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

– Victoria –

SIR JOHN CONROY, BORN IN 1786, was to dominate Princess Victoria’s early life. A handsome Irishman, he was appointed equerry to the Duke of Kent in 1818, and rapidly ingratiated himself with the Duchess after the Duke’s death, taking control of her affairs. King William despised his blatant ambition and referred to him as ‘King John’, for Conroy had long nursed delusions of his own, unproven, royal connections. He spent his life aspiring to elevation into the British aristocracy: promotion to a Knight Commander of the Hanoverian Order by George IV had done little to satisfy those ambitions. With the Duchess under his control, he had a major influence over the creation of the Kensington System that isolated Princess Victoria from any unwanted external influences. Power went to his head and he strutted around Kensington Palace as though it were his own private fiefdom.

Conroy’s manner towards the Duchess was frequently overbearing and at times openly and worryingly seductive. It crossed the bounds of propriety and set tongues wagging, to the point where some even alleged that Victoria was his child and not the Duke’s. There is nothing to support this claim, but Conroy certainly took advantage of the Duchess’s weakness and vulnerability, exerting a pernicious influence over her that the young Victoria absolutely despised.

Paul Rhys Plays Sir John Conroy:

‘He was a self-made, ambitious man. To have got to that position of power in that time, coming from his background, was remarkable and speaks volumes for the intelligence of the man.

He was very loyal to the Duchess, who was constantly being marginalised, and he wanted her to have more power and title so he fought really hard for her. He was a fighter, a proper scrapper, and if it had been in a different direction it could have been for the greater good.’

ON 31 JULY 1832, on the eve of a three-month trip to Wales, Victoria excitedly contemplated the clean white pages of the brand new journal that her mother had given her. On the following day, she dutifully noted that ‘we had left K.P. At 6 minutes past 7’ and marked down the precise times and places where they had changed horses along the way: Barnet, St Alban’s, Dunstable, Stony Stratford. The road was dusty and it started to rain but she enjoyed every minute of this new adventure and the fact that the carriage went ‘at a tremendous rate’.

Throughout her journey Victoria painstakingly entered the details of their itinerary, the visits to Powis and Beaumaris Castles and the return home via Anglesey and the Midlands. Wolverhampton, she noted, was ‘a large and dirty town’, where she was nevertheless received ‘with great friendliness and pleasure’. A pause in heavy rain at Birmingham to change horses provided her with her first sight of the grim conditions in the manufacturing districts:

We just passed through a town where all coal mines are and you see the fire glimmer at a distance in the engines in many places. The men, women, children, country and houses are all black. But I can not by any description give an idea of its strange and extraordinary appearance. The country is very desolate everywhere; there are coals about, and the grass is quite blasted and black […] every where, smoking and burning coal heaps, intermingled with wretched huts and carts and little ragged children.

~ VICTORIA’S JOURNAL, 2 AUGUST 1832

Soon, however, she was entranced by the more prepossessing splendours of the great country houses: Chatsworth – ‘It would take me days, were I to describe minutely the whole’ – Hardwick Hall, Shugborough Hall, Alton Towers and Wytham Abbey.

By 1835 the exhausting annual tours had taken a toll on Victoria, bringing her to the brink of physical collapse. Hours and hours of being jolted mercilessly along country lanes and potholed roads gave her headaches and backache. She suffered from travel sickness and in September, after another gruelling tour – of the Midlands, North Country and Norfolk – she became so run down that at Ramsgate she fell seriously ill with typhoid and took to her bed for five weeks. She was devotedly nursed back to health by Lehzen, who insisted on the seriousness of Victoria’s illness and that the doctors be called in.

Script quote:

Duchess of Kent:

When she was just a little girl she would show me her journal every night, so I would know everything she was thinking and feeling.

BY 1837 VICTORIA HAD matured considerably. For the last two years she had been engaged in a detailed correspondence with Uncle Leopold, in which she confidently discussed the intricacies of constitutional history, the workings of the British parliament, and world politics (not to mention enjoying a good gossip about all the family feuding and intrigue in the royal houses of Europe). Her letters to him demonstrate a precocious self-confidence and a lively interest in the workings of Parliament:

You may depend upon it that I shall profit by your excellent advice respecting Politics. Pray, dear Uncle, have you read Lord Palmerston’s speech concerning the Spanish affairs, which he delivered the night of the division on Sir Henry Hardinge’s motion? It is much admired. The Irish Tithes question came on last night in the House of Commons, and I am very anxious for the morning papers to see what has been done.

~ LETTER FROM VICTORIA TO LEOPOLD, 2 MAY 1837

On 24 May 1837 Victoria celebrated her eighteenth birthday and a public holiday was declared in Britain. King William sent her a splendid new grand piano as a birthday gift, Kensington Palace was decorated with bunting and the Princess awoke to a chorus of voices serenading her in the garden outside. She did not fail to note the significance of that day in her journal:

How old! And yet how far am I from being what I should be. I shall from this day take the firm resolution to study with renewed assiduity, to keep my attention always well fixed on whatever I am about, and to strive to become every day less trifling and more fit for what, if Heaven wills it, I’m some day to be.

~ VICTORIA’S JOURNAL, 24 MAY 1837

The courtyard and the streets were crammed when we went to the Ball, and the anxiety of the people to see poor stupid me was very great, and I must say I am quite touched by it, and feel proud which I always have done of my country and of the English Nation.’

VICTORIA’S JOURNAL, 24 MAY 1837

26th May 1837

… The demonstrations of affection and kindness from all sides towards me on my birthday, were most gratifying. The parks and streets were crowded all day as though something very extraordinary had happened. Yesterday I received twenty-two Addresses from various places, all very pretty and loyal; one in particular was very well written which was presented by Mr Attwood from the Political Union at Birmingham.

LETTER FROM VICTORIA TO LEOPOLD, 26 MAY 1837

I trust to God that my life may be spared for nine months longer. I should then have the satisfaction of leaving the exercise of the Royal authority to the personal authority of that young lady (Victoria), heiress presumptive to the Crown, and not in the hands of a person now near me (the Duchess), who is surrounded by evil advisers and is herself incompetent to act with propriety in the situation in which she would be placed.

PUBLIC SPEECH BY KING WILLIAM AT STATE BANQUET, AUGUST 1836

17th June 1837

My Beloved Child,

… I shall today enter on the subject of what is to be done when the king ceases to live. The moment you get official communication of it, you will entrust Lord Melbourne with the office of retaining the present Administration as your ministers. You will do this in that honest and kind way which is quite your own, and say some kind things on the subject. The fact is that the present Ministers are those who will serve you personally with the greatest sincerity and, I trust, attachment. For them, as well as for the Liberals at large, you are the only Sovereign that offers them des chances d’existence et de duree. With the exception of the Duke of Sussez, there is no in the family that offers them anything like what they can reasonably hope from you, and your immediate successor, with the mustaches (The Duke of Cumberland), is enough to frighten them into the most violent attachment for you … The irksome position in which you have lived will have the merit to have given you the habit of discretion and prudence, as in your position you never can have too much of either …

LETTER FROM LEOPOLD TO VICTORIA, 17 JUNE 1837

THAT EVENING A SPECIAL ball was held for her at St James’s Palace, at which, for the first time, Victoria took precedence over her mother. King William had lived long enough to see Victoria reach her majority and, while Conroy and her mother’s hopes for a regency were not yet at an end, in Victoria’s eyes they most certainly were.

Events soon overshadowed those happy celebrations. By early June it was clear that the King was dying. Victoria wrote to Uncle Leopold:

The King’s state, I may fairly say, is hopeless; he may perhaps linger a few days, but he cannot recover ultimately. […] Poor old man! I feel sorry for him; he was always personally so kind to me, and I should be ungrateful and devoid of feeling if I did not remember this.

I look forward to the event which it seems is likely to occur soon, with calmness and quietness. I am not alarmed at it, and yet I do not suppose myself quite equal to all; I trust, however, that with good-will, honesty and courage I shall not, at all events, fail.

~ LETTER FROM VICTORIA TO LEOPOLD, 19 JUNE 1837

William IV died in the early hours of 20 June, bitter that his young heir had so determinedly been kept away from his court – ‘at which she ought always to have been present’ – by her mother, but relieved that he had protected the throne for Victoria from the ‘evil advisers’ who surrounded her. Victoria recalled that momentous day in her journal:

I was awoke at 6 o’clock by Mamma, who told me that the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord Conyngham were here, and wished to see me. I got out of bed and went into my sittingroom (only in my dressing-gown) and alone, and saw them. Lord Conyngham (the Lord Chamberlain) then acquainted me that my poor Uncle, the King, was no more, and had expired at 12 minutes past 2 this morning and consequently that I am Queen. Lord Conyngham knelt down and kissed my hand at the same time delivering to me the official announcement of the poor King’s demise.

~ VICTORIA’S JOURNAL, 20 JUNE 1837

William IV: on his death Victoria became Queen.

Script quote:

Lehzen:

Drina, the messenger is here. With a black armband.

LATER THAT SAME DAY, Victoria met her Privy Council for the first time – alone. When her uncles came forward to pay homage, she managed ‘with admirable grace’ to prevent them from kneeling to her. In a quivering voice she acknowledged the challenge facing her:

This awful responsibility is imposed upon me so suddenly and at so early a period of my life, that I should feel myself utterly oppressed by the burden, were I not sustained by the hope, that Divine Providence, which has called me to this work, will give me strength for the performance of it, and that I shall find in the purity of my intentions and in my zeal for the public welfare that support & those resources that belong to a more mature age and to longer experience.

~ VICTORIA’S SPEECH TO THE PRIVY COUNCIL, 20 JUNE 1837

Britain seemed, overnight, transformed by the arrival on the throne of a young, untainted queen after a century of Hanoverian males. ‘Now everyone is run mad with loyalty to the young Queen,’ wrote Sallie Stevenson, wife of the American Ambassador. ‘She seems to have turned the heads of the young & old, & it is amazing to hear those grave & dignified ministers of state talking of her as a thing not only to be admired but to be adored.’

From his home in Saxe-Coburg, Victoria’s young cousin Albert sent his congratulations:

Now you are queen of the mightiest land in Europe; in your hand lies the happiness of millions. May Heaven assist you and strengthen you with its strength in that high but difficult task.