Crown Imperial: An Alt British Monarchy
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GV: Part Two, Chapter 32: The Calm Before the Storm
King George V
Part Two, Chapter Thirty-Two: The Calm Before the Storm
Part Two, Chapter Thirty-Two: The Calm Before the Storm
Of his many duties and obligations as Sovereign, it is fair to say that King George V’s role as the nation’s host to foreign heads of state or visiting diplomats became a very firm favourite with him quite early on in his reign. King Christian IX of Denmark once said that of all the palaces of Europe, Buckingham Palace was by far the most comfortable; not because of its grandeur but because the King went out of his way to keep an incredibly detailed log book of the things his guests liked and didn’t like. For example, his carefully kept records show that King Christian’s wife Louise did not enjoy eating rich food and so when the Danish royal couple visited England, they were always served simple fare with plenty of salads and fresh fruit on the table. Guests were also (wherever possible) put in the same rooms they had stayed in before and the same household staff were assigned to look after them so that they felt their surroundings were familiar and therefore they were far more relaxed on their second visit than on their first.
State Visits today follow a very strict routine with the same general approach employed for each regardless of whether the visiting head of state is a King or a President, whether he represents a superpower or a developing nation. The foundations of this well-oiled diplomatic machine can be traced back to George V. Before his reign, state visits were irregular occasions and the way a visiting head of state was received depended very much on the personal relationship (if any) that existed between the King and his guests or the objective of the visit from the point of view of the government. But George liked routine and he had a special flair for ceremonial. This was to prove extremely useful in 1841 as the United Kingdom prepared to host the London Conference. This conference was to see the foreign ministers of Austria, Prussia, France, Russia, Spain and the Ottoman Empire gather together to reach a conclusion to the Oriental Crisis. But set as it was against the ongoing ‘Great Game’ and the threat of war in China, the Foreign Office saw the Conference as an opportunity to refresh Britain’s beleaguered foreign policy and to impress on other nations that the British had not realigned their interests, neither had they abandoned any of them.
The London Conference of 1841 was not actually held in London, though it was concluded in the capital at Westminster Hall [1]. Initially, the Foreign Office had made inquiries to host the conference at Exeter Hall, that imposing auditorium built in 1831 on the north side of the Strand by the architect Joseph Michael Gandy on a site previously owned by the Earls of Exeter. However, Downing Street vetoed the venue as it had developed strong ties to liberal causes thanks to the meetings held there by organisations such as the Protestant Reformation Society and the Anti-Slavery Society. The Duke of Wellington offered Apsley House but Sir James Graham could hardly allow his illustrious predecessor to play host. The King offered Buckingham Palace but again, the Prime Minister politely declined; the Palace was simply too small to accommodate everybody and the comings and goings of the delegates would cause great disruption. George was naïve to the fact that Graham had deliberately declined Buckingham Palace as a venue not because of its size but because he wished to keep the King in the background, still worried that His Majesty may develop a taste for involving himself in foreign policy as he had in France.
Two days later, the King summoned the Foreign Secretary, Lord Derby. The Prime Minister was quite right of course, Buckingham Palace was too small…so why not host the conference at Hampton Court instead? Lord Derby was far more amenable to the King’s involvement in foreign affairs than the Prime Minister and he later criticised Sir James Graham for “failing to appreciate the great asset we had in the person of His Majesty”. Derby not only appreciated the King’s efforts but he also knew that the conference was likely to raise some difficult questions and that the British may have to charm certain delegates to win a few victories at the negotiating table. Whilst the conference was being held ostensibly to determine the outcome of the Oriental Crisis with regards to the Ottoman relationship with Egypt and Syria, the schedule would also feature proposals for a new agreement regarding the Turkish Straits which the Russians had agreed to review at Brighton the previous year. Whilst Afghanistan and China were not the focus of the conference, Lord Derby intended to raise both outside of the formal sessions of the meeting to see what the general consensus was among the Great Powers before setting a new approach to both regions. To do this, Derby needed the delegates to stay in one place each day and not head back to their respective embassies – or worse, to each other’s leaving the British out of the after-dinner conversation altogether. Ignoring the Prime Minister’s concerns, the Foreign Secretary accepted the King’s kind invitation and promised to send his secretary to the palace to discuss the details of the forthcoming conference.
Wren's South Front of Hampton Court.
No monarch had resided at Hampton Court since the reign of King George II. Indeed, King George III never set foot in the palace after his accession because he associated the state apartments with a humiliating scene from his youth when his grandfather had berated him (and struck him in the face) for some imagined slight. That said, Hampton Court had not been allowed to deteriorate like St James’. The Palace was used to house grace and favour residences who had served the Crown well over the decades and when the Great Hall began to show signs of wear and tear, George III allocated an enormous sum of money to restore it, the work finally being completed in 1838. There had been talk of opening the palace as a public attraction but no agreement had been reached on whether the Crown might charge some kind of entry fee (something George III was against but which the Duke of Clarence felt was sensible, if only to repay the vast sums needed to restore the Great Hall and Gatehouse). King George V had visited Hampton Court as a child and had visited for the day in 1838 to see the completed renovations but with his mind firmly on Lisson as a new London residence for the Royal Family, Hampton Court risked being neglected once again by the monarch.
The London Conference of 1841 heralded a new phase in the life of Hampton Court Palace. The King assembled a small committee of his most senior advisors and courtiers to help him implement his vision; Hampton Court would become the preferred site to entertain heads of state for decades to come and though the palace ceased to function as a diplomatic venue in the 1890s, arguably it only survives today with its lavish interiors and impressive architecture so well preserved because George V found a use for it beyond that of a public attraction. The Great Hall provided the perfect backdrop for conferences or treaty talks by day but by night it served to impress for galas or state banquets. Visitors could be well accommodated in the East Front, the Colonnade offering an impressive backdrop to the Guard of Honour assembled in Clock Court. But by far Hampton Court’s biggest asset was not the building itself but the unique experience offered to guests by Their Majesties on their journey to the palace.
Naturally the foreign ministers and their retinues would sail into the Port of London but rather than make the journey to Hampton Court by carriage, the King proposed something far more impressive. Each delegation would be welcomed formally at dais constructed at St Katharine’s Dock as the King had seen when he travelled to St Petersburg for his sister’s wedding the previous year. But instead of his guests being loaded into carriages and taken for a tour of the city, they would instead be invited to take a seat in one of the three royal barges in the King’s possession. These were stored at Windsor and had not been used for some time [2]. The most impressive was Prince Frederick’s Barge, designed by William Kent for the Prince of Wales in 1732 but there was also Queen Mary’s Shallop (constructed in 1689 as a gift from William III to his co-monarch spouse) and the State Barge of King Charles II (last seen on the Thames to carry the coffin of Lord Nelson to St Paul’s Cathedral for his funeral). The Royal Barge Master John Roberts was ordered to spruce up the barges at the Royal Barge House at Windsor and to ready an accompanying flotilla of vessels crewed by the Royal Watermen of which there were 48. These barges would host the Heralds from the College of Arms and other court officials dressed in their best and forming a kind of floating Guard of Honour during the three-hour journey from Westminster Pier to Hampton Court Palace, a journey still enjoyed by many London tourists today though in far less grand vessels than the Royal Barges.
At Hampton Court itself, there was to be a second Guard of Honour provided by the Household Cavalry before the guests were welcomed inside to enjoy a welcome banquet hosted by the King and Queen and attended by the most important figures of the establishment, from the Archbishop of Canterbury to the Speaker of the House of Commons. On the second day of the conference, the King proposed a luncheon to be hosted in the Orangery built by William III for use as a private greenhouse but now redeveloped as an additional dining room. On the evening of the third day ahead of the final session, the King and Queen would host a state banquet in the Great Hall and at the conclusion of the conference, Their Majesties would receive each delegation privately in the State Apartments where honours would be handed out and gifts exchanged before a royal farewell saw the delegations packed off in carriages bound for London once more. Nobody dared rain on the King’s parade by pointing out that the weather in February made these (admittedly very impressive) plans likely to result in a literal wash out. In later years, state visits were always scheduled in the summer months to avoid the inconvenience posed to the river pageants by the English weather.
As ever, the King was supported in this project by the Queen and all was hustle and bustle as deputations from the Royal Household and the Foreign Office hastened to Hampton Court to prepare it for the opening day of the conference. It was Queen Louise who pointed out that Hampton Court had no permanent staff beyond it’s domestics and whilst servants were drawn from Windsor and London to provide valets, ladies maids, footmen and butlers to the visiting dignitaries, the King elected to provide Hampton Court with a permanent household which could be on hand if ever Hampton Court was used again for the purpose of entertaining foreign guests. Whilst many visitors today believe the Yeoman Keepers of Hampton Court Palace have their origins in Henry VIII's court, they were in fact established by King George V in 1841 ahead of the London Conference. Based on the Yeoman Warders at the Tower of London, the Yeoman Keepers were so named because they were not military guardians but ceremonial custodians. Headed by a Chief Keeper (comparable to the office of Chief Warder at the Tower), the Yeoman at Hampton Court included a Master of the Cellars, a Warden of the Clock Court and a Royal Gatekeeper, all with a special responsibility over their ward of the palace. [3]
There were 22 Yeomen in total, all recruited from retired members of the Royal Household. Their duties were fairly light, in fact most were only ever resident at the palace for 6 weeks a year on average. For their brief return to work, they were paid the princely sum of £5, 6s and 4d a year, the equivalent of £320 a day today which was roughly equal to one month’s wage working wage for a skilled tradesman. In the days before the State Pension, this boost to the finances of retired household employees was very welcome indeed - though the Yeomen objected to having to provide their own stockings and shoes which in other royal residences might be provided for them. Their uniforms were made by Ede & Ravenscroft and consisted of a red tunic, white breeches, white stockings and black shoes with gold buckles. The tunic itself was embroidered with gold thread scrollwork but rather than displaying the monogram of the King on the front as the Yeoman Warders wore at the Tower, the tunics of the Yeoman Keepers were embroidered with the Tudor Rose and a gold crown. To top off this fine ensemble, the Keepers were given black Tudor bonnets edged in gold with three white feathers tucked into a band of red silk which were universally disliked. From 1854, the uniform included a black cloak when a rare winter state occasion was held at Hampton Court and during court mourning, the Keepers replaced their plume of white feathers for black but did not adopt the use of armbands as did other members of the Royal Household.
At first, few were eager to take up the role of Yeoman Keeper but from 1845 onwards, the position suddenly became regarded as extremely beneficial as George V gave the Keepers six cottages on the Hampton Court estate as grace and favour residences. Whilst this meant sharing a house with three or four fellow keepers, most who held the post found this extremely beneficial as they had no immediate family (servants of the Royal Household were dismissed if they married) and quite enjoyed spending their twilight years at Hampton Court with old colleagues sharing the burden of the cost of old age [4]. The Keepers continued to care for the palace until 1890 when their number was cut in half by King William IV (though he did increase their salary to £10 by way of compensation). Hampton Court became an impractical option to host foreign visitors, though the much-loved river pageants lasted well into the 1870s despite the fact that Hampton Court got it's own railway station in 1849. Eventually however, George V was convinced that the three hour river cruise had had it's day and from then on, guests travelled via the Royal Train [5]. The last state banquet held at Hampton Court was for King George I of the Hellenes in 1893. However, Yeoman Keepers are still appointed today (though they have no responsibilities within the Royal Household) as a kind of thankyou present when old retainers leave royal service. Their privileges no longer include a grace and favour residence but once a year they don their uniforms and are treated to a private luncheon with the Sovereign. They are still paid a salary too; each year on the monarch’s official birthday, they receive a crisp £10 note.
Perhaps because he was so distracted with the impending London Conference, the King managed to inadvertently upset his cousin Princess Victoria who wrote to the Queen asking if she might come to stay in England for a few weeks at the now vacant Marlborough House. George told Louise to put Victoria off, the royal couple being too busy to see her. Little did the King know that Princess Victoria was in a terrible state of anxiety since her husband, the Prince of Orange, had put forward a new lady-in-waiting for her household to his mother Queen Anna. The lady in question was actually William’s new mistress, Elisabeth van Lynden, who later fell pregnant with his child and delivered him an illegitimate son. Victoria was under no illusion that her husband would ever be faithful to her but this was a step too far and she felt humiliated and desperate to escape.
But sadly for Victoria, this was the norm for many princesses in Europe and when she complained to her mother-in-law, she was told to “See nothing and say nothing”. When Queen Louise wrote to Victoria asking if she might delay her visit to England, Victoria was both disappointed and offended and immediately wrote to her aunt the Dowager Duchess of Clarence protesting that the King had no time for her anymore. Unfortunately, the Dowager Duchess was in Gibraltar and so Victoria’s letter was not read for another three months. By this time, Victoria had written to her cousin Maria Georgievna in St Petersburg begging for room at the inn there instead but here too she found she was rebuffed because the Tsarevna was too busy renovating her new home at Anichkov. Victoria fell into a deep sulk and as a last resort, took herself off, unannounced (lest another relative refuse her), to Schloss Herrenhausen to stay with the Cambridges.
The garden façade at Schloss Herrenhausen.
The Cambridges had allowed themselves a well-earned sigh of relief in recent days. Just before the London Conference of 1841, news came from Britain that Captain Marsden had withdrawn his petition for divorce and that his private act of parliament would no longer be read. This was obviously very good news for Prince George in that he had narrowly managed to avoid the most intimate details of his love affair with Captain Marsden’s wife being made public. Yet the reason for the bill’s withdrawal proved to be of even greater public interest than the divorce hearing might have been. Marsden had been advised to withdraw his suit not because he believed his estranged wife might reconcile with him (or that she had not committed adultery) but rather because his legal team had been made aware of an anomaly in his marriage that may see his case thrown out on a technicality. The Marsdens had married at St Olave’s Church in Hart Street, London and in gathering the required documentation from the parish register to prove that Marsden had married Margaret Douglas in 1835, his solicitor discovered something curious in the parish archives. Whilst the marriage was entered in the usual fashion, there was no record of the banns of marriage being published whatsoever. The rector who married the couple at St Olave’s died in 1838 and as such, nobody could quite see why the banns had not been recorded as with any other marriage or vouch that they had been issued in accordance with the law.
The Duke of Cambridge’s legal advisors were provided by Burrows and Sandys of Chancery Lane and when the news broke that Marsden had withdrawn his private act of parliament seeking divorce, they discovered that he had instead appealed to the Court of Arches for an annulment of the marriage. This was of course a far cheaper option though it was generally not considered when the marriage had resulted in children. In the Marsden case however, it appears that the Captain had been advised he could save himself both time and money by making use of a legal wrinkle to see his marriage declared null and void without the costly and prolonged (not to mention socially ruinous) process of divorce. Under the provisions of a 1753 law introduced by Lord Hardwicke, a marriage could only be legally valid if banns had been called, that is that they had been read aloud on the three consecutive Sundays before the wedding ceremony was held. And in the Marsden case, it appeared they had not been. [6]
Almost immediately, the conspiracy theories began. Some said that the Cambridges had paid a small fortune for the parish register to be destroyed so that Prince George would be spared the public humiliation of a divorce trial. Others said that the banns had not been read because Margaret Douglas was already married and had contracted a bigamous marriage which she sought to hide from the poor Captain before she duped him into a fraudulent wedding. Another story ran that she was actually a Roman Catholic and that the banns were not read because she did not wish the Pope to know she was “marrying-out”. All of these nonsenses were gulped up with great enthusiasm by the public and whilst it remained embarrassing for Prince George to have been caught up in the Marsden Affair, the focus of public interest shifted from Miss Douglas’ royal connections to the unusual circumstances surrounding her marriage. In April 1841, the Court of Arches confirmed that they could find no record of the banns of marriage having been read and that, as a result, the Marsdens’ 1835 marriage was null and void under English law. But they also took the unusual step of issuing a jactitation of the marriage to prevent Mrs Marsden from claiming in the future that she had ever been married to the Captain - presumably to stop her claiming any financial assistance from her erstwhile husband. Prince George had been saved from ruin at the 11th hour. Yet though the King was relieved that his cousin had not been dragged through a sleazy and arduous process which might well have forced him to pay huge damages to Captain Marsden on top of a battering to his reputation, His Majesty was in no way inclined to drop his demand that his cousin be married as soon as possible.
Thus, the Cambridges found themselves bound to their word regardless and as a result, they were forced to invite the Grand Duke of Baden and his family to Herrenhausen as soon as possible. Grand Duke Leopold’s wife Sophie absolutely refused to countenance such an arrangement and so took herself off to Vienna with her youngest children for an early spring holiday. Officially, the Grand Duke was headed for Berlin to visit a military college in which he wished to enrol his two sons Frederick and Wilhelm later that year and was only stopping over at Herrenhausen on the journey. But this unusual detour did little to fool anybody, after all, why would the Grand Duke take his eldest daughter to Berlin unless he had a suitor in mind for the 20-year-old princess in Hanover or in Prussia? Certainly Grand Duke Leopold seems to have been enthused by the prospect of his daughter marrying into the British Royal Family (as well he might be) and though Prince George had hardly been exonerated in the Marsden Affair, it was the general consensus now that the prince had acted foolishly but clearly did not stand a chance against so professional a schemer as Miss Margaret Douglas. He had been cited on paper but not in parliament, neither had he been found to be a guilty party or made culpable to pay damages. In other words, though everybody knew Prince George had behaved badly, the outcome of the Marsden Affair saw his reputation as a debauchee rehabilitated slightly to that of “naughty boy”.
Alexandrine of Baden.
It is unclear as to whether Princess Alexandrine knew why she was being taken to Herrenhausen or not. Some families were very subtle when it came to match making preferring young couples to be introduced at a place of mutual convenience and see whether romance blossomed naturally, whilst others were more overt in telling their sons and daughters whom they would marry and even when to propose. Whilst Grand Duchess Sophie might have made the reason for the Hanover trip explicit to her daughter out of spite, it appears she did not do so and that allowed Grand Duke Leopold to pursue the first option. For Alexandrine’s part, she considered that her relationship with Hereditary Duke Ernst was in a kind of limbo, he had once seemed very keen but had recently fallen silent which didn’t devastate but it certainly did disappoint. Regardless of what others thought of him, Alexandrine was fond of Ernst and thought him handsome and interesting. Certainly he remained her first choice and even Grand Duke Leopold warned the Duke of Cambridge that if Ernst proposed, he would not force Alexandrine to refuse him just because the Cambridges had indicated an interest in Alexandrine as a bride for their son, even if his prospects were far superior to that of the future Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge did their best to make the Badens feel welcome and not be too obvious as to why their invitation had been extended - though both sides knew exactly why it had. That said, it was difficult for the Duchess in particular who remained wary of allying her only son to the “morganatische” and she had to overcome her scruples to please her husband who refused to allow emotion to cloud his judgement. He agreed with the King that Prince George should be married. He saw the whole thing as being practical but his wife regarded the arrangement unfolding before her eyes as nothing less than selling her son short because of what she considered to be one foolish mistake. That said, she had little time to try and push or pull Prince George in either direction during the Badens’ visit to Herrenhausen. Princess Victoria was a rather demanding presence and seemed to take over a little, hogging Princess Alexandrine’s attentions and leaving little opportunity for Prince George to spend any time with his potential new romance. So it was that the Duchess had to take desperate measures and arrange little trips out to force Princess Victoria away from the palace for a few hours each day to allow the Cambridges some time alone with the Badens. Though Grand Duke Leopold complimented Princess Victoria and thought her “a great addition to the house party, so very witty and interesting on all subjects”, it seems that Victoria did not much care for the Badens in return. In 1860, she rejected a proposal from Leopold’s son Prince Wilhelm who sought to marry her daughter Victoria Paulina on the grounds that the Badens were “an odd collection of little misfits from Karlsruhe”.
Meanwhile in another corner of the Palace, Princess Alexandrine was greatly enjoying her time at Herrenhausen. She liked the palace itself and was particularly impressed by the gardens. But she was also impressed by Prince George. In a letter to her cousin Princess Marie Elisabeth of Fürstenberg, she wrote, “Herrenhausen is such a dear little place with lovely gardens and very comfortable rooms. The Cambridge parents are very dull I am afraid to say, the old papa is grey and fat and does not say very much and the old mama is bossy and never smiles. But the children are a delight, the little girl being only eight years old and so full of fun, though she is terrible fat and quite the pudgy puff! The son is very handsome (!) and very friendly, not at all as I thought he might be, though he tends to talk a lot about the army which I found a little boring. Later we went to the Ballhof with the Duchess and Princess Victoria (who is so very exhausting) and Prince George told me all about its history. I said I didn’t think any of what he said was true and he laughed and said, ‘You are quite right, I was only trying to impress you but I was making all of it up, every last word!’. And that was a very funny thing which happened so I liked him very much after that”.
The Badens left Herrenhausen after just two days and did indeed go on to Berlin. The Cambridges had kept their promise to King George but it remained to be seen if this first meeting could prove a suitable foundation for a future royal marriage. The Duke wrote to his nephew in England offering a pretty vague review of things; “Girl very pleasant, father quite a bore but the visit seemed promising when all is considered in the round. Augusta believes Geo. and Pss. each enjoyed the other’s company and Geo. tells me he is writing to her. Drina still here with all her many problems. With love and affection to Louise et al – Cambridge”. The King was pleased with the development but could not allow himself to be side-tracked. The London Conference was days away and the schedule was an intense one with an official welcome ceremony, a gala, a garden party and a state banquet thrown in for good measure – all of which George and Louise had to host. The King was burdened with a mountain of dispatches from Lord Derby at the Foreign Office, each preparing him for what the demands of each delegation was likely to be and how he might help to steer the conversation in the right direction at meal times. On the other hand, Sir James Graham had himself written to Lord Derby asking him to gently remind the King that he was not actually representing Britain as a delegate at the conference and should steer clear of the Great Hall when the conference was in session.
But Lord Derby had no time to give the King any further advice as their audience due to be held the day before the delegates arrived in London was hastily cancelled. News had come from Hong Kong, an urgent briefing which threw the Foreign Office into a state of confusion, the details only made clearer three days later with a second dispatch. On the 24th of January 1841, Chinese impatience at British ships continuing to bring Opium into Chinese ports finally ran out. Four runners bound for Canton were fired upon and sunk and an immediate blockade was announced for all foreign ships along the Pearl River [7]. This had been expected by some at the Foreign Office, realistically it was only a matter of time before the Chinese began to take a hardline position. Yet when the crew of one runner was fished from the water, they found themselves arrested and brought before a local magistrate in Kowloon, a man called Lang He. The men insisted that they had not been importing contraband (none was actually found on board their ships or in the surrounding waters) and that they were not in the employ of the East India Company or even Jardines, rather they were independent traders who mostly imported and exported ceramics. Lang He refused to believe this was anything but a cover story and sentenced the six British sailors to 12 years hard labour in the prison at Lam Tin.
Opium ships at Lin Tin, 1824.
Forced into leg irons and accompanied by guards, the men were paraded through the streets of Kwun Tong. They held signs which read “I am British. I poison you with opium”, the crowds watching them hissing and spitting at them as they passed by. It has been said (though never substantiated) that the magistrate paid agitators to whip the crowd into a frenzy by chanting anti-British slogans at them but whatever the trigger, a riot suddenly erupted and the crowd surged forward to beat the British prisoners to death. Far from facing arrest, the guards present actually joined in the violence with Lang He praising those responsible as “loyal sons and daughters of the Emperor who served their countrymen well in rejecting the British traders and their disgusting endeavours to make China weak on opium”. The Kwun Tong incident was a prime example of a grievance the British felt the Chinese had never taken seriously; that British subjects must have a permanent representative in Hong Kong who could meter out British justice. The new Chief Superintended, Sir Henry Pottinger, had not yet arrived and so it fell to Charles Elliot’s deputy, Alexander Johnson, to meet with Lord Qishan and protest what had happened in Kwun Tong. But Qishan refused to meet with Johnson. He had no authority, Qishan said, and besides, China had every right to administer justice to criminals in her own territory, regardless of whether they were foreigners or not. As he neared Kowloon, Pottinger wrote in his diary; “All being well we shall reach Hong Kong in three days times where I hope to gain an efficient working knowledge of the situation at hand”.
Little did he know the chaos he was about to sail into.
Notes
[1] Conferences seem to have been named after the place the treaty was signed rather than where the sessions to debate the terms were held. Which means that Britain had many London conferences despite them being held outside of the city itself. In this case, the resulting treaty was called the London Convention, presumably to distinguish it from the London Treaty which dealt with the sovereignty of Belgium.
[2] Members of the Royal Family used the royal barges to navigate the Thames until the 1850s when river travel was replaced by rail. The barges were either broken up or sent to museums for public display, though the Crown Jewels were still brought from the Tower to Westminster by barge for some time after the Royal Family gave them up as a regular form of transport.
[3] This is pure self-indulgence which I hope you'll forgive! I've always thought how sad it is that Hampton Court has long had no role to play in the functions of the Crown and here I've put that right!
[4] The "marrying out" rule was strictly enforced until the 1950s in the OTL. In fact, there's an interesting factoid in Guy Harding's book Adventures of a Gentleman's Gentleman which says that from the 1910s on when large households found it difficult to engage new domestics, the Royal Household had a discrete preference for employing homosexual men because "they didn't wish to marry and they didn't get the housemaids into trouble". Quite what the OTL George V made of that I don't know...
[5] The first royal train carriage was actually made in 1842 for the Dowager Queen Adelaide of the OTL (the Dowager Duchess of Clarence in ours) but it wasn't until 1869 that Queen Victoria commissioned the pair of coaches that would form the Royal Train we recognise today.
[6] This was the Clandestine Marriages Act 1753.
[7] This is our version of the Guangzhou incident which triggered the First Opium War in the OTL.
My apologies for the delay on an instalment recently and many thanks for all your kind messages! I'm in the tail end of my second bout of Covid which thankfully was nowhere near as grim as the first! That said, the brain fog continues so if there are any glaring errors here then please don't hesitate to let me know. I deliberately didn't get stuck into the complexities of the London Conference in this chapter to avoid a major boo boo but the next will see the concluding treaty and will lay out the state of play between the Great Powers until the next international crisis.
Speaking of which, I've noticed a slight error on my part in that I've been referring to the Foreign Secretary as Lord Derby since his appointment but until 1851, Edward Smith-Stanley was known as Lord Stanley. I'll go back and amend this over the weekend but it's my own record keeping that's to blame here. Once again, many thanks for reading and I hope this chapter wasn't too disappointing as I'm aware it doesn't move our story on too much, I just didn't want to rush anything or tackle anything too complicated whilst still being under the influence of the dreaded C-19!
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First of all, I am absolutely loving this TL. Your creativity, writing style and the depth of your research are excellent. It makes me wish that this George V had actually lived.
Your research skill is spotlighted by the quoted passage, above. I've been a lawyer for 35 years and this is the first time I've ever heard of the now-extinct jactitation cause of action. I had to look it up
Nice to see some further interesting things happen to Hampton Court.
If you need any names, they can probably be found in Office-Holders in Modern Britain 1660-1870, most relevant being Volume 11 - Court Officers, which details officers and servants of the royal household, including the bedchamber and the public rooms; the medical, artistic and religious establishments; the household below stairs and the stables.
If you need any names, they can probably be found in Office-Holders in Modern Britain 1660-1870, most relevant being Volume 11 - Court Officers, which details officers and servants of the royal household, including the bedchamber and the public rooms; the medical, artistic and religious establishments; the household below stairs and the stables.
Little historical note - Ede & Ravenscroft didn't exist yet in 1841; at this point in time they were still "Adams & Ede", the robemakers, and "Ravenscroft", the wigmakers.
For some reason I wasn't getting notifications for this story for awhile, but I'm glad to be enjoying it once again! The bit about George V wanting to be a bit too involved in diplomatic negotiations reminds me of all those threads about WWI where people suggest the OTL George V could've defused tensions simply by using his shared family heritage to appeal to Emperors Wilhelm and Nicholas—it seems TTL's George would love to be that person! Also hopeful that China doesn't get screwed over by Europe like IOTL, although that may not be possible with how things are shaping up.
I hope George can be diplomatic despite James Graham wanting to keep the King in the dark
I wonder how the First Opium War will go ITTL?
How did it go in OTL?
I wonder how the First Opium War will go ITTL?
How did it go in OTL?
I can't thank you enough for your wonderful comments! So lovely to hear and I'm glad you're enjoying the TL. Like you I wish George V had lived because I've become hugely fond of him!First of all, I am absolutely loving this TL. Your creativity, writing style and the depth of your research are excellent. It makes me wish that this George V had actually lived.
Your research skill is spotlighted by the quoted passage, above. I've been a lawyer for 35 years and this is the first time I've ever heard of the now-extinct jactitation cause of action. I had to look it up
I think the most famous case of jactitation was that of Elizabeth Pierrepoint, Duchess of Kingston upon Hull, in 1769. It's a fascinating case and I've no idea why it hasn't been made into a movie because it's quite the story; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elizabeth_Pierrepont,_Duchess_of_Kingston-upon-Hull
Oh wow, what a brilliant resource, thank you so much for sharing it!
And many thanks for the Ede & Ravenscroft clarification, I assumed the "Est 1689" was for the company "as is" but I shall go through and correct any mentions of them to "Adams & Ede".
Absolutely, my inspiration for this TL was to imagine a world without Queen Victoria and so George V has kind of developed into the anti-Victoria - almost. But you are also spot on when you say that our George V would very much like to be the person so many think the OTL George V should have been. He's young and enthusiastic at this stage, he's got huge popular support and he's proving what he's capable of. But how far George can take that (especially when it comes to diplomacy) remains to be seen.
Thank you for reading!
The First Opium War of the OTL saw China defeated and she was forced to sign the first of what became known to Chinese nationalists as "the Unequal Treaties" in Nanking. Essentially it forced the Chinese to pay reparations to the British, to cede Hong Kong as a British colony and to force China to abandon the Canton system that limited foreign trade. The economic damage forced China to sign similar treaties with other nations and so they were slowly pushed to open up more and more to the West. But the defeat in the First Opium War also led to great social unrest and arguably was the first real shake to the Qing dynasty as it set the wheels in motion for the Taiping Rebellion.
We shall have to see how it plays out in our TL but the situation is somewhat different. Palmerston's gunboats were sent to China much earlier than in TTL because he pretty much abandoned any attempt to negotiate as the government of TTL has and that could be important as actually, the Chinese had many advantages over the British in the early stages of the war. I think it's widely accepted now that the Qing officials made some pretty disastrous moves during the conflict and so squandered the opportunity of a swift victory against the UK. So it's all to play for...
Again, many thanks for reading!
I know it’s a little early to plan for marriages. But, I think that George’s daughter Victoria could be married to Frederick III, the future King of Prussia and the future German Emperor.
wwbgdiaslt
Gone Fishin'
Well, we know Missy marries into Hesse Darmstadt, likely OTL Louis IV of Hesse and by Rhine. Would Frederick William IV of Prussia really be happy with a second daughter when the senior daughter married the son of a Grand Duke.
Given we've had Charlotte shuffled off to Russia and the contortions that Parliament underwent to allow it, I would not be entirely unsurprised if there weren't some sort of Brazilian match for Victoria, via the Duke of Paraiba, as Britain has solved the conversion issue and Brazil shown itself unfussed by it.
Given we've had Charlotte shuffled off to Russia and the contortions that Parliament underwent to allow it, I would not be entirely unsurprised if there weren't some sort of Brazilian match for Victoria, via the Duke of Paraiba, as Britain has solved the conversion issue and Brazil shown itself unfussed by it.
We can expect Victoria to start receiving proposals from around her 14th or 15th birthday. This might seem a little early (and naturally a marriage wouldn't take place until she turned 18) but in the OTL, the Princess Royal (also named Victoria) was actually introduced to her future husband at the age of 11 (!) and began a correspondence with Fritz almost immediately. They were engaged when Vicky turned 15 but the Prince Consort set a condition that they could not marry until Vicky turned 17.
There'll be many proposals for our Toria, though I will say that George V will not be nearly as heavy handed as his mother was with his own marriage and within reason, he'll let his children make their own decisions as to which proposals they wish to accept or reject. At this stage he only has two children but remember he'll eventually end up with 8 so for readers who love royal match-making, there'll be lots of opportunities in the next two decades.
There'll be many proposals for our Toria, though I will say that George V will not be nearly as heavy handed as his mother was with his own marriage and within reason, he'll let his children make their own decisions as to which proposals they wish to accept or reject. At this stage he only has two children but remember he'll eventually end up with 8 so for readers who love royal match-making, there'll be lots of opportunities in the next two decades.
A very good point there. And when you look at some of those marriages...yikes.Isn't it something crazy like 80% of Spanish royal marriages in the 16th to 18th centuries were consanguineous? With the obvious exception of haemophilia (which the OTL Queen Victoria has taken with her to the Netherlands in TTL), it's a wonder that other courts didn't see some kind of repercussions as a result of the very limited gene pool they preferred to swim in but then they at least put some limits in place keeping things to first or second cousins only.
wwbgdiaslt
Gone Fishin'
So by January then given we've somersaulted through 25 years in the past twelve months.
I don’t think it will be that fast.
I actually really like the pace that this story is going at and I don’t think that @Opo should rush
Also, I was looking back through the story and I found that George V’s dog Jack passed away in 1840 in a caption to a picture. However, there is no mention of how George reacted to the death so I was wondering if there is going to be a mention of that.
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