THE EARLY
COURT OF QUEEN VICTORIA
[Illustration:
_Photo._ _Emery Walker._
_Queen Victoria._
_From the painting by W. C. Ross, A.R.A._]
THE EARLY COURT
OF
QUEEN VICTORIA
BY
CLARE JERROLD
AUTHOR OF
“_The Fair Ladies of Hampton Court_,” _Etc._
NEW YORK
G. P. PUTNAM’S SONS
1912
PREFACE
No apology need be made for this book, though perhaps a reason for
publishing it may be given. In these pages I have endeavoured to show
Queen Victoria in her natural setting during her youth, hoping thereby
to present her as a really human person. For twenty-five years at least
the tendency among those who write has been so to overwhelm the late
Queen with adulation that the ordinary reader turns from the subject
in disgust. We are not fit for perfection; we believe that perfection
is only an ideal--one which would probably become insufferable were it
to degenerate into actuality--and when biographers, whose line, it is
true, has been more or less laid down for them, depict Queen Victoria
without fault and possessing almost preternatural wisdom and virtue,
then there must be danger of unpopularity for the great Queen.
As a child my loyalty was upset by the “I will be good” story, and in
my childish heart I despised the childish utterer of that sentence.
The fault of this lay not in the fact that the little Princess made
an impulsive resolution, but in the further fact that that story has
been used as an example for other children by all adults who know it.
When, at the second Jubilee, I wrote an anecdotal life of the Queen, I
was amused at the literature through which I had to wade for my facts.
Taken in the mass, it became a pæan of praise with every trace of real
human lovableness erased. Of course, the person really to blame for
this in the last resort was the Queen herself. For her one great fault
was an exaggerated, indeed a morbid, belief in the infallibility, not
of herself as a person, but of the Crown. Nothing angered her more than
dissent from, or criticism of, the Crown. It was a curious position,
for she practically was the Crown, and therefore the criticism of any
public acts of hers, was doubly displeasing to her, as she considered
that it was the highest dignity of the State, and not a mere person,
which was belittled. Under such pressure--even though it was unspoken
its influence was felt--writers wrote naturally that which would
please, certainly that which would give no offence; and they were
not so much untrue to fact as vigilant that all adverse matter and
circumstance should remain unchronicled.
But those who talk of the late Queen do so in an increasing spirit of
criticism, and this prompted me to endeavour to show the young Monarch
as she really was, surrounded by the somewhat cruel limitations of
her time--a girl frank, loving, truthful, and admirable in many ways,
yet one in whom the seeds of an undue pride had been planted and most
earnestly fostered by those responsible--in spite of which fact,
however, a person much more lovable than any counsel of perfection
could possibly have produced.
My materials have been gathered largely from contemporary journals and
newspapers, and among the books to which I am indebted I must mention
Lady Bloomfield’s “Reminiscences” for some delightful pictures of
Queen Victoria’s life at the beginning of her reign. Mr. Sidney Lee’s
admirable “Life” has also been of use; while the correspondence of
Her Majesty was more helpful in amplifying or supporting information
already gained than in really supplying fresh facts. The trenchant
remarks of Charles Greville and the terse, lively, and often amusing
criticisms of Thomas Creevy also could not be ignored by any writer
about public people in the ’thirties who wished to get a personal
impression.
HAMPTON-ON-THAMES,
_November, 1911_.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER I
PAGE
PRINCESS VICTORIA’S RELATIVES 1
CHAPTER II
PRINCESS VICTORIA’S MOTHER AND UNCLE 30
CHAPTER III
PRINCESS VICTORIA’S TUITION IN POLITICS 59
CHAPTER IV
PRINCESS VICTORIA’S SUITORS 82
CHAPTER V
QUEEN VICTORIA’S ACCESSION 107
CHAPTER VI
QUEEN VICTORIA’S ADVISERS 132
CHAPTER VII
QUEEN VICTORIA’S CIRCLE 159
CHAPTER VIII
QUEEN VICTORIA’S PRIME MINISTER 183
CHAPTER IX
QUEEN VICTORIA’S LADIES AND LOVERS 208
CHAPTER X
QUEEN VICTORIA’S DISLOYAL SUBJECTS 238
CHAPTER XI
QUEEN VICTORIA’S TRAGIC MISTAKE 255
CHAPTER XII
QUEEN VICTORIA’S LOVE 287
CHAPTER XIII
QUEEN VICTORIA’S EARLY MARRIED LIFE 312
CHAPTER XIV
QUEEN VICTORIA’S TORY MINISTRY 341
CHAPTER XV
QUEEN VICTORIA’S HOME 364
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS
Queen Victoria. (From a painting by W. C. Ross,
A.R.A.) _Frontispiece_
Queen Adelaide. (From a painting by Sir William
Beechey in National Portrait Gallery) _To face page_ 36
William IV „ 60
* H.R.H. The Duchess of Kent „ 94
* Lord Melbourne „ 118
King Leopold of the Belgians. (From the drawing by
Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A.) „ 138
Hon. Mrs. Norton „ 150
* Lord Brougham „ 165
* Harriet, Duchess of Sutherland „ 176
* Sir Robert Peel „ 210
* Lady Tavistock „ 218
* Lady Flora Hastings „ 258
* Lady Portman „ 274
14. H.R.H. Prince Albert. (From a painting by
Winterhalter in the National Portrait Gallery) „ 314
Queen Victoria. (From the drawing by Drummond,
1842) „ 338
* The Duke of Wellington „ 352
* Baron Stockmar „ 364
N.B.--_The illustrations marked with an asterisk_ (*)
_are from the collection of Mr. A. M. Broadley_.
THE EARLY COURT
OF QUEEN VICTORIA
CHAPTER I
PRINCESS VICTORIA’S RELATIVES
“We are going presently to write our names for the Duchess
of Kent, who has produced a daughter.”--_The Hon. Mrs.
Calvert._ 1819.
The Duchess of Kent was not a very popular woman with the Guelph
family. George IV. hated her, and made her less welcome than he had
made her husband, his brother, to whom he intimated early in 1819 that
he would no longer be received at Court; William IV. did not like her
when he was the Duke of Clarence, but his wife was so sorry for her
sister-in-law’s misfortunes that she showed her much kindness and
affection until, holding the position of Queen herself, she was obliged
to resent the hauteur with which she was treated. The Fitzclarences,
who surrounded William IV., had little reason to admire her, and the
Tory Ministers found themselves treated by her with only spasmodic
politeness. The people in general cared nothing one way or another
until the Duchess displayed marked Whig tendencies, and then the Tory
Press made a custom of criticising all that she did, and displaying a
wonderfully intimate knowledge of her affairs, private and public.
For nearly a quarter of a century the life of the Duchess in England
was one of stress; indeed, one might repeat of her the oft-repeated
words, she “was ever a fighter,” for she seemed always at variance
with the reigning monarch. She owed the very rare appearance of
herself and her daughter in the Court of George IV. to the kind heart
of Lady Conyngham, the King’s mistress, who thereby earned Victoria’s
affectionate regard, in spite of her position. Of this lady, by the
way, who was coarse, fair, dull, and by no means fascinating, and who
succeeded Lady Hertford in the King’s household, some wit said that in
taking her George had exchanged St. James for St. Giles.
By the time of William IV. the Duchess had become not simply a passive
resister but an active agitator, and many scenes of anger took place
between her and the King. Both George and William often renewed the
threat of taking her child from her that the young Princess might be
placed in the hands of someone more complacent to the Royal will.
George would really have done this, but that the Duke of Wellington,
who was his adviser, always temporised and put off the execution of the
threat. When the Duchess became mother to the Queen of England, though
things changed they were no better; but the details of the relationship
between these two prominent people needs more than a paragraph in
explanation.
Yet we have much for which to thank the Duchess of Kent, in that she
brought up her daughter in business habits, in purity of thought, and
in all those virtues which make a good woman. Domestically she was a
kind tyrant, necessarily an injudicious one, for tyranny is always
injudicious. In following the life of the young Princess one wonders
how much the mother, imposing a very restrictive rule upon the child,
knew of that child’s character. Obedient, dutiful, submissive, troubled
openly only by occasional fits of rebellion and self-will, did Victoria
in her early days ever foreshadow the revulsion against the maternal
authority which seized upon her later? One would imagine not, or the
Duchess would have become wiser in her treatment. As the girl grew
towards womanhood, did she ever betray the growth of resistance, did
she show that beneath all the quiet of the exterior lay an autocratic
character which was only biding its opportunity?--and did her mother
have any suspicion of what might happen between the years 1837 and
1841, which were to be the most anguished of her life, when she would
be forced to realise that her too scrupulous care had brought her, not
power and honour, but a determined and sustained indifference?
When this girl of eighteen was proclaimed Queen of England no one
knew whether to be glad or sorry. She was said to be shy, young for
her age, and entirely subservient to her mother; indeed, as a person
she was practically non-existent. It was the Duchess who counted, and
absurd reports had been circulated in the papers as to the Camerilla
at Kensington Palace, which aimed at securing Ministerial power on
the death of King William. As Victoria went to her Proclamation at
St. James’s Palace there was much curiosity shown, and but little
cheering done on the way. In the courtyard of the Palace stood a great,
observant crowd, silent until given the signal to cheer, and then its
voice was led by the roar of Daniel O’Connell, the Liberator, for he
considered that the chances, with a Radical faction at Kensington, were
now in his favour.
As for the Ministers, they knew no more of the fair Alexandrina
Victoria than anyone else, and a contemporary tells us that none of her
acquaintances--friends she had scarcely any--none of her attendants
at Kensington, had any idea of what lay beneath the quiet, placid
exterior, or could prophesy as to what she was capable of doing. Even
the Duchess of Northumberland, who had directed her studies for some
years, was no better informed; for never during those years had she
seen the child alone; there had always been a third person present,
either the Duchess or the Baroness Lehzen. Thus while some people
regretted the death of a King who, in spite of his peculiarities, was a
good man and a great improvement on those who had gone before him, the
universal emotion concerning his successor was neither joy nor sorrow,
but that of a vivid curiosity.
Victoria was like an enchanted princess, around whom had been drawn a
magic circle which rendered her invisible to all eyes. But she could
see beyond its range, could watch the forces which made up the world
she was about to enter, and learn more of her subjects than they had
learned of her. From time to time, while imprisoned in her circle,
disturbances from outside had affected her; she had felt some things
keenly and despairingly, but with an imperturbable face she had let
them pass by; she had been in hot rebellion often, but no one but
herself, and perhaps her half-sister, Féodore of Leiningen, knew of it;
she had longed for friends and companionship, and had engrossed herself
in her studies, those futile studies thought the right thing for the
girls of that day. Of these hidden things she did not speak, and she
did not cry over them, for in her mother’s house there had been no spot
in which she could shed tears unseen.
From the day of her birth to her accession she had scarcely ever been
alone for ten minutes at a time! And doting biographers purr over this
and say, “What an excellent mother!” Here is a quotation in slipshod
style from one such: “The exemplary mother had not allowed her daughter
to be scarcely ten minutes together either by night or day out of her
sight, except in her infant years during her daily airing and on the
very rare occasions of her Royal Highness dining away from home.”
The biographers and gossipers about Victoria agree in speaking of the
unremitting surveillance which was exercised over the young Princess.
She was imprisoned in a close atmosphere of love and tuition, and was
never free to write a letter, to see a friend, or to think her own
thoughts without the presence of her mother or the Baroness. It is
very probable that for a long time she was unconscious that there was
anything unusual in this, but it must have grown terribly burdensome
to her, so much so that her first request as a Queen to her mother
concerned this very point. She received the oaths of allegiance the day
after King William died, and when this trying and tumultuous ceremony
was over she sought her mother, allowing her overwrought nerves to find
relief in tears, or, in the language of the day, “she flung herself
upon her mother’s bosom to weep.” Being soothed into calmness, she
said:
“I can scarcely believe that I am Queen of England, but I suppose it is
really true.”
On being reassured, she continued:
“In time I shall become accustomed to my change of station; meanwhile,
since it is really so, and you see in your little daughter the
Sovereign of this great country, will you grant her the first request
she has had occasion in her regal capacity to put to you? I wish, my
dear mamma, _to be left alone for two hours_.”
The early writer who gives this incident sees no youthful tragedy in
it, but goes off into pæans of praise for the careful and diligent
mother. But it is scarcely to be marvelled at that the Queen in later
days wrote of “her sad and unhappy childhood.” Nor can we wonder that
from the day of her first regal request to her mother she availed
herself of the luxury of one or two quiet hours in each twenty-four to
herself in her own room, with a locked door between herself and all the
world. For years she clung to this privilege, which every ordinary girl
would regard as a right.
A letter written by Princess Féodore in 1843 to Queen Victoria shows
how unremitting was the surveillance upon and how deep was the
loneliness of the girl up to the time of her accession. Victoria had
written from Claremont, and her half-sister answered:--“Claremont is
a dear quiet place; to me also the recollection of the few pleasant
days spent during my youth. I always left Claremont with tears for
Kensington Palace. When I look back upon those years, which ought to
have been the happiest in my life, from fourteen to twenty, I cannot
help pitying myself. Not to have enjoyed the pleasures of youth is
nothing, but to have been deprived of all intercourse, and not one
cheerful thought in that dismal existence of ours, was very hard. My
only happy time was going out driving with you and Lehzen; then I could
speak and look as I liked. I escaped some years of imprisonment, which
you, my poor darling sister, had to endure, after I was married. But
God Almighty has changed both our destinies most mercifully, and has
made us _so_ happy in our homes--which is the only real happiness
in this life; and those years of trial were, I am sure, very useful to
us both, though certainly not pleasant. Thank God, they are over!”
What would any mother of to-day feel if one of her children, when
grown up, could write to another in this way of their childhood? It
was a tragedy both for mother and children, only the mother perhaps
never realised it, and she did not feel the results of it until the
children had escaped her thraldom. “Poor little Victory!” as Carlyle
called her, looking back upon this, it is possible to forgive her for
her subsequent hardness to her mother, for she could not help it;
the hardness had been forced upon her by example and practice in her
childish days.
But to understand the life of our late Queen in its youth it is
necessary to know its surroundings and background, and for this purpose
an account of the Royal family which then existed seems desirable.
* * * * *
King William IV. had, when comparatively young, married a pretty and
delightful actress, who was known as Mrs. Jordan. He was a man of
clean domestic life, and he persisted in regarding this lady as his
lawful wife, and the children she bore to him--nine in all--as his
lawful children. When Princess Charlotte died, however, he sacrificed
himself--and his wife--upon the altar of expediency, and married Amelia
Adelaide Louise Therese Caroline Wilhelmina of Saxe-Meiningen. She was
twenty-six, plain, thin, sedate, reserved, and had been brought up in
all the useless branches of “polite and useful learning,” thought the
correct thing for a lady of her position. She had no leaning towards
gaiety, frivolity, or dress, and hated immorality and irreligion. She
was, in fact, an “excellent selection,” but she was also one of those
people who are invariably described in negatives. Another woman might
have had just the same appearance and thoroughly good character, and
by adding to it a pleasant manner have been a favourite with everyone.
But Adelaide’s manner was bad, and she was generally disliked. William,
however, found a good wife in her--though there are some sly allusions
to his being hen-pecked--and little Victoria could always depend on
kindly affection from Queen Adelaide.
The Duchess of Clarence gave birth to two daughters, both of whom died
in infancy, and she seems to have shown no jealousy of the little
girl who would take the place which should have belonged to her own
child had it lived. She was also always kind to her husband’s exacting
and loud-mannered children, the Fitzclarences, receiving them all
as constant visitors at Windsor or St. James’s, and making pets of
their children. Thus at one time she had Lady Augusta Kennedy and
four children staying at Windsor, while Lady Sophia Sydney and three
children lived there; there was also a boy of Lady Falkland’s with
her. These eight grandchildren of the King’s would play with the King
and Queen in the corridor after lunch, and as a visitor to Adelaide
once remarked, “It is so pretty to hear them lisp ‘dear Queeny,’ ‘dear
King.’”
Yet the conduct of the Fitzclarences to Adelaide was abominable, and
Lord Errol--the husband of the third daughter, Lady Elizabeth--who had
been appointed Lord Marischal of Scotland, was heard one day speaking
in such an unpardonable way of the Queen in a public coffee-house
that he was interrupted by cries of “Shame!” from a gentleman
present. Colonel Fox, who married Lady Mary, received the appointment
of Surveyor General of the Ordnance, and was made Aide-de-Camp to
the King. Of the four sons, Lord Munster held several military
appointments, received an annual allowance from the Privy Purse,
and was given a property by his father-in-law, Lord Egremont. Lord
Frederick was a Colonel, and Equerry and Aide-de-Camp to his father.
Lord Adolphus was a Captain in the Navy, Groom of the Robes, and
Deputy-Ranger of Bushey Park; while Lord Augustus was Chaplain to the
King, and held a valuable living at Mapledurham. This family was by no
means popular, and was being constantly criticised by the newspapers.
Said _Figaro in London_, in 1832:--“The brutal conduct of the
Fitzclarences towards their poor weak old father has gained for them
the name _unnatural_, instead of natural, children.”
It seems to have been agreed generally that the Fitzclarences felt that
the time of their harvest must be short, and that therefore it behoved
them to make as much hay as possible. They badgered William for honours
and promotions, and the King did what he could; he was once heard
complaining to one of his admirals of this persecution, adding, “I had
at last to make him a Guelphic Knight” (a Hanoverian honour). “And
serve him right, your Majesty,” replied the seaman, imagining that some
disgrace was implied.
Once when George Fitzclarence demanded to be made a peer and to have
a pension, and the King said he could not do it, all the sons struck
work, or their pretence of work, thus in high life foreshadowing
the doings of the workers of a later time. George actually resigned
his office of Deputy-Adjutant-General, and wrote the King a furious
letter. This was awkward, because so long as these gentlemen drew their
money through sinecures the public was willing to accept them fairly
good-temperedly, but as avowed pensioners the outcry against them
would have been overwhelming. The matter seems to have been smoothed
over by the young man being made Earl of Munster.
The Duke of Sussex had also an unrecognised family of two, Augustus and
Ellen D’Este, who gave the King much trouble, and in revenge for their
disappointment about places and honours published the Duke’s letters to
their mother, which caused considerable scandal.
Of Princess Victoria’s uncles those who survived at her accession were
the Duke of Cumberland, the Duke of Cambridge, and the Duke of Sussex.
The Duke of Cambridge was Viceroy of Hanover during William’s reign,
and had one son, something of a weakling in his youth.
It is necessary to refer at some length to the Duke of Cumberland, as
he remained a thorn in the side of the Sovereign of England as long as
he lived. He was a man of a violent temper and of a coarse, overbearing
disposition, his great desire being to work his way to the Throne of
England. He had hung about George IV., guarding his own interests,
keeping away from his Royal brother any person whom he thought might
weaken his own influence, and strengthening, as far as he could, the
idea, which arose from what were considered the eccentricities of
Clarence, that the latter was afflicted by periods of insanity.
Yet from contemporary sources there is evidence that King George had no
love for Cumberland. Lord Ellenborough, in his “Political Diary,” notes
in 1829, “The King, our master, is the weakest man in England. He
hates the Duke of Cumberland. He wishes his death. He is relieved when
he is away; but he is afraid of him, and crouches to him.” Again, when
the Catholic Emancipation Bill was being fought, Cumberland insisted
upon coming back to England for it. Attempts were made to stop him,
but he either missed or passed the messengers. Of this Ellenborough
writes, “The King is afraid of him, and God knows what mischief he
may do. However, there is no possibility of forming an anti-Catholic
Government, and that the King must feel.” Poor George! Thenceforth he
had his Government at one ear and Cumberland at the other, drawing from
the diarist the remark: “In fact, the excitement he is in may lead to
insanity, and nothing but the removal of the Duke of Cumberland will
restore him to peace.” In his last illness George IV. refused to see
his brother.
When William ascended the Throne there was little for Prince Ernest,
Duke of Cumberland, to do but to make the best of it. But beyond
that, however, he made various attempts to be disagreeable. Thus Lord
Ellenborough mentions that the Duke of Wellington intended to go down
to Windsor on the morrow, as the Duke of Cumberland meditated making
a raid on the late King’s papers. Cumberland was probably remembering
the example of his eldest brother, who, many years earlier, when George
III. was ill, took it upon himself to examine his father’s private
papers, and thus brought about a right royal row.
During George IV.’s reign, Cumberland had kept his horses in the
Queen’s disused stables, which, when Adelaide was translated to the
kingly palace, were needed for her use. So King William requested his
brother to remove his horses to make room for the Queen’s; to which the
Duke answered politely that “he would be damned if they should go.”
However, on being told that unless he moved them the King’s grooms
had orders to turn them out the next day, he sulkily succumbed. He
had, in fact, hoped to retain in the new reign all the privileges he
had secured during the former, and could not take his disappointment
manfully; thus he had arrogated to himself the sole dignity of
Gold Stick, an honour that had always been divided among the three
Colonels of the Guards; and when William restored things to their
former position it entailed opposition on the part of Cumberland, who
countermanded the King’s orders about the Guards at his Coronation,
which, of course, was followed by further humiliation for the Duke.
But Cumberland’s chief exploit was his leadership of the Orange Lodges,
which aimed at protecting Protestantism from all Popery. As the Duke’s
ambition grew, he began to see in this organisation the help it might
be to him, and he taught various lessons to the emissaries who were
sent over the country to form new Lodges. One of the cries towards
the end of George’s reign was that the members should “rally round
the Throne,” and then it was asserted that the Duke of Clarence was
insane, and that the Duke of Wellington was aiming at the Crown. This
was spoken of at first vaguely as “a wild design in embryo,” and “a
wild ambition” by Lieutenant-Colonel Fairburn, Cumberland’s accredited
agent. This gentleman was afraid of naming names, and classed the Iron
Duke among the “grovelling worms who dare to vie with the omnipotence
of Heaven.” In another letter he said:
“One moreover of whom it might ill become me to speak but in terms of
reverence, has nevertheless been weak enough to ape the coarseness of a
Cromwell, thus recalling the recollection to what would have been far
better left in oblivion, his seizure of the diadem with his placing
it upon his brow, was a precocious sort of self inauguration.” This
alluded to the widespread opposition to the raising of Wellington to
the Peerage.
Several newspapers became infected by the Orangemen, members of whose
organisation were to be found in the Army, the Church, and among the
rank and file of the Members of Parliament. A daily journal in 1830
declared first that George the Fourth was not as ill as he was said to
be, and was amusing himself by writing the bulletins about his health,
secondly that the next in succession (the Duke of Clarence) would be
incapable of reigning “for reasons which occasioned his removal from
the office of Lord High Admiral,” and that a military chief of most
unbounded ambition would disapprove of a maritime Government, thirdly
that the second heir-presumptive, was “not alone a female but a minor,”
and that therefore a bold effort should be made to frustrate any
attempt “at a vicarious form of government.”
However, in spite of Cumberland’s ambition, and of the public
recognition of that ambition, William the Fourth came to the throne,
but his brother did not for at least twelve or thirteen years more
give up all hope of reigning in England. He still fostered the Orange
Lodges, and when it was seen that William would be obliged to assent
to the Reform Bill, the Orange speakers sounded their audiences as to
whether, if William were deposed, they would support Cumberland in an
attempt to become his successor.
This scheme not coming off, the Duke went on building up his power
until Joseph Hume brought the whole thing before Parliament in 1836,
when the startling disclosures then made caused the suppression of the
Orange Lodges. It was asserted that the Duke of Cumberland, as Grand
Master of the whole association, was a dangerous man. The Lodges all
regarded him as their political leader; he was called the Supreme Head
of the Grand Orange Lodge of Great Britain and Ireland; it was laid
down that his pleasure was law, and that the Orangemen were bound to
obey his summons and do his will for whatever purpose he desired. There
were 15,000 Lodges in Ireland, with a membership of 200,000 arm-bearing
men; and 1,500 Lodges in England, besides some in the Colonies. Thus
the Duke had the unquestioning obedience of 300,000 men--40,000 in
London alone. Meetings were called in Ireland of ten, twenty, and even
thirty thousand men. From all this Joseph Hume not unwisely inferred
that it was time to consider whether the Duke of Cumberland was King or
subject.
The whole matter made a tremendous public impression, and there were
rumours that the Princess Victoria was in danger of her life from these
secret enemies. At a public dinner in Nottingham the chairman, a Mr.
Wakefield, said that the hope of the English people “was founded on
the way in which the illustrious Princess was educated, which gave
them every reason to believe that her attachment to this country was
such that her reign--provided she lived--would be a blessing at large.
The toast he would propose was--The Princess Victoria, and may the
machinations against her suffer the same fate as the Orange conspiracy.”
One of the newspapers of the day endeavoured to comfort her for any
fears she might have had by the following lines:--
“Oh, fear not, fair lily, our country’s just pride,
The hypocrite’s schemes or the traitor’s foul band;
The firm knights of Britain will range by thy side
And proclaim thee hereafter the Queen of our land.
By virtues illustrious, the gem of our isle--
Around thee will range in the time of alarm,
Those friends whose attachment no fiend shall beguile,
For the isle that has reared thee shall shield thee from harm.”
Other papers were much more emphatic, not so much in expressing a
desire to save the Princess from harm as in an attempt to accuse
Cumberland of evil intentions. _The Satirist_, for instance,
published a cartoon showing Cumberland smothering someone in bed, with
Queen Adelaide looking on from the doorway. On the bed hangings is
embroidered a crown above a large “V,” and beneath the picture are the
following lines:
“Can such man live to crush the nation’s choice,
Which after years of blood would now rejoice?
Will a fond people yield their mighty throne
To that base heartless prince, whom all disown?
Blest day, when their loud voices shall decree
This land from such a monster shall be free.”
Elsewhere the Duke is represented in the company of the Bishop of
Salisbury, Sir Charles Wetherell, and Billy Holmes,[1] among whom the
following scrap of conversation passes:
“_Cum._ A brother’s brat between me and the Crown!
_Bish._ Yet there are means!
_Holmes._ Poison, for instance.
_Weth._ Or a razor.
_Cum._ (_with a fiendish laugh_). Ay, a razor, if
nothing better serve.”
With such open condemnation as this from any paper, even though
it were one which from its very name existed to draw attention to
irregularities and unpopular people, there was nothing for the Duke to
do but to dissociate himself from all suspicious connections. Whether
he was a most horribly libelled man or whether he had been intriguing
as affirmed, it is a matter of history that in March, 1836, he in the
name of the Orange Lodges signified his submission to the Royal will
that those Lodges should be dissolved.
Like all the Guelphs, the Duke was curiously outspoken. For instance,
he would take into his confidence someone near his person and tell how
he longed to be King, adding that he was much more fit to be King than
his brother, who might be a good sailor, but who was kingly neither in
looks nor manners.
The writer of a delightful book of gossip, published some years ago,
entitled “Tales of my Father,” gives a very definite form to this
absorbing ambition. The Duke and William IV. were dining alone together
at Windsor, the Queen being ill, and the suite dining in an adjoining
room. The sound of loud voices reached those without, for both brothers
had drunk too much; then the Duke ordered the doors to be opened and
proposed “The King’s Health. God save the King!” at which the suite
dutifully entered and drank. Then the Duke asked permission to propose
another toast.
“Name it, your Grace,” answered the King.
“The King’s heir, and God bless _him_!” proudly responded the Duke.
These audacious words were followed by a dead silence, the two brothers
staring at each other, after which William rose, held his glass high,
and cried, “The King’s heir! God bless _her_!” Then throwing the
glass over his shoulder, he turned to his brother and exclaimed, “My
crown came with a lass, and my crown will go to a lass.”
The Duke did not drink the toast, but left the room abruptly, scarcely
bowing to his brother as he passed.
The verses and allusions quoted speak plainly to the extraordinary
dislike which was felt for the Duke; he was suspected of horrible
crimes, and though publicly pronounced innocent, was still suspected.
The allusion in the verses to blood and a razor referred to an alleged
attempt made upon the Duke’s life in 1810 by one of his valets. In
the summer of that year Cumberland was found in his apartments in St.
James’ Palace wounded in six different places, and the valet was found
in his bed with his throat cut. The decision upon this was that for
some unknown reason the servant had attacked his master and had then
gone back to his room and cut his throat in bed. The evidence was just
shaky enough to leave doubt, for there were peculiar features, blood
being found all about the man’s room, even in the wash basin, but the
judge’s decision was, of course, a foregone conclusion. Popular opinion
decided, however, that the Duke had met with his injuries while his man
fought for his life, but naturally any hardy editor who allowed such an
idea to be published received punishment.
In 1829 Cumberland’s reputation suffered a worse shock in the
revelations made by a certain Captain Garth, who found a box of letters
hidden in the house of his putative father, General Garth. These
letters threw an amazing light on his own birth, showing that he was
the son of the Duke of Cumberland and of Princess Sophia. Captain Garth
appointed a Mr. Westmacott, while the Duke or George IV. appointed
Sir Herbert Taylor, the King’s private secretary, to arrange matters,
and in spite of the fact that the Duke and the Royal Family denied
everything, an agreement was come to by which Garth was to receive
£2,400 a year as annuity, and a sum of £8,000 down to pay his debts, on
condition that he should forget the box and its contents. The matter
was almost forgotten when Garth filed a bill in Chancery to prevent
Westmacott from disposing of the box, because he had only received
£3,000 on account and had been refused the rest. So the sordid affair
was once again dragged through the columns of every paper. Sir Herbert
Taylor explained that the failure to keep the arrangement was caused by
the fact that Garth had told the secrets in the box to other people,
and had kept copies of the letters. All the dailies and weeklies had
their varying articles upon this, and then--publicly--the matter died
out. Garth was probably squared. Whether his tale was true or false it
had this justification, that General Garth was believed--according to
the “Annual Register”--to have had a son by a lady of very illustrious
birth, and it was further said that George III. had induced the General
to accept the paternity of the boy. Earl Grey notes, however, in a
letter to Princess Lieven, that “the renewed attack on the subject of
Garth looks like a renewed apprehension of the effects of Cumberland’s
influence on the King.”
Quite apart from this charge, Cumberland was unscrupulous in his
amours, and one is constantly coming across references to this vice;
thus Lord Ellenborough notes, in 1830: “The suicide of ---- on account
of his wife’s seduction by the Duke of Cumberland, will drive the Duke
of Cumberland out of the field.”
Cumberland had one legitimate son, Prince George, who is described
as a beautiful boy, tall, slim, upright, with fair hair and fresh
complexion, his eyes always partly shut, for, poor lad, he was blind.
He knew little of his cousin Victoria, though he often wished to
know her better, but the Duchess was from the first afraid of any
matrimonial entanglement with her husband’s family, and would not let
the young people meet oftener than she could help.
The Duke of Sussex was very different from his brother, being a
kindly, amiable man, and the most popular of the Princes. He was a
lover of books and of philosophy; but Creevy said of him that “he
never says anything that makes you think him foolish, yet there is a
nothingness in him which is to the last degree fatiguing.” He married
Lady Augusta Murray, daughter of the fourth Earl of Dunmore, in 1793,
the marriage being dissolved in the following year as contrary to the
Royal Marriage Act--a fact which did not trouble the Duke much until
his inclination led him to break with Lady Augusta. Their son Augustus
was born in 1794, and their daughter in 1801. Long before Augusta’s
death in 1830 the Duke of Sussex had taken as a second partner in life
Lady Cecilia, daughter of the Earl of Arran, and widow of an attorney
knight of the unromantic name of Buggin. It seems a pity that Lady
Augusta, who was of Royal blood, should have had to give place to one
owning such a name! However, Lady Cecilia took her mother’s name of
Underwood, and was known by it until, in 1840, the Duke went through
the long-delayed form of marriage with her, and Queen Victoria created
her Duchess of Inverness.
The Princess Victoria had a real affection for her uncles, King William
and the Duke of Sussex, but Cumberland she always abhorred, probably
not for his immorality--they were all immoral--but on account of the
hatred he felt for her and her mother, and for the brutality of his
nature, which made him subject to paroxysms of passion, during which
everyone, even his wife, feared him.
It is curious to realise that Queen Victoria, who laid such stress
upon the purity of her Court, and who did much to revolutionise society
in this regard, was surrounded by people who openly defied the laws,
written and unwritten. In later life she would not allow near her
Throne a woman against whom there had been a breath of scandal, but in
the early days of her reign she was surrounded by men who were smirched
and dishonoured by loose living. To her, indeed, there was one law for
men and another for women, and in spite of the terrible lesson she
received in 1839--to be dealt with in a later chapter--she held to that
attitude throughout her life.
One other person who, besides her mother, dominated the Princess’s
daily existence was her uncle, Prince Leopold, her mother’s brother.
As the husband of Princess Charlotte he drew an income of £50,000 from
this country, and had been given Claremont as a dwelling. These he
retained after the death of his wife in 1816, living partly in London
and partly at Claremont. He led a quieter, more sedate life than did
the Guelphs, was precise in his ways, prided himself highly on his fine
manners, and was cordially detested by the English Princes and Peers.
The fact that he did not drink angered both George IV. and William IV.,
while his affectation of superiority annoyed his associates, and his
reputation for meanness brought him sneers from everyone.
George IV. showed him almost from the first what a gulf in manners
there was between them, and did not trouble about the fact that he
himself was the one that lacked them. At a Levée which he held in 1821
he deliberately turned his back upon his son-in-law. The Prince did
his best to carry off the matter in a dignified way; he is said not to
have altered a muscle of his face, but to have approached the Duke of
York, saying to him in a loud tone, “The King has thought proper to
take _his_ line, and I shall take _mine_.” He then left the
assembly.
Some hints of Leopold’s character may be given in his own words--words
which betray at once his pedantry and his absolute lack of humour. In a
letter to the young Queen, in which he tried to explain the character
of Princess Charlotte, he said: “The most difficult task I had was to
change her manners; she had something too brusque and too rash in her
movements, which made the Regent quite unhappy, and which sometimes was
occasioned by a struggle between shyness and the necessity of exerting
herself. I had, I may say so without seeming to boast, the manners of
the best society of Europe, having early moved in it, and been what is
called in French _de la fleur des pois_. A good judge I therefore
was, but Charlotte found it rather hard to be so scrutinised, and
grumbled occasionally how I could so often find fault with her.”
Leopold could not understand a joke; chaffing or quizzing always raised
his displeasure; and indeed he seems somewhat to have merited, by his
manner alone, some of the severe criticisms lavished upon him. How much
of the feeling against him was prompted by insular prejudice, how much
was jealousy, and how much personal dislike, it is difficult to say,
but there was probably something of all three to account for it.
As far as the Royal Dukes’ feelings went, there was some justification
for jealousy. Leopold, a foreign Prince, was being allowed from the
Civil List an annual £50,000, having been for only about a year the
husband of the Heir-Apparent. The Royal Dukes of England were receiving
only £18,000 and £24,000 each, and they were the sons and brothers of
Kings of England. However, the sharp-tongued Creevy, who could not have
been personally affected, spoke of him always as Humbug Leopold, and
one of the Fitzclarences said in 1824 that the Duchess of Clarence was
the best and most charming woman in the world, that Prince Leopold was
a damned humbug, and that he (Fitzclarence) disliked the Duchess of
Kent.
But whatever the popular opinion concerning him, Leopold, when his
sister became a widow, was a shield between her and the world. The Duke
of Kent was taken ill in Sidmouth, and two days before he died Prince
Leopold went thither to do what he could for his sister. One cannot
help wondering how it was that the Duke struggled on so long with the
burden of worries that he had to bear. After his marriage he lived
in Germany until the prospect of an heir brought him and his wife to
England. His income was then little or nothing, for he had been obliged
to make an assignment of his property to his creditors, to work off
debts contracted partly when, as a young man, he had been allowed by
his tutor, Baron Wangenheim, the princely income of thirty shillings a
week as pocket-money, the remainder of £6,000 a year being used by the
Baron, who was astute enough to intercept the Prince’s letters home.
The Duchess of Kent had a jointure of £6,000 a year, and upon this they
lived. From his youth to his death the Duke was worried by the lack of
money and by creditors, through no extravagance of his own, as well as
by the enmity of his brother, the Regent.
When the Duke of Kent died, Leopold was the only friend the Duchess had
in England, and he went through the affairs of his late brother-in-law,
finding to his consternation that there was not enough money left even
to carry the family back to London, or to pay for the necessary winding
up of affairs at Sidmouth. George IV. would give no help of any sort;
he hated the Duchess, as he did most of his brothers’ wives, and his
one idea was to cause her to take her child back to Germany and relieve
him and the country entirely of any obligation towards them. However,
the Duchess and her brother came to the conclusion that they should
resist this desire with all their strength, and to make things easier
Leopold added to his sister’s six thousand a year an annual amount of
£3,000. For decency’s sake the King had to give them a roof over their
heads, and he assigned to the Duchess some rooms in Kensington Palace.
I have come across fatuous biographies of Queen Victoria in which
Leopold has been extolled for his liberality to his sister, as a noble
brother, &c., but when the position is regarded in a detached way the
absurdity and injustice of the whole arrangement is patent. The alien
Leopold was drawing, as has already been said, £50,000 a year from
the English Exchequer, having no obligations upon him of any sort, no
Royal position to keep up, while his sister, the wife of the King’s
brother, and mother of the probable Queen of England, had less than an
eighth of that amount, was allowed nothing more from the Government,
and was expected to be very grateful to Leopold in that he handed over
to her a little of the money that he received. Six years later a sum
of six thousand was annually allowed the Duchess by the Government for
the education of her daughter, and in 1831, when the Princess Victoria
was needing yet more in the way of instruction, training, and social
necessities, another £10,000 brought her income up to £22,000 a year,
more than her poor husband had ever owned.
Until 1831 Leopold lived at Claremont, cultivated its gardens to the
utmost, and provoked much criticism for the business-like way in which
he sent the produce up to London. Claremont became also a country-house
residence for the Duchess of Kent and her little daughter, Victoria
looking back upon the comparative freedom she enjoyed there as helping
to make those visits the happiest events of her early life. Then
came the demand for a King for Greece, and Leopold had the chance of
securing the position, George, however, remarking that if he did go to
Greece he should leave his income behind him. There is no doubt that
an affluent, objectless life in England had its charms, and that a man
might pay too dearly for wearing the crown of a small unsettled kingdom
surrounded by enemies. So Leopold vacillated, always leaning with each
swing a little nearer the crown, yet wishing to retain the money. The
newspapers of the day were full of the money part of the transaction.
First, would the country buy of him the land he had purchased here,
valued at fifty thousand or thereabouts? would England guarantee him a
loan of £1,500,000? would England give him for seven years an annual
£70,000 instead of £50,000? From month to month negotiations dragged
on, until at last it was announced that Leopold had got the promise
of all he desired, and by that time George IV. was very ill. So the
Prince, with new ideas in his mind, waited for nearly two months more
before even then making his decision, raising many a laugh and many
a scoffing hint in society as to his real reason. “Ingoldsby” Barham
crystallised some of the sayings in his verses upon “The Mad Dog,” as
follows:--
“The Dog hath bitten--Oh, woe is me--
A Market Gardener of high degree;
Imperial Peas
No longer please,
An Imperial Crown he burneth to seize!
Early Cucumbers, Windsor Beans,
Cabbages, Cauliflowers, Broccoli, Greens,
Girkins to pickle, Apples to munch,
Radishes fine, five farthings a bunch,
Carrots red and Turnips white,
Parsnips yellow no more delight,
He spurneth Lettuces, Onions, Leeks,
He would be Sovereign King of the Greeks.
No more in a row
A goodly show.
His Highness’s carts to market go!
Yet still I heard Sam Rogers hint,
He hath no distaste for _celery_ or _mint_.
A different whim
Now seizeth him,
And Greece for his part may sink or swim.
For they cry that he
Would Regent be,
And Rule fair England from sea to sea.
Oh, never was mortal man so mad,--
Alack! alack, for the Gardener lad.”
When it was certain that George IV. could not recover, Leopold declined
the honour of being King of Greece, upon which Barham wrote the
following verse:--
“A King for Greece!--a King for Greece!
Wanted a Sovereign Prince for Greece!
For the recreant Knight
Hath broken his plight,
Some say from policy, some from fright,
Some say in hope to rule for his niece,
He hath refused to be King over Greece.”
Thomas Creevy wrote concerning this decision in one of his letters, “I
suppose Mrs. Kent thinks her daughter’s reign is coming on apace, and
that her brother may be of use to her as _versus_ Cumberland.”
In 1831 Leopold became King of the Belgians, and then, attention
having been so thoroughly drawn to his pension, a determined demand
was made that it should cease when he left England. Matters were not
settled quite so simply. Leopold retained Claremont, stipulated that
his debts of £83,000 should be paid for him, and that he should return
four-fifths of the annuity. When the Duke of Kent had died crushed
with debt, not so much more than this sober gentleman owed, that debt
was left to hang round the necks of his widow and child. The Duke of
Kent was popular, Leopold was not; yet the former was neglected and
the latter was honoured. Really there seems little advantage in being
popular!
When Leopold announced with some solemnity that he was called to
reign over four million noble Belgians, Coleridge, referring to that
country’s discontented state, remarked that it would have been more
appropriate if he had said that he was called to rein in four million
restive asses.