Reform and Representation: How Victoria was slacking off

Queen Victoria to Lord Derby

12 January 1867

After what Lord Derby has said of the importance which her Ministers attach to the moral support which would be afforded to them, particularly as regards this question [of Parliamentary Reform] by the Queen’s opening Parliament in person, she will not hesitate, great, trying, and painful as the exertion will be to her, to comply with the wishes of her Government.

But, in doing so, under the peculiar circumstances of time, the Queen must have it clearly understood that she is not to be expected to do it as a matter of course, year after year; and she must call upon Lord Derby to give her an assurance, that, except under a very pressing and self-evident necessity, she shall not be asked to make a similar exertion next year.

The shock to her nerves and the fatigue of the long journey the Queen cannot over-rate!

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(A cartoon depicting Disraeli and Derby "dishing" their opponents by introducing their own version of the previously rejected Reform Bill.  Victoria is caught in the middle, unable (or unwilling?) to do anything meaningful to ease the rift in the government.  Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Following Albert’s death, Victoria spent much of the remainder of the decade in near seclusion, rarely making public appearances.  Although she continued on as before with her private political duties and dealing with family issues, Victoria had essentially been a non-entity to most of her subjects for several years.  By 1864, said subjects were annoyed with the Queen’s absence, enough so that Victoria’s attendants were beginning to worry about a resurgence of republicanism in the country.  There was informal talk in Parliament of a possible abdication, and a poster mysteriously appeared on the gate of Buckingham Palace jokingly (?) announcing that the residence was ‘to be let or sold, in consequence of the late occupant’s declining business.’

Since Albert’s death at the end of 1861, Victoria had been gradually (and very, very slowly) been urged to begin making public appearances again.  She did not remain silent on the great anxiety it caused her, complaining constantly how painful and frightening these ventures in the public were for her.  By the spring of 1864, Victoria had worked up to appearing at a flower show sponsored by the Royal Horticultural Gardens.  She rode in an open carriage shortly after in London, and while remarking that it was nice to see that her subjects were happy to see her, it was not an experience she was eager to repeat.  When reminded by her advisors and even elderly Uncle Leopold that she needed to get out more, she again cited her nerves and that Bertie and Alix were seen plenty in London (to Victoria’s irritation).  That would have to be enough for the time being. 

The opening of Parliament was never an event to which Victoria looked with excitement; speaking in front of a large number of people was something with which she was never entirely comfortable.  She had felt able to do it during Albert’s lifetime simply because of his support and encouragement, but it left her nervous for a long time before and after.  Facing Parliament without Albert’s presence simply was not something Victoria had any intentions of doing in the years after his death.  She refused to open Parliament in 1864 and 1865. 

But 1866 was bit different.  By that time, almost all of Victoria’s subject – her family her advisors, members of Parliament included – believed that the Queen should accept that life was moving on without Albert.  Britain either needed its Queen to participate in its life, or persuade her to give that job to someone else.  In 1866, Alfred was set to reach the majority of age of 21 and need an income.  Helena was also engaged to marry Christian of Schleswig-Holstein and would need a good-sized dowry to make up for Christian’s lack of funds.  And if Victoria wasn’t planning on fulfilling the duties of a monarch, Parliament was beginning to feel as though it didn’t need to subsidize the lives of her children. 

Victoria got the message and in February 1866, she made her first opening of Parliament in five years.  By her own description, she was “the spectacle of a poor, broken-hearted widow, nervous and shrinking dragged in deep mourning’ and compared the experience to an execution.  While Victoria made the appearance, she allowed the Lord Chancellor to read the speech.  She had trouble eating and suffered from a terrible headache afterward, but Victoria did it. 

Afterward, Victoria received congratulations from all of her children for her bravery.  Alice complimented Victoria’s resolve, stating that Albert would have been proud of her.  Victoria wrote to her then nearly 13-year-old son Leopold (who had to be left at Windsor due to an attack of his hemophilia) a letter explaining her feelings on the event:

…if ever I go again I hope you will be able to go with me.  I seemed as in a dream, and hardly saw or heard anything.  Great crowds of people very loyal.  I still shake so much I can hardly hold my pen…I am going back to Windsor almost immediately.  I rejoice to see you soon again darling.

Victoria had crossed her hurdle.  Parliament granted the necessary annuities to Alfred and Helena.  And with that, Victoria had no intentions of opening Parliament ever again.

Edward Smith-Stanley, 14^th Earl of Derby, became Victoria’s prime minister (again, after serving twice in the 1850s) in late June 1866.  At that point, Derby was hoping to lead a revival of the Conservative party in both Houses of Parliament.  Derby urged Victoria that her presence once again at the opening of Parliament would usher in a feeling of strength for his new government.  Derby and Benjamin Disraeli, at that point Chancellor of the Exchequer and Leader of the House of Commons, hoped to pass a bill granting suffrage to the majority of white males in Britain. 

Talk of reform in the House of Commons and the granting of suffrage to most white males had caused multiple riots and protests in Britain beginning in 1865.  Although Victoria did not personally oppose either reform or suffrage it would bring (although as the monarch she was to remain neutral), Victoria was concerned about the continued unrest it had caused, as well as the steep division between the Conservatives and the Tories (who respectively opposed and supported the extended suffrage) on the Reform Bill.  Derby and Disraeli assured Victoria that her presence was needed to unify the government and encourage the people at the opening of Parliament.  As shown in the letter above, Victoria agrees, although begrudgingly. 

For the second time in a row, Victoria again opened Parliament.  This time there were no recorded offers of congratulations, and Victoria believed she had overstepped her bounds.  She wrote the following in her journal:

Yesterday was a wretched day, and altogether I regret I went – for that stupid Reform agitation has excited and irritated people, and there was a good deal of hissing, some groans and calls for Reform, which I – in my present forlorn position – ought not to be exposed to.  There were many, nasty faces – and I felt it painfully.  At such times the Sovereign should not be there.  Then the weather being very bad – the other people could not remain to drown all the bad signs.  Of course it was only bad people. 

Although Victoria was correct in her belief that the monarch should not take sides in such a matter, her assumption that the people were angry at her presence for that reason was incredibly misplaced.  Had she made more than just a handful of appearances in public since Albert’s death and made herself more accessible instead of martyring herself to such appearances, she may have encountered more warmth and possibly more feelings of unity.  The division on reform was hardly her fault, but it was pretty clear that her absence had left its mark on the government working to achieve a common goal. 

The Reform Bill finally passed on its third reading, although not before several other demonstrations had taken place.  Victoria seems to have learned little from the experience; her appearances did not cease, but they were still very and far between.  She published Leaves from a Journal of our Life in the Highlands in 1868, which gave the public a slightly more intimate look at their monarch, but she was still not making herself seen in any meaningful way.  Victoria’s children wrote her a collective letter of concern that she was neglecting her duties in the summer of 1871, which made Victoria furious at the time.  It was not until Bertie’s bout with typhoid at the close of 1871 that made Victoria truly wake up to the fact that with or without Albert, she still had a job to do – a job that was, in fact, based on the consent of the people.