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Newspaper Representations of Queen Victoria’s Agency During the Hastings Scandal and Bedchamber Crisis of 1839 by Lacy Fidler B. A., University of Alberta, 2009 A Thesis Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of MASTER OF ARTS in the Department of History Lacy Fidler, 2013 University of Victoria All rights reserved. This thesis may not be reproduced in whole or in part, by photocopy or other means, without the permission of the author. ii Supervisory Committee Newspaper Representations of Queen Victoria’s Agency During the Hastings Scandal and Bedchamber Crisis of 1839 by Lacy Fidler B. A., University of Alberta, 2009 Supervisory Committee Dr. Simon Devereaux (Department of History) Supervisor Dr. Mariel Grant (Department of History) Departmental Member iii Abstract Supervisory Committee Dr. Simon Devereaux (Department of History) Supervisor Dr. Mariel Grant (Department of History) Departmental Member In 1839 Queen Victoria twice became the focus of a media maelstrom: In April, the publication of what came to be known as the Hastings Correspondence blamed the Queen for having taken part in the perceived persecution of Lady Flora Hastings. In May, Victoria's refusal to allow Sir Robert Peel to replace certain ladies of her bedchamber engineered Lord Melbourne's return as Prime Minister. Both of these events resulted in an outcry, both in opposition to the Queen and in support of her. Many historical works that deal with these events tend to recount them as either trivial anecdotes or as means to criticize Victoria's early years on the throne. However, some recent works have begun to rethink the condemnation of her actions. This paper reassesses Queen Victoria's role in the Hastings Scandal and the Bedchamber Crisis by examining how she was represented in certain London newspapers during these events. Instead of focusing on whether Victoria was right or wrong in pursuing the courses that she did, the emphasis is placed on how both the Tory newspapers, that opposed her actions, and the Whig newspapers, which supported her actions, sought to reduce the appearance of agency on Victoria's part. Papers of both political affiliations made constant reference to Victoria's youth, gender, and inexperience—all factors which also played into developing ideals regarding the roles of both the monarchy and women in the political process. The Hastings Scandal and the Bedchamber Crisis are placed squarely within the midst of these issues. The possibility of a young, unmarried, and female monarch making decisions independent of male political guidance caused unease among newspaper writers grappling with the early nineteenth century's colliding concepts of political reform and cultural ideals. iv Table of Contents Supervisory Committee ...................................................................................................... ii Abstract .............................................................................................................................. iii Table of Contents ............................................................................................................... iv Acknowledgments............................................................................................................... v Dedication .......................................................................................................................... vi Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1:The Hastings Correspondence.......................................................................... 26 Chapter 2: The Bedchamber Crisis ................................................................................... 44 Chapter 3: The Aftermath ................................................................................................. 80 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 107 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 112 v Acknowledgments I would like to acknowledge and thank the following people: My supervisor, Dr. Simon Devereaux, whose encouragement, advice, and good humour made this process even more enjoyable than I expected it to be; Heather Waterlander, for always providing administrative assistance in a most timely manner; my fellow M.A. students for cultivating such a welcoming and totally rad community; Albert Perreault, for joining me on this adventure and providing love, understanding, and patience; finally, the friends and family who supported me despite not quite understanding why I needed to venture away from home in order to write about a bunch of dead people. vi Dedication Dedicated to the memory of Ada Hailes. 1 Introduction On May 7th, 1839, Lord Melbourne's Whig ministry resigned its commission. The House of Commons had been debating a Bill that would have limited Jamaica's self-government and placed it more directly under British governance. The Whigs were continually voted down, and by May 7th they only had a majority of five in the House of Commons. They felt that this did not demonstrate a satisfactory measure of confidence in the government, which led to the decision to resign. Melbourne announced the resignation in the House of Lords, while Lord John Russell did the same in the House of Commons. Queen Victoria accepted Melbourne’s resignation and then summoned the Tory Duke of Wellington to discuss possible next steps. Though she initially wanted him to form a government, he felt that he was too old and recommended Sir Robert Peel for the job. Peel was accordingly sent for, and he accepted the offer to form a new government on May 8th. Scarcely two days later, Peel resigned his commission, and on the following day Melbourne was recalled. On May 13th and 14th, explanations for the strange turn of events were given by Peel and Russell in the House of Commons, and by Wellington and Melbourne in the House of Lords. Through their speeches and additional rumours that had already reached the papers, it was eventually revealed that on May 9th, Victoria had met with Peel and that they had disagreed on the subject of the Queen's household appointments. Victoria's ladies of the bedchamber were viewed as primarily loyal to the Whig party, whether through marriage or blood relation. Peel's fledgling Tory government did not have a decisive measure of support in the Commons and he wanted the Queen to show her support by replacing some of her ladies with women who had more obvious Tory connections. She refused, and he resigned out of frustration. 2 This so-called Bedchamber Affair followed closely on the heels of a previous set of events that came to be known as the Hastings Scandal. In February 1839, Lady Flora Hastings, a member of the household of Queen Victoria's mother, the Duchess of Kent, shared a carriage with Sir John Conroy, the comptroller of the Duchess' household, on a journey back from Scotland. In March Lady Flora was noted to have formed some swelling in her abdomen and palace gossips assumed that she was pregnant. A medical examination revealed that she was not: in fact, the swelling was a tumour that would kill her a few months later. However, the issue found its way into the press when Lady Flora's mother, brother, and uncle all published correspondence in the daily papers, starting in April and continuing after Lady Flora's death in July. It also happened that the Duchess of Kent and the Hastings family were strongly associated with the Tory party, while the Queen's ladies, thought to be behind the rumours surrounding Lady Flora, were tied to the Whigs. The party tensions stirred up by the Hastings Scandal were fanned into an all-out press war between the Whigs and the Tories during the Bedchamber Crisis, closely connecting these two conflicts at the beginning of Queen Victoria's reign. The Hastings Scandal and the Bedchamber Crisis have tended to be underestimated by historians. This is strange because, at the time, newspapers were consumed with the ordeal, obsessing over every aspect of it. Now, however, the crisis is generally only included in histories either as an example of how foolish Victoria was when she first came to the crown, or as a sort of morality tale on the dangers of untrained young women being in positions of power. As well, many histories still focus on who was right and who was wrong in the affair and continue to follow a general consensus with the line taken by the Tory newspapers at the time. Victoria was attacked for being callous about Lady Flora and for acting irresponsibly in refusing Peel's request; her political intentions were dismissed as the result of her inappropriate friendship with 3 Melbourne and unfounded dislike of Peel. These themes have endured in modern historiography on the subject. In examining the historiography relevant to this work, I have particularly analyzed the treatment of the main figures involved in both the Hastings Scandal and Bedchamber Crisis in biographical works, discussions and depictions of the relevance of Queen Victoria's gender in her personal and political life, and studies of the growth and power of the press as it related to the monarchy. ***** Elizabeth Longford is the author of one of the most highly-regarded biographies of Queen Victoria, and she set the standard for declaring the Bedchamber Crisis to be of more