By such means the Prince kept boredom at bay. But frustration at being excluded from any position of responsibility was not so easily assuaged and found expression in occasional fits of childish petulance or irritating insistence on airing opinions about problems whose intricacies he had neither the patience nor the discernment to grasp. Required by the Queen and the government to decline acceptance of the honorary colonelcy of a Russian regiment offered him by the Tsar, on the grounds that it would be contrary to precedent, he flew into a rage which his friends thought wholly out of proportion to the disappointment involved in being unable to add a new uniform to his already well-stocked wardrobe. At the same time he bombarded the Foreign Secretary, whose ministry was not concerned in the matter, with violent complaints about a new uniform for the army and, simultaneously, with exhortations to be ‘firm’ against Russia in central Asia. Granville commented sardonically to Gladstone that the Prince and the Duke of Cambridge (another selfappointed foreign affairs adviser) were evidently ‘men of iron’. The Prince’s own staff were sometimes equally exasperated by his invariable habit of altering at least ‘something’ in any draft prepared for him, either of a speech or a letter, even though the alteration was apparently ‘without any significance whatsoever’.
9
A Passage to India
Everyone here is fascinated with H.R.H. … and his amiable manners.
Unknown to both the government and the Queen, the Prince now began to plan an undertaking that would certainly not prove boring and was likely, for a time at least, to release him from all sense of frustration. His Household gathered what this plan was when the librarian at Sandringham was instructed to collect all the books he could about India.
When the Queen was approached, however, she did not think an Indian tour was a good idea at all. It was ‘quite against [her] desire’, she told the Crown Princess. There might be some political advantage, but not much; it was not as if there were any particular crisis in Indian affairs. Besides, even if Bertie’s health were up to the strain, he ought not to leave his family for so long; and there could be no question of Alix going. In any case who was to pay for it all?
‘Where is the money to come from?’ Disraeli also wanted to know after ‘our young Hal’ had induced his mother to give her assent to the scheme ‘on the representation that it was entirely approved by her ministers’.
He has not a shilling. She will not give him one. A Prince of Wales must not move in India in a mesquin manner. Everything must be done on an imperial scale etc., etc. This is what she said … [She also said] that nothing will induce her to consent to the Princess going and blames herself bitterly for having mentioned the scheme without obtaining on the subject my opinion and that of my colleagues.
In fact, the Prince had never suggested to his wife that she should accompany him; and Lord Derby, the Foreign Secretary, for one, was thankful that he had not done so. For not only would there be extremely difficult problems of protocol to overcome if she were to visit the courts of Indian princes; but, so Derby said, ‘ “Hal” is sure to get into scrapes with women whether she goes or not, and they will be considered more excusable in her absence.’
When she discovered what her husband’s intentions were Princess Alexandra was much put out, protesting, years later, that she would ‘never forget or forgive’ him for having left her behind. The Prince, himself, was much annoyed when he learned that his mother — who was already pestering him with advice about the food he should eat, the time he ought to go to bed each night, the way he must behave on Sundays — insisted on supervising all the arrangements including the composition of his suite. She had written to the Prime Minister with ‘positive directions that the detailed arrangements should be considered by the government as an official question’. ‘At the same time,’ so Lord Salisbury, Secretary of State for India, told the Prince, ‘the Queen was pleased to lay especial stress upon the number and composition of your Royal Highness’s suite as a matter of public importance.’ But it had been ‘entirely’ his own idea, the Prince protested, and it was only natural that he should wish ‘to keep the arrangements connected with it in his hands’. During an interview with Disraeli at Downing Street he ‘manifested extraordinary excitement’ as he angrily declined to make any alterations in the names he had chosen. He would certainly not leave his friends, the Duke of Sutherland and Lord Carrington, behind simply because the Queen disapproved of them. Nor would he withdraw his invitation to the boisterous Lord Aylesford, known as ‘Sporting Joe’, who was also going as his personal guest; to William Howard Russell, who was travelling as his honorary private secretary; or to Lieutenant Lord Charles Beresford R.N., who had been invited to go as one of his three aides-de-camp.
In face of the Prince’s obduracy, Disraeli felt compelled to give way, afterwards assuring the Queen that he would caution Carrington and Beresford in particular ‘against larks’, and that, apart from the Prince’s secretary, Francis Knollys, who was admittedly not always as well behaved as he might be, there could be no real objection to the other members of the suite. These included Prince Louis of Battenberg and the Duke of Cambridge’s son, Lieutenant Augustus FitzGeorge, as aides-de-camp; Lord Suffield as lord-in-waiting; Colonel Arthur Ellis, Major-General Sir Dighton Probyn V.C. and Lieutenant-Colonel Owen Williams as equerries; Canon Duckworth as chaplain; and Joseph Fayrer as physician. Her Majesty would be represented by Lord Alfred Paget, her clerk-marshal; and Sir Bartle Frere would be in general control of the party, taking with him, as secretary, General Grey’s son, Albert. The Prince reluctantly agreed not to include the detachment of Life Guards for which he had asked, or a Russian liaison officer, on its being pointed out to him that, if he did, other countries would expect to be asked to provide liaison officers of their own. He was, however, to be attended by his stud-groom and valet, a page, three chefs, and twenty-two other servants as well as the Duke of Sutherland’s piper. In addition there was to be an artist, a botanist, and Clarence Bartlett, Assistant Superintendent of the Zoological Gardens, who was both a zoologist and taxidermist. The Prince’s French poodle, ‘Bobêche’, was to be taken, and also three handsome horses from the Sandringham stables. So as to accustom them to the sight of wild beasts and reptiles, the horses were taken regularly to look at the animals in the zoo.