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Chapters (54)
  1. Cover
  2. The Summer Queen
  3. Dedication Page
  4. Family Tree of King George III
  5. Family Tree of Queen Victoria
  6. PART ONE
  7. Chapter One
  8. Chapter Two
  9. Chapter Three
  10. Chapter Four
  11. Chapter Five
  12. Chapter Six
  13. Chapter Seven
  14. Chapter Eight
  15. Chapter Nine
  16. Chapter Ten
  17. Chapter Eleven
  18. Chapter Twelve
  19. Chapter Thirteen
  20. PART TWO
  21. Chapter Fourteen
  22. Chapter Fifteen
  23. Chapter Sixteen
  24. Chapter Seventeen
  25. Chapter Eighteen
  26. Chapter Nineteen
  27. Chapter Twenty
  28. Chapter Twenty-One
  29. Chapter Twenty-Two
  30. Chapter Twenty-Three
  31. Chapter Twenty-Four
  32. PART THREE
  33. Chapter Twenty-Five
  34. Chapter Twenty-Six
  35. Chapter Twenty-Seven
  36. Chapter Twenty-Eight
  37. Chapter Twenty-Nine
  38. Chapter Thirty
  39. Chapter Thirty-One
  40. Chapter Thirty-Two
  41. PART FOUR
  42. Chapter Thirty-Three
  43. Chapter Thirty-Four
  44. Chapter Thirty-Five
  45. Chapter Thirty-Six
  46. Chapter Thirty-Seven
  47. Chapter Thirty-Eight
  48. Chapter Thirty-Nine
  49. Chapter Forty
  50. Chapter Forty-One
  51. Acknowledgements
  52. Select Bibliography
  53. The Summer Queen
  54. By Margaret Pemberton

In normal circumstances Queen Victoria was an indulgent grandmother – something her government ministers, accustomed only to her stubbornness and her refusal to compromise, would have found hard to believe. Ella, well aware that there was another side to Granny Queen and that she was about to be faced with it, steeled herself for the coming storm as the doors of a nearby drawing room closed behind the three of them.

Seating herself in an armchair and looking as imperious as if the chair were her coronation throne, the Queen fixed the son-in-law she had previously always regarded with deep affection with gimlet-hard eyes.

‘Never,’ she said emphatically, ‘never, Ludwig, have my wishes been so disregarded! For you not to have informed me beforehand about the announcement is such a breach of bad manners and protocol it takes my breath away. You know my feelings, where Russia and the Romanovs are concerned. You know that I had a far different match in mind for Ella. And yet, without taking into account my wishes, you have sanctioned an engagement between Ella and a Romanov – a Romanov who, I have on good authority, is so autocratic as to be regarded in St Petersburg and Moscow as a tyrant! And now I wish to speak with Ella – and I will speak to her on her own.’

Summarily dismissed and looking unnaturally pale, the Grand Duke of Hesse shot a helpless look towards his daughter and beat a hasty retreat.

‘And now, Ella,’ the Queen said, striving for patience, ‘an explanation, if you please, as to why you have refused to consider either Willy or Eddy as a future husband and have instead settled on a Russian grand duke of dubious reputation.’

Ella regarded her grandmother gravely. ‘Because I know it is the right thing for me to do, Granny, and because I know that marrying Willy, or Eddy, would have been the wrong thing for me to do.’

It was said with such quiet certainty that Queen Victoria sensed she stood no chance of getting Ella to change her mind. Nevertheless there were things she wanted to say, and she was going to say them. She patted the footstool next to her chair and, when Ella had sat down upon it, took hold of her hand.