"IF SHE WAS EVERY INCH A QUEEN, SHE WAS ALSO EVERY INCH A WOMAN": VICTORIA'S QUEENSHIP AND CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY IN 19TH-CENTURY BRITAIN Mariko Okawa A Thesis Submitted for the Degree of PhD at the University of St Andrews 2020 Full metadata for this item is available in St Andrews Research Repository at: http://research-repository.st-andrews.ac.uk/ Identifiers to use to cite or link to this thesis: DOI: https://doi.org/10.17630/sta/4 http://hdl.handle.net/10023/20934 This item is protected by original copyright "If she was every inch a queen, she was also every inch a woman": Victoria's Queenship and Constitutional Monarchy in 19th-Century Britain Mariko Okawa This thesis is submitted in partial fulfilment for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) at the University of St Andrews September 2020 Candidate's declaration I, Mariko Okawa, do hereby certify that this thesis, submitted for the degree of PhD, which is approximately 78,769 words in length, has been written by me, and that it is the record of work carried out by me, or principally by myself in collaboration with others as acknowledged, and that it has not been submitted in any previous application for any degree. I was admitted as a research student at the University of St Andrews in November 2015. I, Mariko Okawa, received assistance in the writing of this thesis in respect of language, grammar, spelling and syntax, which was provided by Dr Hannah Grenham. I confirm that no funding was received for this work. Date Signature of candidate Supervisor's declaration I hereby certify that the candidate has fulfilled the conditions of the Resolution and Regulations appropriate for the degree of PhD in the University of St Andrews and that the candidate is qualified to submit this thesis in application for that degree. Date Signature of supervisor 3 September 2020 Permission for publication In submitting this thesis to the University of St Andrews we understand that we are giving permission for it to be made available for use in accordance with the regulations of the University Library for the time being in force, subject to any copyright vested in the work not being affected thereby. We also understand, unless exempt by an award of an embargo as requested below, that the title and the abstract will be published, and that a copy of the work may be made and supplied to any bona fide library or research worker, that this thesis will be electronically accessible for personal or research use and that the library has the right to ii migrate this thesis into new electronic forms as required to ensure continued access to the thesis. I, Mariko Okawa, confirm that my thesis does not contain any third-party material that requires copyright clearance. The following is an agreed request by candidate and supervisor regarding the publication of this thesis: Printed copy No embargo on print copy. Electronic copy No embargo on electronic copy. Date Signature of candidate Date Signature of supervisor 3 September 2020 iii Underpinning Research Data or Digital Outputs Candidate's declaration I, Mariko Okawa, hereby certify that no requirements to deposit original research data or digital outputs apply to this thesis and that, where appropriate, secondary data used have been referenced in the full text of my thesis. Date Signature of candidate iv CONTENTS Abstract ......................................................................................................................... 1 Introduction .................................................................................................................. 2 1. Queenship and Gender in the Age of Melbourne ....................................................... 21 1.1 A Positive Synergy: Constitutional Monarchy and Womanhood …………………………………….…… 23 1.2 The Public Feminisation of the Sovereign …………………………………………………………………….…….. 43 1.3 The Personal Relationship between the Female Sovereign and her Male Minister .……….…… 61 2. Queenship and Gender in the Age of Disraeli ............................................................. 85 2.1 A Positive Synergy: Constitutional Monarchy and Womanhood ..……………………….…….…….…..87 2.2 The Public Feminisation of the Sovereign ………………………………………………………………….….…… 103 2.3 The Personal Relationship between the Female Sovereign and her Male Minister ……….…… 118 3. Queenship and Gender in the Age of Salisbury .......................................................... 136 3.1 The Public Feminisation of the Sovereign ………………………………………………………………….…..….. 138 3.2 A Positive Synergy: Constitutional Monarchy and Womanhood ………………………………….….…. 156 3.3 The Personal Relationship between the Female Sovereign and her Male Minister …….………. 173 Conclusion .................................................................................................................... 188 Bibliography ................................................................................................................. 193 v Abstract This thesis explores Queen Victoria’s queenship in nineteenth-century Britain, with a particular emphasis on the impact of her gender on her relationship with the Prime Minister in the context of the development of a constitutional monarchy operating alongside a growth in parliamentary democracy. It will be argued that various sections of society regarded her gender as a positive resource for (re)fashioning the modern form of Britain’s monarchy. Femaleness was presented as facilitating orderly progress. Victoria’s queenship was not only operated by the Queen herself, but also by actors surrounding her showing an active interest in and support for the monarchical institution. Agents such as members of her court, her dynastic relatives and immediate family, Prime Ministers, and a growing and increasingly active public audience (not least the print media) shaped and influenced the style of her rule. This thesis is structured chronologically, ranging from her early years, via the middle period until the last decades of her reign. Each chapter focuses on the premiership of one of three selected Prime Ministers while simultaneously engaging with three overarching themes (the notion of a symbiosis between femaleness of the sovereign and constitutional monarchy; the public feminisation of the monarch; the personal relationship between the Queen and the Prime Minister), thereby illuminating the transformations of the gender dimension of Victoria’s queenship over the course of her reign. By analysing Victoria’s queenship through the lens of her relationship with her male chief ministers, this thesis seeks to shed light on the significance and wider implications of the sovereign’s gender on the evolving functions of Britain’s constitutional monarchy within the nation’s culture, society, political system, and Empire. The thesis contributes to scholarly debates surrounding Britain’s monarchical persistence and popularity in a democratic age and to scholarship on women’s and gender history as well as on modern queenship. 1 Introduction “Probably no Sovereign who had ever reigned combined in such a happy proportion masculine strength and tenacity of will with feminine tenderness”, The Times declared when reflecting on the death of Queen Victoria in 1901. The great monarch had undoubtedly “won the universally acknowledged title of the Best Sovereign”.1 More than a decade earlier, the bishop of St Andrews, Charles Wordsworth, had also focused on gender to extol the Queen’s qualities and their effect upon her subjects. Addressing the girls of St Leonard’s School on the occasion of the monarch’s Golden Jubilee in 1887, he pointed out that “the marked success of a female Sovereign upon the throne ha[d] tended to draw attention to the talents and capacities of women […] in a degree, and to an extent, unknown before in the history of civilized life .. [T]he fact that a woman should so acquit herself in the seat of sovereignty […] has tended to raise the general estimation of her Sex, and to place it in more just relations with its stronger counterpart”.2 As these quotations suggest, the story of Victoria’s queenship was narrated frequently not just in relation to her gender but also in terms of a new style of rule. Several nineteenth- century commentators believed that there existed a positive correlation between these two dimensions. “A great Queen” should tell her people, Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country recommended in 1868, “if she was every inch a queen, she was also every inch a woman”.3 Despite contemporaries’ awareness of a link between Victoria’s success as a ruler and her femaleness, though, this connection has scarcely been investigated by historians. Against the background of the domestic and imperial prosperity, cultural power, and national self- confidence that Britain achieved in the course of Victoria’s reign, both her paradoxical position at the pinnacle of a male-dominated society and the nature of her queenship – as opposed to kingship – merit an in-depth examination. To address this lacuna this thesis provides a systematic investigation of the gendered dimension of Victoria’s queenship and of the significance of her gender in the context of the development of constitutional monarchy in nineteenth-century Britain. 1 The Times, 28 January 1901. 2 St Leonard’s School Gazette, vol. I:2 (July 1887), 17. 3 Fraser’s Magazine for Town and Country, “Leaves from the Journal of Our Life in the Highlands”, 77:458 (London, 1868), 154. 2 This study engages with concepts and theories established across three rich fields of historiographical