MMM!
Hugh Montgomery-Massingberd
Queen Victoria's Sketchbook Marina Warner (Macmillan £8.95) Insubstantial Pageant Jeffrey L. Lant (Hamish Hamilton £12.50) Louisa Lady in Waiting Elizabeth Longford (Cape £8.50) The dumpy figure of Queen Victoria continues to grow in stature the more that is known about her: fresh examples of her kindness. humanity. good sense, humour and unexpected accomplishments seem constantly to come to light. For some she has become an obsession — like Jonathan Routh whose Secret Lift of Queen Victoria (Sidgwick £5.95) contains jolly pictures of Jamaica, even if the whole joke is about as limp as the cover — and, at this rate, the pendulum may eventually swing too far, so that a new debunking campaign is called for.
Queen Victoria's Sketchbook is a delightful culling from over 50 albums in which Victoria did her charming sketches and watercolours from 1827 to 1890. It is a beautiful production. knocking that dreary little scrapbook, The Diary ofan Edwardian Country Lady [sic], which will doubtless sell another billion copies this Christmas. into a cocked hat. Marina Warner's commentary is excellent: cool. sympathetic. perceptive. witty and intelligent. Very few of the drawings and watercolours have been published before. Victoria was taught to draw by a former pupil of Lawrence's. Richard Wes • tall (later to die in penury) and her art also owed something to the influences of Foulon, who gave her some lessons in perspective (not her strong point). Lear. 'Good old Leitch', Thorburn and Swoboda.
We see paintings of Victoria's household circle and family, gypsies and picturesque foreigners encountered on her travels and scenes from the opera and ballet. There are several portraits of the rumpled Lord Melbourne and a terrifying one of Charles. Duke of Brunswick — aptly described by Miss Warner as 'this royal Heathcliff — as well as Albert, looking rather unhealthy. After his death, people tended to recede from the pages of the Queen's sketchbooks; on the whole, the landscapes are more striking than the portraits. The general content of Queen Victoria's Sketchbook is refreshingly intimate and personal — 'few crowns. few sceptres, or obeisances of subjects, few moments of high seriousness or glory solemniseher pages', says Miss Warner. The drawings of her coronation, though, are deeply serious: 'She recorded none of the mishaps and hitches and bewilderment that resulted from the lack of rehearsals'. On that occasion, the Bishop of Bath and Wells complicated mat ters by turning over two pages at the end of the order of the service (shades of 'The Great Sermon Handicap').
Such mishaps are the stuff of Mr Lanes book which is sub-titled 'Ceremony and Confusion at Queen Victoria's Court' and we are led to believe by the publishers that this is to be a 'rollicking piece of social history'. The subject — ceremonial cock-ups — is certainly promising and the author has clearly done some exhaustive research. I began the book expecting some muchneeded laughs, but it soon became clear that the author, an American academic, lacked a sense of humour; somehow the jokes do not get told. By the end I was thoroughly bored. This material in the hands of someone with an idea of irony could have been good fun. but Mr Lent has produced a disappointing book disgracefully overpriced at L12:50. Four pounds cheaper. in a sumptuous format, is Louisa Lady in Waiting, a splendid album rather of the same genre as Christopher Simon Sykes's The Visitor's Book. Louisa Countess of Antrim was the daughter of General Charles Grey, private secretary to the Prince Consort, and became a Woman of the Bedchamber to Queen Victoria in 1891. This book has been compiled and edited from the magpie-like Louisa's copious diaries and albums by Elizabeth Longford with her customary élan and infectious enthusiasm — even though her account of the 6th Marquess of Londonderry's marital relations has been superseded by H. Montgomery Hyde's book and though the proof reading has sometimes let her down. It is a fascinating record of Court life; we are given glimpses of the background to the peregrinations around Windsor. Osborne. Balmoral and Sandringham, as well as trips to Germany, the Riviera, North America. the Mediterranean, and India. The hilarious account of Edward VII's Coronation should be a model for Mr Lant's next book. Louisa's mass of material — programmes, invitations, tickets. menus, post-cards. sketches and many marvellous photographs — is set out very appealingly and the personalities are brought alive in Lady Longford's truly 'rollicking' text. The Court physician Sir James Reid annoyed Queen Victoria by becoming engaged to one of her Maids of Honour but mollified the Queen by promising 'never to do it again'. He used to recommend Benger's Food to the Queen. My favourite character is Louisa's eccentric husband, 'the Buzzard', who offered to shoot anyone who voted the wrong way in a Home Rule referendum. He felt lonely and resentful while Louisa was away in waiting and. 'growling to himself', smashed one of her tables and threw the bits on the fire. Some people apparently objected to him driving his bullocks himself: 'A damned lie,' roared the Buzzard: 'They were heifers!' He would occasionally send his bookseller a telegram: 'Books. Books. Books. Antrim.'
Louisa herself sounds most sympathetic; she always cooed `Mmm, rnmm. do go on', except once when. as Lady Longford relates, the Duke of Argyll's valet was telling her about His Grace's laying out. `Mmm, num, how dreadful for you', said Louisa. 'And I had to shave him three times before they buried him, my lady'. Shocked at last into resistance. Louisa exclaimed, 'How perfectly disgusting!'
Of course Queen Victoria dominates the book. After her death — movingly described here, for the first time. from a letter of Princess Christian's — there was speculation as to whether 'Mama's spirit' was in a sparrow that flew under the dome of the Frogmore Mausoleum. Queen Alexandra had the last word on this occasion: 'No. I do not think that it could be Mama's spirit, or it would not have made a mess on Beatrice's bonnet', THIS WEEK'S CONTRIBUTORS Paul Ableman records a monthly Literary Newsletter from London for the Australian Broadcasting Com mission. Jonathan Keates teaches English at the City of London School and has recently published A Companion Guide to the Shakespeare Country. Alan Watkins is political columnist for the Observer. David Gilmour is assistant Editor of Middle East International.
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