Виктория Холт - The Queen's Husband

Once he tried protesting to the Queen. The result of this was the rejoinder: ‘But, Bertie, your father has arranged this. Therefore everything he has ordered is for your good.’

What could he do? He could only endure until he was of an age to go his own way. And then? His eyes sparkled at the prospect.

Perhaps, said Albert, it would be a good idea, as some of Her Majesty’s ministers seemed to think, if Bertie went to Canada and America. Bertie was nothing loth. There might be an opportunity of eluding his jailors there.

The Duke of Newcastle was to accompany him and here Bertie saw his chance.

They had a big schedule of public engagements, said the Duke. And when Bruce – now promoted to General – talked of lessons and the routine which had to be followed, the Duke cried: ‘Impossible! There’s no time for that.’

So Bertie attended all kinds of ceremonies; he was the centre of attraction at parades and levees given in his honour. On one occasion he had to make a speech. The Duke wrote it for him but when he gave it he ignored what had been written and said freely what came into his mind. It was a success. Bertie had discovered that he had a flair for making speeches, receiving attention, giving it – in fact after years of failure the ugly duckling had turned into a swan; he had become the perfect Prince of Wales.

Bertie was enjoying himself. Every time General Bruce approached him he would wave his hand and say, ‘No time. Too many engagements!’ and delightedly charm everyone with whom he came into contact.

The Duke of Newcastle was enthusiastic.

‘Your Royal Highness knows just how to get along with people. This is good for our relations with these countries. Her Majesty will be grateful to you.’

Bertie glowed and prepared to spray his charm over the Americans as he had over the Canadians. This was even easier. They could not have enough of him.

A magnificent ball was given for him to which three thousand people were invited. Three thousand! There were many more than that number eager to see the Prince of Wales. They crowded into the ballroom in such numbers that the floor gave way. But it was all part of the pattern. Beautiful women thought Bertie ‘cute’ and wanted to dance and talk with him. The Duke thought that the Prince of Wales should not be persecuted in this way. ‘Oh, I like this kind of persecution,’ said Bertie.

General Bruce was fuming. If he had ever had a doubt that the morals of the Prince of Wales might be a little lax he was certain now.

After this there would have to be even stricter vigilance.

The Queen and Albert were delighted with the reports of Bertie’s tour.

‘It seems that for once he has done rather well,’ said Victoria.

‘We have General Bruce to thank for that,’ replied Albert.

‘Do you think we should reward him in some way?’

Albert thought it would be an excellent idea.

‘The Order of the Bath for Services to the Crown, perhaps,’ said the Queen. ‘I will speak to Lord Palmerston about it.’

When Palmerston called she broached the subject.

‘The North American tour has really been a great success.’

Palmerston agreed that it had been a spectacular success. ‘His Royal Highness’s talents are coming to light,’ he added.

‘We have to thank General Bruce for this. And the Prince and I thought that we should like to show our gratitude with some reward … say the Order of the Bath, for instance.’

‘But Your Majesty is forgetting that this is not Bruce’s triumph. It was the Prince of Wales they liked, not the General.’

‘Bertie did what he was told.’

‘Your Majesty will know that there are ways of doing what one is told. It was not what was done but the manner of doing it. No, it is not Bruce to whom we should be grateful but to His Royal Highness the Prince of Wales.’

‘I like to see services rewarded,’ said the Queen severely.

‘And I can happily say that I am in agreement with Your Majesty. And like Your Majesty I do not care to see rewards given where they are not merited. I hope to have the pleasure of congratulating His Royal Highness on the service he has done to his country but I do not think Your Majesty’s Government would agree to bestow the Order on Bruce.’

‘I shall expect a report on this,’ said the Queen shortly.

Palmerston bowed.

He was laughing to himself as he left her. The Order of the Bath for that old spoilsport! Not if he knew it! He chuckled to think of Bertie’s escape from the ridiculous restrictions they placed on him.

And, he said to himself, no ribbon for Bruce.

The Queen should have known that Lord Palmerston always had his own way.

So General Bruce was not rewarded for his services in North America.

Life at Cambridge, whither the Prince of Wales was sent after his return, seemed more than ever intolerable after the freedom he had enjoyed on his tour. He was getting so tired of General Bruce that on one or two occasions, he couldn’t resist telling him what he thought of him. The Prince’s outbursts of temper were reported in detail to his parents.

Was there no escape? Only time could release him and he longed for the day when he would be independent.

One day he was so bored with the hours of study, so weary of his jailors that he seized an opportunity and left the house.

He had no idea where he was going, but decided that he would first go to London. Then perhaps he could go to stay with someone who would keep him hidden. When he was at Oxford he had been allowed to hunt and had there become friendly with two young men, members of the Oxfordshire Hunt, Frederick Johnstone and Henry Chaplin. They would be at Oxford. He might telegraph them and go there. They could keep him hidden. What a lark! And it would serve them all right.

These two young men had told him how the press laughed at the way he was being brought up. The press was on his side. He believed the people would be. This would show them.

When he arrived at the station two men came towards him; they stood on either side of him.

‘The carriage is waiting, Your Highness,’ they said.

‘Carriage?’ he stammered. ‘What carriage?’

‘General Bruce telegraphed the palace from Cambridge, Your Highness.’

There was the royal carriage. What could he do but get in and be driven to Buckingham Palace?

There he had to face his parents. It was the old question: Whatever can we do with Bertie?

At length they decided to send him to the Curragh Camp in Ireland.

Disturbing news came from Vicky in Berlin. She was pregnant again. The Queen was angry.

‘Oh, it is too soon,’ she cried, and the Duchess of Kent agreed with her.

Victoria was inclined to be a little short with Albert. Men, she remarked to the Duchess, never really understood what a woman had to suffer. Even Albert was a little obtuse on the subject.

But when Vicky was safely delivered of a baby girl there was great excitement at Windsor. She called the family together and told them that they had become little aunts and uncles.

‘Oh, Albert,’ she said, ‘how I should love to see darling Vicky and the babies! But the two of us together.’

Albert said it must be arranged. It was, and on a lovely September day the Queen and Albert with Alice and a suitable retinue left Gravesend to visit Vicky.

How they enjoyed travelling through Germany on the railway! The scenery was perfect – the river, the red-roofed houses nestling below mountains, the pine forests touched Albert so deeply that his eyes glistened with tears as he passed through his own country. He would never quite recover from the homesickness which beset him from time to time.