CHAPTER I

THE GIRLHOOD OF

QUEEN VICTORIA

THE GIRLHOOD OF

QUEEN VICTORIA

A SELECTION FROM HER MAJESTY’S

DIARIES BETWEEN THE YEARS

1832 AND 1840

PUBLISHED BY AUTHORITY OF

HIS MAJESTY THE KING

EDITED BY VISCOUNT ESHER, G.C.B., G.C.V.O.

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. I

LONDON

JOHN MURRAY, ALBEMARLE STREET, W.

1912

In the preparation of this book much is due to the ungrudging help

given to the Editor by the late Mr. Hugh Childers in the tedious and

complicated task of tracing the numerous references to persons and

places mentioned in the Queen’s Journals.

Mr. Hugh Childers rendered valuable service to the Editors of _The

Letters of Queen Victoria_, and in the preparation of this book

his labour and trouble were no less freely expended under trying

circumstances of failing health. His loss is deeply regretted by the

Editor.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

PREFACE

These extracts from the early Journals of Queen Victoria have been

edited by command of her son, King Edward VII., and under the gracious

auspices of her grandson, King George V.

The Editor feels bound to express his humble gratitude to the King, and

his deep obligation to the Queen, for the encouragement and assistance

he has received from their Majesties in the preparation of these

volumes.

Without the Queen’s help and exact historical knowledge of the period

covered by the Journals, many imperfections in the editing of them

would have passed unnoticed.

The Editor must also return his warmest thanks to H.R.H. Princess

Christian of Schleswig-Holstein, whose retentive memory of the persons

mentioned in the text has been unreservedly and generously brought to

bear upon the notes to these volumes, and to H.R.H. Princess Henry of

Battenberg, to whose pious regard for her Mother’s memory, as Executrix

of Queen Victoria’s Will, the publication of the Journals may be

ascribed.

Furthermore, he is anxious to thank Lord Rosebery for his friendly

co-operation in having read the proofs, and for many valuable

suggestions.

And, finally, he cannot sufficiently acknowledge the care lavished upon

the publication of this book by his friend John Murray, junior, whose

inherited gifts have been placed unreservedly at the disposal of the

Editor.

CONTENTS

PAGES

INTRODUCTION 1–41

CHAPTER I

1832

Journey by St. Albans, Dunstable, Coventry, and Birmingham

to Welshpool — Arrival at Powis Castle — At Beaumaris —

Visit to Baron Hill — Sir Richard and Lady Bulkeley — At

Plas Newydd — Journey to Eaton — Visit to Lord and Lady

Westminster — The Grosvenor family — Visit to Chatsworth

— The Cavendish family — Expedition to Haddon Hall —

Visit to Alton Towers — A hunting episode — Visit to

Wytham Abbey — A day in Oxford — Back to Kensington —

Christmas presents 42–62

CHAPTER II

1833

Arrival of “Dash” — Various lessons — At the Opera —

_Kenilworth_ ballet — Life at Kensington — Recreations

— Dinner party for the King; and the guests — The Opera

and Taglioni — Somerset House Exhibition — The Duke of

Orleans — Fourteenth birthday — Presents — A birthday

ball — Alexander and Ernest of Würtemberg — Paganini and

Malibran — Journey to Portsmouth — At Norris Castle — On

board the _Emerald_ — Visit to the _Victory_ — Journey

to Plymouth — Presentation of Colours — The Queen of

Portugal — Spanish affairs — At Drury Lane — A lecture on

physics 63–90

CHAPTER III

1834

The Order of Maria Louisa — At the Opera — _Anna Boulena_ and

_Othello_ — Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg — Feodore, Princess

von Hohenlohe-Langenburg and her children — Visit to

Windsor — The King and Queen — Portuguese affairs — At

St. Leonards — A carriage accident — Death of the Duke of

Gloucester — A fine sermon 91–106

CHAPTER IV

1835

At St. Leonards — A shipwreck — Lessons — Back to Kensington

— Death of the Duke of Leuchtenberg — Opera _Otello_

— Visit to Windsor — A concert — Grisi, Lablache, and

Tamburini — Sixteenth birthday — Presents — Eton Montem —

At the opera — Death of Countess Mensdorff — Confirmation

— Ceremony at St. James’s — First Communion — At

Tunbridge Wells — Races — Reading — Back to Kensington

— Duc de Nemours — Journey to Bishopthorpe — Harcourt

family — York Minster — At Canterbury — Ramsgate — The

King and Queen of the Belgians 107–139

CHAPTER V

1836

At Ramsgate — Back to Kensington — Change of rooms —

Marriage of the Queen of Portugal — A dinner party — The

theatre — Kemble and Macready — Helen Faucit — Charles

Mathews — Visit to Windsor — State ball — Princes

Ferdinand and Augustus — King Leopold’s _Directions_

— Visit of Ernest and Albert of Saxe-Coburg — Their

characteristics and charms — Seventeenth birthday — The

British Gallery — The Victoria Asylum — Lablache — At

Claremont — Portuguese revolution — Events in Lisbon

— King Leopold and Belgium — Death of Malibran — At

Ramsgate — Books read — A dinner party — Louis Napoleon

at Strasburg — A stormy journey — Rochester — Back to

Kensington — Claremont — A gipsy camp 140–182

CHAPTER VI

1837

Gipsies — M. Van de Weyer — Books read — Opera _I Puritani_ —

Death of Lady de L’Isle — The Drawing-room — An address

from Lincoln — Eighteenth birthday — Ball at St. James’s

— Stockmar — The King’s illness and death — News of the

Accession — The first Council — Lord Melbourne — The

Proclamation — Official business — Visit to Windsor

— Queen Adelaide — Addresses — Audiences — Household

appointments — The King’s funeral — Conferring Orders

— Leaving Kensington Palace — Settling into Buckingham

Palace 183–212

CHAPTER VII

1837 (_continued_)

Chapter of the Garter — Cabinet Council — Thalberg — State

visit to House of Lords — Order of St. Catherine —

Anxiety about elections — Trying horses — Windsor — The

King of Würtemburg — Visit of King Leopold — Talks with

Lord Melbourne — A game of chess — Departure of the

King and Queen of the Belgians — A review at Windsor —

Queen Adelaide — Perasi of Lord Melbourne — At Brighton

— Unfortunate state of Portugal — Changes at Buckingham

Palace — Lord Mayor’s Dinner — Popularity with the crowd

— The Queen’s Speech — State visit to the House of Lords

— Debates on the Address — Pensions — Lord Melbourne on

Education — Landseer’s pictures — Conversations with Lord

Melbourne — Lord Brougham’s attacks — Magnetism — The

Privy Purse — Character formation — Windsor 213–248

CHAPTER VIII

_January and February_, 1838

Lord Melbourne’s family — Riding — Canadian difficulties

— The Secretary at War — Lord Melbourne on music —

Lord Durham and Canada — The State of Greece — Lord

Melbourne on various people — And on Wellington —

Punishments — Army difficulties — The Waverley Novels

— Sir John Colborne — The Fitzclarence pensions — Lady

Falkland — Lord Melbourne on historics — Whig doctrine

— Lord Melbourne on recommendations — Charles Kean in

_Hamlet_ — Dolls — English Kings — Sheriff-pricking —

Canada Government Bill — Shakespeare plays — Government

difficulties — The Ballot question and Lord J. Russell

— Wellington’s manner — Lord Tavistock — Troops in

Canada — Lord Ellenborough — Peerage ceremonial —

Princess Charlotte — Duchess of Sutherland — Public

School education — Enthusiasm — William IV.’s dislikes —

Ballot Question — Anecdote of George IV. — Children and

relations — A Russian custom — A Levée — Pensions — Court

etiquette — Lord Howe and Queen Adelaide — The question

of Marriage 249–290

CHAPTER IX

_March, April, and May_, 1838

Bulwer’s plays — Canadian prisoners — Jamaican slavery —

An Investiture — Commission on Promotions — Portuguese

affairs — A long ride — Lord and Lady Holland — Talk on

railways — Lady Burghersh — Lord Byron — Duke and Duchess

of Gloucester — Gallery of Portraits — Madame de Staël —

Brougham’s oddities — Death of Louis — The Royal Family

— Soult — Lady Charlotte Bury — The Hertford family —

Carlton House and Court parties — Queen Anne — George

IV.’s favourites — Artists — A State ball — The Church

of Ireland — Useless motions — The Ponsonby family —

Coronation preparations — Irish affairs — Government

difficulties — Singing of birds — The Fitzclarence

pensions — Election Committee Bill — Portugal and slavery

— The Established Church — Parliamentary business —

Audiences — Talleyrand’s death — Twentieth birthday — A

State ball — Royal marriages — Eton customs — Coronation

honours 291–335

CHAPTER X

_June, July, and August_, 1838

Thunderstorms — Lord Durham — Don Giovanni — New Zealand

— Eton Montem — Lord Barham — Miss Chaworth and Byron

— Lord Melbourne’s household — Visit to Eton — King

Leopold’s position — Lord Melbourne’s reminiscences —

Public School education — Irish legal difficulties —

O’Connell — Eton and Ascot — South Sea Co. — The Order

of the Bath — Coronation Honours — Lord Melbourne and

the Garter — Marshal Soult — Coronation Day — Procession

to Westminster — The ceremony — The procession — After

the Coronation — The peerage — Illuminations — Lord

Melbourne on the ceremony — Kings and usurpers — Review

in Hyde Park — Popularity of enemies — Soult at Eton —

Family questions — Sir E. Lyons — Prince Royal of Bavaria

— Dukedoms — The Sheridan family — Lady Seymour — Lord

Shelburne’s marriage — A dinner party and reception —

George III.’s sons — And his illnesses — Lady Sarah

Lennox — Mehemet Ali — Lord Melbourne and King Leopold

— Statues — The Queen’s Speech — Lord Melbourne on Lord

Brougham — Wellington — Belgium and Holland dispute — The

Irish — Persian affairs — Pozzo di Borgo — Lord Howick —

Belgian affairs — Russian influence — Jewels — Duke of

Sussex — Lord North — Mexican affairs — Concerning books

— Lady Holland — George III.’s Prime Ministers — Colonial

policy 336–398

[Illustration: _H.R.H. Princess Victoria & “Dashy”_

_from a picture by R. Westall R. A. at Windsor Castle_]

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

VOL. I

H.R.H. PRINCESS VICTORIA AND “DASHY.” _From a picture by R.

Westall, R.A., at Windsor Castle_ _Frontispiece_

FACING PAGE

VICTOIRE CONROY. _From a sketch by Princess Victoria_ 48

*H.R.H. PRINCESS SOPHIA. _From a portrait by Sir W. Ross_ 62

*H.S.H. PRINCESS ADELAIDE OF HOHENLOHE-LANGENBURG. _From a

portrait by Gutekunst_ 96

*H.S.H. PRINCESS SOPHIA OF SAXE-COBURG, COUNTESS

MENSDORFF-POUILLY. _From a portrait by Dickinson_ 122

CHARLES MATHEWS. _From a sketch by Princess Victoria_ 148

*H.S.H. PRINCE ALBERT OF SAXE-COBURG, AGED NINE. _From a

portrait by Schneider, after Eckhardt_ 158

MADAME MALIBRAN. _From a sketch by Princess Victoria_ 168

GIPSY WOMEN. _From a sketch by Princess Victoria_ 182

LUIGI LABLACHE. _From a sketch by Princess Victoria_ 190

*H.M. QUEEN ADELAIDE. _From a portrait by Sir W. Ross_ 204

*H.R.H. PRINCESS VICTORIA. _From a portrait by R. J. Lane_,

1829 212

*H.S.H. CHARLES, PRINCE OF LEININGEN. _From a portrait by R. J.

Lane_ 248

*H.R.H. THE DUCHESS OF KENT. _From a portrait by Stone_ 290

H.S.H. PRINCE FERDINAND OF SAXE-COBURG, AFTERWARDS KING-CONSORT

OF PORTUGAL. _From a sketch by Princess Victoria_ 326

*H.S.H. FEODORA, PRINCESS OF HOHENLOHE-LANGENBURG. _From a

portrait by Gutekunst_, 1830 362

*H.R.H. THE DUC DE NEMOURS. _From a portrait by Eugene Lami_ 394

NOTE.—The illustrations marked * are taken from the Queen’s private

albums, in which she kept portraits of relations and friends,

specially painted for her.

INTRODUCTION

I

Apart from the onward surge of Empire during both epochs, apart from

the flow of scientific thought and the breeze of literary enthusiasm

characterising them, there is much in the atmosphere of Victoria’s

advent to the Throne, and her long and glorious tenure of it, to remind

us of the central figure of the Elizabethan age.

Both princesses were reared and educated, although for very different

reasons, in the uncertain glory of succession to the Throne. Both

mounted the Throne early in life alone and unprotected, at a moment of

reaction against the abuses of monarchy. Under George III. as under

Henry VIII. this country had been subjected to violent commotion

consequent on the struggle for national freedom against a foreign

power. The Reformation in England and the Napoleonic wars owed their

successful issue to the persistent determination of the English people

to be free. The hated marriage of Mary and the matrimonial scandals

of George IV. had cast a gloom over the temper of the nation. Even

the triumph of the popular cause, due to the grudging support given

by William IV. to his Whig Ministers, had not restored the forfeited

prestige of the Monarchy.

Reaction was the corollary against the fear inspired by Philip in the

one case and the humiliating memories of Queen Caroline in the other.

That reaction came in the shape of the popular enthusiasm inspired by a

young and attractive Tudor princess, who at Hatfield on a late November

afternoon in 1558 heard from Cecil that she was Queen of England. Three

centuries later a similar outburst followed the accession of another

youthful princess only just eighteen years old, looking scarcely

more than a child, when she received the homage of Lord Melbourne at

Kensington Palace on a June morning of 1837.

It is tempting to follow this seductive pathway through the devious

alleys of historical comparison and contrasts. The troubles of

Elizabeth’s childhood at Hunsdon, the pitiful laments of her excellent

governess at the poverty of her ward’s surroundings, and the hostile

atmosphere surrounding her person were reflected in a minor degree

within the precincts of Kensington during the early years of Princess

Victoria’s life.

Our concern, however, is not with Elizabeth but with Victoria, with the

England into which she was born, and with the influences which helped

to give her character and bearing a certain strength and dignity,

and attuned her heart, not perhaps to deep tenderness, but to much

compassion.

The pen recoils from an attempt to tell again the story of Princess

Victoria’s birth and early life, or to describe once more the political

events of her first years upon the Throne. Moreover, these volumes tell

their own tale. They set forth in the young Princess’s own artless

words the daily facts of her existence at Kensington, or when making

some provincial royal progress in the company of her mother.

The reader can catch many a glimpse here and there of the soul of a

Princess, proud and headstrong, affectionate and sometimes perverse,

seated on the lonely heights of the Throne. The portrait is here,

within these pages. It is not unskilfully drawn, when the youth of the

artist is borne in mind. At the time when the first entries in these

Journals were made, the writer was thirteen years old. The last page

was written on the day of her marriage. She had been two years a Queen,

and she was in her twenty-first year.

Princess Victoria, the only child of the Duke and Duchess of Kent,

and the ultimate heiress in direct succession of George III., was

born on May 24, 1819. In 1819 the aspect of English country life

was not very different from that of to-day; if the roads were not

so well surfaced, and if woodlands were rather more plentiful, the

fields and hedgerows, the farmsteads with cottages grouped around

them, the Tudor manor-houses, the Georgian villas, the church spires,

and the village greens have remained unchanged. Except for lines of

railway and telegraph poles, the hop-fields of Kent and the Surrey

commons have kept their shape and contours. So that, in spite of the

miracles wrought by machinery in the minutiæ of life, any one of our

grandparents cruising in an airship at an elevation of some hundreds of

feet over the lands where he hunted and shot, or even the great town

in which he spent his summer months, would probably be unconscious of

much distinctive change.

Young people, however, think it odd when they read that when Princess

Victoria was taken from Kensington to Claremont—a journey now

accomplished with as little thought as would then have been given to

a drive between the Palace and Hyde Park—it was considered a “family

removal” of such moment as to require all the provision and precautions

associated to-day with an autumn holiday.

To those still young, but old enough to remember Queen Victoria, it

may seem hardly credible that she was born into a world devoid of

all the marvels of steam and electric contrivance that appear to us

the necessities, and not merely the luxuries, of life. How much more

difficult it must be for them to realise that when the young Princess

(whom they remember a great and mysterious figure, welcoming back

only the other day her soldiers from South Africa, and rejoicing in

their victories) was carried into the saloon of Kensington Palace to

be received by Archbishop Manners Sutton into the Church of Christ,

the mighty spirit of Napoleon brooded still behind the palisades of

Longwood, and George III.’s white and weary head could still be seen at

the window of his library at Windsor!

The Victorian era covers the period of the expansion of England into

the British Empire. The soldier, still young to-day, who put the

coping-stone on the Empire in Africa in 1900 is linked by the life of

the Queen to his forbears, who, when she was born, were still nursing

the wounds gloriously earned four years before in laying its foundation

in a Belgian cornfield.

That year 1819, however, was a year of deep despondency in England. In

Europe it was the “glorious year of Metternich,” then at the height

of his maleficent power. Europe was quit of Napoleon, but had got

Metternich in exchange, and was ill pleased with the bargain. Great

Britain, it is true, was free, but our people were overwrought by

poverty and suffering. The storm-swell of the great Napoleonic wars

still disturbed the surface of English life, and few realised that they

were better off than they had been during the past decade.

At Holland House, its coteries thinner but still talking, Lady

Holland—old Madagascar—was still debating what inscription should

record the merits of Mr. Fox upon his monument in the Abbey for

the edification of future ages. In St. James’s Place Sam Rogers’s

breakfasts had not lost their vogue. Tommy Moore was still dining with

Horace Twiss, and meeting Kean, and Mrs. Siddons, “cold and queenlike,”

on her way to view Caroline of Brunswick’s “things” shortly to be sold

at Christie’s, or to criticise Miss O’Neill’s dress rehearsals. On the

very day that Princess Victoria was born, Byron was writing to John

Murray from Venice “in the agonies of a sirocco,” and clamouring for

the proofs of the first canto of _Don Juan_. In that year _Ivanhoe_

was finished, and in the hands of eager readers; whilst Scott was

receiving at Abbotsford a certain Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, uncle

of the baby at Kensington, destined thereafter to play a large part in

her early life. Keats had just published _Endymion_. It was his last

year in England before going south to die. And it was Shelley’s _annus

mirabilis_: the year in which he wrote _Prometheus_ and _The Cenci_—an

achievement, some have since said, unparalleled in English poetry since

Shakespeare lived and wrote.

_The Excursion_ had been published five years before, but Wordsworth

was at Rydal Mount completing _The White Doe of Rylston_. Southey

was Poet Laureate. Three years before, in the “wild and desolate

neighbourhood amid great tracts of bleak land enclosed by stone dykes

sweeping up Clayton heights,” Charlotte Brontë’s eyes had opened upon

her sad world. Carlyle, then a young teacher in Edinburgh, was passing

through that stormy period of the soul which comes sooner or later to

every one whose manhood is worth testing by God. And half-way between

Horncastle and Spilsby, on the lower slope of a Lincolnshire wold,

Alfred Tennyson was reading Pope’s _Iliad_ and himself “writing an

epic of 6,000 lines _à la_ Walter Scott.” At Shrewsbury School under

Dr. Butler, Charles Darwin, then a boy of ten, had already begun to

develop a taste for “collecting,” manifested in “franks” and seals and

coins. Robert Browning, a turbulent and destructive child of seven,

had already commenced making rhymes less complicated, but not less

ambitious, than those which puzzled his readers sixty years later.

Goethe, who had grown to manhood within earshot of Frederick the Great

and of the Empress Maria Theresa, was living at Weimar with many years

of life still before him, corresponding with the boy Mendelssohn, later

to be a welcome guest, at Windsor, of the little Princess, then in

her cradle in Kensington Palace. Mazzini, aged fourteen, was at the

University in Genoa, a rebellious lad, but already affecting the deep

mourning dress he never altered later in life. Cavour, aged nine, was

at school in Turin. Sir Thomas Lawrence was in that year engaged in

finishing his magnificent series of historical portraits afterwards to

find a home at Windsor Castle, illustrating for all time the Congress

of Vienna and the story of the Great Coalition against Napoleon.

Under this galaxy of stars, some slowly sinking below the horizon, and

others just rising above it, Princess Victoria was born.

In the year following, King George III. died. Historians, mostly

partisans of the Whig party, have not done this King justice. Of

all Sovereigns who have ever reigned in England, none so completely

represented the average man among his subjects. The King’s blameless

morals, his regular habits, his conservative instincts and narrow

obstinacy, were characteristics which he shared with the people he

ruled. Of the House of Hanover he was the first King born in England,

and he spoke his native tongue without a foreign accent. If he could

have reconciled it to the family tradition, he would have married an

English wife. He was essentially British in character and sentiment.

Had he not been overborne by his Ministers, he would have fought out

to a finish the war with America, and peace with Washington would not

have been concluded. He never for a moment contemplated abandoning the

struggle against Napoleon. No party whip could have taken more trouble

to keep his chief in office than did George III. to support Mr. Pitt

throughout that Minister’s first administration. He has been called

despotic, but that adjective can only be used, in speaking of him,

in the sense that he wished to see his views prevail. He was a good

partisan fighter, and this, in the main, his subjects never disliked.

A close and impartial examination of the character of George III.

discloses a temperament strongly resembling that which her Ministers

were destined in the middle and later years of her reign to find in

his granddaughter. Strong tenacity of view and of purpose, a vivid

sense of duty, a firm though unrevealed belief in the transcendental

right of the Sovereign to rule, a curious mingling of etiquette and

domestic simplicity, and a high standard of domestic virtue were marked

characteristics of George III. and of Queen Victoria. Both these

descendants of Princess Sophia had little in common with the Stewarts,

but, like Elizabeth and the Tudors, they had intense pride in England,

and they showed a firm resolve to cherish and keep intact their mighty

inheritance.

When George III. died at Windsor in 1820, and during the ten following

years, Princess Victoria’s uncle, George IV., reigned as King. For the

previous ten years he had reigned as Prince Regent. If his father has

been misjudged, this Sovereign too has been misrepresented by those

who have made it their business to write the political history of our

country. He is generally described as being wholly bad, and devoid of

any decent quality as a man and as a Sovereign. Decency perhaps was not

his strong point; but though it is not possible to esteem him as a man,

George IV. was not a bad King. In his youth, as Prince of Wales, in

spite of glaring follies and many vices, he possessed a certain charm.

When a boy he had broken loose from the over-strict and over-judicious

watchfulness of his parents. Kept in monotonous seclusion, cloistered

within the narrow confines of a Palace, fettered by an Oriental system

of domestic spies, cut off from intercourse with the intellectual

movement of the outer world, the royal children, warm-blooded and of

rebellious spirit, ran secret riot after a fashion which modern memoirs

have revealed in Borgian colours. It was a natural reaction of young

animal life against unnatural and unhealthy restraint. The Prince of

Wales, when he was eighteen years old, was unwillingly and perforce

liberated. It followed, simply enough, that he became a source of

constant grief and annoyance to his royal father. Not only were the

canons of morality violated by him with little regard for the outward

decorum due to his great position, but the young Prince plunged into a

turgid sea of politics, and it was not long before he stood forth as

the nominal head of a faction bitterly opposed to the King’s Ministers,

and the head and front of personal offence to the King himself.

In the eyes of high society he was a Prince Charming, vicious if you

will, a spendthrift and a rake, the embodiment of a reactionary spirit

against the dulness and monotonous respectability of the Court. He

was known to appreciate beautiful objects as well as beautiful faces.

He was not altogether without literary culture. He appeared to be

instinctively drawn to the arts and sciences with a full sense of the

joy of patronage, and he made it clear to every one that he welcomed

the free intercourse of men of all ranks, provided that they possessed

some originality of character or some distinction of mind. In Mr. Fox

he found a willing mentor and an irresistible boon companion. Among

that little group of Whigs, of whom Sheridan was the ornament and

the disgrace, he found precisely the atmosphere which suited him, so

completely was it the antithesis of that in which his boyhood had been

spent. As he grew older, the rose-tinted vices of his youth became grey

and unlovely, while the shortcomings of his mind and his heart were

more readily discerned; but much of his personal charm remained. In his

most degenerate days, in the years of his regency and kingship, when he

dragged into the public eye the indecencies of his domestic misfortunes

and paraded his mistresses before the world, he still managed to retain

a curious and genuine hold upon the affections of his Ministers.

Although he possessed none of their regard, he was not altogether

without some following among the people.

George IV.’s merits were a certain epicurean kindness of heart and a

not ungenerous desire to give pleasure, coupled with a true sense of

his constitutional position and a firm-drawn resolve to distinguish

between his private predilections and his public duty. The nation owes

him very little, but in any case it owes him this, that he was the

first Sovereign since Charles I. who showed a blundering reverence for

beautiful things. He enlarged and consolidated the artistic wealth of

the nation. A life-long patron of artists, he fostered the growth of

national art. He added largely to the splendid collections which now

adorn Windsor and the metropolis. Whatever the final judgment passed

upon him may be, both as a man and as a Sovereign, he must in strict

justice be spared the unqualified contempt with which superior spirits,

taking their cue from Thackeray, have treated him. It should weigh

with every man who reads _The Four Georges_ that King George IV. was

certainly liked, and was certainly not despised, by Sir Walter Scott.

In his later years the old King displayed some little kindness to his

niece, the young Princess Victoria, who had succeeded his own daughter

as prospective heiress of England. If he saw her but rarely, he now

and again betrayed knowledge of her existence, and once took her for a

drive in his pony-carriage. There are still extant some short letters

which she wrote to him in a large baby hand. In 1830 he died, and was

succeeded by his brother the Duke of Clarence.

William IV. was the most fortunate of the children of George III.

Thanks to his profession as a sea-officer, he escaped early from the

stifling atmosphere of the Court, and had the glorious privilege of

serving under the command of Hood and of Nelson. His sea service ended

when he was only twenty-five years old. It left the usual dominant

sea-mark upon his character. Like so many gallant sailors, his mind was

untrained and ill-disciplined. His sense of duty was strong, though

undiscerning. He was courageous and truthful. He had ten children by

Mrs. Jordan born out of wedlock, but they were all well cared for and

never disowned. He realised his constitutional duty sufficiently to

see that he must yield to the expressed will of the nation, but he

yielded so clumsily that all men believed him to be coerced. Wisely

anxious to be well known and popular among his subjects, he chose the

curious method of walking down St. James’s Street dressed in long

boots and spurs during the most crowded hour of the afternoon. His

predecessor had lived the last years of his life in seclusion and

silence; he determined therefore to give full scope to his naturally

garrulous disposition. He talked in season and out of season with an

irresponsibility which savoured of the quarter-deck, but wholly without

the salt of the sea. By his Ministers he was regarded with kindliness,

although it cannot be said, in spite of Lord Grey’s panegyric, that

they held him in much respect. By the middle classes he was looked upon

with amused and not unfriendly amazement. In the eyes of the masses he

was “Billy,” their sailor-King, and among monarchical safeguards there

are few stronger than a nickname and the aureole of the Navy.

William IV. married late in life Princess Adelaide of

Saxe-Coburg-Meiningen, but the fates left him with no surviving

children when he ascended the Throne in 1830. During his reign of seven

years the King showed much kindness to the little niece who was clearly

designated as his successor. Her mother, however, contrived to irritate

him by giving too much prominence to the obvious fact of her daughter’s

heirship to the Throne. By “progresses” made on different occasions and

undertaken with considerable ceremonial, the Duchess of Kent excited

the wrath of the King, who made no attempt to conceal his annoyance,

and took evident pleasure in the display of it at embarrassing moments

in public. It was partly owing to the friction between her mother and

King William and to the unpleasant atmosphere created in consequence of

these quarrels, and partly to the presence in her mother’s household

of Sir John Conroy and his family—persons very distasteful to the

young Princess—that Queen Victoria was in the habit of saying that her

childhood had been a sad one. These Journals, begun in her fourteenth

year, betray no sense of childish sorrow, and no reader can glean

from them any confirmation of her statement that her early life was

unhappy. It must be remembered, however, that this Journal was not

a sealed book. It was not privately put away under lock and key and

reserved only for the eye of the writer. The young Princess’s Journals

were commenced in a volume given to her by her mother for the express

purpose that she should record the facts of her daily life, and that

this record of facts and impressions should be open to the inspection

of the child’s governess as well as of her mother. It is natural,

therefore, that the earlier volumes should contain very little beyond

the obvious and simple things which any girl would be likely to write

down if she were attempting to describe her life from day to day. When

the Princess ascended the Throne and assumed her queenly independence,

the tone of the Journals changes at once. It becomes immediately

clear to the reader that while the Princess’s Journal was written for

her mother, the Queen’s Journal was written for herself. One of her

earliest entries after her succession was to state her intention of

invariably seeing her Ministers alone; and she might have added, had

she thought it worth stating, that her Journal also would in future be

seen by her alone.

Journals are often said to be useful to the historian. This theory

is based on the assumption, hardly borne out by experience, that he

who writes a journal writes what is true. A journal is supposed to

record events, great or small, which are happening at the moment,

and to convey impressions about personages with whom the writer

comes in contact, or who loom sufficiently large to justify their

being mentioned. When, however, it is remembered how inaccurate our

information generally is, and how mistaken we often are about the

character and motives even of those we know intimately, it is not

surprising that the most brilliant diarist should frequently state

facts which cannot be verified from other sources, and colour the

personality of his contemporaries in a manner quite unjustifiable

unless truth be deliberately sacrificed to the picturesque. The

Journal of Charles Greville, perhaps the most famous of English modern

journals, is full of gross inaccuracies in matters of fact and still

grosser distortions of character. It is, nevertheless, a striking

picture of the political and social world haunted by that persistent

eavesdropper, and, like any well-written journal, throws a vivid and

interesting light upon the character of the writer.

Similar criticisms apply to most famous memoirs, like Saint-Simon’s

or Lord Hervey’s, written with a view to serving the historian of the

future, and with the distinct purpose of giving bias to history.

They do not apply to these diaries of Queen Victoria. The Queen makes

no attempt to analyse character or the meaning of events. She never

strives after effect. Her statements are just homely descriptions

of everyday life and plain references to the people she meets at

Kensington or at Windsor. If the young Princess sees a play that

pleases her or hears a song that touches her, she says so. If the Queen

hears something said that strikes her as original or quaint, the saying

is put on record. She is not writing for the historian. She writes for

her own pleasure and amusement, although there is always present to her

mind a vague idea, common enough at the time, that to “keep a journal”

is in some undefined way an act of grace.

The reader should not lose sight of the fact that these Journals are

the simple impressions of a young girl, not twenty years old, about her

own life and about the people she met. This constitutes their charm.

She writes of her daily movements, and of the men and happenings that

gave her pleasure. Either by nature or design, she avoided the mention

of disagreeable things, so that these early Journals give one a notion

of a life happily and simply led.

If they throw no new light on the history of the period, they will give

to future generations an insight, of never-failing interest, into the

character of the young Queen.

II

Princess Victoria’s first Journal was commenced on August 1, 1832.

She was thirteen years old. The first entry is made in a small octavo

volume half bound in red morocco, of a very unpretentious kind.[1]

On the first page there appear the words, “This book Mamma gave me,

that I might write the journal of my journey to Wales in it.—Victoria,

Kensington Palace, July 31.”

The Duchess of Kent was at this time forty-six years of age. She had

been a widow for twelve years. She was the fourth daughter of the

Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and was first married to the Prince of

Leiningen-Dachburg-Hadenburg. He was twenty-three years her senior.

By him she had one son, Charles, often mentioned in these Journals,

and one daughter Feodorowna, subsequently married to Ernest, Prince of

Hohenlohe-Langenburg.

Two years after her second marriage, to the fourth son of George III.,

the Duchess of Kent was left a widow for the second time. Crippled by

the Duke’s debts, that she was quite unable to pay,[2] with three young

children on her hands, she was miserably poor. Her jointure yielded her

an income of under £300. Her brother Leopold, then living at Claremont,

came to her assistance, and made her an allowance of £3,000 a year.

In 1825, when it became evident that her daughter Princess Victoria

would in all probability succeed to the Throne of England, Parliament

voted an annuity of £6,000 to the Duchess, for the maintenance and

education of her child, and this was subsequently increased after the

accession of William IV.

The upbringing of her daughter became her absorbing occupation, and,

shutting herself up in Kensington Palace, she devoted herself to the

child’s education.

The lessons of Princess Victoria’s childhood were superintended by the

Dean of Chester. Her education, judged by the standards of to-day,

was not of an exceptionally high order. It would be interesting to

know what old Roger Ascham would have thought of the Dean of Chester’s

curriculum. So far as can be gathered from her own childish records

and from the correspondence and memoirs of those who had access to

Kensington, she was taught the ordinary things which children are

supposed to learn. Fortunately, perhaps, no effort of any special

kind was made to train her mind or mould her character, with a view

to the responsibilities which lay before her or to the position she

appeared destined to fill. When, at a later stage, the Bishops of

London and Lincoln were requested to draw up a report, for presentation

to Parliament, upon her moral and intellectual attainments, they

found no difficulty in giving credit to the Duchess of Kent for the

conscientious manner in which she had endeavoured to educate the

heiress to the Throne. We may, however, take leave to doubt whether

those entrusted with the Princess’s education were teachers endowed

with any special aptitudes; and it is certain that the outlook of

the Duchess herself, although practical and wise, was not of that

discerning character which enabled her to differentiate between a

commonplace education and its more subtle forms. It was precisely what

might have been expected from one whose youth had been spent in a small

German Court, and whose later opportunities had not brought her into

contact with highly trained and thoughtful minds.

A foreign observer and critic once suggested a doubt whether the Queen

could have maintained through life her admirable mental equilibrium if

education had developed in her high intellectual curiosity or fantastic

imagination. It is an interesting speculation. Soundness of judgment

possibly rests upon the receptive rather than upon the creative

faculties, and upon physical rather than upon intellectual activities.

It may, as has been said, require a rare type of intelligence—that of

Disraeli—to combine ideas and dreams with the realities of public life.

In the domain of learning, Queen Victoria had very little in common

with Elizabeth or with any Sovereign of the Renaissance. Her mother and

the worthy Dean, who watched over her youth, were content to foster the

quality of good sense, and to inculcate high standards of private and

public virtue. Her future subjects, could they have been consulted,

would have strongly approved. In after-years the English middle-class

recognised in the Queen a certain strain of German sentimentality which

they affectionately condoned, and a robust equilibrium of mind which

they thoroughly admired.

It is as well, therefore, that events took the shape they did, and

that the mind and character of the Princess were trained upon simple

lines in accordance with the practice of the average citizen families

subsequently to be her subjects. In years to come the Queen was perhaps

better able to look at events and persons from the point of view

of the majority of her people than would have been possible if her

education had given her a high place among the intellectuals. It was a

saving grace throughout her long reign that while she could recognise

intellect and capacity, her sympathies were with average people, whose

feelings and opinions she more readily understood and in reality

represented.

In these days, when Accomplishments, as they were called in the first

half of the nineteenth century, are no longer esteemed in young people,

and their place has been usurped by athletic exercises, it is difficult

to describe, in a way that appeals to the serious imagination, the

girlish tastes of Princess Victoria. Perhaps the world has not lost

much because young ladies to-day learn to play golf and have ceased to

sing duets.

In the thirties, music and painting and a knowledge of modern languages

were the necessary equipment of a girl destined to move in Society.

It mattered little how reedy and small the voice, she was expected to

vocalise like Grisi and to sing duets with Mario.

The Queen had been well trained musically, according to the lights

of those days. She could appreciate the simpler forms of melody,

especially Italian opera, while she could sing and play sufficiently

well to give much pleasure to herself and mild pleasure to others. As a

linguist, as a reader, and as a writer of letters and memoranda she had

no pretensions to pre-eminence; but she could speak modern languages as

well as any Queen is called upon to do, she could read and appreciate

high literature, although not without effort, and she could express

herself with pungency and vigour, although not with any marked literary

skill or distinction of style.

Her drawings and water-colour sketches were through life a constant

source of happiness to the Queen. There are at Windsor literally

hundreds of small sketch-books, containing reminiscences of her

journeys and sojournings in Scotland and in Italy, again not of high

artistic merit, but sufficiently vital to suggest the reflection that

a young lady of to-day is possibly no gainer by having substituted the

golf-club for the pencil.

The Queen’s teachers were excellent, commonplace people, and they

left precisely those traces on her mind that might have been expected.

Her character was another matter. They could not and did not influence

that, and it is the character of the Queen that places her in the small

category of rulers who have not only deserved well of their country,

but have left an indelible stamp upon the life of their people.

III

These Journals were commenced in the year 1832, a year memorable in our

history for the fruition of hopes deeply cherished by the political

party that had arisen, under the auspices of Canning, after the close

of the struggle with Napoleon.

During the year when the first Reform Bill became the law of the land,

the passions of men had been deeply stirred throughout Great Britain.

The political struggle, begun seventeen years before, had come to a

head. The classes still paramount had found themselves face to face

with the desires and aspirations of classes hitherto subordinate to

have a share in the government of the country. These feelings had grown

fiercer year by year, and, encouraged by the Whig party headed by

Earl Grey, had found ultimate expression in the Reform Bill of 1832,

framed under the ægis of that Minister. All over Europe the stream of

change and reform, loosed by the French Revolution and subsequently

checked by the Congress of Vienna, began once more to flow. During the

sixteen years that followed Princess Victoria’s first entry in these

Journals, the waters of Revolution had flooded Europe. Thrones and

institutions in every European country were shaken, many of them to

their foundations, and some with disastrous results. Fortunately for

Great Britain, her statesmen had anticipated the events of 1848, and

the Reform Bill had so far satisfied the aspirations of the hitherto

unenfranchised classes as to render innocuous the frothing of agitators

during that tragic year of revolution. In aptitude for anticipating

social and political change and avoiding violent manifestations of

popular will, the English race stands pre-eminent. Our people as well

as our statesmen have from the earliest times proved themselves to

be experts in the art of government, and the history of Europe is a

commentary upon that gift of the British nation.

There have, of course, been moments when the atmosphere of politics

has been highly charged with electricity. Such a moment occurred in

1832. A storm broke with unusual violence over the head of William IV.

The House of Lords was bitterly hostile to a Bill, accepted by the

House of Commons and supported with enthusiasm by the majority of his

subjects. There was no machinery existing under the Constitution for

adjusting these differences except that of creating a sufficient number

of Peers to ensure the passage of the Reform Bill through the House of

Lords. The King therefore found himself in the unpleasant position of

having to place his prerogative of creating peers in the hands of his

Ministers, or else by his own act to dispense with their services.

The choice found him undecided and left him baffled. He was not acute

enough to see that in the existing state of public opinion he had no

choice. If he had possessed wit to read the signs of the times, it is

doubtful whether he would have had sufficient single-minded courage to

take immediate action in accordance with the opinion he had formed.

Penetrating vision the King lacked, and responsibility was distasteful

to him. Consequently he was not only weak, but he showed weakness.

It was clear that the Government of Lord Grey held unimpaired the

confidence of the House of Commons and possessed the full approval of

the country. Every intelligent observer realised that the Reform Bill,

in spite of its aristocratic foes, in spite of the prophets of evil,

and in spite of its inherent defects, was bound to be passed into law.

King William, however, conceived it to be his duty to endeavour to

find an alternative Government. It was as certain as anything could

be in politics, that Sir Robert Peel would not, and that the Duke of

Wellington could not, come to his assistance. There was something

pitiful about the spectacle of the old sailor-King casting about for a

safe anchorage, and finding one cable parting after another. Security

was only to be found in the Ministers who had advised him, in the last

resort, to use his prerogative for the purpose of swamping a majority

in the House of Lords that hesitated to bow to the will of the people.

Ultimately he was constrained to accept their advice, but it was only

after a loss of personal dignity and a distinct weakening of the

authority of the Crown. The King, men said, had touted about to find

Ministers to serve him, and had failed to find them. This humiliation,

at least, King William might have avoided, had he possessed a clearer

vision of possibilities and greater firmness of character.

The political storms of 1832 appear to have broken noiselessly against

the walls of Kensington Palace, for in the little Princess’s Journals

there is no sign that she was aware of them. The King’s worries,

however, so affected his temper, that it was impossible for the

Princess and her mother not to feel its reflex action. In the Journals

no mention is made of the domestic troubles which have been described

elsewhere, and we know, from expressions of Queen Victoria’s in later

years, that she had purposely refrained, in compiling her Journals,

from referring to her mother’s worries and her own.

During the four years that immediately preceded Princess Victoria’s

accession to the Throne, from 1832 to 1836, these Journals give us

the picture of a young life passed amid the tranquil surroundings of

Kensington Palace, its educational monotony only varied by attendance

at the opera or the theatre, by autumnal trips into the provinces,

or by welcome visits from foreign cousins. These autumnal trips were

the “royal progresses,” as he called them, against which King William

was wont to protest in vehement language. They evidently gave intense

pleasure to the Princess. Her Journals contain records of them all.

Some examples have been given, in these extracts, of her method of

describing her visits to provincial cities and towns, to seaside

summer resorts, and to a few of the great homes of those who were

afterwards to be her Ministers or subjects.

It was during this period that she got her first glimpse of the Isle

of Wight, where so much of her life was afterwards to be spent. The

fact that Sir John Conroy, whom she disliked, lived for many years

at Osborne Lodge seems not to have prevented her from subsequently

becoming deeply attached to that quiet home amid beautiful surroundings

created by her and Prince Albert upon the site where Osborne Lodge had

stood. Whippingham Church, to be so closely connected with her and her

children, was first visited in the year 1833.

Enough has been included in these extracts to show her liking for the

opera and for the theatre, her pleasure in music, her devotion to the

pursuit of riding, and that love for animals which characterised her

through life.

When she was sixteen she went to Ascot for the first time, and

figured in the royal procession. It began to be recognised that the

young Princess had passed the threshold of girlhood. In that year

her Confirmation took place at the Chapel Royal, St. James’s, and

Archbishop Howley, believed to be the last prelate who wore a wig,

officiated. During the autumn she visited Yorkshire and stayed with

Archbishop Harcourt at Bishopthorpe and with Lord Fitzwilliam at

Wentworth. Coming south, she was the guest of the Duke of Rutland at

Belvoir, of Lord Exeter at Burghley, and of Lord Leicester at Holkham.

In the following year, 1836, she met for the first time her cousin

Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg. He and his elder brother Ernest visited

Kensington Palace at the instance of her uncle Leopold. The fact that

Prince Albert had been thought of years before by the King of the

Belgians as a possible husband for Princess Victoria was sufficient

to set King William IV. against the match. The King, however, was not

uncivil to the brothers when they visited London, but he had ideas of

his own about the future of his niece, and he tried hard to lay the

foundations of an alliance between the young Princess and the younger

son of the Prince of Orange. Prince Albert on this occasion made no

deep impression upon Princess Victoria’s mind or heart, but her loyalty

to her uncle Leopold and her regard for his opinion led her to show

the graceful young Coburg Prince marked preference over the somewhat

ungainly candidate of King William. Her heart was clearly untouched,

but she was willing to be guided by the advice of that counsellor and

friend to whom in preference to every one she had already begun to

turn for help and guidance. As this became obvious to King William,

his jealousy and dislike for the Duchess of Kent increased; and in the

autumn of this year, 1836, having invited his sister-in-law to a state

banquet, he scandalised Society by delivering an after-dinner speech

charged with recrimination and insult to his guest.

This was the Princess’s penultimate year as a minor. King William had

for a long time been haunted with the fear that he would die before his

niece came of age, and that a regency would devolve upon his hated

sister-in-law. He was spared what he would have considered this final

humiliation, for on May 24, 1837, the young Princess came of age, just

a month before the King died at Windsor.

During the final years of her minority she was thrown freely into the

society of many of the eminent and distinguished persons soon to be her

subjects. The Duchess gave a series of entertainments at Kensington

Palace, and the Princess was brought into contact with her mother’s

guests. Accounts of these dinners and concerts, and full lists of the

guests, are all minutely recorded in the Journals. Comments, however,

beyond an occasional expression of delight at the music and admiration

for its performers, are excluded. Her life was still the life of a

child, and her days were mostly spent with her preceptors, under the

auspices of the Duchess of Northumberland, her official governess, and

of the Dean of Chester, her tutor.

She had been parted some years before from her half brother and sister

by the usual exigencies of time. Prince Charles of Leiningen had become

a sea-officer, and Princess Feodore was married. Into the inner orbit

of her young life there penetrated only Sir John Conroy, whose person

was odious to her, and Baroness Lehzen, the daughter of a Hanoverian

clergyman, who had been the Princess’s governess since 1824, and to

whom she was deeply attached. Lablache, her singing-master, a man of

some originality and charm, was a constant source of interest and

amusement to the young Princess, and she preferred his lessons to all

others.

It was during these last few years before her accession that the final

touches were given to her character by the subtle influences of her

environment. The position occupied by Sir John Conroy in her mother’s

house inspired and fortified her subsequent resolve to avoid intimacies

with members of her household. She became distant and reserved to

those about her, and her relations with her mother were chilled. Her

mind acquired an impression that family ties, however binding from the

point of view of duty, might be superseded by those of friendship. It

is undoubtedly the case that Baroness Lehzen occupied at this time

the first place in her pupil’s thoughts and affections; while the

dawning necessity felt by Princess Victoria for sympathy, and for those

intimate communings so attractive to sentimental natures, had a very

distinct influence upon the mind and conduct of the Queen in subsequent

years. Her Journals afford proof, if proof had been wanting, that, in

spite of the opinions of her attainments vouchsafed by eminent clerics,

the Princess had not been afforded an education specially designed to

fit her for the situation she was to occupy.

She was, at eighteen, as moderately and indifferently equipped as the

average girl of her age. If her conversation was not brilliant, her

heart was kindly and her judgment sound. She was shrewd and eminently

truthful. In spite of her small stature, she was curiously dignified

and impressive. Her voice was musical and carried far. And above all

things, her rectitude was unassailable, and her sense of duty so

keen and high that it supplied any lack of imagination or spiritual

deficiency. She was humble-minded, but not, perhaps, very tender. She

was passionate and imperious, but always faithful. She was supremely

conscious of the responsibilities and prerogatives of her calling,

which she was convinced, then and always, were her appanage by the gift

of God.

There is nothing in her Journals or elsewhere to show that before she

was eighteen years old she had ever talked seriously and at any length

to any man or woman of exceptional gifts. It was only when her uncle

King Leopold heard of the illness of William IV. that Stockmar was

instructed to speak with due gravity upon important matters to the

young girl whose accession to the Throne appeared imminent. Her mind

at that time was a blank page in so far as questions of high politics

or of administration were concerned. In point of fact, this was a

fortunate circumstance, and rendered easier the task of those who were

bound in the nature of things, and under the constitution of these

islands, to use this youthful Princess as one of the chief instruments

of government. Her mind was free from any political bias or complexion,

and ready to receive the impress of her constitutional Ministers. When,

within less than a month of her eighteenth birthday, King William

died, and when on June 20, 1837, the Queen found herself face to face

with those Whig statesmen in whose hands the destinies of the country

had been placed for the time being, their task was unhampered by

preconceived ideas or by foregone prejudice in their pupil. For the

Queen a new chapter of life was opened. She at once threw off the

trammels of pupilage. Not only was she able immediately and without

effort to shake herself clear of the domestic influences she had

resented and disliked, but for the first time she was enabled to meet

and to question distinguished men, with whose names she was familiar,

but whose standards of thought and conversation were far higher than

any to which she had been accustomed.

IV

It was “in a palace in a garden, meet scene for youth and innocence,”

as one in later years to be her favoured Minister wrote, that Princess

Victoria received the news of her accession to a Throne overlooking

“every sea and nations in every zone.” The scene and the circumstances

in which her accession was announced to her by the Archbishop of

Canterbury and Lord Conynghame are described by the Queen in her

Journal. She has also recorded her impressions of what followed when

for the first time she met the Privy Council. What the Queen has not

described is the effect produced upon those present by her personality,

her youthful charm, her self-possession and perfect modesty, in such

strong contrast to everything which her Privy Councillors had been

accustomed to find in their former Sovereigns. The Queen was not

aware of the interest and curiosity she then excited in the minds of

her subjects. She had been brought up in such comparative seclusion,

that both to “Society” and to the great world outside her character

was an enigma and even her appearance very little known. Her sex and

youth rendered her personality exciting to a public satiated with the

elderly vagaries of her uncles. It was noticed at her first Council

that her manner was very graceful and engaging. It was particularly

observed that after she had read her speech in a clear and singularly

firm voice, when the two surviving sons of George III., the Dukes of

Cumberland and Sussex, knelt before her, swearing allegiance, she

blushed up to the eyes as if she felt the contrast between their public

and private relations, between their august age and her inexperienced

youth. It was also noticed that she spoke to no one, and that not the

smallest difference in her manner could be detected, even by sharp

watching eyes, between her attitude towards Lord Melbourne and the

Ministers on the one hand, and towards the Duke of Wellington and Sir

Robert Peel on the other. The Queen does not mention, for she was not

then aware of it, that Lord Melbourne was charmed and Sir Robert Peel

amazed at her demeanour. They spoke afterwards with emotion of her

modesty, firmness, and evident deep sense of her situation. She did not

know then, although she knew later, that the Duke of Wellington said

that had she been his own daughter he could not have desired to see her

perform her part better.

These Journals only accentuate what is already known from many

sources, that the Queen showed in difficult circumstances not only

good taste and good feeling, but admirable good sense. Her attention

to details, which some might consider trifles, but which differentiate

the careful from the thoughtless mind, was noticed with approval and

surprise by her Ministers. She exhibited caution in her treatment of

those persons who had been about her since childhood, and she made

no appeal to any of them for advice or guidance. Nor did she permit

advice to be proffered. Sir John Conroy was dismissed at once from

her surroundings. Baroness Lehzen she retained, as before, about

her person, and she speaks of her, throughout these Journals, with

deep feeling. It was noticed, whenever she was asked to decide some

difficult matter, her customary reply was that she would think it over,

and give her answer on the morrow. Onlookers, knowing that she relied

on the advice of Lord Melbourne, generally assumed that she referred

to him in the interval. He, however, declared that to many of his

questions a similar reply was given. In point of fact, she was obeying

one of the precepts of her uncle, the King of the Belgians.

It will be obvious to the readers of this book that a potent influence

over the mind and actions of the young Queen was exercised by Lord

Melbourne. It was the natural outcome of the business relation between

a very charming and experienced man of the world who happened to be

her Prime Minister and a very young girl isolated in the solitary

atmosphere of the Throne. From the Queen’s accession to the day of

her marriage the table-talk of Lord Melbourne fills the largest space

in her journals. Her description of their intercourse confirms what we

know from other sources, that Lord Melbourne became absorbed by the

novel and striking duty that had fallen to his lot. His temperament and

his antecedents rendered him peculiarly sensitive to the fascinating

influences of the strange relation in which he stood to this young

Queen. Lord Melbourne’s life had been chequered by curious experiences,

and his mind had been thoroughly well trained, for a man of his

station, according to the lights of those days. A classical education,

the privilege from youth upwards of free intercourse with every one

worth knowing, the best Whig connection, and an inherited capacity for

governing men under oligarchic institutions, had equipped his intellect

and judgment with everything that was necessary to enable him carefully

to watch and safeguard the blossoming of the character of the girl who

was both his pupil and his Sovereign.

He was no longer young, but he was not old. His person was attractive.

According to Leslie, no mean judge, his head was a truly noble one,

and he was a fine specimen of manly beauty in the meridian of life.

Not only were his features handsome, but his expression was in the

highest degree intellectual. His laugh was frequent and the most joyous

possible, his voice so deep and musical that to hear him say the most

ordinary thing was a pleasure; and his frankness, his freedom from

affectation, and his peculiar humour rendered almost everything he

said, however easy and natural, quite original. Chantrey’s bust and

the well-known portraits of Melbourne corroborate the descriptions

given by his contemporaries.

The Queen’s Journals afford us some illustrations of the extent of

his memory and reading. In his knowledge of political history he was

unsurpassed by any living Englishman, and among the statesmen of that

day there were none by age, character, and experience so well qualified

for the task of making the Queen acquainted with the art of government,

or better able to give her a correct interpretation of the laws and

spirit of the constitution. He understood perfectly the importance

of training her to work straightforwardly but secretly with that

small committee of active politicians, representing the parliamentary

majority of the day, which goes by the name of the Cabinet. Sir Robert

Peel and the Duke of Wellington, the Leaders of the Opposition, felt

and admitted that for her initiation into the mysteries of Kingcraft,

the Queen could not have been in wiser hands. It will be obvious from

these Journals that the Queen drifted into political partisanship.

She lived in dread of losing her Whig Ministers, and she got “to

hate” the Tories. This only meant—and under all the circumstances it

was natural—that she ardently desired to retain her mentor at her

side. It is to the credit of Lord Melbourne that he was constantly

discouraging his Sovereign’s bias towards the Whig Party, of which he

was the head, and that he never lost an opportunity of smoothing the

way for the advent of Sir Robert Peel which he knew to be inevitable.

He was, not inaptly, called a Regius Professor with no professorial

disqualifications, and it was precisely from this point of view that

the Tory leaders recognised the indispensable nature of his task, and

approved his manner of performing it. He was a Whig no doubt, says his

biographer, but at any rate he was an honest-hearted Englishman, and,

in no merely conventional sense, a gentleman on whose perfect honour no

one hesitated to place reliance.

He treated the Queen with unbounded consideration and respect, yet he

did not hesitate to administer reproof. He consulted her tastes and her

wishes, but he checked her inclination to be headstrong and arbitrary.

He knew well how to chide with parental firmness, but he did so with a

deference that could not fail to fascinate any young girl in a man of

his age and attainments. The Queen was completely under his charm. The

ease of his frank and natural manners, his quaint epigrams and humorous

paradox, his romantic bias and worldly shrewdness, were magnified by

her into the noblest manly virtues.

He saw her every day, but never appeared to weary of her society.

She certainly never tired of his. Yet he was fifty-eight years old,

a time-worn politician, and she was a girl of eighteen. He was her

confidential servant and at the same time her guardian. She was his

ward and at the same time his Sovereign. The situation was full of the

possibilities of drama, yet nothing can be more delightful than the

high comedy revealed in the passages of the Journals that refer to Lord

Melbourne. That he should have happened to be First Minister of the

Crown when King William died was a rare piece of good fortune for the

new Sovereign and for the country. With all the immense powers of head

and heart which the Queen came later to discover in Sir Robert Peel,

we may take leave to doubt if he could so lightly and so wisely have

assumed and fulfilled the duties imposed upon his predecessor.

It is impossible to exaggerate the effect produced upon the mind and

character of the Queen by the apostolic letters of her uncle. Even the

sound constitutional dogma of Stockmar might have failed to influence

one naturally inclined to be autocratic. Those, however, who were to

reap the profit in later years of the shrewd daily culture of the

Queen’s mind, of the skilful pruning away of ideas dangerous in a

British Sovereign, of the respectful explanation of her duties, of the

humorous rallying upon slight weaknesses which might have developed

into awkward habits, were deeply indebted, as these Journals show, to

the sagacity of Lord Melbourne.

V

Two Queens Regnant, Queen Mary and Queen Anne, both of Stewart blood,

lived much at Kensington Palace, and both died there. As a place of

residence it had no attractions for the Sovereigns of the House of

Hanover. Queen Victoria was fond of the old wing in which her youth had

been spent, and which was subsequently occupied for many years by the

Duchess of Teck and her children. Built on piles, those portions of the

Palace that were uninhabited, and therefore indifferently looked after,

had towards the end of the Queen’s reign fallen into such disrepair

that their demolition had been decided by the Treasury. The Queen

disliked intensely the idea of removing any part of the old building.

Ultimately a bargain was made with the Chancellor of the Exchequer of

the day. It involved a certain exchange of houses in the gift of the

Crown and some shifting of financial responsibility. Kensington Palace

was saved, and a considerable sum was voted by Parliament for its

restoration, on condition that the public should be admitted to certain

rooms of historic interest.

King George’s dream, and no one knows better its visionary character,

is to pull down Buckingham Palace, to round off St. James’s and the

Green Parks at Constitution Hill and Buckingham Gate, and then, with

the money obtained by the sale of the Gardens of Buckingham Palace, to

reconstruct Kensington Palace as the town residence of the Sovereign.

For Queen Mary the place is full of memories and, because of her keen

historic sense, full of interest.

Compared with most of the great European capitals, London is poor in

palaces. The homes of the Tudor Sovereigns in and near the metropolis,

Nonsuch, Greenwich, and Whitehall, have disappeared. London contains

no single palace residentially associated with our long line of

Sovereigns. The Court of St. James was housed, in the eighteenth

century, in the Palace of that name. It seems to have been adequate

for the needs of the Hanoverian Princes, who had none of the amplitude

of the Tudors or the fine taste of the Stewarts.

The memories of Windsor, however, are long memories. Although Queen

Victoria never liked Windsor, perhaps because she was never in good

health there, it is with Windsor Castle that the principal events

of her reign are associated. The thoughts of the few, the very few,

comparatively speaking, of her subjects who were admitted to the

seclusion of Court life during two-thirds of the Queen’s reign may

carry them back to quiet days at Balmoral or Osborne, but it was round

Windsor that the political interest of the Victorian era centred. There

the links of the chain have remained unsevered between the Sovereigns

of Great Britain to-day and their Plantagenet ancestors.

If the Queen’s attachment to Windsor was not deep, she was more

indifferent still to Buckingham Palace. There is not a word in her

Diaries or correspondence to show that she in any way looked upon it as

a home or even a residence in any degree interesting or attractive. No

attempt was made, after the death of the Prince Consort, to improve or

beautify it. The magnificent objects of art and the splendid collection

of pictures were badly displayed and quite unappreciated. Few, outside

the circle of the Court, knew of their existence. The Palace was judged

by its mean façade, and the nation was rather shamefaced about the home

of its Sovereign, and certainly took no credit for the really noble

rooms and their contents which Buckingham Palace contains.

Yet, through the picture-gallery of this Palace hung with masterpieces

of the Dutch School, through the throne-room and the drawing-room

resplendent with the royal portraits of Reynolds and Gainsborough, or

through the matchless corridor at Windsor, have passed nearly all the

great figures of the nineteenth century, practically the whole of which

was spanned by the life of the Queen.

It is an imposing array, worthy of its setting. Heroes and statesmen,

men of science and letters, artists and scholars, all moved, with

a feeling of awe, into the presence of the Queen whose girlhood is

recounted by herself in these pages.

To those accustomed to the easier manners of more recent times it is

difficult to convey a sense of the atmosphere of Windsor during the

reign of the Queen. Her extraordinary aloofness was its determining

cause, but the effect was that of a shrine. Grave men walked softly

through the rooms of the Castle, and no voice was ever raised. The

presence of the Sovereign brooded, so to speak, over the Palace and

its environment. The desire to be negligently at ease never entered

the mind. The air was rarefied by a feeling that somewhere, in a

region unvisited by any but the most highly privileged, was seated,

not in an ordinary arm-chair, but on a throne, the awe-inspiring

and ever-dignified figure of the Sovereign. The proud intellect of

Gladstone and the rugged self-sufficiency of Bright bent before the

small, homely figure in widow’s weeds. In spite of this homeliness of

appearance, notwithstanding her love of simplicity and her dislike of

tawdriness and display, her spirit never put aside the regal habit.

How rarely the Queen extended her hand! It was a great privilege, and

only on special occasions vouchsafed to her Ministers. Men and women

bent very low to kiss that hand. This was not due to her small stature,

but to the curious, indefinable awe that she undoubtedly inspired

during the later portion of her life in all who approached her. Will

the reader find, in these records of her girlhood, intimations of that

moral ascendency she afterwards acquired over her subjects?

It was unquestionably a triumph of character. Even now to attempt a

serious estimate of the intellectual capacity of Queen Victoria is a

difficult task. There are too many still among us the greater part of

whose lives were spent under her sway. It is a fault in nearly all

recent biographies that they attempt appreciations which only the lapse

of time can enable a writer to draw in true perspective.

A venerable Sovereign, in full possession of his great powers of

intellect and character, who was almost an exact contemporary, still

rules a European people as proud of him as were her subjects of the

Queen. At least one of her faithful servants, who was present at

her Coronation seventy-four years ago and at every great ceremonial

throughout her reign, is still alive and full of manly vigour. Her

children are in the prime of life, and her favourite grandson is the

beloved Sovereign of the people she governed. Unqualified praise is

always distasteful, and critical analysis may easily prove to be in

singularly bad taste. Queen Victoria’s womanly and royal virtues are

written in golden letters upon the face of the vast Empire over which

she reigned. Her faults may well lie buried, for some time yet, in her

grave under the shadow of Windsor.

In the muniment-room of the Castle are preserved the private records of

her life-work. Over a thousand bound volumes of letters, from and to

the Queen upon all subjects, public and domestic, are there; and over a

hundred volumes of her Journals written in her own hand.

It is a unique record. The private papers of George III. have

disappeared. Of those of George IV. and William IV., only a few are in

existence. Selections from the correspondence of the Queen up to 1861

were published by permission of King Edward. These selections from her

early Journals have been made by the gracious leave of King George. It

may be many years before it would be wise or prudent to make public

any more of the private history of Queen Victoria’s reign. Those who,

by good fortune, have had access to these records can, however, safely

predict that whatever hereafter leaps to light, the Queen never can be

shamed.

INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO CHAPTER I

When the Queen’s Journal opens she was thirteen years and two

months old. When she was four years younger Sir Walter Scott was

presented to the little Princess Victoria and noted that she was

“educating with much care.” At that time she was supposed not to

know that she was the “heir of England,” but Scott thought that

if the little heart could be dissected it would be found that

some little bird had carried the matter. According to Baroness

Lehzen, the truth was not revealed until a year before the Princess

commenced to write her first Journal. There was a picture painted

of her about this time, and it corroborates Lord Albemarle’s

description of the little girl of extreme fairness whom he watched

watering, at Kensington, a child’s garden, wearing a large straw

hat and a suit of white cotton, her only ornament being a coloured

fichu round the neck.

The Princess was guarded with extreme care. Leigh Hunt noticed that

she was invariably followed, when walking, by a footman in gorgeous

raiment. She told her daughters many years later that she was so

carefully tended until the day of her accession, that she had never

been permitted to walk downstairs without someone holding her hand.

The Princess’s journey commenced August 1, 1832, although the first

part of what her Uncle, King William, called her Royal Progresses

was not her first trip into the country. With her mother she paid

several visits to Ramsgate and Broadstairs. She had stayed with

Lord Winchelsea at Eastwell, near Ashford, and she had visited

George IV. at the Royal Lodge in Windsor Park. She had spent an

autumn at Norris Castle, Isle of Wight, and had been to Bath and

Malvern.

Sir Walter Scott expressed a hope that she would not retain the

name of Victoria, and when upon the accession of William IV. extra

provision was demanded of Parliament for the little Princess

Alexandrina Victoria of Kent, who then became heir-presumptive to

the Crown, Sir Matthew White Ridley and Sir Robert Inglis desired

to make the Parliamentary grant contingent upon the Princess, as

Queen, assuming the style of Elizabeth II., on the ground that the

name Victoria did not accord with the feelings of the people. The

name Victoria, however, was destined to acquire lustre not inferior

to that of Elizabeth.

The Princess’s first Progress is minutely described in the first

volume of her Journal. Before it ended, Robert Lowe, afterwards

her Chancellor of the Exchequer, caught a glimpse of the child as

she passed from the Bodleian to lunch with the Vice-Chancellor at

Oxford. Her foot was on the threshold of public life.

CHAPTER I

1832

_Wednesday, August 1st._ We left K.P.[3] at 6 minutes past 7 and went

through the Lower-field gate to the right. We went on, & turned to the

left by the new road to Regent’s Park. The road & scenery is beautiful.

20 minutes to 9. We have just changed horses at Barnet, a very pretty

little town. 5 minutes past ½ past 9. We have just changed horses

at St. Albans. The situation is very pretty & there is a beautiful

old abbey there. 5 minutes past 10. The country is beautiful here:

they have began to cut the corn; it is so golden & fine that I think

they will have a very good harvest, at least here. There are also

pretty hills & trees. 20 minutes past ten. We have just passed a most

beautiful old house in a fine park with splendid trees. A ¼ to 11. We

have just changed horses at Dunstable; there was a fair there; the

booths filled with fruit, ribbons, &c. looked very pretty. The town

seems old & there is a fine abbey before it. The country is very bleak

& chalky. 12 minutes to 12. We have just changed horses at Brickhill.

The country is very beautiful about here. 19 minutes to 1. We have

just changed horses at Stony Stratford. The country is very pretty.

About ½ past 1 o’clock we arrived at Towcester & lunched there. At 14

minutes past two we left it. A ¼ past 3. We have just changed horses

at Daventry. The road continues to be very dusty. 1 minute past ½ past

3. We have just[4] passed through Braunston where there is a curious

spire. The Oxford canal is close to the town. 1 minute to 4. We have

just changed horses at Dunchurch & it is raining.

For some time past already, and now, our road is entirely up an avenue

of trees going on and on, it is quite delightful but it still rains.

Just now we go at a _tremendous_ rate. 4 minutes to 5. We have just

changed horses at Coventry, a large town where there is a very old

church (in appearance at least). At ½ past 5 we arrived at Meridon; and

we are now going to dress for dinner. ½ past 8. I am undressing to go

to bed. Mamma is not well and is lying on the sofa in the next room. I

was asleep in a minute in my own little bed which travels always with

me.

_Thursday, 2d August._—I got up after a very good night at 5 o’clock

this morning. Mamma is much better I am happy to say, and I am now

dressing to go to breakfast. 6 minutes to ½ past 7. We have just left

Meridon, a very clean inn. It is a very bad day. 10 minutes to 9. We

have just changed horses at Birmingham where I was two years ago and

we visited the manufactories which are very curious. It rains very

hard. We just passed through a town where all coal mines are and you

see the fire glimmer at a distance in the engines in many places. The

men, women, children, country and houses are all black. But I can

not by any description give an idea of its strange and extraordinary

appearance. The country is very desolate every where; there are coals

about, and the grass is quite blasted and black. I just now see an

extraordinary building flaming with fire. The country continues black,

engines flaming, coals, in abundance, every where, smoking and burning

coal heaps, intermingled with wretched huts and carts and little ragged

children....

I received from the mayor an oaken box with a silver top and filled

with the famous Shrewsbury cakes. We lunched there. We left it at a ¼

to 3. As we passed along the streets a poor unhappy hen, frightened

by the noise flew on the carriage but she was taken off. We had our

horses watered half way. When we arrived at the outskirts of Welshpool

we were met by a troop of Yeomanry who escorted us for a long time and

the little town was ornamented with arches, flowers, branches, flags,

ribbons, &c., &c. The guns fired as we came up the park and the band

played before Powis Castle; Lord Powis[5] and Mr. Clive met us at the

door of his beautiful old Castle and Lady Lucy and Lady Harriet Clive

were in the gallery. The Castle is very old and beautiful; the little

old windows jutting in and out and a fine gallery with a dry-rubbed

floor and some beautiful busts. I am now dressing for dinner....

_Thursday, 9th August._—I awoke at ½ past 6 and got up at 7. I am

now dressing. A little after 8 I went out in the garden, and at

about ¼ to 9 we took breakfast. I began to write a letter after

breakfast, and then dressed. At ½ past 10 Mamma received an address

from the Mayor and Corporation of Beaumaris, and another from the

gentlemen inhabitants, and visitors of the town. At ½ past 11 we got

into our carriages with my Cousins on the box of ours. In passing

the Menai-bridge, we received a salute, and on entering the town

of Carnarvon, we were met, not only by an immense crowd, who were

extremely kind, and pleased, but by the Corporation also, who walked

before the carriage, while a salute was firing. We then arrived at

the inn, where Mamma received an address. The address being over we

took luncheon, and after that was over, we went to see the ruins of

the Castle, which are beautiful, while a salute was fired, from the

rampart. We then got into the _Emerald_, where we were several times

saluted, at the last being nearly becalmed, we were towed by a steam

packet, called _Paul Pry_, which saluted us 4 times in the day. We

arrived at home at ¼ to 7, and dined at ½ past 7. We drank Uncle

Leopold’s health in honour of his marriage that day. I stayed up till ½

past 9. I went to bed soon after, and was soon asleep....

_Wednesday, 29th August._—I awoke at ½ past 6 and got up at 7. It is

now 6 minutes past 8 & I am quite ready dressed. I then played. We

breakfasted at ½ past 8 but without Lady Catherine[6] who is very

unwell. I then did my lessons & then played. At ½ past 12 I went

out walking. We lunched at 1. At ½ past 3 went to Baron Hill Sir R.

Bulkeley’s[7] place. We arrived there at a little after 4. We were

received at the door by Sir Richard & farther on by Lady Bulkeley whose

dress I shall describe. It was a white satin trimmed with blonde, short

sleeves & a necklace, ear-rings and sévigné of perridos & diamonds with

a wreath of orange-flowers in her hair. We then went upon the terrace

& the band of the Anglesea Militia played “God save the King.” We

then presented all the bards & poets with medals. We then [went] into

the drawing-room and remained there till dinner. In the drawing-room

there were a great many other people. At 5 we went to dinner, which

was in a temporary building which was lined in the inside with pink

and white linen. The dinner was splendidly served & the china was rich

and beautiful. The fruit was magnificent. After dessert was over Sir

Richard made a speech and brought out a toast in honor of Mamma & me.

We then left the room & went into the drawing-room. We went upstairs

into Lady Bulkeley’s pretty little dressing-room. Her toilet table was

pink with white muslin over it trimmed with beautiful lace & her things

on the toilet table were gold. We then went downstairs and took coffee

and the famous dog of Lady Williams,[8] Cabriolle, played tricks. At

about 7 we left Baron Hill & proceeded homewards. Poor Lady Catherine

who was not able to go was in the evening much better. We arrived at

home at about a ¼ past 8. I then went downstairs & stayed up till near

9. I was soon in bed and asleep....

_Monday, 17th September._—I awoke at about 8, & got up at near ½ past

8. We breakfasted at 9 downstairs. I then played and did other things.

At 1 we lunched. I then played on the piano, & at a little before 3

played at billiards downstairs, with Victoire,[9] & then went out

walking. When I came home I first worked & then we blew soap-bubbles.

_Sunday, 14th October._—I awoke at 7 and got up at ½ past 7. At ½ past

8 we breakfasted. I then wrote my Journal and some music and at 11 we

went to chapel for the last time and the sailors likewise for the last

time. The service was performed as usual by Mr. W. Jones. It was over

at ¼ past 12. I then walked out with Lehzen[10] and Victoire. At 1 we

lunched. At 3 we went out riding, and as we passed through the Park

gate the old woman at the lodge came out as usual, to open the gate and

she thanked Mamma for what she had given her. We galloped over a green

field which we had already done several times. Rosa went an enormous

rate; she literally _flew_. We then went on towards the Menai bridge

but turned back under the hill. We cantered a great deal and Rosa went

the whole time beautifully. It was a delightful ride. When we came home

Mamma got on Rosa and I got on Thomas and cantered him. We came in at ½

past 4. Alas! it was our last ride at _dear_ Plas Newydd. I then walked

on the terrace for a short time. At 7 we dined and I stayed up till ½

past 8. I was soon in bed and asleep.

_Monday, 15th October._—I awoke at ½ past 5 and got up at 6. At 7 we

breakfasted with all the family; and a most beautiful falcon which

Sir John Williams[11] sent me was brought in that I might see it. The

sailors were so busy and so useful for I saw Kew and Sparks going to

and fro. At a ¼ to 8 we got into our carriages and drove out amidst

the shouts of the sailors of the _Emerald_, who were standing on the

rigging two by two on the rope-ladders, till the last man was at the

very top of all. I looked out of the carriage window that I might get a

last look of the _dear Emerald_ and her _excellent crew_. As we passed

along the road we saw Mr. Griffith and Mr. W. Jones and his family....

[Illustration: VICTOIRE CONROY.

From a sketch by Princess Victoria.]

10 minutes to 4.—We have just passed through Northop. At about ½

past 4 we went through the Park of Mr. Granville up to his castle.

Lord Grosvenor met us there at the head of his Cavalry. And Lord

Westminster[12] sent his own fine horses, which were put to our

carriage. At about ½ past 5 we arrived at Eaton Hall. We were received

at the door by Lord and Lady Westminster, Lady Grosvenor and Lady

Wilton. The house is magnificent. You drive up to the door under a

lofty vaulted portico with a flight of steps under it, and it takes

you to the hall, which is beautiful. The floor is inlaid with various

marbles, and arches spring from the sides. Then you enter a beautiful

drawing-room; the ceiling joins in a round gilt, with great taste and

richness, while the sides arch towards the top. An organ on the right

as you enter the room and a large fireplace on the left with stained

glass windows. Then Lady Westminster after we had been downstairs a

little, showed us our apartments, which are indeed beautiful. I was in

bed at ½ past 8.

_Tuesday, 16th October._—I awoke at 6 and got up at 7. I then dressed

and took some tea. At ½ past 9 we breakfasted. The breakfast-room is

magnificent. There are 4 fireplaces; and the windows are of stained

glass very beautifully done. A massive lustre of gold with an eagle

likewise in gold hangs from the ceiling in the middle of the room.

Pillars arching to the top and gilt in parts rise from the sides.

Several tables of oak and elm stand in the windows, and the breakfast

was served in handsome silver tea and coffee pots; a crown of gold with

precious stones contained the bread. Besides Lady Grosvenor and Lady

Wilton, there were also Lady Egerton,[13] Mrs. Lane and Miss Bagot.

After breakfast Lady Grosvenor brought her 4 children. We then went

into our own rooms and I wrote my journal. At 12 Mamma went into the

great saloon where all the ladies were and an address from the mayor

and corporation of Chester arrived and then another from the gentlemen

and inhabitants of Chester, presented by Lord Robert.[14] After this

we looked about the room which is indeed beautiful. The ceiling is

done in the same splendid manner and a magnificent lustre of gold

and glass with a coronet of velvet and pearls hung from the ceiling

in the room. Two windows of stained glass, very handsomely done, are

on different sides. A superb chimney-place with beautiful furniture

and rich carpets, complete the room. 4 beautiful pictures painted by

different artists are likewise in the room. We then walked out with

most of the people; I walking in front with the eldest and third little

girl, the second not being well. We walked about the garden and looked

at an aloe which flowers only once in 100 years. We came in at ½ past

1, and lunched at 2. At ½ past 2 we went out driving; Lady Westminster

and little Elinor,[15] the eldest child, were in our carriage; she

is a delightful child. Lady Catherine and Lehzen followed in another

carriage. We drove about the park which is beautiful. When we came

home we walked in the kitchen gardens which are indeed very pretty. At

½ past 4 we came home and I worked. At 7 we dined. The dining-room is

a fine room beautifully worked at the ceiling. Four large statues of

Maltese stone occupy 4 corners, very beautifully executed; one with a

helmet is Sir Gilbert le Grosvenor,[16] and the lady[17] next by him

is the heiress of Eaton; on the opposite side the man is Sir Robert le

Grosvenor, distinguished in the battle of Cressy; the lady near him is

a Miss Davis who by intermarrying brought the possessions in town, as

Grosvenor Square, Belgrave Square, etc., etc.[18] The window is stained

glass with the figure of Hugh Lupus on it. The dinner was served on

plate, and the plateau was very handsome with gilt cups on it. The

side table was covered with gold plate. After dinner we played at a

game of letters and then I sang and Mamma and Lady Catherine sang and

afterwards Lady Westminster played on the organ. I stayed up till 10....

_Thursday, 18th October._—When we went out after luncheon we went in

the garden first and saw a Roman altar which had been dug up near

Chester. At 7 we dined. The breakfast-room had been arranged for this

purpose. A temporary floor had been arranged at the top of the room,

for our table (for all the company who had come to the bow-meeting

dined here), and the other four were lower. After the dinner (we being

still at table) was over some glee-singers from Chester came and sang

the grace in Latin. Then Lord Westminster gave out some toasts; amongst

others, “The King,” “The Queen,” Mamma and me; which were received

extremely well. After dinner was over, I gave the children, who had

come when dinner was over, a little remembrance. I then took leave of

the whole family and went to bed. I stayed up till 10.

_Friday, 19th October._— ... ½ past 4. We have just changed horses at

Buxton, which is a pretty place. The houses are well built and form a

crescent. The country about here is very pretty, high rocks covered

with trees. There are all about here little rivulets and fountains,

rippling over stones. At ½ past 6 we arrived at Chatsworth, which is

a beautiful house. It was quite dark. It is built in the shape of a

square joined by an arch under which one must drive. We were met at the

door by the Duke of Devonshire[19] who conducted us up the staircase,

which is made of wood, to our apartments which are indeed beautiful. In

the corridor there are some beautiful statues. I dined by myself in my

own room with Lehzen. I stayed up till ½ past 8. I was soon in bed and

asleep.

_Saturday, 20th October._—I awoke at ½ past 7 and got up at 8. At a

little past 9 we breakfasted, us 5 by ourselves in a lovely room giving

on the park and garden where one could see a cascade which ran all the

way down. The room is small; the ceiling is painted and represents some

mythology, with books round the room and a splendid carpet. At about 11

we went over the house with the company, which consisted of Lord and

Lady Cavendish,[20] Lord and Lady Newburgh,[21] Mr. and Lady Caroline

Lascelles,[22] Count Karoly, Mrs. Arkwright, Lady Clifford, Lord and

Lady Wharncliffe,[23] Mrs. Talbot, Lord Morpeth,[24] Mr. Cooper, Mr.

Henry Greville, and Miss Fanny Cavendish.[25] It would take me days,

were I to describe minutely the whole. We went all over the house,

and the carving of the frame-work of some looking-glasses was quite

beautiful; they are carved in the shape of birds, the plumage being so

exquisite that if it was not of the colour of wood one might take them

for feathers. It not only surrounds the mirrors but the ceilings of

some of the rooms. We saw Lady Cavendish’s little boy who is 10 months

old, a beautiful child. We likewise saw the kitchen which is superb for

its size and cleanliness; and the confectionary which is as pretty and

neat. The Duke’s own apartments contain some superb statues of Canova

and others; likewise a beautiful collection of minerals. We saw the

library and dining-room which are all beautiful. The library’s ceiling

is painted in figures; and the carpet is beautiful. The conservatory

which leads from the dining-room is very pretty. We then walked out in

the garden, I went into another conservatory which contains a rockery

with water falling from it. There are some curious plants there,

amongst others two which are worthy of remark; the one is called the

pitcher-plant because at the end of each leaf hangs a little bag or

pitcher which fills with the dew and supplies the plant when it wants

water; the other is called the fly-catcher plant, because whenever a

fly touches it, it closes. From the conservatory we went and looked at

a monkey which is in the garden, chained. We then went to the cascade

and saw some other fountains very curious and pretty. When we had come

on the terrace the Duke wished us to plant two trees down under the

terrace. So we did, I planted an oak and Mamma a Spanish chesnut. After

that we went upon the terrace again and went up a platform which had

been arranged with carpets, to view the cricket-match below; the Buxton

band playing “God save the King” and the people hurraying and others

under tents looked very pretty. From there we went to the stables where

we saw some pretty ponies and a Russian coachman in his full dress, and

the only Russian horse which remained reared at his command; there were

3 other horses, English ones, but trained like the other. At about ½

past 1 we came home and lunched with the whole party. At ½ past 2 we

went in a carriage and 6 with the Duke and Mrs. Cavendish, to Haddon

Hall, a very old and singular place. The old tapestry still remaining

and iron hooks to keep it back. We then went to the Rookery, a small

cottage belonging to the Duke on the banks of the river Wye, very

pretty and cool. From there we walked to the Marble Mills and saw how

they sawed and polished the marble. There was a little cottage where

they sold Derbyshire spar in different little shapes and forms, and

some pieces of marble too. We then drove home after having bought a

good many things. We came in at 5. At 7 we dined and after dinner at

about ½ past 9 we looked at the cascade illuminated, which looked very

pretty, and the fountains, blue lights, red lights, rockets, etc. At

about 10 the charade began in 3 syllables and 4 scenes. The first act

was a scene out of _Bluebeard_; Lady Caroline Lascelles and Miss F.

Cavendish acting the ladies, and Count Karoly as Bluebeard, with Lord

Newburgh and Mr. Lascelles as their friends. The next act was a scene

of carrying offerings to Father Nile; Mrs. Talbot, Lady Cavendish,

Lady Clifford, Miss Cavendish, and the two Miss Smiths as the vestals;

and Lord Morpeth, Lord Newburgh, Count Karoly, Mr. Greville, Sir A.

Clifford,[26] Mr Cooper, and Mr. Lascelles as the men. Mr. Beaumont was

Father Nile. The third act was a scene of _Tom Thumb_; Lord Morpeth

as Tom Thumb, and Lord Newburgh as the nurse. The fourth act was a

scene out of _Kenilworth_ (which was the word); Mrs. Talbot as Queen

Elizabeth, Lady Cavendish as Amy, Lady Caroline and Miss Cavendish

(who danced the menuet with Count Karoly) as her attendants; little

Georgina Lascelles[27] as page to bear the Queen’s train, Lord Morpeth

as Lord Leicester, Lord Newburgh as an attendant, Count Karoly as Lord

Shrewsbury, Mr. Cooper as Sir Walter Raleigh, and Lord Waterpark[28]

and Mr. Greville as two more men of the Queen’s, not to omit Lady

Clifford as the Queen’s lady, and Sir Augustus as a gentleman of the

Queen. They were all in regular costumes. When it was over, which was

at ¼ to 12, I went to bed....

_Wednesday, 24th October._— ... At 1 we arrived at Alton Towers, the

seat of Lord Shrewsbury.[29] This is an extraordinary house. On

arriving one goes into a sort of gallery filled with armour, guns,

swords, pistols, models, flags, etc., etc., then into a gallery filled

with beautiful pictures and then into a conservatory with birds. We

lunched there and the luncheon was served on splendid gold plate. We

then walked in the gardens. At ½ past 2 we left it....

_Wednesday, 31st October._—I awoke at 7 and got up at ½ past 7. At ½

past 9 we breakfasted in the drawing-room, for the gentlemen who were

going to hunt breakfasted in the other room, all the ladies and Sir

John breakfasting with us. After breakfast at about ½ past 10 we went

into the room where they were, and they gave us a toast with many

cheers. After that we walked out to see the hunt. We saw them set off.

It was an immense field of horsemen, who in their red jackets and black

hats looked lively and gave an animating appearance to the whole. They

had a large pack of hounds and three huntsmen or Whippers-in. They drew

a covert near here in hopes of finding a fox, but as they did not they

returned and we got into the carriage with Lady Selina[30] and Lehzen

while all the huntsmen and the hounds followed. When we came to a

field, they drew another covert and succeeded; we saw the fox dash past

and all the people and hounds after him, the hounds in full cry. The

hounds killed him in a wood quite close by. The huntsman then brought

him out and cutting off the brush Sir Edward Smith (to whom the hounds

belong) brought it to me. Then the huntsmen cut off for themselves

the ears and 4 paws, and lastly they threw it to the dogs, who tore

it from side to side till there was nothing left. We then went home.

At 1 we lunched, and at 2, I, Lady Selina, Lady Louisa[31] and dear

Lehzen went out walking, towards a farm of Lord Liverpool’s, and when

we had passed the farm and were going to return by the village, we

heard the blast of a horn and we looked and saw the hounds and hunters

going full gallop along a field which was below the field in which we

were walking. They came and crossed the field in which we were and we

saw all the riders leap over a ditch. We went back the same way that

we might see them. When we came near home we saw them go home by the

house. At ½ past 3 we came home. At ½ past 6 we dined, and I received

my brush which had been fixed on a stick by the huntsman; it is a

beautiful one. Amongst the people who were here, those who remain are

Mr., Mrs., and Miss Corbett, Mr., Mrs., and Miss Child. After dinner

the young ladies played some pretty things from the _Pirata_ and from

_Fra Diavolo_. I stayed up till near 10....

_Wednesday, 7th November._— ... ¼ to 4. We have just changed horses

at Woodstock, and another detachment of Yeomanry commanded by Lord

Churchill[32] ride with us now. We passed through Oxford on our way.

At about a little past 5 we arrived at Wytham Abbey, the seat of Lord

Abingdon.[33] We were received at the door by Lord and Lady Abingdon,

Lady Charlotte Bertie and Lady Emily Bathurst, their daughters. The

house is very comfortable; in the drawing-room there is a lovely

picture by Angelica Kauffman, Penelope. After staying a few minutes

downstairs we went upstairs to our rooms which are very pretty and

comfortable. At a little past 7 we dined with several other people. I

stayed up till a little past 9.

_Thursday, 8th November._—I awoke at a little to 8 and got up at 8. At

a little past 9 we breakfasted with the whole party. At 10 o’clock we

set out for Oxford in a close carriage and 4 with Lord Abingdon and

Lady Charlotte Bertie; the other ladies going in carriages before us.

We got out first at the Divinity College, and walked from thence to

the theatre, which was built by Sir Christopher Wren. The ceiling is

painted with allegorical figures. The galleries are ornamented with

carving enriched with gold. It was filled to excess. We were most

WARMLY and ENTHUSIASTICALLY received. They hurrayed and applauded

us immensely for there were all the students there; all in their

gowns and caps. Mamma received an address which was presented by the

Vice-Chancellor, Dr. Rowly, and Mamma answered it as usual. Then

Sir John[34] was made a Doctor of Civil Law. After that was over,

we returned through Divinity College and proceeded in our carriages

to the Council Chamber where Mamma received an address there, from

the corporation of Oxford, and Sir John the freedom of the City of

Oxford. We then went to Christ Church, which is very fine, viewed the

hall and chapel and library. Dr. Gaisford[35] is the Dean of Christ

Church and is at the head of that college. From there we went to the

Bodleian library which is immense. Amongst other curiosities there is

Queen Elizabeth’s Latin exercise book when she was of my age (13). We

went through Mr. Sneed’s house to our carriages. From there to All

Souls’ College where Mr. Sneed is the warden. It is not a college for

education, but after they have taken their degree. We saw the library

and chapel which is very beautiful. We then went to University College

of which the Vice-chancellor is the head. We lunched there and saw

the chapel which is very fine. From there we went to New College of

which Dr. Shuttleworth[36] is the head. We saw the chapel and hall.

From there to the Clarendon printing-press which is very amusing but

would take up too much space and time to describe. We then went home.

We arrived at home at ½ past 3. At 7 we dined with some other people

who were Lord Cantelupe,[37] Lord Folkestone,[38] Lord Loftus,[39] Mr.

Gage,[40] Mr. Canning,[41] Lord Thomas Clinton,[42] Mr. L. Gower,[43]

Lord Boscawen,[44] etc. etc. After dinner the young ladies sang to

the guitar which one of them played. We then sang and Lord Abingdon. I

stayed up till 10.

_Friday, 9th November._— ... At about ½ past 5 we arrived at Kensington

Palace. We resumed our old rooms. At 7 we dined with Jane and Victoire

Conroy, Lord Liverpool and Sir John. My aunt Sophia[45] came after

dinner. I stayed up till a ¼ to 9.

_Monday, 24th December._—I awoke at 7 and got up at 8. At 9 we

breakfasted. At ½ past 9 came the Dean,[46] and I gave him Mamma’s

and my Christmas box. He stayed till ½ past 11. In the course of the

morning I gave Mrs. Brock a Christmas box and all our people. At ½ past

1 we lunched. At ½ past 2 came Mr. Westall[47] till ½ past 3. At 4 came

Mr. Sale[48] till 5. At a ¼ to 7 we dined with the whole Conroy family

and Mr. Hore downstairs, as our Christmas tables were arranged in our

dining-room. After dinner we went upstairs. I then saw Flora, the dog

which Sir John was going to give Mamma. Aunt Sophia came also. We then

went into the drawing-room near the dining-room. After Mamma had rung

a bell three times we went in. There were two large round tables on

which were placed two trees hung with lights and sugar ornaments. All

the presents being placed round the tree. I had one table for myself

and the Conroy family had the other together. Lehzen had likewise a

little table. Mamma gave me a little lovely pink bag which she had

worked with a little sachet likewise done by her; a beautiful little

opal brooch and earrings, books, some lovely prints, a pink satin dress

and a cloak lined with fur. Aunt Sophia gave me a dress which she

worked herself, and Aunt Mary[49] a pair of amethyst earrings. Lehzen

a lovely music-book. Victoire a _very_ pretty white bag worked by

herself, and Sir John a silver brush. I gave Lehzen some little things

and Mamma gave her a writing table. We then went to my room where I had

arranged Mamma’s table. I gave Mamma a white bag which I had worked,

a collar and a steel chain for Flora, and an Annual; Aunt Sophia a

pair of turquoise earrings; Lehzen a little white and gold pincushion

and a pin with two little gold hearts hanging to it; Sir John, Flora,

a book-holder and an Annual. Mamma then took me up into my bedroom

with all the ladies. There was my new toilet table with a white muslin

cover over pink, and all my silver things standing on it with a fine

new looking-glass. I stayed up till ½ past 9. The dog went away again

to the doctor for her leg. I saw good Louis[50] for an instant and she

gave me a lovely little wooden box with bottles.

[Illustration: H.R.H. PRINCESS SOPHIA.

From a portrait by Sir W. Ross.]

INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO CHAPTER II

When the Princess was fourteen years old she obtained her first

sight of Osborne, that future home in the Isle of Wight where

she was destined to spend so many happy years, and which was

associated with the closing scenes of her life. Osborne Lodge was

the residence of Sir John Conroy. It occupied the site of Osborne

Cottage, now the residence of the Queen’s youngest daughter,

Princess Henry of Battenberg. In spite of the changes made in the

appearance of Osborne by the erection of Osborne House and the

laying-out of the grounds round it, that portion of the estate

where Osborne Cottage stands, and Whippingham Church, with its

manifold associations, have much the same aspect as they had when

first explored by Princess Victoria in 1833.

On her birthday, King William gave a children’s party at St.

James’s in his niece’s honour, and the ball was opened by the

little Princess and her cousin Prince George of Cambridge, then a

boy of fourteen, who was afterwards to be the Commander-in-Chief of

her armies. The Princess speaks of the ball-room. It is difficult

to be sure which room is meant by this. The eastern end of St.

James’s Palace had been destroyed by fire in 1809, and had only

recently been rebuilt. The Palace was occupied by William IV. and

Queen Adelaide, the Queen’s rooms being in that portion which is

now called Clarence House, and the King’s apartments occupying

the western end of what is now St. James’s Palace proper. It was

probably the room hung with yellow silk, next but one to the

Throne-room, so familiar to those who attend the King’s Levées,

that the little Princess opened her first ball.

This was not her first introduction into Society. Three years

before she had been seen at Court, and in 1831 she had attended a

Drawing-room.

The Princess now acquired a habit (which she practised for many

years) of making sketches from memory of the artists and scenes

that struck her imagination during her visits to the theatre.

There are many volumes at Windsor Castle full of the Princess’s

recollections of the theatre, drawn in pencil or in water-colour.

Although the technique may be faulty, these sketches are full

of movement and quaintly descriptive. They indicate an absorbed

attention on her part, and a vivid memory. They suggest a power

of concentration upon the thing she was about, which became in

after-life a marked characteristic. From her journals and her

sketches as a child of fourteen, an inference might be drawn that

little escaped the acute observation of the little Princess. There

are many who remember how in later life very little escaped the

observation of the Queen.