King George V
Part Two, Chapter Seventeen: A Glimpse of the Future
A requisite skill of royalty is to find themselves in strange situations and to make it appear as if there was nothing out of the ordinary at all. This quality was put to the test at Marlborough House in mid-February 1840 when Princess Charlotte Louise unexpectedly found herself playing host to two Russian Orthodox nuns. Mother Barbara Shishkina and her protégé Sister Anna Yumasheva were the Princess’ first glimpse at what life might be like for her in St Petersburg and even though the Princess met them in familiar surroundings, she was still taken aback by their appearance. There was also the question of deference. Whilst any visiting English rector and his wife might display the usual obeisance and then wait to be offered a chair, the nuns had to be convinced that it was quite alright for them to be seated in the royal presence. Then it appeared they expected some kind of opening address. Russian court etiquette was clearly far more complex than that in England, where once a person had mastered the Order of Precedence and the endless forms of address, they could usually feel they had a reasonable grasp on protocol.
The British King and the Russian Tsar were not cut from the same cloth. In the United Kingdom, the Sovereign reigned, and parliament ruled. This did not mean the Crown was not treated with the utmost respect, but the Royal Family had worked hard (especially in recent years) to be seen as an ordinary British family in an extraordinary position. Checks and balances were the key to the monarchy’s relationship with parliament and with the people as a whole. The vast majority of George V’s subjects were part of the “new royalist” movement which swept Britain when the King married and had only been reinforced by his coronation and his approach to Kingship. [1] But he could take nothing for granted. Things were a little different in Russia. A key feature of the autocracy was the Tsar’s role as
Tsar-Batyushka (or
Tsar-Dear Father). Unlike his British counterpart, the Tsar of Russia was seen as a great patriarch of an imperial family and his subjects were the children of that family who required his love, care and protection. This was carefully underpinned by Orthodox Christianity; the Tsar was not just responsible for the social welfare or national safety of his subjects, he had to tend to their spiritual needs too.
Tsar Nicholas I
Influenced by the Byzantine concept of imperial authority, the Tsar was regarded as “an emissary of God”, someone who had both absolute power to impose temporal laws on earth but also an absolute responsibility to see that those laws were inspired by the divine in heaven. When the Russian Tsar was anointed at his coronation, he was wedded to his people and like any good husband, he had to consider their needs as well as his own. Since the reign of Peter the Great, the Russian Tsar had become (in practical terms), the head of the Orthodox Church in Russia. Certainly, his word held greater authority over that of the Patriarch in Moscow. The Russian people lived by the secular laws instituted by their Sovereign; but they believed those laws to be divinely inspired because the Tsar would never take a decision that stood contrary to God’s law. He loved them. He protected them. He guided them. Consequently, the Tsar was to be treated with devotion, reverence and deference by his subjects. Of course, this did not stop many of his “children” from wishing to murder the Tsar and put an end to autocracy once and for all. [2]
Princess Charlotte Louise was about to see how this operated in practise when she met Mother Barbara and Sister Anna. When they finally lowered themselves nervously onto the settee opposite the Princess, they fell silent and avoided eye contact with her. The Princess was a little daunted but rose admirably to the challenge.
“I understand you are with the Embassy?”
Mother Barbara nodded. But she said nothing in reply.
“How interesting”, the Princess replied, hoping for her maid to return with tea as soon as possible so that she might have something to focus on other than the awkwardness of the situation before her, “I have not visited, I’m afraid to say. Is it a nice building?”
Again, the silent Mother Barbara nodded eagerly.
Then an idea came to the Princess. She stood up and made her way over to a table in the corner of the room where two portraits of the Tsar and his wife (signed in their own hand) stood in silver frames with a little crown at the top. Charlotte Louise picked them and turning back to the nuns, saw them standing once more. Awkwardly, she motioned that they should resume their seats and handed the picture frames to them with a smile and a little nod, the Tsar handed to the elder of the two and the Empress to the younger. The nuns were immediately sent into a frenzy of chatter in Russian, Mother Barbara running her fingers over the Tsar’s signature, letter by letter. This seemed to break the ice somewhat.
“The Tsar sent those to me at Christmas time”, she explained, suddenly aware that she had no idea if the two women actually spoke English. She relied on the good old-fashioned British approach of raising her voice and speaking slowly. “They are very lovely pictures”, she said patronisingly. Mother Barbara nodded. Silence returned.
The clock on the mantle chimed a quarter past the hour. The nuns had only been at Marlborough House for 15 minutes and yet it seemed like an eternity.
“Well, I…no…ah yes, I know”, the Princess found a suitable topic, “Would you like to tell me a little about yourselves? What brought you to England?”
Mother Barbara cleared her throat. Despite a strong Russian accent, she spoke perfect English.
“Yes, Royal Highness, we came here to build a new monastery but now we live at the Embassy. It is the only chapel for us in London”
“Oh really? How tiresome for you”, Charlotte Louise replied, “Have you been to Westminster Abbey? It’s very impressive”
Mother Barbara frowned a little; “No Royal Highness, we have not. We do not pray with the non-Orthodox”
“I see. And why is that?”
Suddenly Mother Barbara was on familiar ground. The one thing she knew was her faith. And so she began, enthusiastically and forgetting any anxieties she might have had when she first crossed the threshold. “Orthodoxy means
‘right believing’”, she began in an authoritative tone, “Our church has never deviated from the traditions and doctrines of the early church. We are an unbroken line to Christ himself. In Orthodoxy, truth is proclaimed and preserved. It would therefore be a great sin if we were to pray among those who deny it is so”. [3]
Princess Charlotte Louise felt a little uncomfortable. The Hanoverians were not known for their religious piety. Whilst wedded to the preservation of the Church of England, George I had insisted that his role as protector of the Lutheran churches in Hanover held equal importance and his Anglican subjects were never truly reconciled to the idea that the King was surrounded by Lutheran preachers at his court. George II cared more for the battlefield than the pulpit and whilst George III was raised strictly Anglican and expected his children to fully adopt “the English church” and be seen to worship solely within the confines of its traditions, both George IV and George V would possibly best be described as apathetic ecumenicals.
George V and Princess Charlotte Louise had been raised as Anglicans because all good upper class English children were. Both prayed daily (and sincerely), they attended church on Sundays, and they lived (mostly) by the tenets of Christianity. But compared to the religious fervour of Queen Louise, they were not exactly devout. For Princess Charlotte Louise, Orthodoxy sounded as if it encouraged (or demanded) a level of piety which might be beyond her. For a brief moment, she pondered changing the subject. But besides members of the Imperial Family and a handful of their diplomats, Princess Charlotte Louise had never really met an Orthodox Christian before. At least not one she could approach the subject with.
In truth, the Princess had regarded the need for her conversion to Orthodoxy if she accepted the Tsarevich’s offer of marriage as a practicality. She did not really believe it was something that required any real change of heart. But as their conversation continued, Mother Barbara quickly disavowed her of that notion. She spoke of icons and processions, of Eucharists and Divine Liturgies – there was a mention of something called the Royal Hours – and the more Mother Barbara spoke, the young nun next to her silently agreeing with well-placed nodding, the more the Princess found it all quite overwhelming. When the nun spoke of the Tsar he was “Holy”. From what the Princess knew of him, Tsar Nicholas was a very religious man but amid the anti-Russian propaganda and sentiments of the last decade, it was hard to see him in a "holy" light. This time, she decided to move the conversation on.
“Is St Petersburg as beautiful as I have heard?”, she asked kindly, pouring tea which neither Mother Barbara nor Sister Anna touched, “They say the palaces there are quite impressive”
“All Russia is beautiful”, Mother Barbara replied flatly, “Because it is sanctified and led to glory by the Tsar”
At that moment, Lady Anne Anson entered the room. The Princess’ carriage was waiting to take her to Buckingham Palace. Charlotte Louise stood up. The nuns followed suit. She thanked them for their time and Lady Anne looked on totally baffled as the two figures clad in black robes backed out of the room, almost on their knees. Each carried the frames they had been given to look at. Mother Barbara seemed to believe they were gifts. As much as the Princess put on a brave face and tried to make light of what had happened that afternoon, her guests had put a worrying thought in her head; Russia wasn’t just different, it seemed another world entirely. How could she ever understand it all? Could she believe in it? Could she live among those who did? In the days that followed, Charlotte Louise scoured the library at Buckingham Palace for books on Orthodoxy, finding just a few tomes which were not written from the Anglican viewpoint that Orthodoxy was far too close to Catholicism to be considered of value to the Christian world. Sasha would soon be in England. She had to resolve this new uncertainty before she saw him again.
Lord Melbury.
The Russian conference at Brighton was also at the forefront of the Prime Minister’s worries too. The Whig election campaign was struggling, and even pro-Whig newspapers were finding it hard to be as vocal in their support as they once had been. Even in constituencies considered to be “safe”, Whig candidates found hostility. With the general election just two weeks away, Edward Stanley had to warn Lord Cottenham that the Whig majority in the Commons was now “in play”. Newspapers were reporting that Sir James Graham was holding meetings with Tory party grandees with a view to presenting a full list of ministers to the King if he was victorious; he wanted to hit the ground running. It must be said that Graham was being somewhat complacent, but Cottenham did not have it in him to use this against his rival. After all, whatever happened, Cottenham was to resign the moment the result was known. With this in mind, and fearing the worst, the Prime Minister allowed himself to be bullied by the Leader of the Opposition into securing him not only an observer seat at the Brighton talks but also a private audience with the Russian delegates before they returned to London. “After all”, Graham reasoned, “Any agreement made there shall have to be put into practise by my party, not the Whigs”.
Sir James Graham was not the only one making demands for the upcoming conference. At the eleventh hour, Count Medem indicated to Lord Melbury that he had assumed that there would be delegations from Austria and Prussia present, but he could not find any mention of these representatives in the official programme. Russia had already committed herself to a coalition of the Central Powers where the Oriental Crisis was concerned, and the delegates could not discuss the situation in Egypt unless her allies were also present. Melbury indicated that the British had not invited delegates from Austria or Prussia because the first item on the agenda was Afghanistan. But Medem was confused. What else was there to discuss? Afghanistan was a closed chapter. The British had already indicated that if all diplomacy failed where Muhammed Ali Pasha was concerned, they would be prepared to join the coalition of Central Powers to secure the position of the young Ottoman Sultan, Abdulmejid I. But the British had arranged this conference before Bala Hissar when they still believed they had the upper hand and even with the retreat in mind, they did not consider that their problems in Afghanistan meant the Russians were free to march in and take over where the British left off. Far from it.
The Melbury-Granville Plan sought to gain an agreement with Russia that they would no longer interfere in Afghanistan or British India if the British accepted the Peshawar Agreement proposed by Dost Mohammed Khan. The Russians believed they hadn’t interfered at all, at least not in any way that threatened British interests in the region. This was far from true. The moment the British had retreated from Kabul, the Tsar sent a message to Dost Mohammed Khan telling him not to reintroduce the idea of the Peshawar Agreement and pledging to offer him any assistance he might need to retake Afghanistan as King if he honoured the Tsar’s wishes. But the British did not know this and were relying on outdated intelligence which suggested that Khan’s forces were still depleted and unable to pose any real threat whilst the British mediated with the Russians. For a brief moment following Bala Hissar, the Prime Minister urged Melbury to cancel the conference. He was persuaded to stick with it because to cancel might indicate weakness. The British hoped that the tide would turn again as soon as they had better intelligence from the ground, but they didn’t. As a result, just a few days before talks began the British had no clear objective. The Russians did.
They did not intend to waste time. In June 1839, Muhammed Ali’s son destroyed the Ottoman Army in Southeastern Turkey putting the whole of Syria under his control. He intended to march on and take Constantinople. The entire Eastern Mediterranean was at risk, and this posed a serious problem for Russia. In 1833, Russia had defeated the Ottomans and had forced them to sign the Treaty of Hünkâr İskelesi which demanded that the Ottomans close the Dardanelles to warships of non-Black sea powers. The Ottomans themselves were deeply resentful of this treaty and intended to overturn it but oddly, the Russians now found that they must defend the Ottomans to ensure that the terms of Hünkâr İskelesi could be met. If Muhammed Ali gave the green light for a siege of Constantinople, the Dardanelles would no longer be under Russian control and the entire Russian foreign policy of the last century would collapse. The only reason Muhammed Ali had not ordered his son Ibrahim Ali to take Constantinople was because he felt the mere threat of doing so was enough to risk war in Europe and that the Great Powers would have no choice but to bend to his demands in order to resolve the situation diplomatically instead. [4]
Muhammed Ali
With Palmerston now gone, his plans to send the British Mediterranean Fleet to the Syrian coast and to proceed to Beirut thus flushing out the Egyptians and ultimately forcing Muhammed Ali’s officials to leave Syria, were shelved. Much was being made of this in the palaces of power across the continent; Gunboats had replaced by “Dinner Party Diplomacy”. Everybody knew the weakness of the other; France promised to support Muhammed Ali, but the Russians knew King Louis-Phillipe could not afford war. Britain had yet to pick a side but likewise, its economic position was poor, and its foreign policy split into three spheres of interest: Afghanistan, the Levant and China. When the British and the Russian delegations met at Brighton, there had to be an agreement which resolved at least one of those; the Russians believed they could resolve two. Melbury advised Lord Cottenham that Brighton was looking to prove itself a complete waste of time and resources. Unless something else could be found to dominate the agenda, the British would seem to be in total chaos, staging talks with no clear agenda. In a precarious state ahead of the general election, the Whigs could not afford such headlines.
When Cottenham would not make a clear decision one way or the other, Melbury took matters into his own hands. Whilst the Prime Minister may be on his last legs politically, Lord Melbury did not intend to be sent packing into opposition without a fight, neither did he want his legacy to be that of a man sent to the wicket with a broken bat. His solution was a risky one. It would require him to take advantage of a newly forged friendship, but he could see no other way. Melbury went to visit King George. The situation was explained as follows; the Russians were likely to play hardball and make demands the British government could not agree to. The British wanted Russian assurances which they were unlikely to give unless Melbury could gain a little ground as the talks progressed. Stalemate was inevitable and the repercussions dire for both the Anglo-Russian relationship and the British government. But if there were something else the two parties could focus on if the talks stalled, something that promoted co-operation and friendship rather than old grudges and ambitions, it might buy just enough time until a new round of talks could be held with more up to date briefings from Afghanistan, Beirut and Lord Granville in Paris. To achieve this, the ace up his sleeve Melbury wanted concerned Princess Charlotte Louise’s marriage.
King George had taken very careful and measured steps where the Tsarevich was concerned. He allowed his sister to go to Brighton to meet with him privately because he believed that the Tsarevich would not propose marriage until he had permission from the King to do so. This would be an indication of the King’s consent to the union and negotiations could then begin. But George V wanted this kept off the table at Brighton because the Prime Minister had indicated there were already growing concerns about the political ramifications of an Anglo-Russian match and to reinforce that this marriage was in no way political, the King believed that any talk of an engagement must be put off until
after the conference at the Royal Pavilion. When the conference was concluded, the Tsarevich and Princess Charlotte Louise would have had the chance to discuss their future plans, they would return to London and the King would have a private audience with the heir to the Russian throne to give the necessary consent. The engagement would be announced and then, and only then, would a marriage contract be put to the appropriate departments of state to discuss.
The Russian Tsarevich, the future Alexander II.
What Melbury wanted was for the King to play host at the conference instead, arriving two days before it began and welcoming the Tsarevich to Brighton on the same day he was to be reunited with Princess Charlotte Louise. By bringing this audience forward, the Tsarevich would be able to ask permission to propose before the conference started and if he did, and if the King gave permission, and if the Princess accepted, when a stalemate reared its head (or when the British felt they could not agree to Russian demands), the engagement could become the dominant topic of discussion. It would derail the talks, but it would keep all options on the table and buy time. If the King was agreeable, Lord Melbury would ask him to make the entire visit to Brighton a family affair with as many members of the Royal Family attending as possible so that if the conference was a failure, it could be said afterwards that the talks were only ever going to discuss the diplomatic issues between Britain and Russia in passing. The main priority of bringing the two delegations together was to open negotiations for the marriage contract of the Tsarevich and Princess Charlotte Louise.
George did not receive Melbury’s briefing with great enthusiasm. On a personal level, he simply wasn’t ready to broach the issue with the Tsarevich. Now it felt as if he was being rushed into accepting something he still had grave concerns about, concerns he believed many in the Cabinet shared. Indeed, had he not already tried to resolve some of their worries with the Prime Minister by clearly separating the Royal Family from politics?
“I appreciate that Sir, I do”, Melbury reasoned, “But I must ask this. Regardless of whether we remain in government or not come the Spring, this conference was arranged before Bala Hissar when we had better cards to play. We could not cancel it, though I admit I should not have regardless. I believe in diplomacy Your Majesty, I want us to explore every option at the negotiating table, but I cannot go to Brighton and face the Russians without something to turn the tide in our favour or at the very least, to serve as a distraction”
“The marriage of Her Royal Highness is
not a distraction”, the King snapped in reply, “Damn your eyes Melbury, here I am trying my best to ease anxieties in the government and now you come to me asking me to do the very thing the Prime Minister said you wanted me to avoid. How am I to win?”
Melbury held his nerve.
“Sir, I must ask you, I must advise you even, that if this conference fails then the possibility of Britain being forced to join the coalition of the Central Powers in order to protect our interests in British India and Afghanistan is inevitable. I do not see another way we can convince the Russians to accept our demands. And in that situation, neither Lord Granville nor myself, nor the Prime Minister for that matter, cannot promise you that this country will not find herself at war with France once more within the year”.
“Rubbish”, the King scoffed, “Louis-Phillipe has half a shilling less than us and our purse is empty as it is. I won’t have it Melbury. I won’t have my sister’s marriage used to patch up this ramshackle conference just because you can’t get your way with those bloody Russians. So, I suggest you go back to Downing Street and you tell the Prime Minister from me that I will absolutely not be forced into putting this marriage on the negotiating table because my government cares more about some tinpot prince in a desert Kingdom than it does for the sister of its own Sovereign. Do I make myself clear?”
Melbury was forced to retreat.
At Marlborough House, Princess Charlotte Louise began packing for Brighton. Her trunks included the jewellery box given to her by her aunt, Princess Mary. If Sasha proposed to Charlotte Louise, and if she accepted, she would wear the tiara at the ball scheduled to be held on the last day of the Brighton meeting. But even at this eleventh hour, fully expecting that the Tsarevich would propose, Charlotte Louise was undecided. She loved Sasha. That much she believed she could be certain of. And that was a damn sight more than some of her counterparts could claim. She had heard gossip on the royal grapevine that since the birth of their daughter, Prince William of the Netherlands had once again found a new mistress and her cousin Victoria was left just as miserable as she had been before the arrival of the little Princess Victoria Paulina. But Charlotte Louise’s brief introduction to Russian culture had not exactly reassured her. This could well be the first leg of a journey into a life totally at odds with everything she had ever known.
Across the way at Buckingham Palace, Melbury sent further briefings to the King to try and underline the seriousness of the situation. George was furious with himself for ever agreeing to allow this Russian business to get so far. Now he saw exactly what his sister’s marriage would mean. They would forever be on opposing sides. What if Charlotte Louise had already married Sasha and she, encouraged by her husband and his family, agreed with them that Russia should be allowed to expand wherever it liked despite the risk that posed to British interests abroad? And what if the situation in the Levant got worse and Britain allied herself with France instead of Russia? It was unlikely but still, George imagined Europe torn in two with his sister on one side and he on the other. They wouldn’t be able to see each other. They wouldn’t even be able to write to each other. And then what? Would Lottie be lost to him forever? The King went to bed that evening with his head spinning; he had had a glimpse of the future. And it scared him to death.
[1] Not a movement per se, at least not in a political sense, more a general viewpoint in the UK at this time. in TTL as described by Charles Greville.
[2] I know autocracy and the Tsar's role within it is hotly debated, I chose to fall on the point of view put forward here:
https://www.rbth.com/history/331232-russian-tsar-emissary-of-god
[3] I believe it is still the case that (technically at any rate) Orthodox Christians can enter non-Orthodox places of worship (they were never forbidden as in Catholicism) but they cannot take part in services or it becomes a sin. In the OTL, plenty of Russian family members attended Lutheran services during Queen Victoria's reign but they did not actually take part, usually remaining silent to indicate they were not congregants.
[4] On this plot point, this is where we depart from the OTL. Something drastic will change here which will cause a major shift in the Oriental Crisis.
Notes
Just a brief P-S to say that the result of our poll will be introduced soon so fear not, I didn't forget! I just needed some advanced knowledge of the result before I could begin weaving it in.
The next chapter will focus entirely on Brighton and will hopefully have a little something for everyone with royal romance, political arguments and world affairs thrown in for good measure.
Many thanks for reading!
www.cs.mcgill.ca
