THE NURSERY.
The courage of the Queen on the occasion of the attempt by Oxford upon
her life was enhanced by the fact that it took place a few months
before the birth of her first child. The Queen’s natural courage was
perhaps fostered on this and other occasions by her having so much
to do and to think of besides her own personal concerns. During the
months when she was awaiting the birth of her first child, she was
up to the eyes in politics. In 1840 there was a premonitory rumbling
of the storm in the East, which has so frequently broken the rest
of Europe. France was fractious, and imagined herself slighted by
England, and in the summer and autumn of 1840 it looked several
times as if the two countries were on the brink of war. The Queen,
writing to her uncle, the King of the Belgians, said: “I think our
child ought to have, besides its other names, those of Turco-Egypto,
as we think of nothing else.” If it were true that home duties and
political duties were incompatible, the Royal children would have had a
sadly-neglected childhood; but it is a matter of experience that busy
people are usually those who find time for everything, and the Queen
and her husband were no exception to the rule. There is probably not a
mother in England who has given more loving thought and care for her
children’s welfare than Her Majesty has done. The children and her love
for and pride in them are constantly mentioned in the Queen’s Journals.
In the letters from Princess Alice to the Queen, published as a
memorial of the former, she repeatedly refers to her happy childhood
and her desire to pass on a similar training to her own little flock.
Under the date of January 1st, 1865, Princess Alice writes to her
mother: “All the morning I was telling Louis” (her husband) “how it
used to be at home, and how we all assembled outside your dressing-room
door to scream in chorus ‘Prosit Neujahr,’ and to give to you and papa
our drawings, writings, &c., the busy occupation of previous weeks....
Dear papa bit his lip so as not to laugh.”
The Princess Royal, now the Empress Frederick of Germany, was born at
Buckingham Palace on November 21st, 1840. Prince Albert was then having
a course of reading in English law with Mr. Selwyn; the tutor arrived
on November 23d to continue his instructions. The Prince said: “I fear
I cannot read any law to-day.... But you will like to see the little
Princess.” He took the lawyer into the nursery, and, taking the little
hand of the infant in his own, said, “The next time we read it must
be on the rights and duties of a Princess Royal.” The Queen made an
excellent recovery; then, as always, the Prince was her tender guardian
and nurse. No one but himself ever lifted her from her bed to the sofa,
and he always helped to wheel her on her bed or sofa to the next room.
However occupied he was, “he ever came,” writes the Queen, “with a
sweet smile on his face.” In short, his care of her was like that of a
mother, nor could there be a kinder, wiser, or more judicious nurse.
At Christmas this year, Prince Albert naturalized the German custom of
Christmas-trees in England; there is probably hardly a child in England
who has not appreciated their introduction.
It may be imagined that Stockmar had plenty of good advice to give
the young parents. One of his wise saws was, “A man’s education begins
with the first day of his life.” He undertook in the early years of
the Queen’s marriage the organization of the nursery department. In
one of his letters he says: “The nursery gives me more trouble than
the government of a kingdom would do.” The Princess Royal was always
the child nearest his heart. He had an immensely high opinion of her
abilities. “I hold her,” he said, “to be exceptionally gifted, even to
the point of genius.”
Curiously enough, Melbourne was also consulted (1842) by the Queen and
Prince upon the organization of the nursery, and the choice of a lady
to preside over it.
The Princess showed almost from the day of her birth a very remarkable
degree of intelligence. Numerous anecdotes are given of her cleverness
and droll sayings as a little girl. The refrain of most of the stories
about the Royal children is the Princess Royal’s intelligence, and
the merry, happy, affectionate disposition of the Prince of Wales.
The little Princess was christened on the anniversary of her parents’
marriage, February 10, 1841, and received the names of Victoria
Adelaide Mary Louisa. Two days after this, the Prince had a narrow
escape of a painful death, for, in skating on the lake in the gardens
of Buckingham Palace, he broke through the ice into deep water.
Fortunately the Queen, who was on the bank, did not lose her presence
of mind, but did the right thing for affording the Prince the immediate
assistance necessary.
The birth of the Prince of Wales followed very soon after that of
the Princess Royal. On Lord Mayor’s Day, November 9, 1841, the Queen
gave birth to her eldest son. Greville notes with some impatience
that the usual formalities were not observed upon this occasion.
“From some crotchet of Prince Albert’s,” he writes, “they put off
sending intelligence ... till so late that several of the dignitaries
whose duty it was to assist at the birth, arrived after the event
had occurred, particularly the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord
President of the Council.” The Queen probably thought that this was one
of the customs more honored in the breach than in the observance, and
in this the majority of her subjects would agree with her. The Queen’s
Diary records that on November 21, 1841, the Princess Royal’s first
birthday, “Albert brought in dearest little Pussy (the Princess Royal)
... and placed her on my bed, seating himself next her, and she was
very dear and good. And as my precious invaluable Albert sat there,
and our little love between us, I felt quite moved with happiness and
gratitude to God.” At Christmas time in this year the Queen’s entry is:
“To think that we have two children now, and one who enjoys the sight”
(of the Christmas-trees) “already, is like a dream.” And the Prince,
writing to his father on the same occasion, says: “To-day I have two
children of my own to give presents to, who, they know not why, are
full of happy wonder at the German Christmas-tree and its radiant
candles.”
It has been already noted how and why Stockmar urged the selection of
the King of Prussia as one of the godfathers of the Prince of Wales,
and that the King of Hanover was furious at being passed over. He did
not easily forget it when he considered himself slighted, and when the
Queen, very magnanimously, invited him to be godfather to Princess
Alice in 1843, he vindicated his dignity by arriving too late for the
christening. He further endeavored to balance the account between
his niece and himself by being rude to her husband. Greville says
that one day at Buckingham Palace he proposed to Prince Albert to
take a walk with him in the streets. It has already been mentioned
why the Prince never went anywhere unattended, and the same reason
rendered it undesirable that he should be unaccompanied except by the
King of Hanover. He therefore excused himself, saying they would be
inconvenienced by the crowd of people. The King replied, “Oh, never
mind that. I was still more unpopular than you are now, and I used to
walk about the streets with perfect impunity.” This little pleasantry
was pointed by the fact that a feeling of antagonism against Prince
Albert was growing up in certain sections of the community, which a few
years later reached quite serious dimensions.
It may be mentioned here that the Queen has all through her life shown
herself remarkably free from feeling implacable resentment even against
those whose conduct she has at various times most strongly condemned,
or against whom she may have been prejudiced. This characteristic,
which will be illustrated later by her relations with Lord Palmerston,
Lord Beaconsfield, Louis Philippe, and others, was demonstrated now by
her magnanimity to her uncle Ernest, King of Hanover. He had plotted
against her; had made things uncomfortable for her mother and herself
before her accession; had refused, what she particularly valued, to
yield precedence to her husband; had, in a dog-in-the-manger spirit,
declined, after he became King of Hanover, to give up apartments in St.
James’s Palace which were wanted for the Duchess of Kent; in short, had
lost no opportunity of showing himself unfriendly and disagreeable; yet
when her third child was born, Princess Alice, on April 25th, 1843, she
invited this uncle, who was a personification of the wicked uncle of
fairy tales, to be the new baby’s godfather.
In 1844, very soon after the birth of a fourth child, Prince Alfred,
now Duke of Coburg, the Queen and Prince paid a visit to Scotland,
taking the Princess Royal with them. After this the Royal visits to
various parts of the kingdom were rendered doubly interesting to the
Queen’s subjects by the presence of one or more of the blooming group
of the rapidly growing family of children. The Prince wrote to his
stepmother of this visit to Scotland: “Pussy’s cheeks are on the point
of bursting, they have grown so red and plump; she is learning Gaelic,
but makes wild work with the names of the mountains.”
The Dowager Lady Lyttelton was appointed governess to the Royal
children. One of her letters to her own daughter, dated 1844, begins,
“Dearest mine daughter, as the Prince of Wales would say.” On the third
visit to Scotland, in 1847, the two elder children accompanied their
parents. The Queen says, in “Leaves from a Journal in the Highlands,”
“the children enjoy everything extremely, and bear the novelty and
excitement wonderfully well.” On this occasion the Royal party visited
the Duke and Duchess of Argyll at Inverary, and the Queen writes,
describing their reception, “Outside stood the Marquis of Lome, just
two years old, a dear, white, fat, fair little fellow with reddish
hair, but very delicate features, like both his father and mother; he
is such a merry, independent child.” This was the Queen’s first sight
of her future son-in-law.
On Her Majesty’s first visit to Ireland,[19] in 1849, she took her four
eldest children with her (many of us wish she had gone before and gone
oftener). She received an intensely enthusiastic welcome. The sight
of the Royal squadron entering the magnificent harbor at Kingstown,
and the loyalty of the reception of the Queen on landing, made a deep
impression. _The Times_ said:--
“It was a sight never to be forgotten,--a sound to be recollected
forever. Ladies threw aside the old formula of waving a white
pocket-handkerchief, and cheered for their lives, while the men,
pressing in so closely as to throng the very edges of the pavilion,
waved whatever came first to hand,--hat, stick, wand, or coat,--and
rent the air with shouts of joy which never ceased in energy till
their Sovereign was out of sight.... The Royal children were objects
of universal attention and admiration. ‘Oh, Queen, dear!’ screamed a
stout old lady, ‘make one of them Prince Patrick, and all Ireland will
die for you.’”
Almost every one has a sovereign remedy for Irish disaffection; but few
are so easy of application as this. The Queen adopted the old lady’s
suggestion; the child born next after the Irish visit, on the Duke
of Wellington’s birthday, May 1st, 1850, was named Arthur after that
great Irishman, and Patrick after Ireland’s patron saint; the Irish
associations of his name were kept up by his taking the title of Duke
of Connaught when he reached man’s estate.
Between the birth of her second and third sons, the Queen had had
two more daughters, the Princesses Helena and Louise (now Princess
Christian of Schleswig-Holstein and Marchioness of Lorne), born
respectively on May 25th, 1846, and March 18th, 1848. The name selected
for the elder of these two new daughters had a double significance.
She was named Helena, not only after her godmother, the Duchess of
Orleans, but also to remind English people of what they sometimes
forget, that the Empress Helena, mother of Constantine, through whom
the Roman Empire was brought over to Christianity, was a British
princess, daughter of Coel, King of Camalodaum (now Colchester). Prior
to the birth of Princess Louise, the Queen had gone through a time of
very serious anxiety in regard to political affairs. The revolutionary
movement of 1848 was at its height, and though England passed through
it safely, yet no one could know at the time that it would do so,
and especially that the Chartist movement would not develop in the
direction of revolutionary violence. In the early months of this year
the Queen had made ready all the rooms at Windsor to receive the
fugitive Royal Family of France, who arrived one after another in so
forlorn a condition that Her Majesty had to clothe as well as shelter
them. The Prince’s step-grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Gotha,
who had been almost a mother to him in his childhood, died just at
this time. On every side there appeared trouble and misfortune in both
public and private affairs. The Prince wrote on February 29th:--
“What dismal times are these.... Augustus, Clementine, Nemours, and
the Duchess of Montpensier, have come to us one by one like people
shipwrecked. Victoire, Alexander, the King, the Queen, are still
tossing on the waves, or have drifted to other shores.... France is
in flames; Belgium is menaced. We have a ministerial, money, and tax
crisis; and Victoria is on the point of being confined. My heart is
heavy.”
It was in this depression that the courageous heart of the loving woman
cheered and sustained that of her husband. As soon as she was able to
write after the birth of the new baby, she wrote to her uncle Leopold:--
“From the first I heard all that passed; my only thoughts and talk
were politics. But I never was calmer, quieter, or less nervous. Great
events make me calm; it is only trifles that irritate my nerves.”
The letter in which the Prince announced to Stockmar the birth of
Princess Louise contains an expression which invites criticism;
he writes: “I have good news for you to-day. Victoria was safely
delivered this morning, and _though it be a daughter, still_ my joy
and gratitude are very great,” &c. The Prince is only responsible for
the sentiment, not for the italics; but why should it be necessary to
write in this way of the birth of a daughter even in the dark backward
and abysm of time of 1848? Mr. George Meredith writes of one of his
heroines that she had never gone through the various nursery exercises
in dissimulation, and “had no appearance of praying forgiveness of men
for the original sin of being a woman.” But here we have an even more
perverted sentiment than that presented by a woman apologizing for
being a woman; it is black ingratitude for one of the best gifts God
gives to man when either father or mother begrudges a welcome to a new
baby on account of its sex. The Queen, we gather, did not give little
girls a grudging welcome to this world; on the birth of her first
granddaughter, the Princess Charlotte of Prussia, in 1860, she wrote
of the news that “Vicky had a daughter.” “What joy! Children jumping
about--every one delighted.” The Prince, too, on this occasion wrote
to the Princess Royal of her little daughter, as “a kindly gift from
heaven,” and even says, “Little maidens are much prettier than boys. I
advise her to model herself on her Aunt Beatrice.”
The birth of Prince Arthur, in 1850, has been already mentioned. He was
a magnificent child, and the Queen took all a mother’s pride in his
beauty and his rapid growth. When Lady Canning was in waiting she tells
us of many private visits by the Queen to her in her room to talk about
politics and to show the beauty of the latest new baby; and of Prince
Arthur in particular she wrote on September 1st, 1850: “The children
... are grown very nice and pretty. Prince Arthur is a magnificent
child, and the Queen is quite enchanted to find he is bigger than the
keeper’s child at Balmoral of the same age, whose measurements she
carefully brought back. He has the Royal look I have heard grandmamma
talk about, which I think she said was so remarkable in the Queen when
a baby.”
The two youngest of the Queen’s nine children, Prince Leopold and
Princess Beatrice, were born respectively on 7th April, 1853, and on
14th April, 1857. The Queen’s letter announcing Prince Leopold’s name
to her uncle has already been quoted (see p. 24). She said it would
recall the days of her childhood to hear “Prince Leopold” again;
among his other names the little Prince was given that of Duncan, in
“compliment to dear Scotland.” His delicate constitution was a source
of anxiety from very early years. He was the only one of the flock of
Royal children whose health was not good. It fell to the happy lot of
the Princess Beatrice to be the special pet and plaything of her father
during the last years of his life, and also, as we all know, to be the
companion and solace of her mother in later years when all her other
daughters had married and left her. There are numerous instances in
the later volumes of the “Prince Consort’s Life” of his delight in his
youngest daughter, “the most amusing baby we have had.” He constantly
wrote about her droll ways and sayings to his married daughter in
Berlin. Thus in July, 1859, he wrote: “The little aunt makes daily
strides, and is really too comical. When she tumbles she calls out in
bewilderment, ‘She don’t like it, she don’t like it!’ and she came into
breakfast a short time ago (with her eyes full of tears) moaning, ‘Baby
has been so naughty, poor baby so naughty,’ as one might complain of
being ill, or having slept badly,” &c.
In the seventeen years from 1840 to 1857 the Queen had had nine
children, all but one of good physical constitution, all without
exception of sound mind, and several very markedly above the average
in intellectual vigor and capacity. She herself bore the strain of
her confinements without any permanent deterioration of her natural
vigor. The entry in the “Prince Consort’s Life” in reference to the
Queen’s health after the birth of her children usually is, “The Queen
made a rapid recovery, and was able within a few days to report her
convalescence to her uncle at Brussels,” or, “The Queen’s recovery
was unusually rapid.” Attention is drawn to these facts in order to
controvert the view put forward by the late Mr. Withers Moore, Sir
James Creighton Browne, and others, that intellectual activity on
the part of women is to be discouraged because it is supposed to be
incompatible with the satisfactory discharge of the functions of
maternity. The Queen throughout the whole of her married life down
to the present time, when she has considerably passed the proverbial
three-score years and ten of the allotted span of man’s existence,
has been immersed in political work, often involving decisions of
first-rate importance; she has therefore preserved her vigor of mind
and power of work unimpaired; and it is not unfair to conclude that old
age has come upon her “frosty but kindly,” partly because she never was
satisfied to regard her maternal duties on their physical side only.
A cow, a dog, or a lioness has the physical functions and passions of
maternity developed in all their beauty and perfection; but a human
mother has to aim at being all that animals are to their young, and
something more; if not, she is apt to get into the trough of the wave
of mere animalism, and in this case her children will find, when they
lose their babyhood, they lose their mother too. The Queen has always
as a mother set the best example to her subjects in this respect. Her
motherhood has been no mere craze of baby worship. She has ever kept
in view high aims for her children and grandchildren, encouraging them
to accept nobly the responsibilities and duties of their position. In
one of Princess Alice’s letters to her mother, written in 1870, she
replies to a letter from the Queen upon the bringing up of the little
family at Darmstadt; the letter is interesting as throwing a light upon
the Queen’s own aims in the education of her children. The Princess
writes:--
“What you say about the education of our girls I entirely agree
with, and I strive to bring them up totally free from pride of their
position, which is _nothing_ save what their personal worth can make
it. I read it to the governess, thinking how good it would be for her
to hear your opinion.... I feel so entirely as you do on the
difference of rank, and how all important it is for princes and
princesses to know that they are nothing better or above others, save
through their own merit; and that they only have the double duty of
living for others and being an example good and modest. This I hope
my children will grow up to.”
We are not, however, left to infer from the Princess’s letters what
were the Queen’s views on the education of her children; the “Prince
Consort’s Life” contains several memoranda written by Her Majesty
herself on the subject. One of these, written in 1844, says: “The
greatest maxim of all is--that the children should be brought up as
simply and in as domestic a way as possible; that (not interfering
with their lessons) they should be as much as possible with their
parents, and learn to place their greatest confidence in them in
all things.” The religious training of the children was given, as
much as circumstances admitted, by the Queen herself; it was based
on endeavoring to implant in the children a loving trust in God as
their Father, avoiding all extreme views, and not entering upon the
differences of creed. Her Majesty does not approve of the Athanasian
Creed forming part of the Church service, and does not suffer it to be
read in her chapels. The Queen’s children were not taught to dwell on
the supernatural features of the Christian religion, but rather upon
the pure and comprehensive morality which it teaches as its essential
and indestructible element; they were taught that the conditions of
belief in the former may and did vary in various stages of human
development, but that the latter was the bed-rock on which the whole
structure was founded.
The Queen and Prince, like other parents, took the keenest and most
intense delight in the evidence given from time to time that their
children had gifts of mind which would have fitted them to excel in
whatever position of life they had been placed. Frequent reference
will be found in the following pages to their pride in the remarkable
intellectual gifts of the Princess Royal, who was described while still
a young girl as having “a statesmanlike mind.” Their boys were trained
as carefully as if no royal road to distinction lay open to them. On
returning from their first visit to their married daughter in Prussia
in 1858, the Queen and Prince were met by the “delightful news that
Affie” (Prince Alfred, aged 14) “had passed an excellent examination”
(into the Navy) “and had received his appointment.” He met his father
and mother at the private pier at Portsmouth “in his middle’s jacket,
cap, and dirk, half blushing and looking very happy. He is a little
pulled down from these three days’ hard examination, which only
terminated to-day.... We felt very proud, as it is a particularly hard
examination.”
[19] The Queen visited Ireland again in 1853 to open the International
Exhibition in Dublin; and a third time in 1861, when the Prince of
Wales was going through a course of military training at the Curragh.