PRINCESS VICTORIA’S SUITORS
“What warmth is there in your affection towards any of these
princely suitors that are already come?”--_Merchant of
Venice._
All the world knows that Princess Victoria made a love match, and that
Nathaniel P. Willis’s prognostication that she would be married solely
for reasons of State was never fulfilled, but it is probable that
few people know that she, like other girls, made little flights into
the region of romance, and that a small crowd of young men presented
themselves at the English Court, as it were, on approbation. The
influx began in the spring of 1836, and, of course, produced fresh
unpleasantness between the King and the Duchess. The latter had already
decided upon the person whom she would wish for a son-in-law, and it
is almost needless to say that in that case King William was likely to
prefer any other young man in Christendom.
The only fount of information on such a subject as this is the
contemporary Press, with here and there some allusion in letters of the
time. When comparing the Press of to-day with the Press of seventy or
eighty years ago, it is wonderful to note the difference of interest
which was shown in such matters. To-day we not only pretend to believe
that Royalty is perfect, but we publicly express that belief whenever
opportunity offers. We are always very polite. In the time of King
William and in the early years of Queen Victoria’s reign it seems to
have been the custom to regard Royalty as very imperfect indeed; to
find evil motives for even the most obviously good actions; to lay bare
every secret, and to leave the poor monarch of the realm not a shred of
moral clothing with which to cover his thoughts or designs. A little
while ago a report was published without comment that the matrimonial
fate of our present Prince of Wales was already settled. No one
troubled about it or took the matter up, there was not the slightest
idea of making political capital out of it; and when he really does
marry we shall all be decorously delighted. It is quite unlikely that
the newspapers will give columns of criticism to his bride, will rake
up or make up evil stories about her, point out what a disastrous
effect she will have upon England, or indeed do anything but wish the
young people well, and pass on to the next subject. Of course, the
Princess Victoria presented a special case; she was believed to be shy
and adaptable in character, and there was some ground for imagining
that it would be the Duchess of Kent who would really rule when the
time came--she and the chosen husband; therefore there was an especial
wave of agitation whenever the idea of an alliance was started.
The same thing applied to the Royal Family as a whole. One set of
papers would make banal announcements as to the doings of the King,
Queen, or Dukes; whereupon another set would fasten upon these
seemingly simple incidents, show that they held hidden significance
which was contrary to the nation’s welfare, and would then well
belabour the unlucky Royal subject. Now the banal announcement may
appear, and a few subservient papers amplify them and fall down and
worship, but most will let them pass without comment. There is one
story which has been appearing weekly somewhere or other for the past
year to the effect that Queen Mary spends her evenings among her ladies
knitting coarse garments for the poor. This pleases the sentimental
ideas of the lovers of tit-bit publications, so it is a constant
recurrer; but most sensible people shrug their shoulders at it; they
know that a Queen has more important things to do, and that it would
be a greater act of charity on her part to pay some poor folks to make
the clothes. But no one tries to prove any connection between this and
a possible German war, or make it a peg upon which to hang tales of
poverty, as they would have done a century ago.
In reality, the people of England know nothing about the Court; in the
old days they knew too much. The causes of this change are probably
three: the greater security of social and foreign affairs to-day, the
lessening power of the Crown, and the reticent attitude which the
Prince Consort insisted upon concerning Royal doings and surroundings,
a habit which loosened a little under King Edward, but which seems
to be strengthening under his successor. However, “the good have no
story” may be said, generally speaking, to be true of families, and it
is probable that if sensational events came to pass in the Palace, all
the papers would once again regard them as legitimate matter for praise
or stricture. In the old days they did not wait for sensational events;
they took a commonplace happening and dressed it in lurid language,
which sold the papers in spite of the tax upon them, and pleased their
readers.
In reproducing some of these highly coloured comments it must not be
believed that my loyalty is peccable. I merely recognise that words
that inflamed people eighty years ago are amusing now, and for those
who can take from them the little spark of truth they are also to some
extent serviceable as illuminators of the past.
Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg had already settled the career of
his eldest son, and he saw no reason why--like a good matchmaking
parent--he should not try to find a kingdom for his second son
Augustus, who was much the less attractive of the two. As soon as
they arrived everyone was on the watch, the pity was that none of the
gossip-mongers could be present when intentions were talked over.
Because they were not there, no one can now tell whether intentions
were mentioned at all, or whether things were left to develop in
an ordinary way. In any case, Prince Ferdinand must have been
disappointed, for Augustus was a silent lad, and did little to make
himself agreeable, while the handsome Ferdinand the younger is said
to have been captivated by his fresh young cousin--they were all
cousins--at first sight.
The visitors went first to Kensington, and then to Windsor, where they
were royally entertained, and returned to pass two weeks at Kensington
Palace. The Prince and Augustus went home, hoping nothing, and still
Ferdinand remained, in spite of his bride awaiting him in Lisbon. A
lady diarist of the day says that he lingered from day to day, “nay,
week after week,” allured by “the fascinations of Kensington’s Royal
bowers.” However, this was something of an exaggeration, as Ferdinand
had to be in Lisbon by a certain date for his marriage in April. At
last he had to go, and he travelled with the Duchess and Princess
to Claremont. There he took an “affectionate leave,” and went his
solitary--but for a few attendants--way to the sea.
He met his young and dark bride kindly, and within a week or two took
the same disease of the throat which had killed his predecessor less
than a year earlier. Being a young man of great determination, he
absolutely refused the kind ministrations of the Portuguese doctors,
and was cured by his own German attendant. Whether he was happier
alive than he would have been dead it is not easy to say, for his new
subjects prepared a nice little quarrel for him before he arrived, and
he was soon in the midst of mutinies and revolutions.
The first young man who probably caused a real flutter in the
Kensington home was not of Royal blood at all. This was young Lord
Elphinstone, to whom it was said the Princess had lost her heart,
and who was therefore thought sufficiently formidable to make the
Duchess take a very extreme step. He was Lord of the Bedchamber to King
William, was handsome, well-mannered, unassuming, always ready to help
in small matters, and eminently fitted to catch a girl’s fancy. He was
also, as one paper put it satirically, a most convenient person to
engage to do the amiable at balls and parties, and beyond all doubt was
a most useful and agreeable master of the ceremonies of fashion. It was
said that he had not only lost his heart to the pretty Princess, but
had taken hers in return. He would sit and watch her surreptitiously in
church, and on one occasion so far forgot his religious duties as to
make a sketch of her while there, which sketch he was later imprudent
enough to present to her. Maternal care took alarm; Sir John Conroy was
consulted, and a whole set of hidden wires were pulled to put a stop to
love’s young dream. The result was to be read in every morning paper
one day at the beginning of 1836:--
“Lord Elphinstone has been appointed Governor of Madras. The Court
of Directors (of the East India Company) ratified the nomination on
Wednesday.” So ran the announcement. The _Satirist_, much annoyed,
commented, “The appointment of Lord Elphinstone is certainly not one
to be applauded.... To send him out as the Governor of Madras is, to
say the very least of it, unwise”; and it went on to point out that
many a man better fitted for the post had been overlooked that he might
have it. “A Lord of the Bedchamber spoiled in a Governor of Madras!
Lord Elphinstone _may_ have qualified for the appointment, but
the public surely has a right to demand tried ability and weight of
character,” was another comment. And so, though gossip awoke several
times later to nod and hint, the young lord left his goddess and his
native land, not to return for seven long years.
The _Age_, ultra-Tory and virulently anti-Catholic in its
sentiments, outspoken to the verge of libel, and unscrupulous in its
assertion of wild facts, had something to say weekly at this time
about the Princess’s lovers. It started the campaign by asserting
the obvious truth that the Princess Victoria was now becoming the
object of the highest and purest interest to England, and must not be
lightly bestowed, adding, “The gentleman who with a few _sons_
lives at the Tuileries would perhaps like to nibble here--but until
the established Protestant religion is overthrown he has no chance. A
German paper mentions that a rumour is current that Prince Augustus
of Saxe-Coburg is likely to win the Princess Victoria. Whether or not
the desire be father to the thought we know not, nor do we care; to
omit all other objections to a union such as the one hinted at, it is
sufficient to state that the Prince alluded to is a Catholic.”
With the end of April arrived further papas with two sons each, and
then began the duel between King William and his sister-in-law. The
latter had, as has been said, quietly made choice of her daughter’s
bridegroom, being guided in the selection by her brother Leopold,
and we are told that her nephew Albert had been taught from his early
childhood that he would one day marry his cousin Victoria. However,
he did not see his destined mate until May, 1836, when he was nearly
seventeen, and when he and his elder brother Ernest, escorted by his
father, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg, paid a visit of a month’s duration to
Kensington. King William hated the idea, and he did his little best to
spoil the scheme, which was too unformed to allow of any open action.
He had behind him the Tories generally and all the Tory Press, while
the anti-Catholics wasted much good energy in traducing Leopold, the
Prince whom long before everyone had received with open arms. Leopold
had married the daughter of the King of France, and was suspected of
having become a Catholic, thus adding to the dislike which was felt
for him in England. One paper said of him at this time, “The name of
Leopold is the most unpopular in the kingdom, and is accompanied with
certain sordid associations of which our national ledger gives ample
and disgraceful evidence.”
So, to counterbalance the schemes of the Duchess, King William invited
to England the young Duke of Brunswick, also the Prince of Orange and
his two sons, William and Alexander, who were reported to be fine young
men, though stiff and formal in their manner. These were as heartily
welcomed by the King’s supporters as the others were traduced. “There
is something in the very name of William of Orange which is encouraging
in these times of Popish assumption and pseudo-Protestant treachery.
Whether our fancies as to a certain union be verified or not, time
will prove. Should it take place, we think the people of England will
not object, whatever the malignants of Ireland may say against one of
the same family as the Hero of the Boyne.”
Those who looked on enjoyed the situation, and there is little doubt
but that the Prince of Orange, on behalf of his son, would have won in
the contest if it had depended on the sympathies of the English people.
In his youth the Prince had been an aspirant for the hand of Princess
Charlotte, his rival being the successful Leopold, who had not only
taken his hoped-for bride, but later half of his Principality. When
Leopold was mentioned in his presence, Orange would say, “_Voilà un
homme qui a pris ma femme et mon royaume._” Gossip went that he
intended to place his sons at an English university, that he might make
them as English as possible; and there were those who affirmed that the
House of Orange had great claims upon the country’s gratitude, but that
we had satisfied in full any claim that the House of Saxe-Coburg might
put forward. Advice was offered freely to the Duchess of Kent; she
“is a shrewd and sensible woman, and will not, we hope, misunderstand
our loyalty when we say, ‘We must have no more Coburgs.’ One fair
rose of England has been gathered by a Coburg, and there shall be no
further sacrifice of a future Queen to them.” The Coburgs were dubbed
a mercenary, good-for-nothing set by one section, while another put
all the German princes into the same category. “All the multitudinous
progeny of the small peoples of the Saxe-Gotha, Saxe-Coburg, and
their cousin Saxes are racing against each other for the hand of the
Princess Victoria, to say nothing of a brace of Brunswicks and a Prince
of Orange and his two sons, who probably thinks he should be given
first chance, as he was done out of the Princess Charlotte. The Duke of
Cumberland’s son is quite _hors-de-combat_, and the simple child,
George of Cambridge, is not encouraged by the Government on account of
his mental incapacity. The Saxe tribe are the most hungry, the most
persevering, and the most lucky.”
Indeed, the English might have been excused some annoyance at the
favour shown to the great Teutonic nation, for, in addition to the nine
or ten gentlemen mentioned, there were also here in England during the
same spring the Prince of Leiningen, Victoria’s half-brother, Prince
Ernest of Hesse-Philippthal, and Prince Edward of Carolath. These last
three and Prince Ferdinand with his sons were all invited to a great
ball which the Duchess of Kent gave at the end of March, just as at
the end of May she gave a brilliant ball at which her own guests and
those of the King were naturally present. King William entertained
the Coburgs as graciously as he did the lad from Brunswick and the
Oranges, and, indeed, did his utmost to ensure that Victoria should
meet them all together as often as possible. But it was inevitable that
at Kensington Palace there should be many opportunities for the young
Saxe-Coburgs to talk with their cousin. An aide-de-camp of the Duke of
Cumberland’s, and Lord de Lisle, son-in-law of King William, watched
Victoria and Albert pacing the Palace garden one day.
“Do you think they are lovers?” one man asked the other; and he shook
his head dubiously, answering in non-committal way, “They seem to be
good friends, anyhow.”
Whether there were too many from which to choose, or whether it was
true that Victoria was, for the best of all reasons, proof against
their attractions, this tribe of young men came and went, making no
impression. She danced with them all, for she dearly loved dancing,
talked German to them all, for it is doubtful whether one of them could
speak English, and said good-bye to them all with an equable smile, and
probably with a sigh of relief that now she would be free to go her own
way to some extent.
The papers showed as much interest in their going as in their coming.
All had an idea that, though nothing had been announced, something had
been fixed up. Those who had no animus against the German “invasion”
were contented with such ventures as, “I hear to-day that the young
Prince of Saxe-Coburg is the destined husband of our Princess
Victoria,” or, “It is rumoured that the two rival suitors (Coburg and
Orange) for the highest and fairest hand in the kingdom, returned
home without making any impression on the heart of the interesting
lady in question.” One grumbler observed that the Princess had been
prevented from going to Ascot, as she was kept at home to entertain
“these round-faced youths.” But those who feared the youths lashed
right and left, speaking of the impolitic liberality of certain high
personages, and the dogged good nature of John Bull which gained for
him the appellation of fool from all the world for allowing his means
to be squandered over German fortune-hunters. The worst tirade was
naturally given by the _Age_, which used Leopold as a whipping
boy, and in rhythmic sentences announced:--“This King Leopold has
become the Sovereign of a Popish country, the husband of a Popish
Princess, and the son-in-law of a Popish Monarch. King Leopold was the
accepted of Protestant England’s welcome--the chosen of Protestant
England’s hope--and the son-in-law of Protestant England’s Sovereign.
What a contrast! Nay, further--King Leopold, if not a convert to
Popery, at least conforms to its rites; and mark this, the nephew whose
matrimonial agent he had the arrogance to be _is a member of the
Roman Catholic Church_; although, following his uncle’s example, the
youth would also no doubt _change his religion_--for a Crown!”
As for the young people themselves, they were probably quite as
unconscious of the agonised flutter which their meeting had raised in
journalistic dove-cots as they were unmoved by love for each other.
_He_ thought _she_ was very amiable and astonishingly self-possessed;
_she_ commended his welfare to her uncle’s protection, for the whole
project had been explained to her, and her reason as well as her
family affection had found good in it. So in her letter to Leopold she
acknowledged this by saying, “I hope and trust that all will go on
prosperously and well on this subject, now of so much importance to
me.”
And so for a space the matter ended. But it is really worthy of note
that among all the young visitors from Germany and elsewhere, there
were no girls; no smart young cousins came to rival Victoria’s charms,
and she had the field entirely to herself. This, at least, gives some
justification for the belief that matchmaking was in the air.
After this, for some reason the Duchess of Kent withdrew Victoria
entirely from Court. William and Adelaide sent her invitations in vain,
and the irascible Monarch grew more and more angry over the matter.
It may be, of course, that the Duchess was annoyed at the King’s very
transparent attempt to frustrate her plans for her daughter, and showed
her resentment in this somewhat trivial way, or she may have aimed more
strenuously at removing the girl from influence which she had always
deemed bad. It was quite useless for the King to fume, as all the Kents
had to do was to go to Claremont and get out of his reach; and the only
revenge he could take was that of denouncing the Duchess at any and
every opportunity, and advertising his increasing dislike of her to all
who would listen.
[Illustration: H.R.H. THE DUCHESS OF KENT.]
In August, 1837, this simmering hatred came to the boil, and readily
flowed over into the public ears. William invited the Duchess and
her child to stay at Windsor from early in the month until after the
21st, hoping that they would be present to celebrate Queen Adelaide’s
birthday on the 13th and his own on the 21st, for which latter two
dinners were arranged, as the 21st was a Sunday; thus there was to be
a family dinner on that day, and a more public one on the 22nd. The
Duchess seems to have had an unfortunate knack of writing crude--not
to say rude--letters. To this invitation she responded that as she
wished to keep her own birthday on the 15th at Claremont, she could not
be at Windsor until the 20th; and she entirely ignored all mention of
the festivities for the Queen. There seems to have been little reason
for this direct snub to Adelaide, and it was probably caused more by
a want of imagination than through a definite desire to annoy, but
it naturally resulted in irritating the King anew. He, however, made
no reply to this letter, but that did not mean that the Duchess was
not in his thoughts. Perhaps someone had given him a hint, or perhaps
William suspected that the Duchess was taking liberties; but on the
afternoon of the 20th, when he had prorogued Parliament, and when he
probably knew that the Duchess would already have started for Windsor,
he went down to Kensington Palace. There he found what he perhaps had
expected to find, that his sister-in-law had appropriated to her own
use seventeen extra rooms, of which a year before he had refused her
the accommodation. He went straight from Kensington to Windsor, where
the Duchess and her daughter had already arrived. Without waiting to
change, he marched straight to the drawing-room, kissed the Princess,
holding both her hands and telling her in fatherly way how pleased he
was to see her. He then made a low bow to the Duchess, and, like the
old dunderhead that he was, immediately began the battle.
They were by no means alone, the whole houseparty being assembled, all
of whom were astounded to hear their Monarch say in loud, harsh accents
that he had just come from Kensington, where he had found that a most
unwarrantable liberty had been taken. Someone had possessed themselves
of apartments not only without his consent, but against his expressed
commands, and he ended up with, “he neither understood nor would endure
conduct so disrespectful to himself.”
What happened further we are not told, but there can be no doubt that
all through this very trying evening the Duchess of Kent behaved with
perfect dignity; she might be wanting in politeness privately, but
publicly nothing upset her control. Adolphus Fitzclarence was present,
and sat within two or three of the Duchess at the dinner, thus he
heard plainly all that was said. A little later he fully retailed the
scandal to Greville. He says that on the Sunday morning the King had
by no means got over his excitement, which lasted more or less through
the day. At dinner, though this was supposed to be a family function,
at least a hundred people were present, either belonging to the Court
or gathered from the neighbourhood. On one side of the King sat the
Duchess of Kent, directly opposite him was Princess Victoria next the
Queen. Everything went well until the time of speeches arrived, and the
first health to be proposed was naturally that of His Majesty. At that
this incomparably tactless King got upon his feet and straightway began
to express all the anger he felt. The part particularly interesting to
the Duchess ran:--
“I trust in God that my life may be spared for nine months longer,
after which period, in the event of my death, no Regency would take
place. I should then have the satisfaction of leaving the Royal
authority to the personal exercise of that young lady (pointing to
the Princess), the heiress presumptive to the Crown, and not in the
hands of a person now near me, who is surrounded by evil advisers and
who is herself incompetent to act with propriety in the station in
which she would be placed. I have no hesitation in saying that I have
been insulted--grossly insulted--by that person, but I am determined
to endure no longer a course of behaviour so disrespectful to me.
Amongst other things, I have particularly to complain of the manner in
which that young lady has been kept away from my Court; she has been
repeatedly kept from my Drawing Rooms, at which she ought always to
have been present, but I am fully resolved that this shall not happen
again. I would have her know that I am King, and I am determined to
make my authority respected, and for the future I shall insist and
command that the Princess do upon all occasions appear at my Court, as
it is her duty to do.”
It is said that His Majesty finished his tirade by speaking of the
Princess in a fatherly and affectionate way, saying that though he had
seen so little of her, he took no less interest in her, and the more he
saw of her in public and in private the greater pleasure it would be to
him.
Before he had got to this, however, the Princess was crying, the Queen
looked terribly distressed, and the whole company sat aghast, their
eyes on the table. When a dead silence fell after this awful philippic,
all must have wondered what was to happen next, but the Duchess, who
had more sense than her assailant, uttered no word, and the Queen gave
the signal for retiring. Then we are told that the Duchess had her say,
and that there was an awful scene between the pair; she ordered her
carriage, but all concerned did their best to change her determination
of going from the Castle at once, and some sort of a reconciliation
ensued.
The King might relent, might change his mind or forget things, but he
does not seem ever to have repented his foolish deeds. Thus the next
day he asked Adolphus what everyone said of his speech, and that young
man made a diplomatic answer, saying that though everyone thought the
Duchess merited his rebuke, it ought not to have been given at his
own table before a hundred people; he ought to have sent for her to
his closet, and said all he felt and thought there. To which William
answered that he did not care where or before whom he said what he
thought, and that, “by God, he had been insulted by her in a measure
that was past all endurance, and he would stand it no longer.”
What a terrible exhibition of inhospitality and bad taste! Yet we have
to realise that the King had been much provoked, and, being the man of
severe limitations that he was, he took the only course which occurred
to him. There can be no doubt that a real affection existed between
William and his niece, that he knew that but a small span of life
remained to him, and that he was constantly refused the society and
the sight of his successor. Though the autocratic Duchess had married
into the Guelph family, she never seemed to understand the exceedingly
primitive characters of the people who composed that family, or, if she
did understand them, she gave them little credit for their virtues, but
recognised to the full all their sins of omission and commission.
A slight instance of the small way in which she annoyed them is given
in the “Tales of My Father,” already referred to. The Duchess of
Cumberland sent an aide-de-camp to the Duchess of Kent with a message
about the illness of young George. When the young man had told Her
Royal Highness all that she wished to know, she invited him to dine and
stay the night. His answer was that he could not do so, as he had no
leave, and the Duke was most particular on that point.
“I will manage all that!” the Duchess haughtily replied. “I should like
to present you to the Princess Victoria.” So a message was sent to the
Duke of Cumberland that the captain had been commanded to remain at
Kensington, with the result that the next morning a letter arrived for
the guest from the Duke, informing him that his business was to look
after Prince George, not to be nursery governess to Princess Victoria;
that he had slept out of St. James’s without leave; and that if he did
not come back at once he would be put under arrest. In this there was
no deference shown to the will of the Duchess, nothing but annoyance
expressed at the excess of hospitality to his messenger.
After that terrible birthday party the Duchess stayed for yet another
dinner at the Castle, and it seems that she was somewhat long in
entering the drawing-room the second evening. The Queen would not go
in without her, which caused William loudly to demand the whereabouts
of his wife. When he was told that she was waiting for the Duchess, he
said just as loudly:
“That woman is a nuisance!” No one can wonder that the Duchess hated
him; it is only possible to feel what a pity it was that things had
been allowed to come to such a pass.
From that time history gives no account of meetings between St. James’s
and Kensington.
It was during her last year at Kensington Palace that Victoria was
troubled by the first of the mad suitors who for three years were
recurrent factors in her life. This was a Mr. Hunnings, a man of about
forty, who was the owner of considerable property near Tunbridge Wells,
where he first saw Victoria. He may have been sane enough in other
ways, but he was certainly mad in his regard for the heiress to the
Throne. He spoke of her as his “little Princess,” and lamented the
fact that her cruel guardians kept her from him. He haunted Kensington
Gardens, and the Duchess and her daughter scarcely left the Palace but
they found this man stationed near the door, bowing most gracefully
with his hand on his heart. He would follow the two at a distance until
they turned some corner out of his sight, and then at a smart run
would either overtake them or by a short cut get ahead, so that they
would find him again and again facing them and making most respectful
salutes. He regularly attended the services in the Chapel Royal
attached to Kensington Palace, sitting where he could obtain a full
view of the Royal pew, and would generally put half a sovereign in the
plate.
Of course, this matter soon became public property, and was too
good a subject for joke to be ignored. Wags would do their best to
encourage the hopeful lover by writing him letters, and he once showed
a policeman such a missive purporting to be signed by the Princess,
expressing a deep love for him, and asking him to write to her,
placing his answer under a certain tree, as she would have no chance
of speaking to him. The police had, of course, to be on the alert in
case he did anything more than usually extravagant, and he complained
bitterly of their surveillance, saying that he felt it to be most
degrading.
He was for ever trying some new way of keeping the Princess Victoria
under his observation, and at last hit upon the idea of having a
barouche exactly like that of the Duchess of Kent, his servant being
dressed in Royal undress livery, a dark pepper-and-salt coat and
glazed hat with broad purple velvet band, and in this he would follow
his “little Princess” when she drove out. On Victoria’s eighteenth
birthday he licensed a cab to which he gave her name, decorated it with
ribbons, and persuaded the proprietor to allow it to be illuminated
with lamps at night. His own house was illuminated from top to bottom,
and during the day he invited everyone who passed to stop and drink
the health of the Princess. By evening a dense crowd had gathered
before his door, most of those who composed it being ready to drink
again and again to their future Queen, and already in such a state
of intoxication that the police interfered and put a stop to his
liberality. The whole affair would have been nipped in the bud had it
occurred at the present time, but eighty years years ago the police
were few and given but scanty powers.
On the accession of Victoria to the Throne this annoying lover was
somehow pushed into the background, and we hear no more of him,
excepting that at a fancy bazaar at Lincoln he eagerly purchased
some things worked by Her Majesty and was eventually locked up for
assaulting the Mayor.
As Princess Victoria neared her majority all the newspapers showed
unrest; they devoted daily leaders and paragraphs to their hopes and
fears; there were hints of plots and schemings, of arrangements made
at Kensington, of members chosen to form the new Royal Household as
soon as William was dead. The names of everyone around the Duchess
were paraded in print, to their praise or detriment. The _Newcastle
Chronicle_ got frightened over a scheme which, it said, had been
fixed up between Sir John Conroy and Lord Durham, who was then
Ambassador Extraordinary at St. Petersburg.
When the Princess came of age, they said, she would, of course, be
given an establishment of her own. Lord Durham would return from Russia
before that, so as to be ready to put himself at the head of Victoria’s
household, his ambition being, however, to make that position but
a step to the Premiership. Meanwhile, he would be keeping the post
warm for Sir John Conroy, who coveted the headship of the household
for himself. This--the paper pointed out--would only need a little
management. Lord Durham was a personal friend of Leopold’s, so he would
arrange the Coburg marriage, and both men would gain their promotion
through the gratitude of the Duchess and her brother.
Poor Victoria! she evidently did not count in this matter at all; she
was but a peg on which two ambitious men were supposed to hang their
schemes for advancement. Yet this note was sounded in all the diatribes
upon her suggested marriage. What the King wished, what the Duchess
and her brother wished, what this or that party wished, all these were
discussed to the full, but what the Princess herself wished was thought
scarcely worthy of any attention.
So in the spring of 1837 the Princess’s future husband was as fertile
a subject of interest as it had been in the spring of the year
before. In Brussels her marriage with Prince Albert was talked of as
an assured thing, for he and his brother were residing there, “in a
hired house of no very distinguished class, and obtaining their dinners
from the Restaurateur Dubois for themselves and tutors and servants
at twenty-five francs a day,” said one bad-tempered article, adding,
“We mention this to show the extent of their income and the princely
generosity of their uncle, the King of the Belgians, in not giving them
an attic in his palace.”
There had always been whispers about the Kensington clique or the
Kensington camarilla, and from this time forward those who a year or
two before would have been prominent members of the Orange League never
lost an opportunity of gibing at and traducing the foreigners who
surrounded the Princess on the score of intrigue and cupidity. What
was the motive of all the outcry it is difficult to say, but when now
and then it seemed necessary to give it some form, it nearly always
resolved itself into a hatred or terror of Popery. Those who shouted
so much seemed to be unaware that, while they expressed loyalty to the
Duchess, it was her own brother whom they so violently traduced, and
that she was as foreign as he, while Victoria had the same blood and
the same traditions. However, discrimination cannot be expected of
political fanatics, for whatever happens can be made to fit any theory
by those interested.
The politicians of others countries looked on and wondered, and
sometimes dug some fact out of history with which to urge the grumblers
onward. Thus the _Gazette de France_ gravely published an article
in 1836 to prove that King William was a mere impostor, and that the
Princess Victoria had no right of succession, the only legitimate
Queen of England being Mademoiselle de Berry. This is how the writer
of the article proved it; and if there had been no law concerning the
Protestant succession, and also, I think, if James II. had left no son,
he would have been right. But they are rather big “ifs”:--
(i) Henrietta, daughter of Charles I.
(ii) Anne-Marie of Orléans, daughter of Henrietta.
(iii) Victor Amédée III., King of Sardinia and Duke of Savoy, son of
Anne-Marie.
(iv) Marie-Thérèse of Savoy, daughter of Victor Amédée.
(v) Louis-Antoine, Duc d’Angoulême, Comte d’Artois, son of
Marie-Thérèse.
(vi) In default of direct issue the right of succession would go to
Mademoiselle de Berry, daughter of the Duc de Berry, and niece of the
Duc d’Angoulême.
The article concluded with:--“Monseigneur the Duc d’Angoulême, for the
Catholics of Ireland, Scotland, and England, ought incontestably to be
considered King of Great Britain, and Mademoiselle heiress presumptive
to the Crown, in the place and instead of William IV. and the Princess
Victoria, who reigns only by virtue of a Protestant law of usurpation
and revolution.”
However, the energetic anti-Catholic gentlemen in England were
perfectly well aware that England--and, incidentally, themselves--were
quite safe from the rule of any Catholic monarch, and though they used
a thing like this as a peg upon which to hang their diatribes, they did
it with tongue in cheek--and a very bad-tempered cheek, too.