Victoria and Uncle Leopold: A life not to be and a preview of a life yet to come

Queen Victoria to the King of the Belgians

5^th January 1841

My Dearest Uncle, - I have to thank you for two very kind letters, of the 26^th December and 1^st January, and for all your very kind and good wishes.  I am sorry to hear you have all been plagued with colds; we have as yet escaped them, and I trust will continue to do so.  I think, dearest Uncle, you cannot really wish me to be the “Mamma d’une nombreuse famille,” for I think you will see with me the great inconvenience a large family would be to us all, and particularly to the country, independent of the hardship and inconvenience to myself; men never think, at least seldom think, what a hard task it is for us women to go through this very often.  God’s will be done, and if He decrees that we are to have a great number of children, why we must try to bring them up as useful and exemplary members of society.  Our young lady flourishes exceedingly, and I hope the Van de Weyers (who have been here for three days), who have seen her twice, will give you a favourable description of her.  I think you would be amused to see Albert dancing her in his arms; he makes a capital nurse (which I do not, and she is much too heavy for me to carry), and she already seems so happy to go to him. 

The christening will be at Buckingham Palace on 10^th of February, our dear marriage-day.

Affairs are certainly still precarious, but I feel confident all will come right…

Ever your devoted Niece,

Victoria R.

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(Leopold, King of the Belgians, probably around the time of his accession.  Photo credit: thebrusselsbrontegroup.org)

This letter was indicative of the affection had between Victoria and her uncle Leopold, King of the Belgians.  This loving relationship between uncle and niece started almost at Victoria’s birth and strengthened thereafter.  After her husband’s very early death, the Duchess of Kent (Victoria’s mother and Leopold’s sister) was left with little else but piles of the late Duke’s debt.  The Duke’s family disliked Viktoria and had little interest in supporting her and her young daughter.  In their eyes, the Coburg family was receiving more than enough money from Britain…and they were sort of right.

Upon his marriage to George IV’s daughter Charlotte in 1816, the previously impoverished Leopold began receiving a yearly annuity of £50,000.  The House of Commons had placed no restrictions on how long Leopold was to receive the money, and it was not dependent on whether or not the marriage survived or produced children.  Charlotte and Leopold were an incredibly popular couple during their marriage, as the British saw them as a more sweetly domestic alternative to Charlotte’s gambling and whoring uncles.  Their influence – and hopefully large family – were hoped to bring a sense of stability and morality back to the royal family. 

But it was not to be.  When Charlotte died soon after giving birth to a stillborn son in 1817, the public’s hopes for the young couple were crushed.  Leopold was left a very wealthy, if emotionally destroyed man.  He chose for the time being to remain in Britain – and to continue to receive his enormous annuity despite the fact that he was essentially served no further importance to the British royal family or public.

It was this money that George IV pointed to when Viktoria was left widowed in 1820.  And Leopold did step in to help his sister, largely supporting her for most of Victoria’s childhood.  It’s natural to assume he wanted to help his family out of a tough situation, but Leopold likely had another goal in mind – to have a possibly great influence on the future ruler of Britain.  Although at the time of the Duke of Kent’s death Victoria’s eventual accession was not guaranteed, she was the most senior heir after her childless uncles the Prince Regent, the Duke of York and Duke of Clarence.  And as we all know, these uncles remained without surviving children. 

Indeed Leopold had little else to do during this time.  In the months following Charlotte’s death, Leopold spent most of his time brooding at Claremont House, his home in Surrey.   It’s likely that the opportunities presented by his sister’s and nieces vulnerable positions gave Leopold a renewed sense of purpose.  The role Leopold hoped to serve in his marriage to Charlotte as the consort of an important queen could instead be fulfilled as the mentor and advisor to young Victoria. 

And of course there was the other baby born in 1819, Leopold’s nephew Albert of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha.  Leopold took an interest in Albert from the start, providing his input on the boy’s education and upbringing.  His affection for Albert was considerable enough that some rumors suggested Leopold was Albert’s biological father.  It’s far more probable that the perceptive and politically astute Leopold planned to unite his two prodigies in a similar relationship as he and Charlotte were intended – Victoria as Queen of the United Kingdom and Albert as her involved consort.

Leopold provided for the family monetarily, but through an appeal to Mary, Duchess of Gloucester (Victoria’s paternal aunt), he was also able to assure that they could remain living in their apartment in Kensington Palace.  Mindful of his selfless support of his sister and niece, Leopold never failed to remind both of it.  In a later letter to Victoria, Leopold noted, “…I must say without my assistance you could not have remained…I know not what would have come of you or your mama, if I had not then existed.”  Leopold provided out of his personal funds a yearly sum of £2,000 (later £3,000) for the Kents, affording them an adequate – if not somewhat sparse – lifestyle. This is truly rich coming from a minor German prince who owed much of his notoriety and all of his wealth to the nominally British family he was supporting.

Some of Victoria’s happiest childhood memories came from visits to Leopold’s Claremont House.  He also supported Victoria’s tour of Britain at the start of William IV’s reign, which Victoria later claimed she detested.  When Leopold accepted the Belgian throne in 1831 (with the support of William IV, who may have wanted to get rid of him), Leopold and Victoria started their frequent correspondence that lasted until his death in 1865. 

During her teen years, Victoria began to grow closer to her uncle William, despite the Duchess of Kent doing all she could to prevent it.  William urged Victoria to consider marriage with one of two Dutch princes, a union he viewed as useful to both countries. Alarmed at the possible interference with his plans, Leopold immediately arranged for Albert and his brother Ernst to visit their British cousin.  Victoria did meet with both the Dutch and Coburg boys, politely dismissing the Dutch princes to William.  She married Albert four years later, and their fourth son was named Leopold in their mutual uncle’s honor.  

This letter also gives us one of the first glimpses of Victoria’s well-known dislike of childbirth and infants.  It’s certainly ironic that she criticizes Leopold’s wish that she should have several children considering this dislike, to which Victoria continually referred until the end of her life.  It is also somewhat amusing given the fact that she proceeded to have eight more children after Vicky.  Leopold likely wished a large family onto his niece as a sort of congratulations for having a healthy childbirth and baby, and also to spread the Coburg influence even farther in Europe. 

We also see some of the first evidence of Albert’s lifelong attachment to his eldest child.  Albert was close to Vicky from her birth, establishing a rigorous educational plan in which she flourished.  Albert also intervened in what he thought was maltreatment of a sick Vicky a few months after this letter was written, an act that removed Victoria’s beloved Baroness Lehzen from service.  He also carefully prepared Vicky for her marriage to the future Frederick III, seeing her as the gateway to a more liberal Germany.  Although Albert’s relations with his other children never matched that of his closeness with Vicky, he maintained a greater interest in involved parenthood than his wife.

On a final note, we also see a reference in this letter to Leopold’s constant and profound hypochondria.  In the letters Victoria wrote to her uncle during this time, it is rare to find one that doesn’t include a comforting word to Leopold about his latest ache, cough, or pain.  (Had he lived in our day and age bombarded by news of flu epidemics and constant drug advertisements, Leopold probably would have found little time to attend to affairs in Belgium in between imagined ailments.)  While her references to Leopold’s complaints are largely polite, Victoria was later rather intolerant to the same protests coming from her other relatives, despite the fact that she had a tendency to do the very same.

In the end, Leopold probably achieved all he wanted and more – he ruled his own kingdom, served as a beloved uncle and advisor to one of Europe’s most influential rulers, and lived long enough to see several of his children and Victoria’s children begin to marry into Europe’s other main ruling houses.  It wasn’t a bad end for a formerly unimportant prince, a shattered widower, and a resented parasite on the British treasury.