the accession, her power had greatly increased. Besides
the undefined and enormous influence which she exercised through her
management of the Queen's private correspondence, she was now the
superintendent of the royal establishment and controlled the important
office of Privy Purse. Albert very soon perceived that he was not master
in his own house. Every detail of his own and his wife's existence was
supervised by a third person: nothing could be done until the consent
of Lehzen had first been obtained. And Victoria, who adored Lehzen with
unabated intensity, saw nothing in all this that was wrong.

Nor was the Prince happier in his social surroundings. A shy young
foreigner, awkward in ladies' company, unexpansive and self-opinionated,
it was improbable that, in any circumstances, he would have been a
society success. His appearance, too, was against him. Though in the
eyes of Victoria he was the mirror of manly beauty, her subjects, whose
eyes were of a less Teutonic cast, did not agree with her. To them--and
particularly to the high-born ladies and gentlemen who naturally saw him
most--what was immediately and distressingly striking in Albert's face
and figure and whole demeanour was his un-English look. His features
were regular, no doubt, but there was something smooth and smug about
them; he was tall, but he was clumsily put together, and he walked with
a slight slouch. Really, they thought, this youth was more like
some kind of foreign tenor than anything else. These were serious
disadvantages; but the line of conduct which the Prince adopted from
the first moment of his arrival was far from calculated to dispel
them. Owing partly to a natural awkwardness, partly to a fear of undue
familiarity, and partly to a desire to be absolutely correct, his
manners were infused with an extraordinary stiffness and formality.
Whenever he appeared in company, he seemed to be surrounded by a thick
hedge of prickly etiquette. He never went out into ordinary society; he
never walked in the streets of London; he was invariably accompanied by
an equerry when he rode or drove. He wanted to be irreproachable and, if
that involved friendlessness, it could not be helped. Besides, he had no
very high opinion of the English. So far as he could see, they cared for
nothing but fox-hunting and Sunday observances; they oscillated between
an undue frivolity and an undue gloom; if you spoke to them of friendly
joyousness they stared; and they