The Shadow of Great Britain

For Arthur, July 1837 was one of the few leisurely months since Victoria’s accession.

That once obscure Princess Victoria was now surrounded by countless courtiers eager to curry favor; if Victoria did not frequently summon him to Buckingham Palace to chat excitedly with her former rhetoric tutor about all sorts of anecdotes since her accession, Arthur would scarcely be able to squeeze himself into the inner circle of court life.

Viscount Melbourne, the Marquis of Cunningham, the Duchess of Sutherland and so on—a whole host of Nobility and ladies of high rank, all celebrated names throughout Britain—had practically packed Buckingham Palace to bursting, each tripping over the other to swear loyalty to the newly acceded Queen.

Arthur, however, had no need to do this, because in the Queen’s mind he had long since become synonymous with loyalty.

Yet this did not stop Victoria from expressing a touch of dissatisfaction with Arthur’s recent behavior, for she felt he could perfectly well come to see her more often; after all, she had already granted him a pass to the court, but at least for now, it seemed this little tutor was not very fond of exercising the privilege in his hands.

Still, this was hardly a serious problem, because for the time being Viscount Melbourne could fill the gap; she could vent her temper at will on this Prime Minister, who had so unfortunately lost his son earlier in the year, and the solitary Viscount Melbourne also appeared very happy to remain by the Queen’s side—so much so that the sharp‑tongued Privy Council clerk Mr. Greville could not help but privately wonder whether Viscount Melbourne’s intense affection for Victoria came from his treating the Queen as a substitute for his deceased son.

Their conversations ranged extremely widely: from trifles such as food, chimney sweeping, and teeth, to matters of literature—like those ”British” works that were wildly popular across Britain—and of course, indispensable as ever, Victoria’s family relations, touching upon her wicked uncles and her parents; when they really ran out of things to say, they would talk about history, philosophy, and etiquette.

In a word, the two of them always had a great deal to talk about.

However, while Viscount Melbourne was ”having a son in old age,” many people forgot that there was someone else going through the grief of ”losing a child”—the Duchess of Kent.

Upon ascending the throne, Victoria immediately announced that she would not raise her mother’s status, nor would she consider appointing Conroy as her private secretary or the Royal Family’s Treasury manager. They both knew that their future influence on the Queen would be negligible, if not vanish altogether.

Many at court could see this perfectly clearly. Although the Duchess had once begged Victoria not to reveal the friction between them to Melbourne, the Prime Minister now understood the situation inside out and had made no effort whatsoever to bridge the divide between mother and daughter.

The Duchess of Kent continued to do everything she could to have Conroy reinstated, but her efforts remained in vain; Conroy was barred from attending any occasion at which the Queen was present.

After running up against a wall for such a long time, the Duchess of Kent could no longer maintain her former stiffness; her tone with her daughter softened considerably.

”At least forgive him; don’t slap labels on him and his family and then hold them at arm’s length. As Queen, you should forget those things that made you unhappy when you were a Princess. Remember, I hold Sir John in the highest esteem and cannot forget all he has done for you and me, even if he has been unfortunate enough to incur your displeasure.”

Look at that—if he had not seen it with his own eyes, Arthur could hardly have believed that these words had come from the mouth of the Duchess of Kent.

She seemed somewhat sad and dejected. Since she now lived inside Buckingham Palace and could no longer see Conroy whenever she wished, she could only confide in her bosom friend Mrs. Levin, and right now she was heartsore over her own insignificance.

And how could such serious discord between mother and daughter possibly escape the gaze of London’s third‑rate tabloids? This curious episode unfolding in Buckingham Palace had already become the talk of the town across all London, though most Observers knew nothing about how it had begun and could only flail about with wild guesses like headless flies.

As for those Fleet Street journalists who thrived on rumor‑mongering and always took hearsay as gospel, they could not care less what inner storms or family traumas the two women had weathered; all that mattered to them was whether they could dream up a sufficiently eye‑catching headline for the next column—ideally something a little salacious, a little idiotic, and a little neurotic in that Nobility way.

One small tabloid, which had never borne a stamp tax and catered mainly to the working class, was the first to publish a short piece.

Its headline grandly declared: ”Has Her Majesty the Queen Been Misled by Sir John Conroy?”, and though the content was evasive and muddled in logic, its general drift was not hard to grasp.

Conroy, it said, was nothing more than a loyal Irish gentleman, and perhaps the newly crowned Queen had been bewitched by certain ”new‑style political advisers,” which was why she had suddenly shut this old friend out.

The article even hinted, not without malice: ”The influence of a certain gentleman who has recently been frequenting Buckingham Palace may already exceed Her Majesty the Queen’s imagination.”

Old trickery though this street‑tabloid routine was, it very soon drew a chorus of imitation from other small papers.

The Bright World Newspaper went further still, bluntly running the headline: ”Has Lady Kent and Her Royal Highness the Queen Quarreled with a Certain Nobleman?”, vaguely pointing to a gentleman who had suffered an unhappy family life in his youth and once been embroiled in a lawsuit over an extramarital affair; this gentleman, it claimed, was now often to be seen in the corridors of Buckingham Palace, constantly at the Queen’s side, provoking the displeasure of the Duchess of Kent and thereby further aggravating the estrangement between mother and daughter.