III

Albert had foreseen that his married life would not be all plain sailing; but he had by no means realised the gravity and the complication of the difficulties which he would have to face.  Politically, he was a cipher.  Lord Melbourne was not only Prime Minister, he was in effect the Private Secretary of the Queen, and thus controlled the whole of the political existence of the sovereign.  A queen’s husband was an entity unknown to the British Constitution.  In State affairs there seemed to be no place for him; nor was Victoria herself at all unwilling that this should be so.  “The English,” she had told the Prince when, during their engagement, a proposal had been made to give him a peerage, “are very jealous of any foreigner interfering in the government of this country, and have already in some of the papers expressed a hope that you would not interfere.  Now, though I know you never would, still, if you were a Peer, they would all say, the Prince meant to play a political part.  I know you never would!” In reality, she was not quite so certain; but she wished Albert to understand her views.  He would, she hoped, make a perfect husband; but, as for governing the country, he would see that she and Lord M. between them could manage that very well, without his help.

But it was not only in politics that the Prince discovered that the part cut out for him was a negligible one.  Even as a husband, he found, his functions were to be of an extremely limited kind.  Over the whole of Victoria’s private life the Baroness reigned supreme; and she had not the slightest intention of allowing that supremacy to be diminished by one iota.  Since the accession, her power had greatly increased.  Besides the undefined and enormous influence which she exercised through her management of the Queen’s private correspondence, she was now the superintendent of the royal establishment and controlled the important office of Privy Purse.  Albert very soon perceived that he was not master in his own house.  Every detail of his own and his wife’s existence was supervised by a third person:  nothing could be done until the consent of Lehzen had first been obtained.  And Victoria, who adored Lehzen with unabated intensity, saw nothing in all this that was wrong.

Nor was the Prince happier in his social surroundings.  A shy young foreigner, awkward in ladies’ company, unexpansive and self-opinionated, it was improbable that, in any circumstances, he would have been a society success.  His appearance, too, was against him.  Though in the eyes of Victoria he was the mirror of manly beauty, her subjects, whose eyes were of a less Teutonic cast, did not agree with her.  To them—­and particularly to the high-born ladies and gentlemen who naturally saw him most—­what was immediately and distressingly striking in Albert’s face and figure and whole demeanour was his un-English look.  His features were regular, no doubt, but there was