When they left, Vicky, Bertie and Alice were all in the doorway with Lady Lyttleton to wave them goodbye. Vicky was almost in tears. Poor brave little Vicky!

‘She was heartbroken,’ said the Queen to Albert. ‘But the dear brave child held back her tears.’

They reached Buckingham Palace later that day, but how desolate it seemed there without the dear children. ‘I shall be glad to start on our journey,’ said the Queen. ‘I miss them so dreadfully.’

Sir Robert called and assured them that they need have no qualms. The political situation was good; there were no troubles looming on the horizon; they could take a holiday without any fears that they might be neglecting their duties.

‘Everything is in such good hands, Sir Robert,’ said the Queen. ‘We know that.’

It was a happy note to leave on and apart from the fact that the dear children had to be left behind the Queen could have been perfectly happy.

The crossing was rather rough, which did not suit dear Albert, but at least he had his wife to look after him this time and when it was over he quickly recovered. How enchanting to be in a foreign country where everything looked so different from how it did at home. The Queen was delighted with the peasant girls in caps and cloaks going to market with their brass jugs. To see these things for the first time was thrilling, but to observe them in the company of her dear Albert, who always saw everything so much more clearly than anyone else, was not only the greatest pleasure but a lesson in observation. Lehzen used to say that she missed nothing but, when they sketched together what they had seen, she was astonished at Albert’s powers of observation.

They were both happy to be met by the King and the Queen of the Belgians at Malines. Uncle Leopold welcomed them warmly to his country and was clearly very happy to see them together. He always reminded them that he had arranged their marriage when they were both in their cradles, and was pleased when Victoria said that they owed their happiness to him, which was true.

After accompanying them to Verviers Uncle Leopold and Aunt Louise took a fond farewell. Victoria wept at the parting but soon they were crossing the Prussian frontier and Albert was in his beloved Germany.

The King of Prussia met them at Aix-la-Chapelle and from then on they were entertained royally. Albert was clearly very happy to be back in Germany and the Queen shared his enjoyment. For the first time he could show her all those beauties which previously he had described to her with his eloquence or his sketch book. There was an elusive fairy-tale quality about these mountains and forests, which delighted her. She was completely happy, and she realised that perfect happiness for her was having Albert to herself. She loved the children dearly; she was going to do her duty by them; but the one person who meant more to her than the rest of the world put together was Albert.

And how pleasant were these dear German relations. She felt so much more at home with them than with the French.

Albert whispered that his heart was set on a Prussian alliance for Vicky. He wanted to see her Queen of Prussia. She agreed that there was nothing she would like better. Their favourite child would grace any throne, and since she could not have Victoria’s this would be the next best thing.

They visited museums and universities. The King was very proud of his kingdom, and eager to show it off; Albert told the Queen that he had already hinted to him that the two houses might be linked in marriage in due course and the King was pleased with the idea.

Albert was deeply moved to visit the places where he had passed such happy times before coming to England. They went to Bonn and met some of Albert’s old friends from his university days; a statue of Beethoven was to be unveiled and there were concerts in honour of the great musician; at the unveiling the Queen was secretly amused because when the statue was uncovered it had its back to her and Albert. Victoria caught Albert’s eye and they exchanged looks of amusement; how they laughed at the incident when they were alone. Albert was not only good, Victoria reminded herself, but also ready to see a joke.

The King gave a great banquet for them and made a charming speech in which he asked everyone to fill their glasses. He recalled the days when the British and the Germans had stood together at Waterloo, brothers-in-arms, and he wanted them to drink the health of Her Majesty, the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland; he also wanted them to drink to her august consort.

When the Queen, overcome by emotion, rose and kissed the King on his cheek, there was loud applause.

What a wonderful experience to travel through Germany and see Albert’s emotion and delight in his own homeland. How his eyes sparkled at the sight of those forests and mountains, at the charming little castles which were dotted over the countryside. Best of all was arriving at Coburg; and there was Albert’s brother Ernest – now the Duke – waiting to greet them. Dear Ernest who looked so well and happy and whom she hoped was not straying from the paths of virtue as he had once. But this was not the time to think of such a thing. Here he was looking quite handsome – though not nearly so handsome as Albert – in full uniform, having travelled in an open carriage with six horses. Everywhere people lined the roads to cheer them – countrymen and buxom country girls in pointed caps and layers of petticoats. ‘So charming,’ whispered the Queen to Albert.

On the way they again met Uncle Leopold and Aunt Louise who got into the carriage and sat with them. Ernest alighted and a horse was brought for him. He rode along beside the carriage and, the procession following behind them, they came to the palace. As they approached, pretty girls in native costumes threw flowers into the carriage. How good of Ernest to arrange such a welcome!

And what a large family! The Duchess of Kent, who had been visiting her relations, was there to greet her daughter and there were more cousins and aunts than Victoria had ever known she possessed.

What a lot of chatter, embracing, exclamations of delight! The Queen’s emotions were always ready to be aroused; her eyes filled with tears as she kissed the relations who were hers as well as dearest Albert’s.

Ernest said that he had put Rosenau at their disposal because he knew that Albert’s birthplace was his favourite residence.

‘How wonderfully, wonderfully kind,’ cried the Queen.

And she too loved Rosenau. How could she do anything else? It was here that blessed being first saw the light of day. She wrote sentimentally of it in her journal.

How happy, how joyful we were on waking to find ourselves here at dear Rosenau, my Albert’s birthplace, the place he most loves. He was so happy to be here with me. It is like a beautiful dream.

And even as they awoke they were greeted by the voices of singers from the Coburg theatre whom Ernest had engaged to sing below their window.

Her eyes shining with joy, she insisted on Albert’s showing her the little room where he and Ernest used to sleep with their tutor Florschütz of whom Albert had talked to her so often.

‘Albert, what an enchanting view!’

‘I have never seen a finer,’ said Albert.

‘Oh, I can picture you so well … when you were no older than Bertie.’ She frowned slightly. ‘Oh, I do hope and pray Bertie grows up exactly like you.’

‘He shows no sign of it at the moment,’ said Albert grimly.

But they must not talk of unpleasant matters on such an occasion.

‘What are these little holes in the wall paper?’ she wanted to know.

‘Ernest and I made them when we were fencing.’

‘How interesting! And this is the table at which you used to sit. I can picture it all. How happy I am to be here! I was always a little jealous of everything that went before in your life. I wish that I had always been there.’

‘My dear love is inclined to be a little jealous.’

‘I should be terribly, Albert, if you ever gave me cause. Do you remember when I threw Miss Pitt’s flowers all over the floor?’

Albert remembered perfectly well.

‘And I never really have any cause to be jealous, have I?’

‘My dear love, how can you suggest such a thing. Of course you have not. You are my wife so how could I possibly care for any other woman?’

‘Of course not. I am stupid. You never do look at anyone else, but Lord Melbourne once said that men who were perfectly faithful in their youth often became quite flirtatious in middle age.’

‘You did pay rather too much attention to Lord Melbourne at one time,’ chided Albert.

She admitted. ‘I have learned so much … thanks to you, my dear Albert. Poor Lord Melbourne.’


* * *

Albert was able to celebrate his birthday at Rosenau.

‘What a happy occasion!’ cried the Queen. ‘It is more than I could have hoped for. To celebrate your dear birthday here.’

Ernest arranged for the singers to begin the great day’s celebrations by chanting below his window and on this occasion there was a band. How wonderful to hear the march and O Isis and Osiris from The Magic Flute; and it was a beautiful day with the sun shining brilliantly. The previous day Victoria with Ernest and his wife Alexandrine had dressed Albert’s birthday table with flowers and laid all the presents on it.

What an enchanting way to begin a birthday with all the presents and the people from the surrounding country calling with flowers to greet Albert, whom they remembered as a boy.

There was one who came forward with a bouquet for Victoria and said when it was presented: ‘I congratulate you on your husband’s birthday and wish that he may live for many and many a year and that you may soon come back.’

With tears in her eyes the Queen said this was her fervent wish too.

What a perfectly happy day! ‘I have never been happier in my life,’ said the Queen earnestly. Then she remembered the children.

If they were here … But she knew in her heart, and she was too honest to pretend, no one no one could ever mean to her what Albert did.

He is my all, she said.


* * *

How sad to leave Rosenau! But it was time to begin the journey home. ‘I feel I have shared your childhood with you in some measure,’ she told Albert. ‘It makes me closer to you.’

Albert was deeply touched and called her his ‘dear little wife’.

If they could stay longer, if they need not go back to England and the squabbles between the Tories and the Whigs and the fears that that dreadful Disraeli would behave so badly that he brought his own party down, how happy she would be! It was like living in a paradise.

She sighed. ‘I must be thankful for such a perfect holiday.’

It was not quite at an end. She and Albert with Ernest and Alexandrine paid a visit to the Gräber Insel, an island on which were the family graves. They were taken to it by a boatman which made Victoria shiver a little because, she whispered to Albert, it was like Charon rowing them across the Styx. There were buried members of the House of Saxe-Coburg, and the flowers which grew on their graves were tended by a strange man, very old and gnarled, who lived there all alone.

Victoria gripped Albert’s hand firmly.

‘Are you cold?’ he asked.

‘No. As they would say at home: someone must be walking over my grave.’

‘This makes you morbid,’ said Albert. ‘My dear love is very easily affected.’

‘By death,’ she agreed. ‘I cannot bear to think of anyone I love being dead.’

Albert smiled at her tenderly, but she was glad when they left the Island of Graves.

And how fresh and beautiful the Thuringian forest looked after that sad island. The haymakers came running to wave to them as they passed and again Victoria was loud in her praise of the pretty costumes.

How poor Grandmama Saxe-Coburg wept when they said goodbye. She clung to Albert, calling him Mein Engel’s Kind. Poor, poor Grandma, who must be thinking that it might well be that she would never see Albert again. She was old and it could not be long before she was lying under a flower-covered grave on the Gräber Insel.

Sir Robert had warned them that if they paid a visit to Germany they must on their way back call on the King of France, who was already put out by the Russian visit, and would be more so, if after spending so much time in Germany, they did not call on him too.