Queen's House (26 page)

The exterior of the Arch was finished before the Great Exhibition in May.

Meanwhile the interior was completed. Inside, the brick-lined Arch
steps led up to a ‘suite of rooms' at the top, which were fitted with fireplaces and ventilators. The Department of Woods and Forests let these out to the police, who doubtless found it a convenient place to keep watch on the crowds thronging to the Exhibition in Hyde Park.

While Buckingham Palace was being improved and enlarged, Europe was in ferment. In 1848 there had been revolutions in almost every capital and it was the relations of Queen Victoria and Prince Albert who sat on the rickety thrones. Uncle Leopold was safe in Belgium, though in his kingdom seeds of discord were planted that would spread across the world. In a smoke-filled room in Brussels in that February of 1848, Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels and their comrades were producing the
Communist Manifesto,
urging workers to ‘arise ye starvelings from your slumbers' and throw off their chains. Prince Albert, who had studied political economy in Germany, was possibly the only one in Her Majesty's Court who read anything of Karl Marx.

On 24 February Louis-Philippe, King of the French, the father of Uncle Leopold's wife Louise, abdicated, escaping on 3 March in disguise to Newhaven. Prince Albert's cousin, Princess Victoire, Duchesse de Nemours, who had danced so gaily in Buckingham Palace with her Coburg brothers, escaped from Paris, leaving her clothes and possessions to be worn by the Paris mob. Three days later excited workers shouted ‘
Vive la République
' outside Buckingham Palace, and there was news of a monster demonstration planned by the Chartists for 10 April. The six points of their charter were in fact modest enough and most of the Chartists were serious, respectable working men. But accounts of the wild men among them were horrifying. Queen Victoria, still recovering from her sixth confinement, was evacuated to Osborne and she insisted Prince Albert should accompany her.

The Duke of Wellington prepared his plan of action, troops were concealed in the Palace and other critical places, and volunteer special constables were enrolled – among them, Louis Napoleon, the man who was so soon to become Emperor Napoleon III of France.

In the event the demonstration fizzled out. Only half the men expected gathered on Kennington Common for the march on the House of Commons. The Chartist leader, Feargus O'Connor, realizing that the
march would not be allowed, took the petition and his lieutenants to Westminster in three cabs.

No one who attended the splendid ball in July 1848 would have guessed that in April the Queen had feared that red-capped revolutionaries would by now be dancing in Buckingham Palace, and that their leaders would appear in triumph on the new balcony.

Of the improvements that were being carried out during these political troubles, the balcony which Prince Albert suggested has become important today. Royal appearances on the balcony are now considered the essential climax for victory celebrations, weddings and every great ceremonial occasion. Buckingham Palace has become the focal point for national celebration.

After the opening of the Great Exhibition in 1851, the Queen stood there with Prince Albert to be cheered by the milling crowds in the Mall. It was a proud moment, the recognition of the Prince's greatest triumph. Three years later in February 1854 they stood there again and were cheered on a more poignant occasion as they saw their soldiers off to the Crimean War.

In the years between these two balcony appearances the prestige of the monarchy had dipped alarmingly. The Great Exhibition saw the high peak of Prince Albert's career, and never had the Queen loved and admired him so much. He had shown immense courage and imagination in conceiving an enormous glass palace to display and encourage the art and industry of the world. It was built at a time when Europe was still reeling from the 1848 year of revolutions and counter-revolutions, when London was filled with dangerous political refugees.

Unfortunately Prince Albert's fame was all too fickle. In the following years leading up to the Crimean War he was subjected to an hysterical campaign against imaginary intrigues of the ‘Austrian–Belgian–Coburg–Orleans clique, the avowed enemies of England, and the subservient tools of Russian ambition'.
⁷³
Prince Albert was deeply hurt; Queen Victoria was enraged. On 4 January 1854 she informed the Prime Minister, Lord Aberdeen, that she intended to make Albert Prince Consort: she would have made him King had she been able. If she thought the people really believed the slanders she ‘would retire to
private life … leaving the country to choose another ruler after their own
HEART'S CONTENT'
.
⁷⁴
The Prince's enemies had gone too far: the government came to his support, and even Palmerston, who had whipped up the anti-Russian fever, now backtracked. Queen and Consort threw themselves into the war effort and were rewarded with enthusiastic cheers when the soldiers marched before the Palace on their way to Armageddon.

On 28 February 1854 they rose before dawn to see ‘the last battalion of the Scots Fusiliers march past Buckingham Palace on the way to embarkation' to the Crimean War. As the Queen wrote in her Journal,

The morning was fine and calm, the sun rising red over the time-honoured towers of Westminster … the gradual, steady but slow approach of the Band, almost drowned by the tremendous cheering of the dense crowd following. The soldiers gave three hearty cheers which went straight to my heart. Carriages with ladies, sorrowing wives, mothers and sisters were there, and some women in the crowd were crying. The men were quite sober, in excellent order and none absent. Formerly they would have been all drunk! May God protect these fine men, may they be preserved and victorious! I shall never forget the touching, beautiful sight I witnessed this morning.
⁷⁵

So many of those ‘fine men' were never to return.

On 27 February 1855 Queen Victoria wrote to Uncle Leopold that she had received at Buckingham Palace

on Thursday twenty-six of the wounded Coldstream Guards and on Friday thirty-four of the Scotch fusiliers … Among the Grenadiers there is one sad object, shot dreadfully, a ball having gone through the cheek and behind the nose and eye and through the other side! He is shockingly disfigured but is recovered. I feel so much for them and am
so fond
of my dear soldiers – so proud of them! We could not have avoided sending the Guards; it would have been their ruin if they had not gone.
⁷⁶

After the end of the Crimean War, in July 1856, Queen Victoria was able to ride out in all her military glory on her horse, Alma, wearing a gold-braided scarlet military uniform, to review ‘the largest force of
Britishers assembled in England since the battle of Worcester'. Now she was royal indeed – the Queen of battles.

The Queen and the Prince Consort were away from London for long periods during the early 1850s, but they still used the Palace from time to time for ceremonial occasions. Frieda Arnold, an intelligent German dresser to the Queen from 1854 to 1859, describes in her letters the penetrating cold of the Palace and the fog and filth of London winters. In the winter of 1855 she wrote:

I have never been so cold in my whole life as I was for two days at the Palace. We arrived in bitter weather at this huge building that had stood empty for a long time; in spite of all the heating, the tomb-like atmosphere only disappeared after several days occupation … Although the palace is surrounded by parks every time I come into my room my table is quite black, my armchair is speckled with little black particles and my lovely shining candlesticks are quite tarnished in two days. One can never leave any article lying about, and even in the cupboards everything gets dirty.
⁷⁷

The building of the new ballroom was delayed but Cubitt still kept an office in the Palace with a manager in charge of the minor works he was still undertaking. He was also working for the Queen at Osborne and was able there to discuss quietly with Prince Albert the plans for the next stage of Palace improvements. Prince Albert would have been perfectly prepared to proceed with work on the ballroom with the help of Cubitt and Gruner and without a professional architect. However, in April 1852 the Office for Woods and Forests in the Derby government appointed James Pennethorne as architect for the new wing.

When the new ballroom suite was being planned, James Pennethorne was concerned with slum clearance in the Pimlico and Westminster area. He was working to improve sanitation there and to prepare the ground for the extension of the Palace. He was the obvious choice as successor to Blore for many reasons. It will be remembered that he was related to John Nash, had been trained by Nash himself and had then been at his expense set to work as a pupil of A. C. Pugin. For many years he had lived at Nash's splendid house 14 Regent Street, and in
1824 Nash paid for him to study for two years on the Continent. A six-month course in draughtsmanship with Lafitte, Pugin's brother-in-law, in Paris gave him not only excellent training as an architect but also an enduring interest in Roman triumphal arches, since Lafitte was at this time designing sculptural panels for the Arc de Triomphe. During his months in Rome, Pennethorne worked on a conjectural restoration of the Roman forum, which was much praised, and in April 1826 he was elected a member of the Academy of St Luke in Rome. So, at the time when Nash was designing the Marble Arch, he was receiving regular letters from James Pennethorne with careful drawings of his work in Rome. These must have had some influence on the impressionable Nash. Imagine Pennethorne's pain now, therefore, as he drove to his work in Pimlico, to see the Marble Arch, their dream of Imperial Rome, demolished and removed. It must have been with particular pleasure that he agreed to continue Nash's work in the Palace. He submitted designs, which were accepted, with his tender, in June 1852.

It is difficult to know how much Pennethorne was responsible for the final success of the Ballroom. But he must have shown great tact and patience, since he was working under the shadow of the Prince Consort and Ludwig Gruner, not to mention Cubitt and the Office of Woods and Forests. After his death in 1871, James Pennethorne was remembered as a man of ‘retired and studious habits, admired for his kindness, spotless integrity and universal courtesy'.
⁷⁸

In the decade between the mid 1840s and mid 1850s the appearance of Buckingham Palace had been transformed and took on the shape we recognize today.

The ‘Palace Improvements' were the creation of many hands and minds, and many voices were raised to counsel or to criticize. During that period the government had changed, as had the architects. But Prince Albert remained throughout the period deeply involved in all concerns. Had it not been for his drive and persistence the improvements would never have taken place. His busy mind could swing from the great international issues of war and peace, to modern devices for the Palace kitchens, from the Great Sanitation problem, public health and
sewers, to fifteenth-century frescoes and the decoration of ballroom walls. He was particularly interested, at this period, in building work of all kinds: not only was he concerned with the enlargement of Buckingham Palace – he was also rebuilding Osborne House and, in complete contrast, was planning model dwellings for workers, to be displayed at the Great Exhibition of 1851.
*

Throughout the decade of rebuilding there was, however, one more important director of the improvement of the Palace – the great master-builder, Thomas Cubitt. A man of quiet authority, his opinion counted for more with the Prince Consort than almost anyone else's. Throughout this period, Cubitt was the constant element in the decade of change. When in October 1846 he was appointed as the contractor he did so on his own, clearly stated terms. His firm alone was to carry out the work:

I must however have it explicitly understood that I cannot enter into competition with other Tradesmen as to prices at any stage of the progress of the building, but that I must have assurance that I shall be allowed to carry out the whole Building to its completion.
⁷⁹

He also insisted that he should be paid ‘as the work proceeds' and that he should have ‘timely notice on all occasions of your intention to proceed with successive portions of the fabric'. A master-builder could dictate the conditions.

Thomas Cubitt, born in 1788, was the son of a Norfolk carpenter. He was brought up in London in his father's trade, and after his father's death went on board ship to India as a captain's joiner. On his return he started a business with his brothers, William and Lewis, as carpenters and builders. By hard work and sheer ability he built up a highly successful organization, mostly dealing in speculative building. By the 1840s Cubitt had transformed London – new squares and streets of pillars and porticoes rose at his bidding where before there had been marsh and squalor.

Thine be the praise, O Cubitt
… thine the hand …
That caused Belgravia from the dust to rise …
A fairer wreath than Wren's should crown thy brow
He raised a dome – a town unrivalled thou.

So wrote a Mrs Gascoigne, one of Cubitt's tenants.

His success was due to his efficient method of contracting, a genius for organization, foresight and an insistence on work of the highest quality. He was a perfectionist and something of an autocrat, notable in committees for never speaking unless he had something to say. This was the man who for a decade, until his death, was an invaluable adviser to the Prince Consort at Osborne and Buckingham Palace and whom Queen Victoria always called affectionately ‘our good Mr Cubitt'. Tactful and courteous, he was never subservient, insistent that his Clerk of the Works ‘cooperate in the most cordial manner with the other officers of Her Majesty's establishment, giving and receiving willingly friendly hints'.

So during his work at Buckingham Palace he avoided friction with courtiers and architects alike. They sometimes murmured about his influence with the Prince Consort, but they knew his value. What impressed Prince Albert most was the clarity and firmness of his instructions: Stockmar himself could not have produced better memoranda.