinkling caraway seeds – specially sent over from Hanover – on all her food.

Lehzen was extremely conscientious, to the point of excess, in her duties as governess. Although she could be overly censorious at times, she was also skilful at managing Victoria’s legendary tantrums. More importantly, she kept the lonely little girl company and amused her between lessons – their favourite pursuit together being the dressing of Victoria’s many dolls.

Daniela Holtz Plays Baroness Lehzen:

‘Lehzen was really Victoria’s only confidante and she never betrayed her, never played power games with her. She understood monarchy and power and when Victoria was Queen, she controlled the people who went to her, to protect her.’

DURING HER EARLY YEARS VICTORIA was offered few diversions from the oppressive life at Kensington Place, beyond occasional summer breaks by the sea at Ramsgate and, in 1830, a long holiday to the spa town of Malvern in Worcestershire. En route, she and the Duchess passed through the Midlands where the streets had thronged with people out to greet her. They stopped briefly to see glass-blowing and coining, and visited a porcelain works in Worcester, but otherwise Victoria was not exposed to the realities of Britain’s industrial heartland. There was also a visit to Norris Castle on the Isle of Wight in 1833, and that same year, on her fourteenth birthday, Victoria enjoyed her first royal ball:

At half past seven we went with Charles, the Duchess of Northumberland, Lady Catherine Jenkinson, Lehzen, Sir George Anson, and Sir John, to a juvenile ball that was given in honour of my birth-day at St. James’s by the King & Queen. We then went into the closet, soon after the doors were opened and the King leading me, went into the ball-room. Madame Bourdin was there as dancing-mistress. Victoire was also there, as well as many other children whom I knew. Dancing began soon after. I danced first with my cousin George Cambridge, then with Prince George Lieven, then with Lord Brook […] We then went to supper. It was half past II. The King leading me again. I sat between the King and Queen. We left supper soon. My health was drunk. I then danced one more quadrille with Lord Paget. I danced in all eight quadrilles. We came home at half past 12. I was very much amused. I was soon in bed and asleep.

~ VICTORIA’S JOURNAL, 24 MAY 1833

Victoria’s singing lessons, occasional visits to the opera and ballet, and the long, vigorous horse rides she enjoyed at a gallop, all contributed to the variety of experience she so craved. But nothing was better than the joy of a visit in 1834 from Feodora and in 1835 from Uncle Leopold and her new aunt Louisa. ‘What a happiness it was for me to throw myself in the arms of that dearest of Uncles, who has always been to me like a father, and whom I love so dearly!’ she wrote, noting the pleasure of his company at dinner, in contrast to being ‘immured’ at Kensington: ‘I long sadly for some gaiety,’ she wrote plaintively.

Script quote:

Melbourne:

Lady Portman knew your father, Ma’am.

Lady Portman:

Such a handsome man, Ma’am. And a very good dancer.

Victoria:

Was he? I never knew. That must explain why I love dancing so much

DURING THIS TIME, the British public began taking a growing interest in its young queen-in-waiting; Victoria, they declared, was something of a prodigy. ‘Her powers of attention appear extraordinary for her age, and her memory extremely retentive, which indeed phrenologists would infer from the prominency of her eyes,’ noted one observer. Not only was this gifted young mind receiving the best education, but, thanks to Lehzen’s firm management, Victoria’s volatile temper had also been curbed, for her governess allowed ‘no indulgence of wrong dispositions, but corrects everything like resistance, or a spirit of contradiction, such as all children will indulge if they can’.

Meanwhile, Parliament addressed the urgent question of what should happen if the King died before Victoria reached her majority, and decreed that her mother should become Regent, until completion of Victoria’s eighteenth year, and in recognition of this the Duchess was granted an extra £10,000 a year, for Victoria’s household and education. Although her preposterous demand to be titled ‘Dowager Princess of Wales’ was thrown out, she was duly grateful: ‘This is the first really happy day I have spent since I lost the Duke of Kent,’ she said. She was proud of her daughter’s progress:

She evinces much talent in whatever she undertakes […] The dear girl is extremely fond of music, she already fingers the piano with some skill, and has an excellent voice.

~ DUCHESS OF KENT

With Victoria now established as heir apparent, the Duchess of Kent, eager to acquire as much prestige for her as possible, orchestrated a series of ‘royal progresses’ (as King William rather sarcastically called them) to market the Princess to her adoring and curious public. Building on the isolating Kensington System that they had forced Victoria to endure, these excursions were also intended to do the same for the Duchess and Conroy, who harboured ambitions to be regents until Victoria reached the age of 21. A regency would provide them both with considerable wealth, power and status, something they both craved.

Script quote:

Conroy:

Do you really imagine that you can step from the schoolroom straight to the throne without guidance?

WHEN VICTORIA REACHED thirteen Leopold decided the time was right to prime her for her important future role. She was no longer a little princess, he wrote:

This will make you feel, my dear Love, that you must give your attention more and more to graver matters. By the dispensation of Providence you are destined to fill a most eminent station; to fill it well must now become your study. A good heart and a trusty and honourable character are amongst them of indispensable qualifications for that post.

You will always find in your Uncle that faithful friend which he has proved to you from your earliest infancy, and whenever you feel yourself in want of support or advice, call on him with perfect confidence.

~ LETTER FROM LEOPOLD TO VICTORIA, 22 MAY 1832

In 1834 at the end of another tour, first in Kent round the stately homes at Knole and Penshurst and then to the north to visit York, Belvoir Castle and attend the races at Doncaster, Victoria wrote a warm letter to Uncle Leopold, who in 1832 had finally remarried:

My dearest Uncle – Allow me to write you a few words, to express how thankful I am for the very kind letter you wrote me. It made me, though, very sad to think that all our hopes of seeing you, which we cherished so long, this year, were over. I had so hoped and wished to have seen you again, my beloved Uncle, and to have made dearest Aunt Louisa’s acquaintance. I am delighted to hear that dear Aunt has benefited from the sea air and bathing. We had a very pretty party to Hever Castle yesterday, which perhaps you remember, where Anne Boleyn used to live, before she lost her head. We drove there, and rode home. It was a most beautiful day. We have very good accounts from dear Feodore, who will, by this time, be at Langenburg.

Believe me always, my dearest Uncle, your very affectionate and dutiful Niece, Victoria.

LETTER FROM VICTORIA TO LEOPOLD, 14 SEPTEMBER 1834

Character Feature:

SIR JOHN CONROY

- Controller of the Duchess’s Household -

‘The monster and demon incarnate’