Cover

The Summer Queen

MARGARET PEMBERTON

Dedication Page

For my much-loved husband,
Mike, in the year of our Golden Wedding

Family Tree of King George III

Family Tree of Queen Victoria

PART ONE

VOWS

Chapter One

AUGUST 1879, OSBORNE HOUSE

Queen Victoria’s favourite summer residence stood on a high knoll overlooking the narrow sea channel separating the Isle of Wight from mainland England. Designed by her late beloved Albert, it had been built in the style of an Italian Renaissance palace and, with its cool spaciousness, cream-stone colonnades and balustraded terraces looking out over rolling lawns and light woodland to the glittering expanse of the sea, it was the perfect setting for family gatherings.

The gathering now taking place was one that Victoria held annually in the last week of August, for 26 August had been her beloved Albert’s birthday. Much to the relief of the vast number of children and grandchildren that the Dear Beloved had left behind him, and whose presence at Osborne was compulsory, the 26th had now come and gone. The mood had lightened and the English, Danish, German – and, in one instance, Russian – sides of the family were all enjoying catching up with each other’s news.

The day was blissfully hot and a light breeze from the sea was gently stirring the needles of a giant cedar. At the centrepiece of an immaculately manicured lawn on which a score of elegantly dressed couples were strolling, and where children were playing, the wide-spreading branches were giving shade to the Queen, who, small and squat and dressed entirely in black, was seated in a bath chair.

As always at the August get-together, the Queen was taking the opportunity of conducting a series of one-to-one in-depth chats with those members of her family who were approaching the age when a dynastic marriage for them needed arranging.

May Teck, who was twelve and too young for such a tête-à-tête, watched from a safe distance as sixteen-year-old Princess Victoria of Hesse and by Rhine was seated next to the bath chair while the Queen embarked on what, in her eyes, was a very necessary grandmotherly interrogation.

Hoping it would also be a gentle one, for Vicky’s mother had died only eight months earlier, May scanned the lawn in the hope of catching sight of Vicky’s slightly younger sister, Ella, and her much younger sister, seven-year-old Alicky.

Their bereaved father was standing nearby in conversation with the Prince of Wales. All children in the family referred to the adults as either Aunt or Uncle, no matter what their actual relationship to them was. So although the Prince of Wales was her second cousin, to May he was ‘Uncle Wales’ because of the age difference between them, just as the Queen was ‘Aunt Queen’.