Cover story / Queen of spies
Victoria needed
intelligence not
only to protect her
dynasty but also
to protect herself
GETTY^ IMAGESI
n early 1886, Lord Rosebery, the
incoming foreign secretary, waited
nervously to meet Queen Victoria.
He was a liberal politician in his
thirties; she had been on the
throne for almost half a century.
As the door swung open, Victoria- vastly experienced and unafraid to express
her opinion – began lecturing him on exactly
what his foreign policy should be. She “urged
him not to bring too many matters before the
cabinet, as nothing was decided there”.
Instead, he should “discuss every thing with
me and Mr Gladstone”, the prime minister,
privately. She told him that she “frequently
had intelligence of a secret nature, which it
would be useful and interesting for him to
hear, and which came from a reliable source”.
Queen Victoria recorded this extraordi-
nary conversation in her diaries. Recently
digitised, these paint the monarch in a
remarkable new light, revealing her role as
royal spymaster. Over her long reign, Victoria
developed an extensive royal intelligence
network involving her relatives across
Europe, from Prussia to Spain. She used this
royal intelligence to help successive govern-
ments manoeuvre in the complex world of
19th-century European politics.
At least, she did so when it suited her.
Whenever ministerial policies clashed with
her own dynastic interests, she did not
hesitate to use these sources to outmanoeuvre
her own governments. Far from the dour
figure she’s commonly portrayed as today,
clad all in black and locked away at Windsor,
Victoria was in fact an adept intelligence
gatherer, a covert operator, an analyst and
an intelligence consumer all rolled into one.
She was the queen of spies.
Dark arts
Victoria was only 18 years old when she
became queen in 1837, and had led a sheltered
childhood. As she reached adulthood,
though, her uncle Leopold, king of the
Belgians, tutored her in some of the darker
arts of foreign affairs. In one early lesson on
deception operations, he told her that states
often intercepted, read and resealed letters.
As queen, Victoria could exploit this by
writing letters in such a way as to send
a deliberate message – accurate or otherwise
- to an intercepting state.
For Victoria, this was personal. On
taking the throne, she reigned over a vast
chasm of spylessness. The Metropolitan
Police did not create its first small detective
branch until 1842, and the Secret Service
Bureau, the forerunner of MI5 and MI6,
was still decades away. Her public thought
espionage too continental for their tastes,
associating it with despots and secret police.
Of course, Victoria herself had many
continental connections – and she needed
intelligence not only to protect her dynasty
but also to protect herself.
In the early evening of 10 June 1840, a
carriage carrying Victoria and Albert left
Buckingham Palace through the garden gate.
As they headed towards Constitution Hill,
Victoria “was deafened by the loud report of
a pistol”. “Our carriage,” she wrote in her
diary that night, “involuntarily stopped.”
On the path beside them she saw “a little
man”, his arms “folded over his breast, a
pistol in each hand ”. Quick ly, the attacker
aimed again, and Victoria ducked as “another
shot... equally loud instantly followed”.
“My God!” Albert exclaimed, before
quickly regaining his composure and turning
to Victoria to tell her: “Don’t be alarmed.”
She assured him that she was “not the least
frightened” and, as police arrived to seize the
assailant, Albert ordered the driver to carry
on as if nothing had happened.
The queen was morbidly fascinated by the
incident. Over the following days she played
forensic detective, examining a nearby wall
for bullet marks, speaking at length with the
prime minister about the specific bullet used
and the height and direction it travelled, and
inspecting the pistols that “might have
finished me off & perhaps Albert too”.
She insisted on being updated about the
investigation, and learned that the police(QTGKIPCʘCKTU
Lord Roseber y in the late 19th centur y. As foreign
secretary, he was schooled by Queen Victoria in
handling foreign policy and intelligence