taken from me’, but some newspapers reported ‘unpleasant rumours’ Alfred had passed away.49
He did recover, but suggestions his health might force him to leave the Navy were not well received. Lord George Clarendon, former Secretary of State or Foreign Affairs, warned he was ‘a baddish fellow and will give great trouble at home’ if he left the Navy.50
He stayed in the Navy, and as a ‘baddish fellow’ bounced back into his life around the Mediterranean, Marlborough and Paris. There was an abundance of wine, cigars and women. Some of the women were actresses and singers chosen for the stages of London and Paris as much for their physical attributes as any artistic talent, attributes to be enjoyed on and off the stage.
Victoria was determined to ‘save’ Alfred, and had long been plotting a marital solution. She did not imagine the task to be too difficult because ‘there is a greater choice and his wife need not unite so many qualities as Bertie’s must, for many reasons public and private’51 but she wanted Alfred to ‘fix his affections’52 securely, even if he could not marry until he came of age. She plotted with other Queens in Europe to introduce Alfred to a parade of princesses. Her preference was one ‘thoroughly and truly German, which is a necessity’ and the parade of prospects included Princesses Catherine of Wurttemberg, Catherine of Oldenburg, Elizabeth of Weid, Marie of Saxe-Altenburg, and Frederica of Hanover, daughter of Victoria’s first cousin, George V, the blind and last king of Hanover.
Victoria and Vicky exchanged notes dissecting the looks, character, health and ages of candidates from Wurttemberg, Oldenburg and Saxe-Altenburg, seeking to guide Alfred to their preference of a Germanic princess who was not ‘ugly’, ‘sympathetique’ to his personality, and from a family without too many health issues due to in-breeding. They frowned on princesses who were ‘sickly looking’, or had bad teeth, large hands and feet, and unhealthy family members. Alfred assured his mother that Princess Marie of Altenburg evidenced ‘only one tooth (which) is not good, and she has not got large feet and hands’, and she had made ‘a very favourable impression’ on him. He described her as being ‘very pretty, very tall, slight, with beautiful large thoughtful grey eyes, fine marked features and very dark hair!’
Victoria was pleased Alfred was interested in someone thoroughly German, and so preferable to others who were ‘really objectionable on the score of health and blood’ telling him firmly ‘it cannot be’ for him to marry anyone with ‘generations of blindness and double relationships But she was concerned Alfred would not be hastened toward any marital conclusion with a Princess who was 19 ‘and cannot be left in uncertainty to be snatched away by others…if he doesn’t in the end…like Princess Marie of A…he must look for somebody else,’ she told Vicky.
But Alfred was not taking his mother’s wishes on board, continuing to assess other princesses. The King of Prussia conferred an Order of the Black Eagle on him, which the Times called ‘a very questionable honour’. This was ‘monstrous’ criticism, the Queen said, ‘it is the pure vulgarity of the Press. I took it…as a valuable token of the King’s wish to be on good terms with England. Oh! What I suffer, no one knows.’ Vicky advised Alfred that ‘now he knew the princesses he must seriously reflect in his own mind and balance all the advantages and disadvantages before he settled anything and at any rate should look for an opportunity to make better acquaintance with the one that pleases him most before he fixes his choice’.53
But Alfred was not rushing to settle on one female in his life. He remained determinedly without a ‘fix on his affections’, enjoying the freedom that came with being a sailor prince in the Mediterranean, and there would also be talk of his love for a ‘commoner’ and affections for various duchesses and ladies in London.
Victoria said he was vague and wilful, and now distrusted him completely. There was no doubt in her mind what was needed. In the absence of marriage, some ‘responsibility and the separation from his London flatterers will do him good’,54 and also keep him from causing ‘mischief’ with Princess Alix.
So in early 1866 she devised a plan for him to assume a more royal and respectable profile. She had him invested as Duke of Edinburgh, Earl of Ulster and Kent, appointed master of Trinity House, awarded the freedom of the City of London and granted Parliamentary approval of a £15,000 Royal coming-of-age stipend—a significant rise on his £1 a day naval lieutenant remuneration. But more significantly, she sought a fast-track for Alfred to the command of a ship. And a ship on which he could undertake a long voyage.
With the help of a special order allowing him to be promoted to Captain without first being a Commander, Alfred was given command of the Galatea, one of the fastest and best equipped ships of its day, at the age of 21. Named after the goddess nymph of calm seas, the 26-gun steam-powered, 280-foot long frigate had served in the Channel squadron and North America, with a top speed of 13 knots.
Mindful of previous criticism of her son doing it easy in the Navy, the Queen wrote to the Prime Minister, Lord Derby, to ensure Alfred was ‘in command of his ship, the Galatea, as a captain in her Navy and not as a Prince’, and urged that ‘the Admiralty must make no difference’ to his treatment, and he should ‘conform to what every other captain on duty must do’55
After Alfred talked to Edward about the appeal of a voyage that would take him away from the scrutiny of London and Victoria’s marital machinations, the heir encouraged the Queen, saying the brothers had often spoken of a voyage, and cleverly tapping her concerns about ‘fast’ behaviour said both the Fleet Admiral and the Naval chaplain instructing Alfred both felt it would be ‘a good thing’.56
The Queen had what she wanted. And the voyage she had in mind was as far as the Empire extended, all the way to Australia. She presented it as completely Alfred’s idea. ‘He of his own accord proposed a voyage to Australia and I encouraged him very much in this plan, as it is a Colony of such importance, one in which beloved Papa took such interest and to which none of our Princes have yet been.’57
But Alfred evidenced some ‘reluctance and suspicion’ about just how long a voyage she had in mind. Some newspapers suggested it could be as long as two years, but Alfred did not want to miss the next society season, which ran from Christmas to about June. As he later told friends, picking up on life and old friends in London after any voyage was difficult, ‘to say nothing of the fairer sex whom one may have left disconsolate.’58
By mid-May word began to spread that Alfred had left his Clarence House in the Mall, accompanied by friend Elliott Yorke as equerry, and would board the Galatea in Gibraltar and then depart from Marseille for a tour of the most distant and remote colonies.
But before Alfred began his official assignment, he wanted to pursue some unofficial assignations in Paris with his brother. As soon as he arrived in Marseille he handed over command of Galatea and took a train to the French capital. Like his brother, he had come to love the city, and all its delights. Alfred wasn’t quite as outgoing as Edward but he was still a young man with royal privileges but without the same scrutiny as his brother, and still without ‘fixed affections’.
What Alfred did that Parisian summer would be fondly remembered, but also mark the start of a year that could never be forgotten.
Selected References
Longford, Elizabeth, Queen Victoria R.I., (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1987), p.67.; Morning Post,(8 January 1859, BLN); Plaidy, Jean, Widow of Windsor, (London: Random House, 2008), p.268; The Times, (8 December 1862, 17 February 1863, 6 May 1864, BLN).
endnotes
1 Viscount Esher (ed.) The Girlhood of Queen Victoria: A Selection of Her Majesty’s Diaries 1832–1840, (London: John Murray, 1912), pp. 215, 246, 263.
2 Christopher Hibbert, Queen
