Childhood at Court, 1819-1914 (16 page)

In spite of her oft-expressed aversion to the frog-like physical characteristics of tiny babies, Queen Victoria was strangely complimentary about ‘Eddy’, her first grandson to be born on British soil. At the age of ten weeks, she remarked on his ‘well-shaped head and a great look of dear Alix’, and called him ‘a very pretty, but rather a fidgety baby’.
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That she should have the ultimate say in the baby’s upbringing, and that of any Wales children which might follow, the Queen made plain in a letter to King Leopold (11 March 1864); her eldest son ‘should understand what a strong right I have to interfere in the management of the child or children; that he should never do anything about the child without consulting me’.
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On 3 June 1865 the Princess had a second son, whom they named George, but always ‘Georgy’ in the family. During her third pregnancy she became seriously ill with rheumatic pains and fever, which failed to abate even after the birth of a daughter, Louise, on 20 February 1867. It was over two months before she could be wheeled to her bedroom window for a sight of the spring weather, and she was still wheelchair-bound on 10 May when the Princess was christened. The fever left her permanently lame and exacerbated her tendency to hereditary deafness. Two more daughters followed at almost symmetrical intervals, Victoria in July 1868 and Maud in November 1869. Eddy and Louise were sickly, delicate infants, but the others throve.

The same could not be said for their third son and last child, born on 6 April 1871 and hastily christened Alexander John Charles Albert shortly before his death at the age of twenty-four hours. Queen Victoria was fortunate in that all her children, even the frail Leopold, lived to maturity. Her eldest son was not so lucky. The Prince of Wales had not made himself popular during the last few years by his endless pursuit of pleasure while his wife was lying ill at home, particularly around the time of Princess Louise’s birth, when her rheumatic fever was at its most serious. He had shown the tendency common to immature adults to shut his eyes to anything frightening or unpleasant; it was made plain to him by their household that if he sat around in the sickroom he was in the way, and he was easily bored.

But at the death of this frail little infant, the lady-in-waiting, Mrs Stonor, was taken aback to see him, the tears rolling down his cheeks, insisting on putting the tiny body into a coffin himself and carefully arranging the white satin pall and the little bouquets of white flowers. The Princess was not well enough to leave the house, and from her bedroom window she watched her husband walking in the short funeral procession hand-in-hand with Eddy and Georgy, dressed for mourning in grey kilts, crepe scarves and black gloves.

As parents the Prince and Princess of Wales followed a very different regime, a world away from the pedantic rules of Baron Stockmar and Prince Albert which had blighted the heir to the throne’s adolescent days. The Princess had been brought up in a comparatively informal atmosphere in Copenhagen, where she was one of a relatively poor but happy family of six children. At the time of her birth, her father, Prince Christian, had not expected to ascend the throne of Denmark (which he did in November 1863, eight months after her wedding). The Danish Princes and Princesses had been an extroverted, high-spirited crowd, with little in the way of intellectual leanings. They became good linguists, learning French and German; they had English nurses, and English became a second language. Prince Christian taught them gymnastics and physical education, while Princess Christian taught them domestic science, religion and music, but in other aspects their educational regime was a relaxed one. It was to such an upbringing that Princess Alexandra looked to for a model when helping to raise her children, a principle with which her husband was in full agreement – as far as the Queen would permit.

The Wales children enjoyed a happy, carefree country childhood spent mostly on the Sandringham estate in Norfolk. They rode ponies, looked after pets, and learnt the names of birds and wild flowers in the countryside. The Prince of Wales’s household moved from their London home, Marlborough House, to Osborne Cottage immediately after the London season and before the Cowes regatta. In mid-August they joined the Queen on the Balmoral estate, at Abergeldie, and returned to Norfolk in the autumn. Christmas was always spent at Sandringham.

Sometimes there were visits to society friends of the Prince and Princess of Wales. The latter wrote to the Duchess of Sutherland (21 June 1866) from Marlborough House:

As you were kind enough the other day to ask me to bring our eldest little boy with us to Trentham, and I now come to ask if you really have a little place to spare for him as now we shall be delighted to bring him. If it is possible to find a little corner near our rooms I shall be still more thankful as I shall only take the Nursery maid with us – My maid’s room, I mean she had one the last time we were at Trentham, would do beautifully for him, and my two maids might go anywhere together!! I hope this won’t be very inconvenient to you dear Duchess, but as you were too kind the other day yourself to propose our taking the little one with us, I therefore come to ask you if there still was room for him.
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The boys were always devoted to each other, though the difference in their characters was readily discernible. Eddy took after their mother; taller, diffident, lethargic, lacking a healthy complexion, he was her favourite. Georgy was stronger and more high-spirited. Amusing, inquisitive and hot-tempered, he took the initiative in childhood pranks, and showed himself a born leader in the nursery. Though inclined to be shy, he had an easy-going manner, and was naturally neat and orderly. Close observers thought him very like his father at a similar age – but with the difference that Georgy did not suffer from having another Stockmar to look over his shoulder and bemoan his failings.

With Queen Victoria’s children, there were several governesses, servants and relations ready to record countless anecdotes of the youngsters, as well as the Queen’s and Prince Albert’s letters and journals. No such detailed documentation of the young Wales’s formative days has been passed on. However the story has persisted that Georgy was scolded by his grandmother at lunch one day for behaving like an animal. She sent him under the table as a punishment, it is said, and he emerged a few minutes later without any clothes on.*

Annie de Rothschild met the children on a visit to Holkham in December 1869, and commented to her mother that ‘the two little boys toddled in first with great self-possession’. They were ‘very nice little boys, rather wild, but not showing signs of becoming too much spoiled; they make very ludicrous attempts at being dignified.’ She taught them blind man’s buff, and ran races with them. They were evidently very high-spirited and perhaps not on their best behaviour. The Princess of Wales told her with an apologetic smile, ‘They are dreadfully wild, but I was just as bad.’
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Queen Victoria’s attitude to the children was one of indulgence tempered with exasperation. They could be ‘very amusing’ or ‘very merry in my room’ if she was in a good mood, or ‘such ill-bred, ill-trained children I can’t fancy them at all’.
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They were certainly not as healthy as she would have wished; when Princess Victoria was six months old, she commented in despair to the Crown Princess of Prussia that they were ‘most wretched, excepting Georgie, who is always merry and rosy’.
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The Queen frequently disagreed with her daughter-in-law on the way they brought up their children, but the Queen readily admitted that ‘One thing, however, she does insist on, and that is great simplicity and an absence of all pride, and in that respect she has my fullest support.’
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In April 1870 Robert Collins, a much-respected royal servant of several years’ standing, was playing games with the Princes. In their excitement, George kicked him on the shin. ‘Don’t do that again,’ Mr Collins ordered him sharply. The Prince promptly did. For his defiance Mr Collins turned him over and spanked him twice. The boy went very red but did not cry, and in a minute the game resumed. But he had learnt his lesson, and there was no defiance in future.

The children’s main playmates were their Teck cousins. The children of Francis, Duke of Teck and his wife Mary Adelaide, sister of the Duke of Cambridge, were Victoria Mary (born in 1867), Adolphus (1868), Francis (1870), and Alexander (1874). They lived at White Lodge, Richmond, and Kensington Palace. The children would meet regularly to play at one or other of the London homes during the summer, or at Chiswick House, lent to the Prince and Princess of Wales by the Duke of Devonshire.

There are references to the children of both families playing happily among the sphinxes and the obelisks, and in the small temple by the lake at Chiswick House. The girls played with the Wales’s rickety old dolls and battered toys, probably handed down from the Princess of Wales’s spartan Copenhagen childhood. Meanwhile the boys would amuse themselves by the lakeside, throwing stones in the water or having races with the small wooden boats carved for them by the Chiswick footmen. Tea was taken with their nurses, who ‘treated them without ceremony’.

When staying at Osborne, the boys would play – but not too vigorously – with their uncle Leopold. Unhappily, every time he fell he brought on an attack of internal bleeding, which meant a spell in bed. The boys soon learnt to be careful when he was around. It was frustrating for him, who was very fond of his nephews and always ready to join in their games. He was equally devoted to his sister-in-law, who was the only member of the family who could influence him in his stubborn moods. As she suffered so early in life from lameness and deafness, she could sympathize with him in his physical afflictions and realize what it meant not to be allowed to lead a ‘normal’ life.

When Eddy was a fortnight old, a personal attendant, or ‘nursery footman’, Charles Fuller, was appointed to look after him. He served both Princes, and after his retirement wrote to them regularly until his death in 1901.

By the time he was six years of age, the high-spirited Georgy was starting to dominate his brother. This tendency, it was hoped, would be kept in check by the appointment of a tutor. The choice fell on John Neale Dalton, son of the vicar of Milton Keynes. A bachelor of thirty-two, he had taken first-class honours in theology at Cambridge, followed by Holy Orders. At the time of his appointment he was curate to Canon Prothero at Whippingham Church, a post for which his notoriously loud booming voice made him well qualified. His candidature as the Princes’ tutor was doubtless endorsed by the Canon, a close friend and regular confidante of the Queen when she was at Osborne. He joined the Wales’s household in 1871 and stayed with them for fourteen years, and soon gained the boys’ affection and respect.

Every detail of the Princes’ education was discussed by the Prince of Wales and Dalton. The memories of his own youth were vivid and sometimes bitter, and the Prince was determined that there should be no repetition where his sons were concerned. The important principle, they were agreed, was that the boys’ childhood should be happy. Hard work and a general education on lines as liberal as circumstances permitted were next in importance, and as far as possible they should be treated as ordinary boys. Such a request, made by royal parents of every generation, was almost impossible to comply with, but in this case there was one marked departure from the dictum of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort. Princes Albert Victor and George, their father insisted, were never to be denied the companionship of children of their own age.

Dalton evidently spared little effort to win their trust. In his later years King George V would stop to point out the spot in the grounds of Sandringham where the tutor used to teach them to shoot with bow and arrow, and a certain spot when he let them shoot at him as the running deer. He inculcated in both boys the value and duty of daily prayer and Bible reading, reinforcing the principles they had already learnt from their mother who used to read aloud to them from the scriptures. His efforts to interest them in art and architecture were less successful. Visits to monuments and shrines, churches and galleries in London, struck little chord in them.

It was his practice to combine business with pleasure, instruction with recreation, while keeping them hard at work. In this he proved more successful than Mr Gibbs, although neither of the Princes were scholastically or intellectually inclined.

Dalton’s timetable required the boys to rise at 7 a.m., studying geography and English before breakfast. At 8 a.m. they had a Bible or history lesson, followed at 9 a.m. by algebra or Euclid. An hour’s break for games came next, followed by French or Latin until the main meal at 2 p.m. The afternoon was set aside for games, usually cricket, or riding, then tea, followed by English lessons, music and preparation. Bedtime was at 8 p.m.

Regular reports on their progress were sent to Queen Victoria. Writing from Sandringham (31 January 1874), he reported to her:

Prince Albert Victor and Prince George of Wales are both in the enjoyment of the most thorough good health and spirits, and also daily prosecute their studies with due diligence and attention. Their Royal Highnesses live a very regular and quiet life in the country here, and keep early hours both as to rising in the morning and retiring to rest at night. . . . The two little Princes ride on ponies for an hour each alternate morning in the week; and take a walk on the other three days, in the afternoon also their Royal Highnesses take exercise on foot. As regards the studies, the writing, reading, and arithmetic are all progressing favourably; the music, spelling, English history, Latin, geography, and French all occupy a due share of their Royal Highnesses’ attention, and progress in English history, and geography is very marked.
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Dalton kept two large albums which he used to record their proficiency in all subjects of the curriculum. Every Saturday he added general remarks on their conduct during the week. Prince George was not free from the same faults which had troubled his father at a similar age. When he was eleven, it was noted that one week he had ‘been much troubled by silly fretfulness of temper and general spirit of contradiction’, despite which his work was ‘up to the usual average’. A few months later, Dalton wrote, the Prince needed ‘steady application. Though he is not deficient in a wish to progress, still his sense of self-approbation is almost the only motive power in him. He has not nearly so high a sense of right and wrong for its own sake as his elder brother.’
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