Censoring Queen Victoria (20 page)

‘It is not in my line …'
Lionel Brett,
Our Selves Unknown
, London, Victor Gollancz, 1985, p. 30.

‘his “private life” had it been known …'
William Kuhn,
Democratic Royalism: The Transformation of the British Monarchy 1861–1914
, London, Macmillan, 1996, pp. 61–62.

‘Esher inevitably became secretary …'
Peter Fraser,
Lord Esher: A Political Biography
, London, Hart-Davis MacGibbon, 1973, pp. 68–71, 80–3.

‘With his understanding of theatre, Esher recognised …'
David Cannadine, ‘The Context, Performance and Meaning of Ritual: The British Monarchy and the Invention of Tradition, c. 1820–1977', in Eric Hobsbawm and Terence Ranger, eds,
The Invention of Tradition
, Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1992, pp. 101–64.

‘stage for royal events …'
Robert Lacey,
Royal: Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II
, London, Little, Brown, 2002, p. 38.

‘Esher had another idea …'
Quotes throughout are taken variously from Esher MSS Journal, Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge; Maurice V. Brett, ed.,
Journals and Letters of Reginald, Viscount Esher, 1870–1910
, Vols I & II, London, Ivor, Nicolson & Watson, 1934; Oliver, Viscount Esher, ed.,
Journals and Letters of Reginald, Viscount Esher, 1910–1930
, Vols III & IV, London, Ivor, Nicolson & Watson, 1938; and Esher Correspondence Files held in the Churchill Archives Centre, Cambridge.

‘It has been estimated that Victoria wrote an average of two and a half thousand …'
Giles St Aubyn,
Queen Victoria: A Portrait
, London, Sinclair-Stevenson, 1991, p. 340.

‘Victoria had appointed Princess Beatrice …'
For a full account
of Beatrice's actions see Philip Magnus,
King Edward the Seventh
, London, John Murray, 1964, pp. 461–2.

‘Lord Esher had come to know Arthur Christopher Benson …'
Quotations from Benson come from his diary, which is housed in the Old Library, Magdalene College, Cambridge; his letters collected in the Esher Papers and the Murray Archives, formerly at 50 Albermarle Street, London, now in the National Library of Scotland; and from David Newsome,
On the Edge of Paradise, A.C. Benson: The Diarist
, London, John Murray, 1980.

‘originally written for
Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1
…'
For further details, see Yvonne M. Ward, ‘“Gosh! Man I've got a tune in my head!”' Edward Elgar, A.C. Benson, and the creation of
Land of Hope and Glory
',
The Court Historian
, vol. 7, no. 1, March 2002, pp. 17–41.

‘with the publisher … John Murray IV …'
I am grateful to Virginia and John Murray VII for their help and enthusiasm for this research, for alerting me to their finds in the Grantham storage depot, and for making 50 Albermarle Street such a hospitable haven for researchers. For the history of the John Murray publishing house see Humphrey Carpenter,
The Seven Lives of John Murray
, London, John Murray, 2008.

‘When his son, Reginald Brett, left for Eton …'
Esher had spent much of his first eleven years at home with his French mother (who was ‘
difficile
and a bit of a trial,' Esher told his son). But he was nevertheless a Francophile
par excellence
and his excellent French, crucial during his diplomatic missions in the First World War,
was attributed to her influence. (Fraser,
Lord Esher: A Political Biography
, pp. 6–8).

‘arrested development …'
Cyril Connolly,
Enemies of Promise
, Harmondsworth, Penguin, 1979, p. 271–2.

‘Oscar Wilde's biographer …'
Neil McKenna,
The Secret Life of Oscar Wilde
, London, Century, 2003, p. 248.

‘Esher's friends congratulated him on his appointment …'
M. Brett, vol. 1, pp. 44, 45.

‘According to the radical politician …'
quoted in Lees-Milne, p. 45.

‘Somerset was the second son …'
See H. Montgomery Hyde,
The Cleveland Street Scandal
, London, W.H. Allen, 1976, and more recently in McKenna, pp. 139–46.

‘I won't believe it …'
Magnus,
King Edward the Seventh
, p. 214.

‘The Prince's eldest son …'
Theo Aronson,
Prince Eddy and the Homosexual Underworld
, London, John Murray, 1994.

‘Esher always emerged smelling of roses …'
David Starkey, ‘The Modern Monarchy: Rituals of Privacy and their Subversion', in Robert Smith and John S. Moore, eds,
The Monarchy: Fifteen Hundred Years of Tradition
, London, Smith's Peerage, 1998, p. 254.

‘marriage was … the best closet …'
Brenda Maddox,
The Marrying Kind: Homosexuality and Marriage
, London, Granada, 1982, p. 14.

‘the icy shroud of matrimony …'
A phrase used by Brett's friend, George Binning, in reply to a letter of Brett's, quoted in Lees-Milne, p. 47. The phrasing suggests to me that Binning may have been quoting Brett's words back to him.

‘Christopher Isherwood …'
quoted in Maddox, p. 70.

Details of
Nellie's
diaries from
Lees-Milne, pp. 48ff.

‘It is no accident …'
Maddox, p. 64.

‘Contemporary research …'
There is a dearth of literature on the psychological makeup of homosexual paedophiles and perpetrators of homosexual incest, but that which I found would suggest that Regy's relationships with each of his parents and his school experiences contributed to the basis of his subsequent sexual propensities. See Dennis Howitt,
Paedophiles and Sexual Offences against Children
, Chichester, England (New York, J. Wiley), 1995; Mary de Young,
The Sexual Victimization of Children
, Jefferson, N.C. and London, McFarland and Coy, 1982, especially ‘Paternal Incest,' pp. 73–5 and ‘Homosexual Paedophilia,' pp. 141–60; D.G. Langsley, M.N. Schwartz and R.H. Fairbairn, ‘Father–son Incest', in
Comparative Psychiatry
, vol. 9, 1968, pp. 218–26; J.B. Raybin, ‘Homosexual Incest: Report of a Case involving Three Generations of a Family',
Journal of Nervous and Mental Disorders
, vol. 148, 1969, pp. 105–10; Alisdare Hickson,
The Poisoned Bowl: Sex and the Public School
, London, Duckworth, 1996.

For information on
Esher's
other children, see Lees-Milne, p. 70. Oliver acceded to the title upon the death of his father, but Maurice inherited all of the Scottish property and was named sole executor. Dorothy Brett, a painter, made a permanent home in New Mexico with D.H. Lawrence and his wife, Frieda (see Sean Hignett,
Brett: From Bloomsbury to New Mexico: A Biography
, London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1984; Brenda Maddox,
D.H. Lawrence, the Story of a Marriage
, New York, Simon & Schuster, 1994). Sylvia married and became ‘the neglected wife of the uncouth and unfaithful' Vyner Brooke, the last Rajah of Sarawak (Lionel Esher,
Our Selves
, p. 31). She wrote an
account of her life, titled
Queen of the Head-Hunters
. Esher had difficult relations with all of his children, their spouses and grandchildren, except for Maurice and his family. See Lees-Milne, pp. 325–9, and Lionel Esher,
Our Selves
, p. 24.

‘Gladstone also wrote …'
Sir Sidney Lee,
King Edward VII: A Biography
, London, Macmillan, 1925, p. 569.

‘When Esher died in 1930 …'
Paul Emden predicted that there would be ‘many a surprise' in Esher's papers for future generations to discover. Paul Emden,
The Power Behind the Throne
, London, Hodder and Staughton, 1934, p. 294.

Biographical details drawn from Newsome,
On the Edge of Paradise
; David Williams,
Genesis and Exodus: A Portrait of the Benson Family
, London, Hamish Hamilton, 1979; and David Newsome,
Godliness and Good Learning: Four Studies on a Victorian Ideal
, London, Cassell, 1961. Newsome was a
Headmaster of Wellington College
.

‘constantly reminding themselves what a disappointment they must be …'
Brian Masters,
The Life of E.F. Benson
, London, Chatto & Windus, 1991, p. 27.

‘They could see no connection between romantic love …'
John Tosh,
A Man's Place: Masculinity and the Middle–Class Home
, New Haven, Conn., and London, Yale University Press, 1999, pp. 190–4.

‘Ambitious young men grooming “young girls” …'
Betty Askwith,
Two Victorian Families
, London, Chatto & Windus, 1971, p. 121. See also John Tosh, ‘Domesticity and Manliness in the Victorian Middle Class: The Family of Edward White Benson', in Michael Roper and John
Tosh, eds,
Manful Assertions. Masculinities in Britain since 1800
, London, Routledge, 1991, pp. 44–73, and Masters,
The Life of E.F. Benson
, pp. 25–8.

‘Tim Card … Benson like all members of his gifted family …'
Tim Card,
Eton Renewed: A History of Eton from 1860 to the Present Day
, London, John Murray, 1994, p. 120.

‘a white chair with pink satin on wheels was used by the Queen …'
The chair is still in the tea-room of the Royal Archives today, where researchers and staff gather each day for a very welcome morning tea.

‘He was the son of H.C. Childers …'
In the 1840s Childers Senior and his wife, Emily, had gone to the newly established colonial outpost of Melbourne, Australia. He was instrumental in founding the University of Melbourne in 1853 and was its first Vice-Chancellor. Upon his return to England in 1858, he won a seat in the House of Commons, where for twenty-five years he held various Cabinet positions including Home Secretary in 1886. Hugh was born after his parents returned to England. Jean Uhl,
A Woman of Importance: Emily Childers in Melbourne, 1850–1856
, Melbourne, self-published, 1992.

‘pulling every string for his advancement'
, Lees-Milne, p. 152.

‘Although it was written by Theodore Martin … Victoria contributed substantially …'
Walter Arnstein,
Queen Victoria
, Basingstoke, Palgrave Macmillan, 2003, p. 2.

‘those two fat volumes …'
Lytton Strachey,
Eminent Victorians
, London, Chatto & Windus, 1918, p. 10.

‘very much overworked …'
Virginia Woolf, quoted in Ruth Hoberman,
Modernizing Lives: Experiments in English Biography 1918–1939
, Carbondale, Ill., Southern Illinois University Press, 1984, p. 3.

The material for this chapter is drawn from the biographies by Elizabeth Longford and Walter Arnstein; Dormer Creston,
The Youthful Queen Victoria
, London, Macmillan, 1952; and Katherine Hudson,
A Royal Conflict: Sir John Conroy and the Young Victoria
, London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1994.

‘… psychological warfare in the household …'
Stanley Weintraub,
Victoria: Biography of a Queen
, London, Unwin Hyman, 1987, p. 86.

‘In 1836, Feodore hid a note to the Duchess of Northumberland …'
An exciting find in the Northumberland Papers in the Flintshire Record Office, Hawarden, Wales.

‘wicked Hanoverian uncles …'
Fulford,
Royal Dukes
.

‘The youngest child of his generation …'
of the Coburg family: See Theo Aronson,
The Coburgs of Belgium
, London, Cassell, 1968; Dulcie Ashdown,
Victoria and the Coburgs
, London, Robert Hale, 1981; for his mother: Augusta, Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld,
In Napoleonic Days, Extracts from the private diary of Augusta, Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, Queen Victoria's Maternal Grandmother, 1806–1821
, selected and translated by HRH Princess Beatrice, London, John Murray, 1941.

‘the Portuguese queen, Dona Maria da Gloria II in 1836 …'
For more on the Portuguese Monarchy see V. De
Bragança Cunha,
Eight Centuries of Portuguese Monarchy: A Political Study
, London, Stephen Swift, 1911; A.H. de Olivier Marques,
History of Portugal Vol. II: From Empire to Corporate State
, New York, Columbia University Press, 1972, pp. 1–70; Francis Gribble,
The Royal House of Portugal
, London, Eveleigh Nash, 1915.

‘Born in 1819, Albert …'
Hector Bolitho,
Albert, Prince Consort
, London, David, Bruce and Watson (1964), revised 1970, p. 19.

‘The possibility that Albert was not …'
David Duff,
Victoria and Albert
, London (Frederick Muller, 1972), Victorian and Modern History Club edition, 1973, pp. 28–32, 66.

‘Theodore Martin … quoted Duchess Louise …'
Theodore Martin,
The Life of the Prince Consort
, vol. 1, London, Smith, Elder & Co., 1875, 1880, p. 3.

‘This marriage “soon broke” …'
Bolitho,
Albert, Prince Consort
, p. 20.

‘The “natural” state of conjugal life …'
Dona Maria da Gloria II of Portugal to Queen Victoria, quoted in Yvonne M. Ward, ‘Queen Victoria and Queen Dona Maria II da Gloria of Portugal: Marriage, Motherhood and Sovereignty in the Lives of Young Queens Regnant (1828–1853)',
Lilith: A Feminist History Journal
, vol. 11 (November 2002), pp. 117–30.

‘Ferdinand's title of King …'
I am grateful to Dr Sally Godwin-Austen for alerting me to this provision. Details in my article above.