Shooting Victoria (86 page)

337:   … Cockburn in his opening admitted to the jury that he simply could not prove “that there were certain and safe grounds for believing that the prisoner at the bar was not enabled to
discriminate between right and wrong”:
Morning Chronicle
12 July 1850, 5.

338:   … the testimony, Cockburn argued, “might fall short of that degree of proof of insanity which would be necessary to give [Pate] immunity from the penalties of law”:
Morning Chronicle
12 July 1850, 5.

338:   Pate was not vicious, but “unfortunate,” and did not deserve to be visited with the full severity of the law:
Morning Chronicle
12 July 1850, 5.

338:   The defense presented a host of witnesses to Pate's traumas and idiosyncrasies while in the army: For varied accounts of the testimony in Pate's trial, see
Times
12 July 1850, 7; “Robert Pate”;
Morning Chronicle
12 July 1850, 5;
Reynolds's Weekly
14 July 1850, 5.

338:   Pate's valet, Charles Dodman, enumerated Pate's many personal eccentricities at home:
Times
12 July 1850, 7; “Robert Pate.”

339:   … Charles Mahon, better known as the “O'Gorman Mahon,” testified that in his opinion Pate was a “maniac … the frequent subject of remark amongst myself and [my] companions”:
Reynolds's Weekly
14 July 1850, 5.

339:   … “he presents an example of what is not at all uncommon to me, of persons who are very devoid of mental power … who consequently persevere in no pursuit, have no object, and are unfit for all the ordinary duties of life”: “Robert Pate.”

339:   … “Is he, in your judgment, capable of distinguishing between right and wrong?”: “Robert Pate.”

339:   He was “subject to sudden impulses of passion”:
Times
12 July 1850, 7.

340:   “Be so good, Dr. Monro,” Alderson snapped at him, “as not to take upon yourself the functions of the judges and the jury”:
Times
12 July 1850, 7.

340:   … if he were soon free, probably “unwatched and unrestrained,” he would “renew his dangerous and violent proceedings”:
Times 12
July 1850, 7.

341:   “Did this unfortunate gentleman know it was wrong to strike the Queen on the forehead?”:
Morning Chronicle 12
July 1850, 6.

341:   “A man might say that he picked a pocket from some uncontrollable impulse”:
Times
12 July 1850, 7.

341:   … Alderson noted Pate's eccentric habits, his “differing from other men,” his mental affliction”:
Times 12
July 1850, 7.

341:   … “you are as insane as it is possible for a person to be who is capable of distinguishing between right and wrong”:
Morning Chronicle
12 July 1850, 6.

341:   For all that, he told Pate, “you are to be pitied”:
Times
12 July 1850, 7.

342:   Pate would not be subject to the “disgraceful punishment of whipping”:
Times
12 July 1850, 7.

342:   … leading several who read the trial in the newspapers the next day … to conclude that the court had given Pate special treatment because of his social status:
Times
13 July 1850, 3.

342:   … “one of the most successful realizations, on a large scale, of the ugly in architecture,” Henry Mayhew said of it: Mayhew and Binny 234.

343:   According to this letter, Pate was given an officer's room and an officer to attend upon him, had access to the governor, and had a separate exercise yard:
Daily News 9
August 1850, 4.

343:   “Pate, we are informed, is in a very delicate state of health, and he employs his time by writing letters in different languages”:
Moreton Bay Courier
18 November 1850, 1.

Chapter 18: Great Exhibition

344:   “I wish you
could
have witnessed the 1st
May
1851”: Victoria
Letters
(first series) 2:317.

344:   “Albert's dearest name is immortalised with this
great
conception …
his
own”: Victoria
Letters
(first series) 2:318.

345:   From early in the morning, the crowds began to assemble in numbers simply too great to count:
Times 2
May 1851, 4; one estimate of the numbers was 700,000 (Martin 2:369).

345:   … a party of Royal Sappers soon restored order:
Times 2
May 1851, 5.

345:   The irrepressible Colonel Sibthorp had been carping at the project ever since:
Times
5 February 1851, 4; ffrench 141; James 199.

345:   “We have invited the pestilence into our dwellings, and we shall have to submit to its ravages”: qtd. Leapman 65.

346:   “I am more dead than alive from overwork”: Martin 2:359.

346:   The Tsar refused to issue passports to the Russian nobility: Longford 223.

346:   “I am not easily given to panicking … but I confess to you that I would not like anyone belonging to me exposed to the imminent perils of these times”: qtd. in ffrench 147.

346:   “I can give no guarantee against these perils”: qtd. in James 199–200.

347:   … the Commissioners could not have come to “a more impolitic, a more absurd, or a more ludicrous resolution”:
Daily News
17 April 1851, qtd. in Davis 117.

347:   … “Queen Victoria is not Tiberius or Louis XI”:
Times 17
April 1851, 5.

347:   … a “densely crowded mass of human beings, in the highest good humor and most enthusiastic”: qtd. in Martin 2:365.

348:   “The glimpse of the transept through the iron gates … gave us a sensation which I can never forget”: qtd. in Martin 2:365.

348:   When the Queen ascended with her family to the throne, two organs burst into the national anthem: For details of the opening ceremony see the
Times
2 May 1851, 4–6; Davis 126–8.

348:   … sung by six hundred voices: Weintraub,
Victoria
219.

348:   The Lord Chamberlain, perplexed as to what to do with the man, consulted with Victoria and Albert: Playfair 120.

348:   They recommended that he join the diplomats who were then forming up for the great procession through the Exhibition: Martin 367n.

349:   The plan had been to keep the public well clear of their route: Martin 2:367.

349:   … and so they walked, hemmed in by thousands, many with tears in their eyes, all cheering deafeningly and waving handkerchiefs: 2:367.

349:   “HER MAJESTY, as She Appeared on the FIRST of MAY, Surrounded by ‘Horrible Conspirators and Assassins'”:
Punch
20 (1851): 194.

349:   Besides the multitudes who cheered her, the Queen could see little else: Martin 2:367–8.

349:   It was a unique event, Victoria knew, “a thousand times superior” to her coronation: Martin 2:366.

350:   Albert was visibly emotional, and the Queen noticed her Home Secretary was crying:
Times
2 May 1851, 5; Martin 2:368.

350:   “It was and is a day to live for ever”: Martin 2:366.

PART 4: TRIUMPH

Chapter 19: What Does She Do with It?

353:   His controversial words about Victoria and her family both established him for a time as the people's champion: The same report of Dilke's 6 November 1871 speech, “Representation and Royalty,”
appears in the
Times 9
November 1871, 6, and the
Daily News
10 November 1871, 6. A shorter account appears in the
Newcastle Courant
10 November 1871, 5.

355:   … she wrote to her Prime Minister, William Gladstone, deploring the recent spate of “Gross misstatements & fabrications injurious to the credit of the Queen & to the Monarchy”: Gued-alla 1:309.

355:   … asking “whether he or at least some of his Colleagues shld not take an opportunity of reprobating in very strong terms such language”: Guedalla 1:308.

356:   In 1871, republicanism had become “a distemper,” as Gladstone put it, and the “Royalty question” was one of the most vexing problems with which his ministry had to deal: Hibbert,
Queen Victoria
336; Gladstone and Granville 283.

356:   The economy had slumped since 1866, and unemployment was high, particularly in London where it was exacerbated by an influx of migrants from the countryside: Nicholls 48.

356:   … the landmark Reform Act of 1867 … nearly doubled eligible voters and dipped eligibility down to a much larger segment of the urban working class: Rubinstein 111.

356:   The fall of Emperor Louis Napoleon … and the establishment of a French Republic led to the spontaneous generation of dozens of republican clubs across the nation: Rumsey 4–8, 100–106.

356:   … ready-made and enthusiastic audiences for republican speakers such as Charles Bradlaugh and trade union leader George Odger. Leventhal; Royle.

357:   Victoria was plunged immediately into a chasm of grief, and then into a long-lasting depression, from which Albert devoted most of that year weaning her: Hibbert,
Queen Victoria 266–67;
St. Aubyn,
Queen Victoria
318–19.

357:   Albert was determined to train the Hanoverian vices out of his son with a rigorous course of academic study; any attempts by Bertie to rebel were met… with boxed ears or a rap across the knuckles with a stick: Hibbert,
Royal Victorians
16; Magnus 9, 12.

357:   … he enjoyed an element of freedom while training with the Grenadier Guards at Curragh Camp in Ireland: Hibbert,
Royal Victorians
45–46; St. Aubyn,
Edward VII
50–51.

358:   The affair, thanks to Nellie's boasting, had been the talk of all London: Magnus 47.

358:   … “upon a subject which has caused me the greatest pain I have yet felt in this life”: James 268.

358:   … “she could be able to give before a greedy multitude disgusting details of your profligacy for the sake of convincing the Jury:” James 268.

358:   Albert's heartsickness conspired with overwork, many sleepless nights, nervous strain, and almost certainly the effects of a long-lasting illness to undermine his health and sap his will to live: In his biography of Victoria, Giles St. Aubyn disputes the diagnosis that Albert came down with typhoid fever and speculates that he suffered from cancer of the bowels. St. Aubyn,
Queen Victoria
328; James 268.

358:   … three days later, with a cold and feverish and confessing to his diary “bin recht elend” (“I am very wretched”) he traveled to Cambridge to confront his son: James 269–70.

359:   Palmerston and Foreign Minister John Russell drew up a bellicose communication demanding reparation and an apology: James 271.

359:   On Friday the thirteenth of December, a telegram brought the Prince of Wales rushing to Windsor from Cambridge: James 73.

359:   The family gathered around his deathbed, Victoria forcing herself to remain calm in her husband's presence: James 273.

359:   “I stood up,” she wrote, “kissed his dear heavenly forehead”: Woodham-Smith,
Queen Victoria
429.

360:   “I will be all I can to you”: Hibbert,
Royal Victorians
56–57.

360:   And the Queen was certain that Bertie's behavior had been the cause of his father's illness and death: she admitted to Vicky that she could not look at him without shuddering: Victoria and Victoria,
Dearest Mama
30, 40.

360:   She adamantly resisted being “dictated to, or teased by public clamour into doing what she physically CANNOT”: Victoria
Letters
(second series) 2:443.

360:   … “any great departure from her usual”—that is, isolated—”way of life or more than ordinary agitation, might produce insanity”: Derby 313.

360:   … she would not meet face to face with her Privy Council, sitting instead in one room as her councilors stood and shouted their business through the open door of an adjoining room: Hibbert,
Queen Victoria
298; St. Aubyn,
Queen Victoria
331.

361:   “I saw enough,” she told Vicky, “to feel I never can live there again except for two or three days at a time”: Victoria and Victoria,
Dearest Mama
145.

361:   “These commanding premises to be let or sold, in consequence of the late occupant's declining business”: Longford 321. A contemporary report of this incident, however, suggests that the story is an invention intended to attack the Queen: a joke on paper if not actually upon the gates of the palace: Bellows 19.

361:   … Victoria took the unprecedented step of writing personally to the
Times: Times
6 April 1864, 9.

362:   … “we have certain duties to fulfill here”: Magnus 99.

362:   … “the whole remains a painful lowering thing”: St. Aubyn,
Edward VII
162.

362:   For months after the case, the Prince and his wife were hissed as they drove in public, in the theatres, at Ascot: Hibbert,
King Edward the Seventh
109.

362:   Brown had served the royal family since 1848, and Albert himself had appointed him Victoria's “particular ghillie”: James 183; St. Aubyn,
Queen Victoria
356.

363:   Dr. Jenner understood the Queen's dependency upon the man: Hibbert,
Queen Victoria
324.

363:   In 1865, Victoria appointed him “Queen's Highland Servant,” taking orders from no one but her and attending to her both indoors and out: Lamont-Brown 73.

363:   A portrait by Landseer of the Queen on a horse held by the ghillie shown at the 1866 Royal Exhibition became an object of viewers' titters and outright laughter: Cullen 91.

363:   … Victoria apparently considered Gladstone the most sympathetic of all her ministers: Guedalla 1:22.

364:   “What killed her beloved Husband? Overwork & worry”: Guedalla 1:299–300.