LIFE OF HER MAJESTY
QUEEN VICTORIA.
[Illustration: HER MAJESTY, QUEEN VICTORIA.]
LIFE OF HER MAJESTY
QUEEN VICTORIA.
BY
MILLICENT GARRETT FAWCETT.
[Illustration: Decorative Image]
BOSTON:
ROBERTS BROTHERS.
1895.
_Copyright, 1895_,
BY ROBERTS BROTHERS.
_All rights reserved._
University Press:
JOHN WILSON AND SON, CAMBRIDGE, U.S.A.
PREFACE.
It would have been impossible, within the limits of this little book,
to narrate, even in barest outline, all the events of the Queen’s long
life and reign. In attempting to deal with so large a subject in so
short a space, I have therefore thought it best to dwell on what may
be considered the formative influences on the Queen’s character in her
early life, and in later years to refer only to political and personal
events, in so far as they illustrate her character and her conception
of her political functions. Even with this limitation, I am fully aware
how far short I have come of being able to produce a worthy record of
a noble life. I will only add that I begun this little book with a
feeling towards Her Majesty of sincere veneration and gratitude, and
that this feeling has been deepened by studying more closely than I had
done before the ideal place of the Crown in the English Constitution,
as a power above party, and the important part the Queen has taken now
for nearly sixty years in making this ideal a reality. It is not too
much to say that, by her sagacity and persistent devotion to duty, she
has created modern constitutionalism, and more than any other single
person has made England and the English monarchy what they now are.
A list of the books referred to will be found after the chronological
table. Among them it is almost unnecessary to say that I am especially
indebted to “The Early Years of the Prince Consort,” by General Grey,
and to “The Life of the Prince Consort,” by Sir Theodore Martin. I also
desire to express my respectful thanks to H. R. H. Princess Christian,
for help very graciously and kindly given in the selection of a
portrait for this little volume.
MILLICENT GARRETT FAWCETT.
_April, 1895._
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. THE QUEEN’S IMMEDIATE PREDECESSORS 9
II. CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION 28
III. ACCESSION TO THE THRONE 41
IV. LOVE AND POLITICS 56
V. ROCKS AHEAD 71
VI. THE PRINCE 79
VII. THE QUEEN AND PEEL 94
VIII. STOCKMAR 104
IX. THE NURSERY 119
X. HOME LIFE.--OSBORNE AND BALMORAL 132
XI. FORTY-THREE TO FORTY-EIGHT 144
XII. PALMERSTON 156
XIII. PEACE AND WAR 173
XIV. A NATION OF SHOPKEEPERS 192
XV. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH 201
XVI. DOMESTIC LIFE AFTER 1861 215
XVII. THE WARP AND WOOF OF HOME AND POLITICS 227
XVIII. THE QUEEN AND THE EMPIRE 244
CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE OF EVENTS 257
BOOKS OF REFERENCE 261
VICTORIA.
CHAPTER I.
THE QUEEN’S IMMEDIATE PREDECESSORS.
Every now and then, on the birth of a male heir to any of the great
historic kingdoms of Europe, the newspapers and the makers of public
speeches break forth into rejoicing and thanksgiving that the country
in question is secured from all the perils and evils supposed to be
associated with the reign of a female Sovereign. It is of little
importance, perhaps, that this attitude of mind conveys but a poor
compliment to our Queen and other living Queens and Queen Regents; but
it is not a little curious that the popular opinion to which these
articles and speeches give expression, namely, that the chances are
that any man will make a better Sovereign than any woman, is wholly
contrary to experience; it is hardly going too far to say that in every
country in which the succession to the Crown has been open to women,
some of the greatest, most capable, and most patriotic Sovereigns
have been queens. The names of Isabella of Spain, of Maria Theresa of
Austria, will rise in this connection to every mind; and, little as
she is to be admired as a woman, Catherine II. of Russia showed that
she thoroughly understood the art of reigning. Her vices would have
excited little remark had she been a king instead of a queen. It is
an unconscious tribute to the higher standard of conduct queens have
taught the world to expect from them, that while the historic muse
stands aghast at the private life of the Russian Empress, she is only
very mildly scandalized by a Charles V. or a Henry IV., thinking, with
much justice, that their great qualities as rulers serve to cover their
multitude of sins as private individuals. The brief which history could
produce on behalf of Queens, as successful rulers, can be argued also
from the negative side. The Salic law did not, to say the least, save
the French monarchy from ruin. How far the overthrow of that monarchy
was due to a combination of incompetence and depravity in various
proportions in the descendants of the Capets from the Regent Orleans
onwards towards the Revolution, is a question which must be decided by
others. Carlyle’s view of the cause of the Revolution was that it was
due to “every scoundrel that had lived, and, quack-like, pretended to
be doing, and had only been eating and misdoing, in all provinces of
life, as shoeblack or as sovereign lord, each in his degree, from the
time of Charlemagne and earlier.” Women no doubt produced their share
of quacks and charlatans in the humble ranks of this long procession of
misdoers, but not as sovereigns, because, with the superior logic of
the Gallic mind, the French people not only believed the accession of a
woman to the throne to be a misfortune, but guarded themselves against
the calamity by the Salic law. The fact affords a fresh proof that
logic is a poor thing to be ruled by, because of the liability, which
cannot be eliminated from human affairs, of making a mistake in the
premises. The English plan, though less logical, is more practically
successful. We speak and write as if a nation could not suffer a
greater misfortune than to have a woman at the head of the State; but
we do nothing to bar the female succession, with the result that out of
our five Queens Regnant we have had three of eminent distinction as
compared with any other Sovereign; and of these three, one ranks with
the very greatest of the statesmen who deserve to be remembered as the
Makers of England.
Something more can be claimed than that the Salic law did not prevent
the overthrow of the French monarchy. It is probable that the female
succession to the throne did save the English monarchy in 1837. Failing
the Queen, the next heir would have been the Duke of Cumberland, and
from all the records of the time, it does not suffice to say that he
was unpopular, he was simply hated,--and with justice. He appears to
have conceived it to be his function in Hanover “to cut the wings of
the democracy;” if he had succeeded to the English throne and adopted
the same policy here, he would have brought the whole fabric of the
monarchy about his ears. He was equally without private and public
virtues. The Duke of Wellington once asked George IV. why the Duke of
Cumberland was so unpopular. The King replied, “Because there never was
a father well with his son, or husband with his wife, or lover with
his mistress, or friend with his friend, that he did not try to make
mischief between them.”
The political power which has in various countries devolved on queens
calls to mind one thing that ought to be remembered in discussions
upon the hereditary principle in government. Within its own prescribed
limitations it applies the democratic maxim, _la carrière ouverte aux
talents_, much more completely than any nominally democratic form of
government, and thus has repeatedly given, in our own history, a chance
to an able woman to prove that in statesmanship, courage, sense of
responsibility, and devotion to duty, she is capable of ruling in such
a way as to strengthen her empire and throne by carrying the devoted
affection of all classes of her subjects.
Twice in the history of England have extraordinary efforts been made to
avert the supposed misfortune of a female heir to the throne; and twice
has the “divinity that shapes our ends, rough-hew them how we will,”
decreed that these efforts should be in vain, and the dreaded national
misfortune has turned out to be a great national blessing. Mr. Froude
tells us that five out of Henry VIII.’s six marriages were contracted
in consequence of his patriotic desire to secure the succession to the
throne in the male line. But when the feeble flame of Edward VI.’s life
was extinguished, four women stood next in the succession, and England
acquired at a most critical moment of her history, in the person of
Elizabeth, perhaps the greatest Sovereign who has ever occupied the
throne of this country.
The second occasion was after the death of the Princess Charlotte in
1817. George III., with his fifteen children, had not then a single
heir in the second generation. It would not be correct to say that
the Royal Dukes were then married by Act of Parliament, no Act of
Parliament was necessary; but political pressure was brought on them
to marry, and Parliament granted them extra allowances of sums varying
from £10,000 to £6,000 a year, and in May and June, 1818, the marriages
took place of the Duke of Cambridge to the Princess Augusta of Hesse,
of the Duke of Clarence (afterwards William IV.) to Princess Adelaide
of Saxe-Meiningen, and of the Duke of Kent to Princess Victoria,
daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg, widow of the Prince of Leiningen,
and sister of Prince Leopold, the husband of Princess Charlotte. The
marriage of the Duke of Kent is the only one of these that immediately
concerns us. As the fourth son of George III., his children would,
under ordinary circumstances, have had but a remote prospect of
succeeding to the throne. But of his elder brothers, the Prince
Regent had, in consequence of the death of Princess Charlotte, become
childless, the Duke of York was also childless, the Duke of Clarence,
whose marriage was contracted on the same day as that of the Duke of
Kent, 13th June, 1818, took precedence of him as an elder brother,
and if he had had legitimate heirs they would have succeeded to the
throne. The Princess (afterwards Queen) Adelaide was not childless.
She bore two children, but they died in their infancy; and thus the
only child of the Duke and Duchess of Kent, the Princess Alexandrina
Victoria, became heiress-presumptive of the English throne. The Duke
of Kent took the strongest interest in his baby girl’s chances of the
succession. Before the birth of the child he urged upon his wife, who
was then resident at Amorbach in Bavaria, that the possible future
King or Queen of England ought to be born on English soil, and then
she consented to remove to Kensington; it is said he was so keenly
anxious for her safety that he drove her carriage the whole of the
land journey between Amorbach and Kensington with his own hands. At
the present day we should perhaps say that the chances of safety lay
with the professional rather than with the amateur coachman; but the
Duke proved his efficiency in handling the reins, and brought his wife
in safety to London, where, on the 24th May, 1819, the baby was born
who is now Queen of England. It should be noted that the Duchess was
attended in her confinement by a woman, following the custom of her
own country in this matter, and that the same _accoucheuse_, Madam
Charlotte Siebold, attended a few months later upon the Duchess of
Coburg when she gave birth to the child who in after years became
Prince Consort. There are several little anecdotes which illustrate
the Duke of Kent’s appreciation of the important place his little girl
was born to fill. He wanted the baby to be called Elizabeth, because
it was the name of the greatest of England’s Queens, and therefore a
popular name with the English people; there were, however, godfathers,
Royal and Imperial, who overruled him as to the naming of the child.
These were the Emperor of Russia (Alexander I.) and the Prince Regent,
and it was therefore proposed to call the baby, Alexandrina Georgiana.
But George, Prince Regent, objected to his name standing second to
any other, however distinguished. His brother, on the other hand,
insisted that Alexandrina should be the first of the baby’s names. In
consequence of this dispute the little Princess was so fortunate as
to escape bearing the name of Georgiana at all; when she was handed
to the Archbishop at the font the Prince Regent only gave the name of
Alexandrina. The baby’s father, however, intervened, and requested
that another name might be added, with the result that, as a kind of
afterthought, her mother’s name was, as it were, thrown in, and the
little Princess was christened Alexandrina Victoria. It was in this
way that the name Victoria, then almost unknown in England, was given
to the baby, and has since become familiar in our mouths as household
words. The Duke declined to allow the congratulations that were
showered on him at the birth of his child to be tempered by regrets
that the daughter was not a son. In reply to a letter conceived in
this vein from his chaplain, Dr. Prince, the Duke wrote at the same
time that “I assure you how truly sensible I am of the kind and
flattering intentions of those who are prompted to express a degree of
disappointment from the circumstance of the child not proving to be a
son instead of a daughter. I feel it due to myself to declare that such
sentiments are not in unison with my own, for I am decidedly of opinion
that the decrees of Providence are at all times wisest and best.” As
this was addressed to a clergyman and a Doctor of Divinity, it may be
inferred that Her Majesty’s father was not without a sense of humor.
Another story of the Duke is that, playing with his baby when she was
a few months old, he held her high in his arms and said, “Look at her
well, for she will be the Queen of England.” It must be remembered,
however, that at this time there was no certainty that the children
of the Duke and Duchess of Clarence would not survive the perils of
infancy; moreover, if the Duke of Kent had lived to have a son, the
boy would have become the heir in preference to his sister. The Duke’s
strongly marked feeling of fatherly pride and affection is almost the
only trait in his character by which we are able at this distance
of time to conjure him up out of the mists of bygone years.[1] This
feeling was soon to receive a melancholy illustration. The Duke and
Duchess, with their baby daughter, removed from Kensington to Sidmouth
to spend the winter of 1819-20. Returning home on a January day, with
boots wet with snow, the Duke caught a severe chill from playing with
his baby, instead of changing his boots.[2] The illness developed into
acute pneumonia, of which he died in January, 1820, leaving his wife a
stranger in a strange land, hardly able to speak the English language,
sole guardian of England’s future Queen. The Duchess of Kent must have
been a woman of considerable strength of character and power of will.
She was in an extremely lonely and difficult position. Pecuniarily,
her chief legacy from her husband consisted of his debts, which the
allowance made then by Parliament was not sufficiently ample to enable
her to pay.
Her brother, then Prince Leopold, widower of Princess Charlotte, and
afterwards King of the Belgians, supplemented her income from his
own purse. The Duchess and her children (she had two by her first
marriage) were frequently his guests at Claremont and elsewhere,
and the Queen speaks of these visits as the happiest periods of her
childhood. After a few years the death of the children of the Duke
and Duchess of Clarence made it practically certain that the Princess
Victoria would become Queen. The Court of George IV. was not one which
the Duchess of Kent could frequent with any satisfaction; she was on
bad terms with him, and he often threatened to take her child away
from her. His character made him quite capable of doing this; he was
equally heartless and despotic. Matters were not greatly improved as to
personal relations between the Sovereign and herself when William IV.
became King; the Princess Victoria did not even attend his coronation.
There was a strong feeling of antagonism between the Duchess of Kent
and William IV., which occasionally broke out into very unseemly
manifestations, especially on the King’s side. His was not a character
which could claim respect, and still less evoke enthusiasm. As Duke of
Clarence, he had lived for more than twenty years with Mrs. Jordan, the
actress, by whom he had ten sons and daughters. His affection for them
showed the best side of his character. He did not disown them; they
bore the name of Fitz Clarence, and as soon as he was able he provided
liberally for them. Greville says that his sons, with one exception,
repaid his kindness with insolence and ingratitude. His affection
for them did not prevent his desertion of their mother. He separated
from her without any apparent cause, and endeavored to bring about a
marriage between himself and a half-crazy woman of large fortune. The
Prince Regent is said to have been the main plot of this scheme, which
was never carried out. During the earlier part of his connection with
Mrs. Jordan, the Duke of Clarence made her an allowance of £1,000 a
year. At the suggestion of George III. he is said to have proposed by
letter to Mrs. Jordan to reduce this sum to £500. Her reply was to send
him the bottom part of a play-bill, on which were these words, “No
money returned after the rising of the curtain.” When he was a young
man on active service in the navy and in command of a ship, he had
twice absented himself from foreign stations without leave, and the
Admiralty were at their wits’ end to know how to deal with him.
The death of the Princess Charlotte in 1817, and later the death of
the Duke of York, gave political importance to the Duke of Clarence’s
existence, and he was one of the batch of Royal Dukes who married, as
we have seen, in 1818, not without unseemly haggling with the House of
Commons as to the additional allowance to be voted for his support.
The £10,000 a year proposed by the Government was cut down to £6,000
by a vote of 193 to 184. Lord Castlereagh then rose and said that
“Since the House had thought proper to refuse the larger sum to the
Duke of Clarence, he believed he might say that the negotiation for
the marriage might be considered at an end;” and on the next day
his Lordship announced to the House that “the Duke declined availing
himself of the inadequate sum which had been voted to him.” However,
as the only practical reply to this was a vote by the House granting
£6,000 a year to the Duke of Cambridge, and declining any grant
at all for the unpopular Duke of Cumberland, the Duke of Clarence
appears to have thought better of his refusal of the grant, and the
marriage accordingly took place. But there can be no surprise, under
the circumstances, that such a union and the character it revealed
awakened no popular interest. It should be said, however, that when
he became King it was generally remarked that his elevation improved
him. He became, Greville says, “most composed and rational, if not
more dignified in his behavior.” People began to like him, if not
for his virtues, at any rate on account of the contrast he presented
to his predecessor. His best qualities were frankness and honesty,
and he also had the real and rather rare generosity of not bearing a
grudge against those who had baffled or defeated him. Thus the Duke
of Wellington had, when Prime Minister, removed the Duke of Clarence
from the office of Lord High Admiral; but though exceedingly angry at
the time, he never bore any grudge against the Duke of Wellington, or
wreaked vengeance upon him in any way when he had the power to do so.
On the contrary, when he became King he gave the Duke his fullest and
most cordial confidence, retained him as Prime Minister, and took an
early opportunity of publicly showing him honor by dining at Apsley
House. It is the more pleasant to recall this instance of magnanimity
on the part of William IV. because the annals of the time are full
to overflowing of stories to the discredit of nearly all the sons of
George III. The character of George IV. is well known. His quarrels
with his wife and attempt to pass an Act of Divorce against her are
notorious. In ghastly contrast to the pageantry of his coronation, in
which it was said £240,000 were spent, those who were present speak
of the thrill of horror which ran through the assembly when Queen
Caroline was heard knocking at the door of the Abbey for the admittance
which was refused her. “There was sudden silence and consternation;
it was like the handwriting on the wall.” George IV. was almost
equally contemptible in every relation of life. His Ministers could
with difficulty induce him to give attention to necessary business.
“Indolent, cowardly, selfish, unfeeling dog” are the words by which he
is described by the clerk of his Council. He delighted in keeping those
who had business to transact with him waiting for hours while he was
chatting about horses, or betting, or any trivial matter. Greville,
after many years of close knowledge of George IV., says of him: “The
littleness of his character prevents his displaying the dangerous
faults that belong to great minds; but with vices and weaknesses of
the lowest and most contemptible order it would be difficult to find
a disposition more abundantly furnished.” It is probably not too much
to say that no one loved him living, or mourned him dead. Of his
funeral Greville says in his cynical way: “The attendance was not very
numerous, and when they had all got together in St. George’s Hall, a
gayer company I never beheld.... Merry were all, as merry as grigs.”
The King’s brothers were not a very great improvement on the King. The
Royal Dukes seemed to vie with each other in unseemly and indecorous
behavior. On one occasion, in July, 1829, they attacked each other
violently in the House of Lords, that is, “Clarence and Sussex attacked
Cumberland, and he them very vehemently, and they used towards each
other language which nobody else could have ventured to employ; so
it was a very droll scene.” With such brothers-in-law the position
of the Duchess of Kent must have been one of great difficulty and
loneliness, and she was, consequently, thrown, more perhaps than she
would otherwise have been, to rely for advice and companionship on her
own brother, Prince Leopold. This Prince and his confidential secretary
and friend, Stockmar, afterwards Baron Stockmar, were the trusted
counsellors of the Duchess of Kent with regard to the education of
Princess Victoria and her preparation for the difficult and responsible
position she was afterwards to occupy. The quarrels and disputes that
constantly arose between the Duchess of Kent and William IV. may have
been attributable to faults on both sides; but the most innocent and
indeed laudable actions of the Duchess, with regard to her daughter’s
training, seem to have been made the excuse for all kinds of complaint
and acrimony on the part of the King. For instance, the Duchess felt
that it was proper that her daughter, in view of the position she
would hereafter occupy, should see as much as possible of the places
of interest and importance in the kingdom she would be destined in
time to reign over. Accordingly, she took the young Princess about
to the chief manufacturing centres, as well as to places of historic
interest, and localities where the rural beauty of England was to be
seen in its greatest perfection. In this way she visited Birmingham,
Worcester, Coventry, Shrewsbury, Chester, Lichfield, and Oxford, as
well as Malvern, Brighton, Tunbridge Wells, Kenilworth, Powis Castle,
Wynnstay, Anglesey, and the Isle of Wight. It appears, however, that
these apparently praiseworthy proceedings gave great offence at Court.
The Duchess was supposed to seek more attention than her position
justified her in demanding. A Council was summoned at Windsor on one
occasion (in 1833) for the sole purpose of checking the manifestations
of loyalty which the appearance of the Duchess and her daughter
provoked. The King was devoured by spleen on hearing that salutes had
been fired at the Isle of Wight in honor of these progresses of the
heiress-presumptive and her mother. After absurd negotiations on the
subject between the King and his sister-in-law, when neither had the
good grace to give way, the fleet was commanded, by Order in Council,
not to salute the Royal Standard unless the King or Queen was on board.
On another occasion, offence seems to have been taken by the King where
none was intended, because an address, received by the Duchess in 1835
at Burghley, alluded to her daughter as “destined to mount the throne
of these realms.” It was an additional offence that Sir John Conroy,
the Duchess’s controller of the household, “handed the answer, just
as the Prime Minister does to the King.” With every action, even on
the part of others, thus misinterpreted, it was no wonder that the
Duchess could have no cordial feelings towards her husband’s family.
George IV. openly showed his dislike for her, the Duke of Cumberland
never lost an opportunity of aggravating the unfriendliness of their
relations. When William IV. succeeded, the Duchess of Kent wrote to
the Duke of Wellington, as Prime Minister, to request that she might
be treated as a Dowager Princess of Wales, with an income suitable
for herself and her daughter, for whom she also asked recognition as
heiress to the throne. These requests met with a positive refusal, at
which the Duchess expressed considerable vexation. Afterwards, when
a Regency Bill was brought forward to provide for the event of the
death of the King while the Princess Victoria was still a minor,
although the right thing was done, and the Duchess was named Regent,
the old feeling of hostility was not removed between herself and the
King and his brothers, and during nearly the whole of William IV.’s
seven years’ reign there were constant bickerings and disputes between
Windsor and Kensington. Matters were made worse by William’s love of
making speeches, in which he set forth, with more vigor than dignity,
his grievances, or what he considered such. Greville says he had a
passion for speechifying, and had a considerable facility in expressing
himself, but that what he said was generally useless or improper. An
instance in point is to be found in the “Life of Archbishop Tait,”
who wrote in his diary, December 4th, 1856, that Dr. Langley told him
that when he did homage to William IV. on his first appointment as
Bishop, no sooner had he risen from his knees than the King suddenly
addressed him in a loud voice thus: “Bishop of Ripon, I charge you, as
you shall answer before Almighty God, that you never by word or deed
give encouragement to those d----d Whigs, who would upset the Church
of England.” Even when proposing the Princess Victoria’s health and
speaking kindly of her, he could not resist the public announcement
that he had not seen so much of her as he could have wished (Aug.,
1836). On another occasion he loudly and publicly expressed to the
Duchess his strong disapprobation of her having appropriated apartments
at Kensington Palace beyond those which had been assigned to her, and
spoke of what she had done as “an unwarrantable liberty.” A still worse
outbreak shortly followed. At his birthday banquet in 1836, in the
presence of a hundred people, with the Duchess of Kent sitting next to
him and the Princess Victoria opposite, he expressed with more vigor
than delicacy the hope that he might live nine months longer, so that
the Princess might attain her majority, and the regency of the Duchess
never come into operation. He referred to the Duchess as “a person
now near me who is surrounded by evil advisers, and who is herself
incompetent to act with propriety in the station in which she would
be placed.” A great deal more in the same style followed; “an awful
philippic,” Greville calls it, “uttered with a loud voice and excited
manner.” The King’s animosity against the Duchess was extended to, and
may perhaps have been provoked by, her brother. He had given offence
by calling on Queen Caroline after the conclusion of the evidence
against her in the House of Lords. He appears himself to have thought
the action required an excuse, and says, “But how abandon entirely the
mother of Princess Charlotte, who, _though she knew her mother well_,
loved her very much?” George IV. was furious, and never forgave his
son-in-law. William IV. shared his brother’s sentiments in regard to
Leopold, and invariably treated him with coldness, and sometimes with
rudeness that amounted to brutality. After he had become King of the
Belgians, Leopold visited William IV. at Windsor, and during dinner
made an innocent request for water. The King asked, “What’s that you
are drinking, sir?” “Water, sir.” “God d---- it!” rejoined the other
King, “why don’t you drink wine? I never allow any one to drink water
at my table.” The King of the Belgians must have felt like a man living
among wild beasts, and it is not surprising to read that he did not
sleep at Windsor that night, but went away in the evening. There was
not a subject on which they were agreed. William IV. was a Tory of
the Tories; Prince Leopold was a Whig. King William’s chief political
interest was the preservation of the slave trade; Prince Leopold was
deeply interested in its abolition. The same antagonism between them
ran through all subjects, great and small.
These anecdotes of the coarseness and brutality of the Queen’s
immediate predecessors have been recalled for the purpose of
illustrating the extreme difficulty of the position in which the
Duchess of Kent found herself from the time of her husband’s death
to that of her daughter’s accession. It also serves to explain an
expression used in after years by the Queen in reference to her choice
of the name of Leopold for her youngest son, where she says, “It is the
name which is dearest to me after Albert, one which recalls the almost
only happy days of my sad childhood.” But if the Princess Victoria
was unfortunate in some of her uncles, her uncle Leopold went far to
redress the balance. At one time the prospect before him, as husband
of Princess Charlotte, had been identical with the position afterwards
occupied by Prince Albert. He had become a naturalized Englishman, and
he had given great thought and study to English Constitutional history,
and particularly to the duties and responsibilities of a Constitutional
monarch. He had strong personal ambition, disciplined by ability and
conscientiousness. In 1817 the death of his wife dashed the cup of
ambition from his lips. A contemporary letter speaks of him as Adam
“turned out of Paradise without his Eve.” From the important position
of husband of the Heiress Apparent he sunk in one day to that of a
subordinate member of the Royal Family, necessarily, as we have seen,
out of sympathy with them and aloof from them. “Seekest thou great
things for thyself? Seek them not,” was the lesson of 1817 to him. With
great power of personal abnegation, his disappointment did not imbitter
him, his ambition did not turn sour. He transferred it and all his
plans and all his interest in English constitutionalism to a little
niece and nephew who were born respectively on the 24th of May and
26th of August, 1819. The little Victoria at Kensington and the little
Albert at Coburg were destined by their uncle Leopold almost from their
birth to play the part that would have been filled by the Princess
Charlotte and himself but for her early death. He had, of course, no
absolute power to bring this marriage about, but he earnestly desired
it, and prepared the way for it by every means at his command. He won,
as he deserved to win, the Princess Victoria’s most ardent affection.
She has told us herself how she “adored” her uncle. He took his mother,
the Duchess Dowager of Coburg, a very able woman, into his confidence.
She wholly shared his views and hopes. From the time he was three years
old Prince Albert was accustomed to the idea that when he was old
enough he was to marry his cousin, Princess Victoria of England. The
first mention of Prince Albert as a husband was made to the Queen by
her uncle Leopold. The education of both children was conducted with
this end in view. This was no doubt a chief bone of contention between
Prince Leopold and his sister the Duchess of Kent on the one hand, and
the King and his party on the other. For William IV. highly disapproved
of the proposed union, and did everything in his power to stop it,
proposing in succession no fewer than five other marriages for the
young Princess. It throws a light too on his resentment at the degree
to which the Princess Victoria was withdrawn from his Court, so that
hardly any influence could reach her antagonistic to that of her uncle
Leopold. William IV.’s explosions of rage against the Duchess of Kent
are illustrative of this; they are those of a stupid man, nominally in
a position of authority, but baffled and outwitted, and consequently
furious. It was well for the Princess Victoria and for England too
that he was not the predominant influence in her education; but it
is not difficult to understand his wrath. The game of cross purposes
was constantly going on, and the King was constantly being worsted.
The Duchess of Kent selected as her daughter’s tutor the Rev. George
Davys. The King objected that the education of the heiress-presumptive
to the throne should be under the care of some distinguished prelate.
The Duchess acquiesced, and, while retaining the services of Dr. Davys,
intimated that there would be no objection on her part to his receiving
the highest ecclesiastical preferment. A very extensive knowledge
of human nature is not needed to know that this sort of thing is to
the last degree irritating, nor that the fact of the Duchess and her
brother being generally in the right, and the King generally in the
wrong, was not soothing to the latter.[3]
In this too stormy atmosphere the heiress of England was reared. Her
naturally happy disposition and healthy physical constitution carried
her through with less disadvantage than other less happily endowed
natures would have sustained. Among other relatives who were uniformly
kind and considerate to the young Princess special mention should be
made of the Duke of York, whom she loved like a second father. His
death, in 1827, was her first real sorrow as a child. Queen Adelaide
also was uniformly kind and loving to her niece. Her own two baby
girls had died in their infancy, and she transferred a good deal of
motherly tenderness to Princess Victoria. A meaner nature would have
resented the place of her own child being filled by another; but Queen
Adelaide showed none of this littleness, and welcomed her niece with
cordiality to her rightful place beside the throne. When the second
of Queen Adelaide’s own little girls died, she wrote to the Duchess
of Kent, “My children are dead, but yours lives, and she is mine,
too!” The simple words give the note of a truly noble nature. In 1831,
when King William prorogued his first Parliament, Queen Adelaide and
Princess Victoria watched from the windows of the Palace the progress
of the Royal procession. “The people cheered the Queen lustily, but,
forgetting herself, that gracious lady took the young Princess Victoria
by the hand, led her to the front of the balcony, and introduced her
to the happy and loyal multitude.”[4] On several other occasions Queen
Adelaide showed a noble, queenly, and motherly spirit towards the young
Princess. In 1837 and onwards, Queen Victoria was able, by a number of
little nameless acts of kindness and of love, to cheer and soothe the
declining years of the Queen Dowager.
[1] The Duke of Kent was chiefly known in the army for his extreme
insistence in military etiquette, discipline, dress, and equipments.
He was, however, the first to abandon flogging, and to establish a
regimental school.--_Dictionary of National Biography._
[2] In reminiscences contributed by the King of the Belgians, as an
appendix to “Early Years of the Prince Consort,” it is stated that the
Duke’s fatal cold was caught when visiting Salisbury Cathedral.
[3] It should be remarked that whatever the faults and shortcomings of
William IV. may have been, the Queen herself never refers to him but in
terms of affection and gratitude.
[4] G. Barnett Smith, “Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria.”