Flora Hastings

William Skelton : Lady Flora Hastings, oil on canvas, around 1836

Lady Flora Elizabeth Rawdon-Hastings , also known as Lady Flora Hastings (born February 11, 1806 at Loudoun Castle near Galston , East Ayrshire , † July 5, 1839 in Buckingham Palace , London ) was a British noblewoman and lady-in-waiting ( Mistress of the Robes ) Victoria of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld , Duchess of Kent , whose daughter Victoria was British Queen from 1837.

The unjustified prejudice for an alleged illegitimate pregnancy triggered the "Flora-Hastings Affair" in 1839, which cost the young Queen Victoria public respect and sympathy in her second year of reign.

origin

Lady Flora Hastings' family comes from the Scottish - English aristocracy . She was the eldest daughter of Francis Rawdon-Hastings, 1st Marquess of Hastings (1754-1826), a British General and Governor General of India , and his wife, Lady Flora Mure-Campbell (1780-1840), who later became the 6th Countess of Loudoun . She received a comprehensive and excellent education, spoke several foreign languages ​​and showed an interest in literature , music and painting . She was a regular guest at Queen Adelaide's receptions while her brother was one of the Gentlemen of the Bedchamber to King William IV .

Role in the Kensington system

Sir John Conroy. 1837

In February 1834, Flora Hastings was officially appointed lady-in-waiting to the widowed Duchess of Kent. The historian Kathryn Hughes points out, however, that Flora Hastings was not intended to be a companion of the Duchess, but to grow into the role of a confidant of the prospective heir to the throne Victoria and thus weaken the influence of her tutor and close confidante Louise Lehzen . Flora Hastings was part of the so-called Kensington system with which John Conroy , the administrator of Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent and Strathearn , who died in 1820 , wanted to influence the Duchess family. Since the Duke of Kent's death, Conroy insisted that the marriages of the Duke's older brothers would remain childless and that Princess Victoria would succeed on the British throne. Given the old age of the brothers, this would probably be done at a time when the princess was still underage. In this case, the Duchess of Kent would most likely be appointed British regent, who would rule in place of her underage daughter. Because of the great influence that Conroy had on the Duchess of Kent, this would indirectly secure him influence and power. Conroy therefore did everything in his power to isolate the Duchess and her daughter from other court circles as far as possible. His influence on the duchess was so great that, with a few exceptions, the Duchess's household was almost exclusively composed of people selected by Conroy.

Experienced in courtly manners, Flora Hastings was one of the people carefully selected by John Conroy and was hired after court circles complained about the poor manners of Princess Victoria. The Conroy and Hastings families had long been closely related. Conroy's brother had been his aide de camp during the time Lord Hastings was Governor General of India . Both had been embroiled in a financial scandal that damaged their reputations. Both families also felt they were being exploited by the British Crown: 20 years before Flora Hastings took over as lady-in-waiting in the household of the Duchess of Kent, Lord Hasting had personally lent the Prince Regent George such a large sum of money that the Hastings family would not repay it drove to the brink of ruin. Similarly, Conroy did not feel adequately appreciated for his service to the immediate family of the heir to the throne.

The prospective heir to the throne, on the other hand, was one of the people who rejected Conroy, along with her tutor. Princess Victoria also transferred this refusal to Flora Hastings, who she now accompanied on behalf of the Duchess of Kent alongside her tutor Louise Lehzen and who was classified by the princess as a spy.

As it became increasingly likely that King William would live long enough for Princess Victoria to come of age when she ascended the British throne, John Conroy attempted in the course of 1835 to force the Princess to sign a document which she would receive upon her accession to the throne Appointment as private secretary to the queen assured. The role of private secretary in a royal household was one of the most influential positions a commoner or petty aristocrat could attain at the time. With the support of her governess Louise Lehzen, the princess opposed this signature, which led to a break between the princess and her mother and everyone associated with her household.

Accession to the throne of Victoria

Queen Victoria in coronation regalia, painting from 1838

Victoria's uncle William died in June 1837, just a few weeks after his heir to the throne was 18 years of age and therefore of age. Queen Victoria used her new independence to evade the dominant influence of her mother and especially John Conroys. Her mother was only given the role at court that protocol provided for her. She moved out of Kensington Palace with her daughter , but was housed in a wing at Buckingham Palace , which was far from the young Queen's private quarters. Mother and daughter only saw each other on official occasions and always in the presence of other people. Conroy received no official position at court and was deliberately not even invited to the coronation celebrations in 1838. But he remained a member of the household of the Duchess of Kent. Louise Lehzen, on the other hand, was entrusted with the management of the royal household and now acted as "Lady Attendant" of the young Queen.

Twenty-six women were appointed society ladies to the young queen. With the exception of Mary Davis, daughter of the Bishop of Peterborough , the young Queen's society ladies came exclusively from aristocratic families close to the Whigs' party . Flora Hastings, on the other hand, was told unequivocally that her services as companion of the young queen were not desired. Like Conroy, however, she remained a member of the household of the Duchess of Kent and also moved to Buckingham Palace. The resetting that both John Conroy and Flora Hastings experienced strengthened the bond between them. In a letter towards the end of the summer of 1837, Conroy confided to her how much it hurt him that Queen Victoria and her Prime Minister Lord Melbourne refused to give him a peer review and thereby the recognition of his services to the family of the Duchess of Kent. The otherwise rather reserved Flora Hastings was deeply touched by this vote of confidence, called Conroy her closest friend in her reply and noted how much he reminded her of her father, who had also been wronged so much on the royal side.

Flora Hastings performed her job intermittently, as is customary for ladies-in-waiting. She spent several months with her widowed mother in Scotland and then lived in the Duchess household for several months. Flora Hastings returned to Scotland in August 1837 and did not return to the British court until April 1838. Upon her return, Queen Victoria wrote in her diary:

“I warned [Lord Melbourne] that Lady Flora was an amazing spy who would pass on everything she heard and that he should be more careful what he said in her presence. He replied, "I'll take care of it" and we both agreed that it was very uncomfortable to have her back in the house. "

The Flora Hastings Affair

The suspicion of pregnancy

Baroness Louise Lehzen (1842), closest confidante of the Queen of England

In August 1838, Flora Hastings traveled again to her family, who had their ancestral home in Loudon Castle near the town of Kilmarnock in south-west Scotland. She stayed there until Christmas and became increasingly sickly. Despite her compromised constitution, she undertook the four-day return trip to London at the beginning of 1839: Lady Mary Stopford, with whom Flora Hastings shared service with the Duchess of Kent, was seriously ill with tuberculosis and the Duchess had no lady-in-waiting. From January 10, 1839 she was back at Buckingham Palace. On the day of her return, she turned to James Clark, the personal physician of both Queen Victoria and the Duchess of Kent, because she was suffering from pain in the left side of her body and her stomach was badly swollen. Clark, who examined Flora Hastings while she was fully clothed as usual, prescribed her a cure for constipation.

From Queen Victoria's diary entries it emerges that the very swollen belly of the otherwise slim lady in waiting aroused the suspicion in her and her confidante Luise Lehzen that Lady Flora was pregnant. On February 2, the Queen also recorded in her diary that she suspected John Conroy to be the father. Lady Flora was not entirely innocent of this suspicion - the good relationship between the lady-in-waiting and Conroy had been a topic of discussion at court for a long time. In addition, on her last departure for Scotland, Flora Hastings had only John Conroy accompany her in a carriage from the Palace to the Port of London, where she boarded the steamboat for Edinburgh. Historian Kathryn Hughes explains the comparatively unusual step of sharing a carriage with an unrelated male person without another decent person with the fact that Flora Hastings already felt like an old woman at the age of 32 and saw the married Conroy as a fatherly friend. who makes a decent person unnecessary. This is also indicated by a letter in which Flora Hastings's mother thanks the Conroy couple for the care they have given to their daughter.

Reactions at court

In contrast to the rule of her predecessors - the love life of her predecessor George IV is caricatured here - the rule of Queen Victoria should be above moral doubts. The supposed pregnancy of Lady Flora jeopardized this reputation and threatened to harm those who served at her court

Queen Victoria soon shared her suspicion of Lady Flora with her Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne. He did little to prevent the Queen from spreading the rumor. All he advised in early February was to just wait - time would tell if Lady Flora was really pregnant. From the point of view of Lord Melbourne, the main thing was to avoid a scandal that could affect the Queen. In newspapers that were close to the political opposition, there were already increasing numbers of critical comments to be read about how the very young queen had evaded her mother's influence.

At this point, however, this possible pregnancy was already being discussed at the court. Lady Tavistock , the highest-ranking lady-in-waiting in the Queen's entourage, who resumed her service at the end of January after a long absence, found the lady-in-waiting present in great excitement. Charles Grenville, as secretary of the Privy Council, witnessed numerous events at the British royal court, noted in his diary that the other ladies-in-waiting asked Lady Tavistock to do everything possible to protect her reputation from damage caused by an illegitimate pregnancy of Lady Flora.

Kathryn Hughes points out that this concern only seems strange from today's point of view, but was well-founded at the time. Under Queen Victoria's predecessors George and William, life at court was considered morally dubious. George had permanently damaged the reputation of the British crown through his dissolute and extravagant lifestyle, the broken relationship with his father, his secret marriage to the twice widowed Maria Fitzherbert and the spectacularly failed attempt to dissolve his marriage with his cousin Caroline von Braunschweig . His younger brother William, who succeeded him on the throne, never shed his coarse sailor manners, was harsh to the point of rudeness and informal to the point of vulgarity. The accession to the throne by the virgin Victoria was to be a new beginning for British court life. An illegitimate pregnancy of one of the court ladies living at court would, however, be a clear indication that there was no less morally dubious behavior there than among Victoria's predecessors and would actually have damaged the reputation of all the women who served at this court.

The confrontation on February 16, 1839

James Clark, the Queen's personal physician, portrait from 1870

James Clark continued to act as Lady Flora's general practitioner and checked regularly on his patient. In February he advised her to have him examine her while she was partially undressed. There is evidence that this happened because, influenced by the court gossip, he did not rule out pregnancy. Lady Flora resolutely rejected this request. When the Queen found out about this, she sent Lady Portman, whom she particularly valued, to James Clark to give him the task of confronting Lady Flora with the suspicion of pregnancy. The delicate question of a secret pregnancy should be brought to her with the question of whether she would be privately married - a formulation suggested by Louise Lehzen.

There are different statements about how this confrontation went on February 16. James Clarke always insisted that he asked the secret marriage question politely and tactfully. Lady Flora, however, insisted that James Clark had entered her premises excitedly and without any notice. Regardless of the atmosphere in which the encounter took place, it was immediately apparent to Lady Flora that the question of a secret marriage meant that she was suspected of having an illegitimate pregnancy. Lady Flora decidedly rejected this suspicion and pointed out that she had only recently had a menstrual period - an unusually frank admission for a doctor at the time. She also pointed out that if he as her doctor had paid more attention to her, he would probably have noticed that the swelling would have receded that far. In the meantime she even had to have some clothes sewn closer again. After Lady Flora's account of the confrontation, James Clark became rude and argued that the other ladies-in-waiting were of the opinion that their size was increasing daily. He urged her to immediately admit that this was the only way to save herself. Upon Lady Flora's refusal to admit pregnancy, he demanded an immediate thorough medical examination to reassure the rest of the ladies-in-waiting and remove any shadow on her name. In denial of the source of the suspicion, Clark also pointed out that this investigation was necessary because the Queen had already been informed of the scandal.

The court rumor becomes official

Victoria, Duchess of Kent, painting by George Hayter , 1835

Lady Flora responded to the allegations made by James Clark by immediately taking a carriage to see John Conroy. Conroy, who had long been informed of the allegations through his network at court, was aware of how this act could be interpreted and made sure that it returned immediately to Buckingham Palace. There she was told that by order of the Queen she would be excluded from all court activities until it was proven that she was not expecting a child. Lady Portman prohibited the other ladies-in-waiting from dealing with Lady Flora. The lady-in-waiting, Spring Rice, daughter of Baron Monteagle of Brandon , who wanted to see what she was doing, had no choice but to send a message by post to Lady Flora, who lived in the other wing of Buckingham Palace.

Queen Victoria also had her mother informed on February 16 that her lady-in-waiting was suspected of being pregnant. The Duchess of Kent was appalled at this suspicion, but did not doubt Lady Flora's innocence. In a later letter to Lady Hastings, Lady Flora's mother, she stated that she had no doubt that the allegations were in fact directed against her. She considered the desired intimate examination to be a humiliation, and she urgently advised her lady-in-waiting not to undergo it.

The medical examination on February 17, 1839

On the afternoon of February 17th, Lady Flora announced that she was ready to submit to the investigation. The fact that Sir Charles Clarke was an experienced obstetrician and the personal physician of the Queen Dowager Adelheid , whose numerous miscarriages had ultimately led to Queen Victoria's accession to the throne , also contributed to her decision .

There are contradicting statements about the process of the following investigation: The main sources are a report by James Clark, which he wrote after Flora Hastings death, as well as an affidavit by Caroline Reichenbach, the Swiss chambermaid of the lady-in-waiting, who took it on July 23, 1839. According to James Clarke, Sir Charles gave Lady Flora one last chance to admit she was pregnant. Lady Flora not only refused, but also asked that Lady Portman, whom Lady Flora referred to as her accuser, be called to witness the investigation. According to Caroline Reichenbach's testimony, after Lady Flora's energetic rejection of a pregnancy, Charles Clarke was ready to certify that there was no pregnancy. Contrary to what James Clark claimed in his later notes of the events, according to Caroline Reichenbach's testimony, James Clark insisted on the investigation, which, as understood at the time, was deeply humiliating. It took place in the maid's bedroom in the presence of her maid and Lady Portman. Lady Flora had to take off her underwear, but not her skirts, and lay on her bed during the examination. Both doctors inserted their fingers into Lady Flora's vagina during the 45-minute exam to see if the uterus was enlarged, as would be expected with a second trimester pregnancy.

In the face of such examinations, the medical journal The Lancet stated in 1850 that a woman who had to undergo one was no longer the same in sensitivity and purity as before. Only prostitutes, who were considered depraved by their way of life, were assumed to survive such examinations without harm. According to Caroline Reichenbach, Lady Flora found the investigation by James Clark in particular to be a great torment and was close to fainting at the end of it. Both doctors found an enlarged abdomen during their examination. There is no evidence that pregnancy is or has ever been. In a separate note, Charles Clarke also noted that Lady Flora was a virgin. In a conversation with Lord Melbourne the next morning, however, they discover that it is theoretically possible that Lady Flora could be pregnant despite her virginity. It was assumed that petting male semen got into her vagina and fertilization occurred.

Official rehabilitation

Wax seal on a letter written by Lady Flora

The partial withdrawal of the certificate by the two doctors Clark and Clarke led to the fact that an inner circle of the court consisting of the Queen, Lord Melbourne, Baroness Lehzen and Lady Portman were still convinced of a pregnancy. Lady Portman in particular, who was pregnant with her fifth child, was certain that Lady Flora's sluggish walk could only be explained in this way. However, due to the official attestation, Lady Flora's banishment from the activities of the royal court had to be lifted. The Duchess of Kent, always convinced of the innocence of her lady-in-waiting, dismissed James Clark as her personal physician. She asked her daughter to do the same, but she refused.

While Lady Flora accepted Lady Portman's official apology on the evening of February 17th, she made Queen Victoria wait a week until she was ready to meet. There are also different statements about this meeting. Queen Victoria noted in her diary that, for the sake of the Duchess of Kent, Lady Flora was ready to forgive and forget everything. According to a letter that Lady Flora wrote to her sister Sophia on the evening of the meeting, the encounter was more confrontational: Among other things, she accused the Queen of having found her guilty from the outset.

John Conroy and the Hastings Family Response

John Conroy saw the Lady Flora affair as his last chance to make the Duchess of Kent co-regent or even regent and thus gain power and influence herself: The questionable dealings with Lady Flora should serve as evidence that the 19- year-old queen was not only unable to run her own court without the guidance of an elderly person, but even more so an entire country. He urged the Duchess of Kent to ensure that the affair would continue to be discussed in court circles. He worked on the Hastings family to seek satisfaction as publicly as possible.

George Rawdon-Hastings, 2nd Marquess of Hastings, brother of Lady Flora, (1843)

The anger of Lady Flora's mother and her sister Sophie was primarily directed against James Clark, whom they saw as an instrument of intrigue against their relatives. On March 7th, Lady Hastings wrote to the Queen of Britain, demanding the immediate discharge of the personal physician. As the veteran Duke of Wellington pointed out, firing the royal personal physician will only draw the public's attention to the affair. When dismissal was refused, Lady Flora's brother, the young Marquess of Hastings, traveled to London, challenged Lord Melbourne to a duel, forced an audience with the Queen, and threatened Lady Tavistock and Lady Portman with trial if they did not reveal who started the rumor of Lady Flora's pregnancy. The commitment to his sister ensured that the affair was also discussed outside of the immediate British court circles. Since no one was dismissed from his court job because of character assassination, it seemed obvious to many that Lady Flora was actually pregnant and that they wanted to cover up the affair. At the Brussels court, with his close contacts with the British court, Baron Stockmar , King Leopold's close confidante , even spread the rumor that it was already the second illegitimate child that Lady Flora was expecting. She was said to have given birth to her first child between August 1837 and April 1838, when she was staying with her family away from the British royal court.

As the rumors surrounding Lady Flora became more and more fanciful, John Conroy arranged for an article to appear in the British newspaper Age on March 24th accusing the Queen and Baroness Lehzen of forcing the innocent Lady Flora to undergo the humiliating gynecological examination. On the same day an article appeared in the Examinier in which Hamilton Fitzgerald, an uncle in law of Lady Flora, defended his niece. Fitzgerald avoided directly accusing the queen of wrongdoing, but hinted that the queen had been instrumented by a court camarilla and was meanwhile deeply regretting this. While the atmosphere at the British court became more and more icy, there was increasing speculation that Lady Portland would be fired and the Duchess of Kent refused to appear in public with Lady Tavistock, the British press eagerly took up the affair.

The long dying

After Lady Flora's mother had given her correspondence with the Prime Minister to the Tory-friendly press, Lord Melbourne had been publicly linked to what was going on at the palace. Only the birth of a child from Lady Flora could have rehabilitated him, but the fact that this was not to be expected had now got around despite the incompetence of the doctors. Attempts have been made to shift all responsibility for the way Lady Flora was treated on Baroness Lehzen as the originator of the rumor of Conroy's paternity. But the carelessness with which Melbourne thought about it, and the heartlessness which Victoria showed even on the lady-in-waiting's deathbed, can hardly be denied. Lady Flora Hastings died on July 5th. The autopsy revealed a protracted liver problem; what court gossip had mistaken for pregnancy was a malignant polyp .

literature

• Carolly Erickson: Queen Victoria. A biography . Piper Verlag, Munich 2001, ISBN 3-492-23286-8 .
• Kathryn Hughes: Victorians Undone: Tales of the Flesh in the Age of Decorum . 4th Estate, London 2017, ISBN 978-0-00-754837-8 .
• Jürgen Lotz: Victoria . Rowohlt Verlag, Reinbek 2000, ISBN 3-499-50627-0 .
• Paul David Nelson: Francis Rawdon-Hastings, Marquess of Hastings. Soldier, peer of the realm, Governor-General of India . Fairleigh Dickinson University Press, Madison NJ 2005, ISBN 0-8386-4071-0 .
• Karl Heinz Wocker: Queen Victoria. The story of an age . Heyne, Munich 1989, ISBN 3-453-55072-2 .

Web links

• The Tragedy of Lady Flora Elizabeth Rawdon Hastings (English)
• Lady Flora Hastings (English)
• Campbells of Loudoun (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Flora Elizabeth Rawdon-Hastings on thepeerage.com , accessed September 15, 2016.
2. ↑ Flora Campbell on thepeerage.com , accessed September 15, 2016.
3. ↑ Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 217.
4. ↑ Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 190.
5. ↑ Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 210.
6. ↑ Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 356.
7. ↑ Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 225.
8. ^ ^{A b} Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 371.
9. ^ ^{A b} Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 239.
10. ↑ Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 325.
11. ↑ Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 339.
12. ^ ^{A b} Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 514.
13. ↑ Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 521.
14. ↑ Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 542.
15. ↑ Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 507.
16. ^ ^{A b} Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 581.
17. ↑ Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 574.
18. ↑ Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 588.
19. ↑ Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 595.
20. ↑ Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 604.
21. ^ ^{A b} Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 674.
22. ↑ Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 660.
23. ↑ Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 667.
24. ↑ Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 679.
25. ↑ Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 693.
26. ^ The Lancet, June 8, 1850: On the Use and Abuse of the Speculum . Quoted from Hughes: The Victorians Undone . The original quote is: The female who has been subjected to such treatment is not the same person in delicacy and purity that she was before .
27. ↑ Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 742.
28. ↑ Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 762.
29. ↑ Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 769.
30. ↑ ^{a b c} Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 769.
31. ↑ Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 800.
32. ↑ Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 823.
33. ↑ Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 835.
34. ↑ Hughes: The Victorians Undone . Chapter: Lady Flora's body , Ebook position 863.