Dearest Vicky, Darling Fritz (11 page)

To Fritz the Prince Consort suggested that his father ought to be crowned in Berlin to mark the beginning of the ‘new era’, instead of at the old capital Königsberg, the setting for all coronations since the Elector of Brandenburg had been crowned King Friedrich I of Prussia in 1701. Fritz told the King, who promptly snapped that everyone was plotting his downfall. The new King of Prussia, now answerable to nobody, was no more likely to take advice from his son and young daughter-in-law than from the liberal Coburg prince so despised and feared by his reactionary ministers. Any hopes they might have had of influencing him were undermined by his belief that the ministry wanted him to abdicate on account of his age and inflexibility over the army reforms, and that Fritz could not wait for him to step down and wear the crown instead. Nothing was further from Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm’s wishes, but the King simply did not want to know.

Albert was particularly disappointed that King Wilhelm, first and foremost a military man, made it evident he was more interested in his army, which to him was the source of Prussia’s strength, than in nationalist aspirations. His unwillingness to take a leading role on behalf of Prussia in German affairs irked Fritz and the liberals. Albert maintained that Prussia must first become ‘the
moral
leader of Germany before it can raise itself as a power in Europe and this will not happen by adoption of hasty policies or by making outrageous claims; but by adoption of a bold, confident, truly German and completely liberal policy that corresponds to the needs of our time and the needs of the German nation, which will in turn make it impossible for any of the other German states to adopt any alternative course.’
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Fritz had several new duties as Crown Prince, in addition to his military work which occupied the mornings; there were council meetings to attend, deputations and audiences to see, and his father’s papers to arrange. Resignedly, Vicky wrote to her mother that sometimes she saw little of her husband from one day to another, and often she did not know whether he was in the palace or not; they might as well not be married. As Crown Princess, she also had her share of audiences, to say nothing of extra demands made on her by Queen Augusta. Her mother-in-law’s tyranny was a heavy cross to bear. She professed to be a close intimate of Queen Victoria, and both corresponded regularly; as the wellknown liberal of the family, Augusta should have been Vicky’s ally at court. Instead she took full advantage of her new position as first lady of the land, demanding that her word in all social matters must be regarded as law. Vicky was piqued at being treated as a kind of reserve lady-in-waiting, at her beck and call at all hours. It would have been easier to accept if Augusta had treated her with more warmth, but the elder woman’s jealousy of the young, attractive Crown Princess with a lively personality to match meant little chance. Augusta resented the fact that Vicky was always ready to steal her thunder, or so she thought, and that the elderly King Wilhelm might not reign for long, leaving her as Queen Dowager without any influence. This was a problem with which Fritz could not help. To put up with his mother as meekly as possible was the lesser of two evils, as he told Vicky; ‘If it keeps Mama quiet, it is in everybody’s interest’.
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Vicky paid a short visit to England in March after the death of her maternal grandmother the Duchess of Kent, to find her mother temporarily bowed down by grief and her father almost worn out by the extra work this bereavement had added to his never-ending chores. She and Fritz went again in the summer by which time the atmosphere had improved, particularly as they were sure they had found the wife for Bertie, the charming young Princess Alexandra of Denmark. There was one major political drawback, namely the fact that her father Christian was heir to the throne of Denmark, which like Prussia also had a claim to the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. Fritz declared gloomily that a marriage between his brother-in-law and a Danish princess would be contrary to Prussian interests, but there were no other suitable prospective brides in sight. While they were in England Fritz was suddenly summoned home after a student had attempted to assassinate the King, but the bullet had only wounded him lightly in the neck.

In September the Prince of Wales came to stay so he could attend the autumn manoeuvres at Koblenz with Fritz, and join them on a visit to Speyer Cathedral. It was arranged that he would meet Princess Alexandra while they spoke to her parents, Crown Prince and Princess Christian of Denmark. Bertie and Alix appeared taken with one another and it was a relief to Vicky to feel that she was helping to solve one family problem. It was some consolation for the increasing anxiety over the effect that army life was having on her husband. When appointed regimental Commander by his father during the manoeuvres of 1860 he could hardly contain his delight, telling Vicky excitedly of its status as the oldest regiment in the entire Prussian army and of its previous campaigns. Though she was pleased for him, she worried about his late nights and long absences from home, and the consequences for his health, reminding him that he was supposed to save his strength for the future when he would occupy a greater position. A tired, weak spirit and agitated nerves, she warned, ‘can only weaken the mind – impairing judgement & blurring clear thought.’ He only had to look at his father and mother for examples, she went on; ‘you belong to your country & cannot, indeed must not, squander your strength this way!’
¹⁷
Such words might almost have been her father’s. Ironically his parents were destined to live to a great age, while at the time she wrote this letter, her chronically overworked father had less than four months ahead of him.

Fritz’s thirtieth birthday, 18 October 1861, was chosen as the date for King Wilhelm’s Coronation at Königsberg. Vicky, dressed in ermine and white satin with a gold-embroidered train, was utterly dazzled by the vivid colours of the scene; ‘the chapel is in itself lovely, with a great deal of gold about it, and all hung with red velvet and gold – the carpet, altar, thrones and canopies the same.’
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Fritz looked resplendent in his Silesian Grenadier uniform and mantle of the Black Eagle, which reached from his shoulders to the ground. The following day at a ceremony at Königsberg he accepted the Rectorship of the Royal Albertus University, an office previously held by the late King. Vicky was appointed Colonel-in-Chief of the 2nd Regiment of Hussars, which made her laugh at first; she thought it was a joke, as ‘it seemed so strange for ladies’.

In the two-day whirlwind of festivity, Fritz did not immediately appreciate the unconstitutional implications of his father’s coronation speech – ‘mindful of the fact that the crown comes from God alone.’
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It was a defiant assertion of the Divine Right, and a snub for liberals everywhere. While Fritz thought his father’s views foolhardy, he had learnt from past experience that arguing with him on the subject, no matter how good his intentions, was a waste of time; it only reinforced the old man’s stubborn convictions.

The fatigues of the coronation ceremonies left Vicky with a heavy cold, accompanied by high fever and an abscess in her ear. Among the symptoms of her illness which Fritz noted in his diary were acute pain in the left eye socket and nerves in her head, and ‘horrible stabbing pains’ in her ears which lasted for days ‘despite leeches & warm compresses & medicine’.
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At one stage Dr Wegner wrote to warn Queen Victoria that her daughter’s life might be in danger. She was confined to bed for over three weeks, and Queen Augusta was angry when told that her daughter-in-law was not fit enough to accompany her at her social engagements. Even a planned twentyfirst birthday party for Vicky was out of the question. Yet despite her poor health she was not blind to the strain leaving its mark on her husband. When he left Berlin in November for military service in Breslau he was obviously far from well, his complexion yellow and fatigued. Queen Augusta, her ‘immensely strong constitution’ and her hunger for society life were largely to blame, her nerves in a ‘perpetual state of excitement’. Fritz suffered his mother’s domineering manner in silence, feeling it his duty to let her have her way, as it kept her happy, and this was in everybody’s interest.

On her birthday Vicky received a letter from her father bestowing his blessings on her, in typically Albertian phrases: ‘May your life, which has begun beautifully, expand still further for the good of others, and the contentment of your own mind!’ It ended with a warning; ‘Without the basis of health it is impossible to rear anything stable. . . . Therefore see that you spare yourself now, so that at some future time you may be able to do more.’
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It was one of the last letters, perhaps the last, he ever wrote to his favourite child. Perhaps he realized that time was not on his side; in view of subsequent events, his words had a hollow ring.

Three weeks later, on 13 December, Fritz received a telegram from the Prince Consort’s private secretary, Sir Charles Phipps, asking him to prepare Vicky for her father’s imminent death. Overwhelmed by work and anxiety, his constitution undermined by perpetual ailments, Albert had contracted pneumonia and was now in bed at Windsor Castle with typhoid fever. Trying to control her forebodings of imminent tragedy for the sake of appearances, Queen Victoria wrote optimistically to Vicky that he was ill but would soon be better. On 15 December the news reached Berlin that he had died on the previous evening. ‘Why has the earth not swallowed me up?’ was Vicky’s reaction in her next letter to her mother. ‘To be separated from you at this moment is a torture which I can not describe.’
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The Prince Consort’s death deprived his eldest daughter of her foremost mentor, the most stable element in her life, the person who understood her better than anyone else, the only one whom she deemed capable of guiding her in her role as an English princess in a hostile foreign land. Only twenty-one at the time of his death, she was still learning to judge people and situations properly, still impulsive and inclined to jump to conclusions. Deprived of his leadership too early, it took her a long time to come to terms with her loss, and she was left with the unrealistic burden of trying to live up to her image of him. In some ways he had been her saviour, for even King Wilhelm and Queen Augusta had to take note of his words when he came to her defence, even if they betrayed considerable impatience with his ‘interference’. She was aware that they regarded his death as more of a deliverance than anything else, and that there was no more than empty formality in most of her in-laws’ expressions of sympathy and regret.

As the eldest child she felt herself under an obligation to try and give emotional support to her grief-stricken mother, who feared (as did her second daughter Alice, and some of the senior ministers) that the shock of bereavement might deprive her of her reason. Though devastated by her own grief, Vicky realized what her mother had lost, and tried to convince her that Papa had been too good for this earth; he was better off at eternal rest, and his death was God’s will. No less importantly, she did her best to make her mother realize that Bertie’s liaison with an actress, which the Queen had convinced herself broke his father’s heart, was a foolish escapade but certainly not a capital offence. The Queen rebuked her daughter for preaching, assuring her that she might continue to lead ‘an
utterly extinguished
life, but it will be
death in life
.’
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She continued to write to her nearly every day, still expecting regular replies as before. Albert’s letters had shown some political understanding of the Prussian character, albeit somewhat removed, but the Queen’s emotional outpourings had none of her husband’s restraint.

A more detached observer would have realized that the Prince Consort had done Fritz and Vicky, particularly the latter, an inadvertent disservice by his support. Though well-intentioned and high-principled, it virtually amounted to subtle interference in Prussian affairs. As a Coburger by birth and an Englishman in practice, if not in personality, by marriage, it was arguably not for him to try and take Prussia towards the goal of the liberal united Germany which he, Baron Stockmar and King Leopold all longed to see; and, as Fritz had pointedly said to Vicky in a heated moment, it was not his business to try and rule the land through King Wilhelm. It was equally injudicious of him to make himself the pillar of support on which they leaned and to whom they looked for advice. He should have seen that the day would soon come when he was no longer there to help them, especially as he was a sick man for the last few months of his life; and, to use his own expression, did not ‘cling to life’. His plan had been for their secretary, Ernest von Stockmar, to assume this counselling role gradually himself, but this revealed as much as anything else his lack of understanding of both situation and character. The Stockmars, father and son, were viewed with just as much suspicion in Berlin as the Prince Consort himself, and by his mere presence, their secretary in turn made Fritz and Vicky distrusted by the court camarilla. Moreover the younger Stockmar lacked his father’s drive and visionary outlook. The Prince misjudged his character in the same way as he had that of King Wilhelm, both as prince and sovereign, tending to see what he wanted to see till it was too late.

Lastly, though few statesmen of the day had a more astute grasp of constitutional politics than Prince Albert did, his textbook knowledge of Prussian court life was based on hearsay and not experience. Not having lived in Berlin, he was incapable of understanding the conditions Vicky found at court after her marriage, from the stiff etiquette and narrow-minded elderly princes, to the deep-rooted distrust of any connection with parliamentary government. That she had inherited much of his analytical mind and way of thinking was her great misfortune, according to Mary Bulteel, she ‘divided everything into three heads, turning them about so much that she often came to a wrong conclusion.’
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Men like the liberal-minded Max Duncker, appointed political adviser to Fritz earlier in 1861, lacked Albert’s intellectual foresight but were better placed to advise, as they knew Prussia from first-hand experience.