The First Victoria

The 64-year-reign of Queen Victoria is so saturated with opportunity for historical commentary that there are many areas of her life which receive less attention than they deserve. Her biography is rather like an enormous, ornate mansion – so vast and so full that there are countless nooks and crannies that have yet to be investigated.

One of these nooks (or cranny, however you like) is the subject of her mother.

Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld was the wife of Prince Edward, Duke of Kent and Strathearn (one of Prince William’s current titles is Earl of Strathearn). A foreigner and soon a widow, her life in England was difficult and her story full of intrigue. One of the more interesting aspects of her life is her relationship with Sir John Conroy, her overbearing advisor and a man who would push her relationship with her daughter Queen Victoria almost to the edge of ruin.

Victoria was born Marie Luise Viktoria in 1786 to the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld of the House of Wettin, an illustrious Germanic line whose issue has sat on nearly every European throne at some point since the fall of the Roman Empire. She was known as “Victoire” to family and friends.

She married, at age 17, the widower of her aunt Henrietta. Charles, Prince of Leiningen was twenty-three years her senior. Their eleven-year marriage saw the birth of two children, Carl Friedrich and Princess Feodora (half-sister and confidante of Queen Victoria, she was the grandmother of Franz Josef I of Austria and ancestress to the current King of Sweden). Charles died in 1814.

Victoire’s second marriage was to Prince Edward, the fourth son of George III (he was styled the Duke of Kent, and Victoire for the remainder of her life would be known as the Duchess of Kent). The marriage took place in 1818 and was no work of fate. It was calculated and dynastically manipulative.

George III suffered from acute porphyria, a condition which manifests itself in apparent madness (and, interestingly enough, blue urine). His son, the debauched and unpopular Prince of Wales, had taken over monarchical duties (hence “the Regency” period). Of all his children, only one had given George III a legitimate heir presumptive: Princess Charlotte was the daughter of the Prince of Wales. She married Victoire’s brother Leopold and died in 1818 giving birth to their stillborn son.

This made the acquisition of the British throne anyone’s game. George’s sons all decided to get busy producing an heir. They all had many children by mistresses but none by their actual wives.

Jerrold Packard, the author of Victoria’s Daughters, describes the situation thusly: the princes “undertook to perform their dynastic duty by making a run at the inheritance sweepstakes. Unfortunately, they were to many of their nation little more than scoundrels; Shelley characterized them, with biting pith, as ‘the dregs of their dull race’” (Victoria’s Daughters, St. Martin’s Griffin, 1998).

Princess Victoria was born to the Kents a year after their marriage. Several months after that, the Duke of Kent died of pneumonia. Victoire was alone, with a baby and two miserable older children, in a foreign land. She was compelled to remain in England as baby Victoria was now the only heiress to the throne after her numerous aging, gouty and disagreeable uncles.

The Duke of Kent had accrued massive debts during his lifetime (George III did not take it upon himself to instruct his sons in the art of frugality). Victoire was penniless and had no friends in her brothers-in-law or in the government. Parliament was frustrated with the decadence of the royal family and ignored her many pleas for financial assistance as mother of the third-in-line. This inspired in her a profound distrust for the government and a sense of alienation.

It is difficult, then, to criticize Victoire for putting so much blind faith in a man who would ultimately exploit her and her daughter. Sir John Conroy appeared to be the only friend she had on British soil. He was an Irishman and they connected as aliens of the realm. A former army officer, he served as equerry to the late Duke and became Comptroller of the Duchess’ household upon her widowhood.

By all accounts, Sir John was a manipulative and cruel man. He strove for complete control of Victoire and Princess Victoria. Victoire put blind faith in him (not unlike her descendent Alexandra of Russia would in the “holy man” Rasputin) but her daughter was never so trusting. Princess Victoria resented his militaristic dominance and privately loathed him. Conroy was overbearing towards the girl and forced Victoire to impose harsh rules to give him power over her daughter's education, correspondence and finances. It was later alleged that he embezzled funds from the Duchess.

Only upon her ascension to the throne did Victoria escape Sir John’s influence. Now that she was Queen, Sir John badgered her (via the submissive Victoire, who had insisted upon moving into Buckingham Palace along with her daughter) for financial assistance. The Queen wrote a very terse letter to her mother on the latter's birthday in 1827.

“I thought you would not expect me to invite Sir John Conroy [to the festivities] after his conduct towards me for some years past, and still more so after the unaccountable manner in which he behaved towards me, a short while before I came to the Throne…I thought you would have expected no more,” she wrote. Conroy was apparently displeased with his £3,000 a year royal allowance, which the Queen had allowed under intense pressure from her mother.

Unforgiving for Conroy’s cruelty, the Queen wrote in 1839 in her journal that she thought him “a Monster and Demon Incarnate whose name I forebear to mention.” Her relationship with her mother was damaged for some time.

Rumors that Conroy and Victoire were lovers endure to this day. They are propagated by the fact that the disease of hemophilia was rampant in Queen Victoria’s descendents. This genetic disorder affects males and is carried primarily by females. No one in either the Duke or Duchess of Kent’s family trees was known to have the disease. This would imply either spontaneous genetic mutation, or an alternate father for Queen Victoria.

Due largely to the efforts of Prince Albert, Queen Victoria’s beloved husband (and Victoire’s beloved nephew), mother and daughter would eventually reconcile and enjoy a very close bond. The birth of the Queen’s first daughter Vicky (future mother of Kaiser Wilhelm) erased most of the enmity that had marred their earlier relationship, and the Queen made sure that her mother was always very close to her nine children. She also ensured a comfortable living for the Duchess of Kent.

Conroy was exiled from Court after Victoria’s ascension and lived out the rest of his life on the Continent.

Victoire died in her daughter’s arms in 1861. That day, the Queen wrote to her uncle Leopold (widower of Charlotte and now King of Belgium): “She is gone! That precious, dearly beloved tender Mother…has been taken from us! It is too dreadful!” Ten days later she wrote to him: “I try to be, and very often am, quite resigned – but dearest Uncle, this is a life of sorrow.”

Later that year Prince Albert would die an unnaturally young death. The couple's youngest child Beatrice was only an infant.

For the next forty years until her death Queen Victoria wore only black.