made its own accusations. When the cholera was raging, during the
reform fever, Queen Adelaide's drawing-room happened to be very thinly
attended. The real cause was lost sight of, and Her Majesty was
respectfully assured that the scanty attendance was entirely owing to
Lord Grey's revolutionary government, beneath which all old English
energy, vitality, and spirit, had become so extinct, that it was
unequal to the exertion of even manifesting respect for an English
Queen.
These old English qualities did, however, manifest themselves at a
Conservative festival in Gloucestershire, where the health of "the
Queen" was "received with great applause." Upon which announcement the
"Times" significantly asked, "Is that meant as a compliment to Her
Majesty, or will it sound as such in the ears of the unanimous people?"
Then, when reiteration was made of the alleged co-operation of the
sisters of William IV. with Queen Adelaide, in efforts to overthrow the
Reform Bill, the "Times" stepped forward with the following testimony
in favour of those ladies and their mother, with the accompanying
admonition to the Queen:--"No one will be persuaded that any daughter
of George III. could so mistake their position in this country, or so
disregard their duty. Queen Charlotte was advised by her mother, before
she ever touched the shores of England, to make entire and religious
abstinence from politics the rule of her life, as a British Princess;
and for twenty-eight years, till the question of the first Regency
forced Queen Charlotte upon the stage, as a reluctant actress, she had
satisfied herself with being a modest spectatress, living in strict
observance of maternal counsel: and what was the consequence? Down to
the abovementioned period of her wedded life, Her Majesty enjoyed, in a
degree not experienced by any Queen-Consort for centuries past, the
respect and good-will of the whole community. Is it then to be supposed
that the leading maxim of her own mother, was not impressed by that
judicious and estimable woman, upon the minds of her daughters, the six
Princesses, two of whom still adorn the court of England with their
constant presence? The Princess Augusta and the Duchess of Gloucester
owe little to the gossips who thus abuse the delicacy of their
illustrious names."
Party-spirit was, doubtless, aggravated on either side by the tone of
the press. Influential cities announced their refusal to pay taxes, and
tavern-clubs possessing pictures of King and Queen, turned them heels
uppermost, with an intimation that they should be righted as soon as
the originals had made themselves right with the people. If Tories of
eminence talked of coercing the King, Whigs equally exalted hinted at
the possibility of sending his Consort to Germany, and of rousing the
men of the provinces in order to make an impression upon people in high
places. One well-known "man about town" presiding at a public dinner,
refused to propose the Queen's health, and, among the lower
caricature-shops, she might be seen pictured, wending her way, the
ejected of England, to a dull, dreary, and unwelcoming Germany.
Publicly, however, she had her champions too. Mr. Baring, from his
place in parliament, protested against the language of the Whig papers,
generally. His own description of it, as applicable to the Queen, was,
that it comprised foul slander against the highest personage of a sex,
from insulting which every manly mind would recoil. The gallant
champion added, with less discretion, perhaps, that the full measure of
scornful indifference and silent contempt with which the Queen repaid
all the insults heaped upon her, had elevated her in the hearts of
those whose homage was a worthy tribute. Mr. Hume, ultra-reformer as he
was, exhibited very excellent taste on this occasion, and pointed out
in a few words marked by good common sense, that the name of the
exalted lady, in question, should never be dragged into the debates,
the discussions, and the dissensions of that house.
Less, perhaps, by way of championship, than in the character of
consolers, did the bishops, or a certain number of them, with the
Archbishop of Canterbury at their head, address Queen Adelaide. They
had, previously, "been up" to the King, who was just then being
counselled in various ways, by everybody, from wary old politicians to
the 'prentice-boys of Derry. They brought to his Consort the usual
complimentary phrases,--but, in the present instance, they carried
weight with the Queen, for amid the din of abuse with which she was
assailed, a few words of assurance and encouragement, of trust,
counsel, and consolation, must have fallen pleasantly upon her ear. She
said as much, at least, in a brief phrase or two, indicative of the
satisfaction she experienced at hearing such words from such men, at a
period when she was the object of so much undeserved calumny and insult.
The scene was, undoubtedly, made the most of by those who rejoiced most
in its occurrence; perhaps, too much was made of it; and this induced
the ridicule of the opposite side. The "Times" courageously denied its
existence. The presentation of the prelates was admitted, but the
Queen's speech was defined as a hoax. There was nobody by, it was said,
but the knot of diocesans and a body of maids of honour,--and, of
course, any report emanating from such a source was to be received with
more than ordinary suspicion.
Long before the press had commenced directing an undesired notice upon
the Queen, private circles were canvassing her conduct with regard,
especially, to this matter of reform. "By-the-bye," says Moore in his
Diary, "the Queen being, as is well known, adverse to the measure which
is giving such popularity to her royal husband, reminds me a little of
the story of the King of Sparta, who first gave his assent to the
establishment of the Ephori. His wife, it is said, reproached him with
this step, and told him that he was delivering down the royal power to
his children, less than he had received it. 'Greater,' he answered,
'because more durable.' This is just such an answer as William the
Fourth would be likely to give to _his_ wife. But the event proved the
Spartan Queen to have been right, for the Ephori extinguished the royal
power; and if Queen Adelaide's bodings are of the same description,
they are but too likely to be, _in the same manner, realized_,"--a
curious avowal from Lord Lansdowne's Whig friend.
There are few things which more forcibly strike a student of the
political literature of this period, than its wide difference from that
which now generally prevails. It seemed, in those days, as if no public
writer could command or control his temper. The worst things were
expressed in the worst forms, and writers had not reached, or did not
care to practise, the better style by which a man may censure sharply
without doing undue wrong to the object of his censure, without losing
his own self-respect or forfeiting that of his readers.
Taken altogether, the year 1832 may be said to have been the most
eventful, and the least felicitous, in the life of Queen Adelaide. It
was a year which opened gloomily for the court, both politically and
personally. At one of the small festivities held at the Pavilion, the
King's old friend, Mr. Greenwood, of the firm of Cox and Greenwood,
Army Agents, was playing whist, after dinner, with the Queen for a
partner, and the King and Sir Herbert Taylor for adversaries. During
the progress of the game he was taken ill, became insensible, and, on
being removed from the room by Sir Herbert and Lord Erroll, died in an
adjoining apartment, within a quarter of an hour. The Queen was very
much shocked at this incident, and the elder ladies about court who
thought it ominous of a fatal year,--for already were movements hostile
to monarchy becoming active,--considered the next month's omen of
unpleasant significance too, when the fog in London, on the night of
the anniversary of the Queen's birth-day, was so dense, that not a lump
of the illuminations was visible through the mist. Then ensued, in the
subsequent spring, the unpleasant feud with the Sefton family, in which
Queen Adelaide's name was so prominent.
Soon after the temporary resignation of the Grey ministry, King William
invited the Jockey Club to dinner at St. James's Palace. Among the
invited was old Lord Sefton, who was a Whig _and something more_, and
who was resolved to avenge on the King the wrongs inflicted, as he
assumed, by that dissembling monarch on his friends of the late
administration. Lord Sefton, accordingly withdrew from the club, in
order that he might be able to decline the royal invitation, as a
member. The unsuspicious King at once invited him as a friend, but Lord
Sefton was ungracious enough to absent himself, and did not condescend
to restore the sovereign to favour, till Lord Grey was once more at the
helm of the national ship,--steersman and captain too. His lordship and
family appeared at the ball given by the Queen, in May to which, of
course, they had been all invited. Meanwhile, however, the King had
learned how he stood in the estimation of the Earl, meeting whom in the
Queen's ball-room, he turned his royal back upon him, publicly. Thence
arose embittered feelings on the part of the offended peer. _Vivere
sat, vincere_, "to conquer, is to live enough," is the Sefton motto,
and the bearers of it seem to have been determined to have this taste
of life, by putting down the royal offenders, and appearing before them
to enjoy their humiliation. "Lord Molyneux" (Lord Sefton's son, says
Mr. Raikes, in his _Diary_,) "has attended a public meeting at
Liverpool, where he made a speech, and actuated by his father's
feelings, alluded very bitterly to the conduct of both the King and
Queen. He afterwards came to town, and appeared, with his family, at
the ball. On the following day, the King commanded Mr. W. Ashley, as
vice-chamberlain to the Queen, to write to Lord Molyneux, and request
he would not appear at court again. Nothing could be more just. This is
only a slight instance," adds the Tory Diarist, "of Whig insolence and
ingratitude. Sefton has been made a peer, and treated with the most
marked courtesy and attention by the present King."
In the following June, Lord Lichfield, master of the buck hounds,
prepared a list of guests invited by him to meet the King, at the
conclusion of Ascot races; at dinner, at Lord Lichfield's house, Fern
Hill. The King expressly ordered that Lord Sefton should not be
invited. Considering the offence, it was singular that any one should
have thought of winning the Queen over to use her interest in
influencing her husband to withdraw the command. Lady Lichfield,
however, did so, intimating to Her Majesty, that if the King had been
moved by what was reported to have passed at the Jockey Club, she was
enabled to say how that matter had been much misrepresented. The Queen
confined all reply and comment to the words, coldly uttered, that, she
hoped it was so.
It certainly was not a period when Queens could expect to be cordial
with people who insulted them, and whose speeches in public were
exercising a very unwholesome influence on the more ignorant of the
lower orders. At the above very Ascot races, the King was grievously
assaulted, in the Queen's presence, by a ruffian in the crowd. Their
Majesties had just taken their seats in the grand stand, and the King
had then risen to salute the people in view, when the ruffian in
question flung a stone at him, which struck the King on the forehead,
but did not inflict any serious mischief. The assailant was let cheaply
off; but Queen Adelaide was much distressed by his act; and the
impression it made upon her was only increased, a week later, when she
appeared with the King at the review in Hyde Park. There she was
treated with such incivility and rudeness, that at the fete, at the
Duke of Wellington's, in the evening, where they held a little court,
the Queen wore a spiritless and sorrowing aspect, while King William,
his buoyant spirits all quenched, looked aged and infirm, weary of his
vocation and vexations.
The season, certainly, was not one for monarchs to be abroad in, with
joyous exterior. In the summer of this year, there passed through
London a princess whose story bore with it a great moral to the wearers
of crowns. I allude to the Duchess of Angouleme, the daughter of Louis
XVI. She had experienced the widest extremes of fortune, but had been
longest and most intimately acquainted with misfortune. She was again a
fugitive and an exile,--one never destined to behold her country again.
The Queen visited her at her modest apartments in Charles Street,
Grosvenor Square; and she took leave of that illustrious victim of many
revolutions, with evil forebodings of the issue of the spirit of the
then present time. Her Majesty did not, indeed, lack a certain spirit
of her own, wherewith to meet the other and revolutionary spirit. Thus,
when her friend and faithful servant, Lord Howe, was compelled to give
up his office of chamberlain to the Queen, his mistress would never
accept the nomination of any other person to the same post. Lord Howe
remained in attendance upon his mistress unofficially; but he
positively refused to be reinstated by Lord Grey, to whom his reply
was, "That he had been wantonly dismissed by him, and would receive no
favour at his hands." The act of Lord Grey was, probably, far more
keenly felt at court, than that of the two new radical members (Messrs.
Wigney and Faithful) returned for the royal borough of Brighton; and
who, "under the very nose of the court," as it was said, "talked openly
of reducing the allowance made to the King and Queen." This was a
foolish speech; but there was an even more indiscrete tongue
within the Pavilion, than those of the new radical senators without. In
1833, the King himself declared in favour of a republican form of
government! What must the feelings of Queen Adelaide have been,--she
who had a horror of revolutions, and a hatred for republicanism,--on
that never-to-be-forgotten Sunday evening, the 6th of January, 1833?
The American Minister was a guest at the dinner table that evening. At
the dessert, the King, instead of wisely going to sleep, as he was
accustomed to do after his second glass of wine, _would_ be lively and
talkative. When he was in this vein, he was addicted to make speeches,
and on this occasion, before the ladies had retired, he delivered
himself of a very notable one, considering the times and the speaker,
in which he expressed his great regret that he had not been born a
free, independent, American: seeing that he entertained deep respect
for the United States, and considered Washington to be the greatest man
that ever lived. Queen Adelaide must have been astounded when listening
to this profession of political faith, and to this eulogy of a man who
had struck the brightest jewel out of the crown of his panegyrist's
royal father!
To old royalists, such a speech as the above savoured of that period
which is called "the end of the world." Speculative individuals who
heard of it, were amazed. "The aristocracy are hourly going down in the
scale; royalty is become a mere cypher." Well might Mr. Raikes make
this entry in his journal, when a King of England manifested a liking
for "rowdyism." The influences of these passing events, even on men of
intellect, are well marked by a contemporary passage in the diary of
the merchant, whose commercial affairs were going the way he fancied
the monarchy was tending. "I was walking the other day," he writes, in
February 1833, "round the Royal Exchange, the _enceinte_ of which is
adorned with the statues of Kings. Only two niches now remain vacant;
one is destined to our present ruler, and that reserved for his
successor is the last. Some people might say it was ominous." So,
indeed, it proved to be; half-a-year after the accession of Queen
Victoria, when there were as many niches as there had then been
sovereigns, and room for no more, destruction ensued, but it was the
Royal Exchange that fell (by fire), and not the monarchy. That has
grown stronger. May it ever so flourish!
Meanwhile, it is to be observed, that Queen Adelaide after this time
began to re-conquer the popular esteem. When, in July 1834, she
embarked at Woolwich as Countess of Lancaster, on board the royal
yacht, for Rotterdam, in order to visit her relations in Germany, the
spectators of the scene received her with demonstrations of great
respect, and, on her return, in the following month, she landed at the
same place amid acclamations of loyalty and welcome.
It was after her return that the King began to bear symptoms of
restlessness and fatigue, which betokened that decay which gradually
made progress, and was ultimately accelerated in 1837, when his
daughter, Lady de Lisle, died to the grief of many, but especially to
the heart of her father.
As the King's health began to give way, so also did his temper more
easily yield before small provocations, and more freely did he indulge
in that early acquired habit of using strong expletives which has been
noted, in her diary, by Fanny Burney. William the Conqueror, it is
said, used to ungallantly beat his wife, Matilda, of whom he was
otherwise so fond. William the Fourth was guilty of an offence only
next to it in criminality,--by swearing in presence of his Consort,
Adelaide. There is a well-known instance of this told in connection
with a visit to the Royal Academy, in 1834. The occasion was that of a
private view, with a very large public attendance, at Somerset House.
The President of the Royal Academy received the illustrious visitors,
and accompanied them through the rooms. In the course of their
progress, he pointed out to the King the portrait of Admiral Napier,
who had recently been in command of the Portuguese fleet, for Don
Pedro. The King's political wrath was too strong for his infirmity,
and, without forgetting the presence of his wife, nay, making such
presence an excuse for not breaking forth into greater unseemliness, he
exclaimed:--"Captain Napier may be d----d, sir! and you may be d----d,
sir! and if the Queen was not here, sir, I would kick you down stairs,
sir." Such a scene indicated as much infirmity as bad taste on the part
of the chief actor, and must have sorely tried the patience and shaken
the dignity of the Queen. She now, perhaps, as much or more than ever,
required the support of those nearest to her. The old prejudices of the
reform time against her had not yet died out, and to these was to be
added certain malignity in foreign papers; a malignity which culminated
in 1835 in the "Gazette de France," which paper seriously asserted that
England was endeavouring to revolutionize Spain and Portugal, with
ulterior purposes of pursuing the same course in Germany and Italy, as
she had done in Belgium and in Greece;--and that at the head of this
conspiracy for reconstructing Europe, were William the Fourth, the Duke
of Wellington, and _Queen Adelaide_! Thus, the lady who had seldom
during her life desired more than to be permitted to enjoy it
tranquilly, and who had but little perplexed herself touching the ways
of others, was held up, after being accused of being a political
meddler at home, as being a political conspirator abroad.
When her royal Consort's indisposition assumed an appearance of
increased gravity, Queen Adelaide at once took her place by his couch,
and never left it but when compelled by gentle restraint put upon her
by those who loved her, and who feared for her own health. "Les reines"
(says a French writer) "ont ete vues pleurantes comme de simples
femmes," and she was one of them. Her constancy only gave way, and she
broke into profuse but silent tears, on the eve of the old King's
death, as the Archbishop of Canterbury concluded the service of the
sick, by pronouncing the solemn words of the benediction as contained
in the Liturgy of the Church. The good old monarch looked with
affection upon his sorrowing Queen, and with as cheerful a voice as he
could put on, and almost in nautical phrase, begged her to be of good
heart and to "bear up! bear up!"
The Rev. Mr. Browne, Vicar of Atwick, rendering testimony to her
conduct on this occasion, said in a funeral sermon: "She was by the
King's bedside, a being so full of devoted love and pious resignation:
of such meekness, gentleness, and goodness, and sweetness; that an
angel might have beheld her with satisfaction and delight, and, _almost
with advantage_." She did her duty like a true wife and tender woman;
and Mr. Browne thought that, altogether, Queen Adelaide might have
afforded an useful hint or two even to angels! It is more than the good
Queen ever dreamed of.
I do not know that I can cite a worthier witness to the Queen's conduct
on this occasion, than the Archbishop of Canterbury. That reverend
prelate was in close attendance upon the King during the last days of
his life, in 1837, and in the course of his ministrations, saw more of
Queen Adelaide than any other individual there present had the
opportunity of doing. At a meeting of the Metropolitan Churches' Fund
Society, the primate went fully, but tenderly and sensibly, into this
solemn matter; and after rendering due, but not over-piled, measure of
justice to the King, spoke in these words of his Consort:--"For three
weeks prior to his dissolution, the Queen sat by his bedside,
performing for him every office which a sick man could require, and
depriving herself of all manner of rest and refection. She underwent
labours which I thought no ordinary woman could endure. No language can
do justice to the meekness and to the calmness of mind which she sought
to keep up before the King, while sorrow was preying on her heart. Such
constancy of affection, I think, was one of the most interesting
spectacles that could be presented to a mind desirous of being
gratified with the sight of human excellence."
The spectacle at the close was one most touching of all, for old King
William, threescore and twelve, died at last in a gentle sleep, as he
sat up on his couch, his head resting, where it had lain undisturbed
for hours, on the shoulder of the Queen. Such had been her office at
various times, daily, for the preceding fortnight; and when it shall
have been a little more hallowed by time, it will be a fitting subject
to be limned by some future artist, competent to treat it.
Since the death of Charles II., no King of England had died under the
same roof with his wife; and then there was no such touching scene as
the above, but only a few words of decent reconciliation before the
royal pair parted for ever; and the wife, (leaving the husband to die
at leisure and commend worthless women to his brother's protection)
went to her chamber to receive the formal news of his death, and
finally to receive the condolence of visitors, laying the while on a
state bed of mourning, in a chamber lighted with tapers, the walls,
floor, and ceiling covered with black cloth. Queen Adelaide stayed by
her husband to the last, then laid his unconscious head upon the
pillow, and quietly withdrawing to her chamber, looked for consolation
to other sources than the visits of courtiers shaping their faces to
the humour of the hour.
The respect of the royal widow for the deceased King did not cease
here. On Saturday night, the 8th of July, she attended the funeral
ceremony, at Windsor, being present in the royal closet during the
whole ceremony. She is the only Queen of England who saw a King, her
Consort, deposited in the tomb.
In the following month, the Dowager Queen left Windsor Castle, to which
the shouts of a joyous people welcomed her successor. From that time,
she may be said to have commenced her own course of dying. Her story is
really, henceforward, but the diary of an invalid. The nation, through
the legislature, condoled with her upon her bereavement, and as she
descended the steps of the throne to resume her old unostentatious
privacy, there was not a man in the realm who failed, in some wise, to
greet her, or who did not acknowledge that she had borne greatness with
honour, and had won the hearts of a people who had been once forward to
censure her.