Read Online Censoring Queen Victoria by Yvonne M. Ward - Free Book Online Page B

interruptions to the work when the King visited Windsor, as the editors’ workrooms were required to accommodate the King’s retinue. Benson was relieved, however, that the work was at last underway. ‘Ihear the typewriter clicking next door,’ he reported with satisfaction.
    As there was no single repository for royal papers, aside from the limited storage space in the Royal Library (there was no Royal Archive yet) and the strong room, Benson and Esher soon realised that accurately ascertaining what material was available was going to be difficult. In addition to the 460 volumes that Benson had ‘roughly catalogued’ on that first day, additional boxes of letters were continually ‘being turned up’. Benson reported to Esher that Mr Vaughan, the library bookbinder, found letters from Queen Victoria’s eldest daughter, Empress Frederick, in a box on the landing by his window; other boxes were discovered in a stone vault under the Grand Staircase in the Upper Ward of Windsor Castle, a building adjacent to the Round Tower. More letters from Victoria’s uncle, King Leopold I of the Belgians, arrived just as Benson was getting the first batch straight, which was ‘rather a ghastly business’. ‘Are there any more papers among those which came out of the Library which concern us?’ he asked Esher. The problem was so acute that by the first week of March 1904, Benson conceded, ‘I am very grateful now the King vetoed applying for private papers’; the documents already in royal possession would keep them busy enough.
    In these early days, the editors decided to ignore ‘a very large series of volumes entitled GERMANY, which we decided would be foreign to our purpose’, and, rather strangely, the papers of the Prince Consort. Later Benson had second thoughts and ‘glanced through 2 or 3 volumes and found some very important and interesting things … so I am working through them’. Following this discovery, Benson suggested to Esher that although it would cause some delay, they must also go through Albert’s papers, ‘as it seemshe annexed drafts and letters [of Queen Victoria’s correspondence] for his collection’. Both editors admired Prince Albert’s ‘industry and intelligence’. There is no evidence that they ever requested materials from other archives or European courts or that they even thought of doing so. They were Englishmen, and did not recognise the extent to which Victoria had been a European.
    Accessing materials could be difficult. Vaughan, as well as being the bookbinder, was the custodian of the keys to various locked volumes of letters, and would only hand them over to Benson on Esher’s express orders. Benson had to ask Esher to intervene with the ‘incorruptible Vaughan’ on several occasions. For example:
    Would you kindly authorise Vaughan to let me have the series of the Queen’s letters to the King of the Belgians, of which I already have 7 vols? … Also would you instruct him just to see that there are no papers dating back earlier than 1844. We shall soon have the material made up; and it would be a bore if a new lot were to be plumped on the scales!
    After the letters were located, they were catalogued, and then Benson made his selections. These selections were typed, or ‘copied’ as Benson called it, and assembled into chronological order. From these typed copies Benson, and later Childers, had to identify the individuals mentioned and contextualise the contents in order to judge their significance. Benson then made further selections and excisions, and the letters were retyped and sent to Esher for further editing. Benson agreed that he would then ‘go through the whole thing again very carefully and follow your [Esher’s] directions’before the letters were retyped and sent to John Murray for printing. (This constant retyping was necessary to ensure