I opened Parliament in late January and it was decided that the christening should take place on the anniversary of our wedding day.

Uncle Leopold promised to attend. I was delighted at the prospect of seeing him but I was without that wild joy with which I used to anticipate his visits in my childhood. I hoped he would not lecture me on the duty of producing more children or my behavior with Albert. He would probably advise Albert, too. I often wondered what account Stockmar gave to him, and how much he knew of our domestic trials.

We had snow, which turned to ice, and there was a strong wind buffeting the walls of the Palace. Albert enjoyed it. He loved the gardens at Buckingham Palace. They were quite extensive—forty acres actually— and in some parts of them it was like the country. Albert and I would walk under the trees and he would give me his little botany lessons that I tried hard to concentrate on to please him.

He was delighted when the pond froze so that he could go skating. He told me how he and Ernest had skated at Rosenau. Rosenau seemed perfection. The weather was always right and there always seemed to be harmony between the brothers—in spite of the differences in their characters. I began to suspect that events seen from a distance gained a certain enchantment which bemused even such a calm and reasonable person as Albert.

However, he went to skate. I would have joined him in this but he forbade it… oh, in such a tender way, because, he said, I was not yet recovered from Pussette's birth, so I contented myself with watching. Wrapped up in furs, my ladies and I would go out and admire Albert as he moved across the ice so beautifully. He was very graceful. I knew the English did not like his looks. They said he did not look as an Englishman should look; with those beautiful blue eyes and dark lashes and clear-cut features he was almost like a woman. They liked men to be men, they said. What they meant was that they liked them to be Englishmen and not Germans. They commented on his figure—his small waist and well-shaped legs. Not entirely manly, they said.

A terrible thing happened that morning. I have never forgotten it. I might so easily have lost him then. I remember still those moments when I saw him disappear beneath the ice.

I had just been thinking that it was a little warmer, but that the ice might have thawed did not enter my head until it happened.

“Albert!” I screamed; and in the space of a few seconds I lived through nightmares. I pictured them bringing him out of the lake. I saw his body on a stretcher, stiff and cold. Albert, my beloved, lost to me forever.

Then I saw Albert's head above the hole in the ice and I ran. There was no time to do anything else. I had to save him.

I stepped cautiously onto the ice. Albert saw me. He called, “Go back. The ice is too thin. It's dangerous.”

But I did not heed him. I was not going to stand by and wait for people to come and rescue Albert.

I moved toward him. The ice was holding and my determination to save him was stronger than my fear or my weakness. I was there.

I stretched out a hand.

“Go back,” cried Albert.

But I continued to hold out my hand. He grasped it and to my infinite joy, by clinging to me he was able to scramble out of the water.

“Oh Albert,” I cried, sobbing with relief. But I was practical immediately. He was shivering with cold in his wet garments. “Come quickly into the Palace,” I said.

Divested of his sodden clothes, wrapped in warm blankets, sipping hot punch, Albert smiled at me tenderly.

“My brave Liebchen,” he said.

“Oh, Albert, if I should lose you I should want to die,” I said; and I meant it.


* * *

I ENJOYED THE christening. It was wonderful to see dear Uncle Leopold, and it was amazing how little my resentments seemed to matter when I was face to face with him. He was one of the sponsors. Albert's father was also one, but as he was unable to attend, the Duke of Wellington stood proxy for him. Mama, Queen Adelaide, the Duchess of Gloucester, and the Duke of Sussex were the other sponsors.

Pussy behaved with unusual decorum and did not cry at all. She seemed quite interested in the gloriously apparelled people who surrounded her. She was really becoming quite pretty. A fact that delighted me. I could not have borne it if she had retained the froglike features of her birth.

Lord Melbourne attended the ceremony. He looked at me very sentimentally and I was touched with uneasiness for I knew things were going very badly for the government.

“The baby behaved impeccably,” he said. “I can see she is going to take after her mother.”

I laughed.

“She might have shown some displeasure,” he went on. “Think what an effect that would have had on the proceedings.”

He could always bring a light touch into everything even when he was disturbed.

I arranged that Lord Melbourne should sit beside me at the dinner party that followed the christening; and we talked a great deal about old times and he was his usual witty self.

I could not help thinking how sad I should be if I should have to accept another in his place.

It was soon after that when I made a truly alarming discovery. I was pregnant once more.


* * *

MY FIRST IMPULSE was fury; then the fear came. Oh, no, I could not go through all that again… and so soon. I was only just getting over Pussy's birth, and here I was starting it all over again.

I loved Albert, and in spite of one or two storms, my marriage was a happy one, but this side of it could never please me. It was the shadow side of marriage.

Albert was delighted at the prospect of another child and I resented his pleasure.

“You, Albert, do not have to go through all the tiresome painful ordeals.”

Albert said that it was God's will, and that children had to be born as they were.

“Then I wish that He had given men a bigger share in it,” I retorted.

Albert was shocked by what he considered blasphemy, but I meant it.

When I told Lehzen she was horrified. “But it is far too soon. My precious one, you have only just recovered. Oh, this is too bad… this is thoughtlessness. This is putting too big a burden on my little one.”

She took a delight in blaming Albert; and such was my mood at the time that I let her go on.

I said, “I hated it. All those people in the next room, waiting…Oh, I know it is the custom in the case of a royal birth…”

“It's inhuman,” said Lehzen.

“I shall not allow it again.”

“And why should you?” asked Lehzen.

“I cannot bear it, Daisy,” I cried. “Not again. So soon.”

“There, my precious,” she soothed. But much as she felt for me she could not hide the fact that she was pleased because she believed I felt some resentment against Albert.

I was always so very disturbed to see this animosity between those two whom I loved.


* * *

THAT WAS A sad year for me. During the months that followed I went through all the discomforts of pregnancy; but more than that, change was forced upon me and I had to face the fact that I was going to be deprived of one who was very important to me: my dear Lord M.

There was a conflict of loyalties. I had my ties with my foreign relations always in mind; and these were in constant opposition to the good of my country. Lord Palmerston was an arrogant man; I knew he was shrewd and very clever; he would have no interference in foreign affairs outside the government, which meant that my wishes were of no importance to him.

The trouble was the growing breach between France and England; and of course Uncle Leopold had strong ties with France, Aunt Louise being the daughter of Louis Philippe.

It was due to that old nuisance, Mehemet Ali. Palmerston wanted to crush him and so put an end to French domination in Egypt. Lord John Russell did not agree with Palmerston, which meant there was a division within the government itself. Lord Melbourne, in his usual way, wanted to let it alone and I begged him to override Palmerston and seek a peaceful settlement with France. But Palmerston was not the man to be overridden. He ordered the British fleet to take action and so forced Mehemet Ali to go back to his allegiance to the Sultan.

Palmerston was triumphant when he succeeded in this for it turned out that his calculations had been correct, and Louis Philippe was disinclined to take the offensive on behalf of his Egyptian ally. Instead he joined with the other states involved, who pledged themselves to maintain Turkey and Egypt in status quo.

Palmerston's bold—and successful—action was regarded with dismay by Uncle Leopold and the French, and a great coldness blew up between England and that country. Albert sided with Leopold and the French; and he made me see that I should take their side.

Meanwhile the government was growing weaker. The triumph abroad meant little to the people; it was home affairs that were of the utmost importance to them.

The blow came in May—the month of my twenty-second birthday.

The government's budget, which leaned toward free trade and reduced the tax on sugar, was defeated by a majority of thirty-six. Sir Robert Peel immediately called for a vote of no confidence in the government and he won. It was true by only one vote. But that was enough.

Albert was very grave. “This will mean an election,” he said.

“I pray the Whigs will succeed,” I replied fervently.

“I think, my love, that is most unlikely.”

“Oh Albert, I cannot bear to think of those terrible Tories in power.”

“My dearest, Sir Robert Peel is one of the finest statesmen in the country—I might say the finest.”

I hated those sly references to Lord Melbourne and I felt my anger rising.

“I cannot endure the man,” I said shortly.

“I think if you give him a chance you will change your mind. When he came to see you he was aware of your animosity and that must have made him a little nervous. I think if you would set aside your dislike, you would get to know him very well.”

“How can one set aside one's dislikes!”

“By taking an unjaundiced view, by looking at the man as he is and not merely as the opponent of one whom you want to keep in office.”

“My dear Albert, you have no idea what I have suffered through that man. He wanted to turn out my bedchamber women. I cannot go through all that again…at this time…in my condition.”

Albert soothed me. “Come and sit down, Liebchen. I want to talk to you and I want you to listen carefully and promise not to be angry.”

“Angry… with you!”

He nodded. “I want you to know that everything I have done is for your good…to make you happy…to make life easy for you during these months that I know are trying for you.”

I lay against him. I loved to hear him talk like that.

“I know, dearest Albert, that you are so good to me. I have a hot temper. I am impulsive… and not always appreciative. But I do know … yes, I do, that you love me and that this love between us is the best thing that ever happened to me.”

“I believe that, too. My dear one, we have to face facts. There is going to be an election and the Tories are going to win.”

“How can you be so sure of that? I could not bear it.”

“It is almost a certainty. For a long time the government has been on the verge of collapse. It has come now.”

“Then the new Prime Minister will be Sir Robert Peel.”

Albert nodded.

“Albert, I cannot bear it. The trouble I had last time…I managed to get rid of them.”

“You managed postponement, but can you again? My dearest, you know that it is inevitable and it is for the country—not the Queen—to choose its government; and the country will choose the Tories.”

“To happen now … when I am in this state. It is too bad! There will be trouble about the household… just as there was before.”

“No,” said Albert.

“What do you mean?”

“I have arranged that there shall be no trouble.”

“Peel gave up last time because he could not remove my bedchamber ladies.”

Albert hesitated, took a deep breath and said, “I have made arrangements about that.”

“About my ladies?”

“My dearest, be calm. Remember, I think only of you. You must not excite yourself now. What has to be must be accepted.”

“If he brings in his Tory women, how foolish will I look? Being forced to obey my Prime Minister.”