, JT\ / 1J? r V* c "^ THE CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA MINIATURE OK PRINCESS VICTORIA AT THE AGE op- Six YEARS THE CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA BY MRS. GERALD GURNEY (DOROTHY FRANCES BLOMFIELD) ILotttJOtt JAMES NISBET fcf CO., LIMITED 21 BERNERS STREET 1901 printed by BALLANTYNE, HANSON &> Co. At the Ballantyne Press TO THE CHILDREN OF THE EMPIRE 2OG5796 PREFACE IT is with feelings of the deepest reverence and diffidence that I have ventured upon these records of the child-life of one of the greatest women, and perhaps the greatest Sovereign, the world has ever known. The death of our be- loved Queen Victoria is still a fresh wound in the hearts of her devoted people, and any small fact or anecdote connected with her is eagerly seized upon and treasured. My excuse for going over ground already covered by abler chroniclers is, that I am en- abled to give to the public for the first time, by the gracious permission of his Majesty, the correspondence between the Queen's mother, the Duchess of Kent, and the Bishops of London and Lincoln, relative to the early education of the Princess, and also the reports of her various masters, a list of books viii PREFACE read by her in her studies, and a disposition of her day. I am also indebted to my brother, Frederick Charles Blomfield, for the use of these docu- ments, which have come into his possession as the present head of our family ; and I should like to take this opportunity of warmly thank- ing all who have lent me encouragement and help in my work, especially Canon and Miss Argles, and Mrs. Willingham Rawnsley, grand- children of Dr. Davys, of Peterborough, the Queen's tutor ; and Major M'Crea, whose wife was a granddaughter of Sir Frederick Wetherall, for many years the faithful friend and Controller of the Household to the Duke of Kent, and after his death to the Duchess of Kent. I have endeavoured to trace the life of the late Queen up to the moment when, in her twelfth year, she realised for the first time the exact relation in which she stood to the throne of England. That moment, very happily as it seemed to me, coincided with the hitherto un- published correspondence between the Duchess and my grandfather, Dr. Blomfield, Bishop of PREFACE ix London, and Dr. Kaye, Bishop of Lincoln, and suggested a fit end to a record of the child- life as distinct from the girlhood of the Princess Victoria. The task, though a labour of delight, has not been an easy one. Volumes of letters, biographies, and histories of the period had to be waded through, each of which yielded perhaps but one tiny anecdote or remark about the little Princess, so secluded was her childhood. Death has removed some, who might, I think, have added to my slender stock of infor- mation ; in more than one instance the caution of the possessors, or the carelessness of their descendants, has destroyed documents which would have been of great value. I am indebted to Dr. Davys' family for the little childish letter from the Princess Victoria to him probably the first she ever wrote which has never yet been published ; nor has the miniature given by her to Sir Frederick Wetherall ever been reproduced till now, when I am allowed, by the kindness of Major M'Crea, to include it among the illustrations of the book. x PREFACE I have borrowed and quoted freely from former writers, especially from Miss Sarah Tooley's charming " Personal Life of the Queen " ; and I have availed myself freely of the diary of Dr. Davys during the time he was her tutor, which has already appeared in the " Life of the Queen," written by the Duke of Argyll. It has been my aim to show the present generation what a debt of gratitude the British Empire, and the world at large, owe to the parents and guardians of her late Majesty, especially to H.R.H. the Duchess of Kent. If I have failed to present the royal child to my readers in a manner worthy of her great character and personality, it has not been from want of love and interest in my study, but from my own poor abilities. May God preserve her hallowed memory for all time in the hearts of her faithful people. Note. The following correspondence between Bishop Blomfield's widow and her Majesty Queen Victoria took place through the medium PREFACE xi of Lady Augusta Bruce. The Bishop had not long been dead, apd her Majesty's communi- cation to Mrs. Blomfield shows her habitual thoughtful consideration for the feelings of others : LETTEE I " Mrs. Blomfield presents her compliments to Lady Augusta Bruce, and, at Lady Jocelyn's suggestion, for- wards the enclosed letters for the Queen ; and which Mrs. Blomfield begs that Lady Augusta Bruce will have the goodness to present to Her Majesty, with her humble duty. "RICHMOND, July 16, 1861." LETTER II "July 19, '6 1. "Lady Augusta Bruce presents her compliments to Mrs. Blomfield, and is commanded by the Queen to convey to Mrs. Blomfield Her Majesty's thanks for the perusal of the enclosed most interesting and valu- able letters. The Queen, having found the draft of them among the papers of H.E.H. the late Duchess of Kent, returns them to Mrs. Blomfield, not wishing to deprive the family of Him to whom they were xii PREFACE addressed of papers which now must possess a doubly sacred interest." In 1897 it occurred to me that the letters and documents referred to above, which had come into my brother's possession, might prove of the deepest interest to the public at such a time. I submitted them to her Majesty, asking permission to publish them, and received the following reply : LETTER III "EXCELSIOR HOTEL, EEQINA, CIMIEZ, March 31', 1897. "DEAK MADAM, The enclosed letters and papers have been submitted to the Queen, and after careful consideration Her Majesty desires me to express her regret at feeling unable to grant her permission for their publication. But The Queen regards the letters which passed between the Duchess of Kent and the Bishops as bearing so much upon the essentially private and domestic life of her childhood that Her Majesty thinks they should not be published during her lifetime. I am further desired to thank you for kind thoughtfulness in referring this question for Her PREFACE xiii Majesty's decision. The documents are indeed most deeply interesting. " I am, Dear Madam, Yrs. very faithfully, "ARTHUR BlGGE. "Miss DOROTHY BLOMPIELD. "P.S. I have omitted to explain that the 'accident' by which Princess Victoria became aware of her posi- tion with regard to the throne was due to studying a genealogical table of the British Sovereigns, so that the published accounts on this point are practically correct. A. B." CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE THE FATHER AND MOTHER OF THE QUEEN . i CHAPTER II AMORBACH AND KENSINGTON, 1818-1819 . . 25 CHAPTER III SIDMOUTH AND KENSINGTON, 1820, 1821, 1822 . 49 CHAPTER IV KENSINGTON, RAMSGATE, AND CLAREMONT, 1823 73 CHAPTER V KENSINGTON, RAMSGATE, AND CLAREMONT, 1824-1825 . 89 xvi CONTENTS CHAPTER VI PAGE KENSINGTON, WINDSOR, AND TUNBRIDGE WELLS, 1826 AND 1827 105 CHAPTER VII KENSINGTON, 1828 AND 1829 . . , . . . 139 CHAPTER VIII KENSINGTON, 1830 ....... 171 CHAPTER IX THE BISHOPS AND THEIR REPORT , . . .201 CHAPTER X KENSINGTON, 1830 . . . . ... 225 CHAPTER I t THE FATHER AND MOTHER OF THE QUEEN The Childhood of Queen Victoria CHAPTER I THE FATHER AND MOTHER OF THE QUEEN IT is now, I think, a generally acknowledged truism that there are two main factors in the sum of human life, heredity and education. We inherit, to a great extent, from our ances- tors the trend of our characters, the bias of our minds, and the health or disease of our bodies. It is the business of education to direct and modify these tendencies, and this is most valuably done in the first years of childhood. What we are as children will pro- bably determine the whole course of our lives. Consequently, to a student of human nature, the early years of a great life are, in some respects, the most fascinating and vital, and 3 4 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA the consideration of antecedent generations is of no small importance. Victoria the Good, the Mother of her people, was singularly fortunate in many of her rnces- tors, and notably in her own father and mother. She had the blood of the gallant and unfor- tunate Stuarts of which she was very proud in her veins, and she inherited much of their celebrated charm of manner and power of inspiring deep attachment. She resembled her great ancestress, the Electress Sophia, in a certain imperiousness of nature, and in her breadth of view and mental ability. She was very like her grandfather, George III., in her love of domestic pleasures and in her great simplicity, perhaps the most marked of all her characteristics. She owed much, too, to her mother's parents, the Duke and Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Saalfeld, the former a man of great refinement and sweetness of mind, a warm lover of Nature and the Arts, and the latter intellectual, vivacious, and of singular nobility of character, essentially a wise woman. But to her own parents Queen Victoria owed perhaps most of her remarkable character. Her HER FATHER AND MOTHER 5 father, Edward Augustus, Duke of Kent, was the fourth son of George III. and his wife Queen Charlotte of Mecklenburg-Strelitz, and deservedly the most popular of all their sons. He was born on the 2nd of November 1767, at Buckingham House, and was early placed under the care of the good, wise John Fisher, Bishop of Salisbury, who was faithfully de- voted to him, and to whom the Duke was much attached all through his life. The Bishop recorded of him that he was a " Prince with whom love of truth was paramount to every other consideration, a Prince whom nothing could induce to dissemble." This passion for truth, together with his ex- cellent principles and life of self-control, made him scarcely a persona grata to his easy-going brothers, George IV. and William IV., and, allowing for some prejudices on both sides, there is little doubt that he suffered injustice at their hands in later years, and in earlier days from his father and mother, especially in the matter of his allowance, which was never adequate to his position. He lived a most regular life, was an early 6 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA riser, and very abstemious in his habits. An old soldier, who had served at Gibraltar during the Duke's command there, said of him that he " was too temperate for a soldier, the Father Mathew of his family " ; and another old veteran remarked that he wouldn't let them (the soldiers) drink, and was " worse than any teetotaller." Both at Gibraltar and in Canada he put down drunkenness and loose living with a high hand ; he disliked gambling, and had small mercy on the idle and incompetent, and while he tried in many instances successfully to impress his own lofty sense of duty and conduct on those placed under him, he won the love and respect of persons of like be- haviour, but was naturally unpopular with the dissipated and unprincipled. He spared neither time nor money in bringing about much-needed reforms, often working seventeen hours a day, and never flinching in the exercise of his duty. His bravery was beyond question, and on one occasion, we are told by one of his biographers, it formed the subject of a special representation to the King by the General commanding-in- HER FATHER AND MOTHER 7 chief. The same chronicler remarks that " he led every man to his post, and never deserted his own." He has been accused of undue severity as a commander, and there is no doubt that his military training in Germany left its mark upon him, and made him a very rigid disciplinarian. But he was never unjust, and an officer of high rank wrote of him that he " was the most ac- cessible of human beings," and that " he never broke faith." Dr. Rudge, his chaplain, said of him that he "took a delight in doing good," and that "in no instance did he ever fail to relieve the distressed if their characters proved to be good." His rigid punctuality was a characteristic which his daughter notably shared. He was invariably punctual in all his habits, public and private ; he kept the closest personal supervision over his correspondence, and his days were arranged with a methodical regularity which he never suffered to be disturbed. For many years before his marriage he lived at Ealing, in his own house, Castle Hill, now pulled down, but then a charming place, 8 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA quaintly described in a letter of Mr. Justice Hardynge, which gives such an attractive de- scription of the Duke that I quote it in full. The reader will see by it that in the manage- ment of his household his Royal Highness puts many a notable housewife to shame. The same order prevailed in the establishment at Kensington Palace. " MELBOURNE HOUSE, August 15, 1811. " MY DEAREST EICHARD, That I may lose no drop from the cup of pleasure, which I enjoyed from seven in the evening of October the first to eleven, and from eight the next morning till eleven before noon, at Castle Hill, I shall record upon paper, as memory can present them, all the images of my enchantment, though the consummation is past. " In the afternoon of October the first, and at half- past five, I followed my servant, in undress, from Baling Vicarage to the lodge of the Duke's palace. Between these wings I was received in due form by a porter, in livery, full trimmed and powdered. He opened his iron gates for me, bowed as if I had been the King, and rang the alarm bell, as if I had been a hostile invader. I looked as tall, as intrepid, and as affable as I could ; but I am afraid that I was not born for State. HER FATHER AND MOTHER 9 "The approach to the palace door is magnificent, graceful, and picturesque. The line of the road, flanked by a row of lamps, the most brilliant I ever saw, is a gentle serpentine. It commands to the right, through young but thriving plantations, Harrow-on-the-Hill, and carries the eye in a sort of leap to that eminence over the intermediate ground, which is a valley better unseen, for it is very tame. The lodges are quite new and in Mr. Wyatt's best manner. A second gate flew open to me; it separates the home-garden from the lawn of entrance. The head gardener made his appearance in his best clothes, bowed, rang his bell to the house, and withdrew. " When I arrived at the palace door my heart went pit-a-pat. The underwriters would not have insured my life at seven minutes' purchase, unless tempted by a most inordinate premium. An aspen leaf in a high wind stood better upon its legs than I stood upon mine ; indeed, I am not sure if it was not upon my head instead of my legs. I invoked all the saints of impudence to befriend me ! But think of little me ! attended by six footmen ! three of a side ! and received at the head of this guard by the house steward! a venerable henchman of the old court, and of the last age, who had very much the appearance of a Cabinet Minister. He conducted me with more solemnity than I wished upstairs into my toilette-room. At the door of it stood the Duke's valet, who took charge of io CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA me into the room, bowed, and retired. In this apart- ment I found my own servant. "The exterior of the house has an elegant and a chaste, as well as a princely air. You can see ' Wyatt fecit ' on every part of the effect. But the interior struck me infinitely more even in the bird's-eye view of it. I was all astonishment, but it was accompanied with dismay at the awful silence which reigned, as well as at the unexampled brilliancy of all the colours. There was not one speck to be seen ; everything was exquisite of its kind, in the taste of its outline, pro- portions, and furniture. " My dressing-room, in which there was an excellent fire, attached itself to the bedroom, and was laid open to it by a folding-door. These are the Eegent's terri- tories whenever he is at Castle Hill. My toilette was & peindre, and there was not anything omitted which could make a youthful Adonis out of an old hermit ; but the mirror was honest, and youth is no birth of art. My servant (who is in general cavalier, keeps me in order, and gives me only two or three jerks with his comb), half-scared at the new and imperial honours of his little master, waited on me with more deference and assiduity than I had ever before marked in him. He called me once or twice 'My Lord,' as upon circuit, and I half expected that he would say ' Your Eoyal Highness.' A gentle tap at the door alarmed us both. We opened upon a messenger, who told me in French that His Eoyal Highness was dressing, but HER FATHER AND MOTHER n would soon do himself the honour of taking me by the hand. " Opening by accident one of the doors in the bed- chamber, painted with traillage in green and gold, I discovered in an adjoining closet a running stream and a fountain. I began to think I was in the Fields Elysian. The bed was only to be ascended by a ladder of steps, and they were dressed in flowered velvet. There was a cold bath, and at night hot water for my feet, if they should happen to wish for it. Pen, ink, and paper of all descriptions made love to me. Books of amusement were dispersed upon the tables like natural flowers. I was in my shirt when His Eoyal Highness knocked at the door. Not waiting for my answer, he opened the door himself and gave me a shake of the hand with his royal fist, so cordial that one of my chalk-stone fingers, had I possessed them, would have begged him, if he had not been the son of a king, to be rather less affectionate in that shape. I hurried on my coat and waistcoat in his presence, and then he walked before me into the library. All the passages and staircases were illuminated with lamps of different colours, just as if a masquerade was in train. I began to think more and more of ' Sly ' in Shake- speare, and said, like him, to myself, ' Am I indeed a lord?' This library, fitted up in the perfection of taste, is the first room of a magnificent range, com- manding at least a hundred feet. All the contiguous apartments in that suite were lighted up and laid open 12 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA to this apartment. By a contrivance in the manage- ment of the light it seemed as if the distance had no end. "The Duke, among other peculiarities of habit, bordering upon whim, always recommends the very chair on which you are to sit. I suppose it is a regal usage. He opened a most agreeable and friendly chat, which continued for half-an-hour tttt-a-t&te. So far it was like the manner of the King (when he was him- self), that it embraced a variety of topics and was un- remitted. He improved at close quarters even upon his pen ; and you know what a pen it is. The manly character of his good sense, and the eloquence of his expression, was striking. But even they were not so enchanting as that grace of manner which distinguishes him. Compared with it, in my honest opinion, Lord Chesterfield, whom I am old enough to have heard and seen, was a dancing-master. I found the next morning at our tete-a-Ute, that he has infinite humour, and even that of making his countenance subserve the character he has to personate. " In about an hour dinner was announced. The Duke led the way. I was placed at the head of the table ; the Duke was on my right. The dinner was exquisite. The soup was of a kind that an epicure would have travelled barefoot three miles in a deep snow to have been in time for it. "The famous Dumourier was accidentally men- tioned. I said that I loved seeing those whom I HER FATHER AND MOTHER 13 admired unseen, upon report alone and in the mind's view. ' But I shall never see Dumourier,' said I, ' for he is the Lord knows where (and I cannot run after him) upon the Continent.' ' Not he,' said the Duke ; ' he is in this very island, and he often dines with us here.' I looked, but said nothing ; my look was heard. A third party present asked the Duke if it could not be managed. ' Nothing more practicable,' said he ; 'if the Judge will but throw down his glove in the fair spirit of chivalry, Dumourier shall pick it up.' " The servants, though I could not reconcile myself to the number of them, were models of attention, of propriety, and of respect ; their apparel gave the im- pression of clothes perfectly new ; the hair was uncommonly well dressed and powdered. Thereby hangs a tale, which I cannot have a better opportunity of reporting. I had it from the best authority, that of my own servant, who had it from the souterraine of the establishment, which he had confidentially ex- plored. A hairdresser for all the livery servants con- stitutes one of the efficient characters in this dramatic arrangement. At a certain hour every male servant appears before the Duke to show himself, perfectly well-dressed and dean. Besides this 'law of the Medes ' every man has a niche to fill, so that he can never be unoccupied save at his meals, in some duty or another, and is amenable to a sudden visit into the bargain. I can assure you the result is that in this complicated machine of souls and bodies the genius of 14 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA attention, of cleanliness, and of smart appearance is the order of the day. " When the Duke took me next morning to his master of the horse, instead of dirty coachmen or grooms, they were all as neat as if they never had anything to do, or as if they were going to church in state. The male servants meet in their hall at an unvaried hour, and round this apartment, as in a convent, are little recesses or cells, with not only beds in them for each, but every accommodation as well as implement for their apparel. Yet all this absolute monarchy of system is consistent with a most obliging manner to the servants on his part, which I attested more than once ; and with attachment as well as homage to him, attested by the hermit's inquisitor and spy, who gave me this note of his comments. I mean, of course, my own servant. " The next morning I rose at seven. The lawn before me, surrounded by an amphitheatre of plan- tation, was covered by leaves, for they will fall, even in a garden of state. The head gardener made his appearance, and with him five or six men who were under his wing. In much less than a quarter of an hour every dead leaf had disappeared, and the turf became a carpet after mowing, and after a succession of rollers, iron and stone. " After this episode we are to go back and to be at the table again. A very little after dinner the summons came for coffee, and as before, he led the HER FATHER AND MOTHER 15 way, conducting me to another of the apartments in the range before described, and which, as it hap- pened, was close to the bedroom. They were open to each other ; but such a room was that bedroom as no Loves or Graces ever thought of showing to a hermit. It was perfectly regal. " In the morning the Duke showed me all his variety of horses and carriages. He pointed out a curricle to me. 'I bought that curricle,' said he, ' twenty years ago, have travelled in it all over the world, and there it is, firm on its axle. I never was spilt from it but once. It was in Canada, near the Falls of Niagara, over a concealed stump in a wood just cleared.' " He afterwards opened himself to me very much in detail, with disclosures in confidence, and political ones too, which interested as well as enlightened me greatly, but which, as a man of honour, I cannot reveal even to you. He is no gamester; he is no huntsman. He never goes to Newmarket, but he loves riding upon the road, a full swing trot of nine miles an hour. "I am going to part with him in my narrative, but not before I have commanded you to love him. " In the morning he asked how I was mounted, and before I could answer him he whispered (in a kind of parenthesis) that he 'had for two months been putting a little circuit horse in training for my use of him in spring.' ' It was a pet,' he said, ' of 16 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA the dear King, who gave it me; and you will ride it with more pleasure for both our sakes.' These were not ' goodly words,' like those of Naphtali or ' the hind let loose/ for my servant raised the intelli- gence that such a keepsake was intended for me. How charming is the delicacy of conduct like this ! I had once complained, three or four months ago, that my own circuit Bucephalus had kissed the earth with his knees. He condoled with me, half in jest; but gave me no hint of such a fairy's boon in store for me. " But now for the last of these wonders. I can give you not the faintest image of its effect upon me. It made me absolutely wild. The room in which our breakfast apparatus received us had at the end of it a very ornamental glass door, with a mist over it, so that nothing was to be seen through it. He poured me out a dish of tea and placed it before me, then rose from the table and opened that glass door. Somebody (but whom I could not see) was on the other side, for he addressed words to the unseen, words in German. When he returned, and I had just lifted the cup to my lips, imagine my feelings when a band of thirty wind instruments played a march with a delicacy of tone, as well as precision, for which I have no words equal to the charm of its effect. They were all behind this glass door, and were like one instrument. The uplifted cup was replaced on the table, I was all ears and entranced, when on a sudden they performed the dirge upon our naval hero. QUEEN VICTORIA'S FATHER THE DUKE OF KENT HER FATHER AND MOTHER 17 It threw me into a burst of tears. With a heart for which I must ever love him, he took me by the hand and said, ' Those are tears which do none of us any harm.' He then made them play all imaginary varie- ties for a complete hour. He walked me round his place, and parted with me in these words, ' You see that we are not formidable; do come to us again! Come soon, and come very often!' " May I not must I not love this man ? " GEO. HAKDYNGE." The Duke was a man of sincere religious convictions and a very devout member of the Church of England, but he was unusually liberal-minded in a somewhat intolerant age. A contemporary who was not prepossessed in favour of royalty sums up his character thus : " His person was tall and athletic, his appearance dignified, his understanding strong, his deportment affable, and his bravery chival- rous. The course which he pursued in politics appears to have been almost invariably tolerant, liberal, and conciliatory. Towards the latter part of his life he had become exceedingly popular, and his death was deeply regretted by the nation." His wife, Victoire Marie Louise, youngest B i8 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA child of the Duke and Duchess of Saxe-Coburg and Saalfeld, was in every way worthy of him. Born on lyth August 1786, and married when she was barely seventeen to the hereditary Prince of Leiningen, who was twenty-eight years her senior, a man whose tastes, habits, and personal qualifications were vastly inferior to her own, she conducted herself during the twelve years of their union with such exem- plary discretion and good sense, such dignity and sweetness, that at his death, in 1813, he left her sole guardian of their two children, Prince Charles and Princess Fdodore, and Regent of the principality during her son's minority. Brought up under the immediate eye of her mother, the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg, she had shared the studies of her brother Leopold, who afterwards married Princess Charlotte, the lovely daughter of George IV. and the unfortunate Caroline of Brunswick. The brother and sister were tenderly attached to each other, and he was her faithful coun- sellor and support through the whole of her life. Her personal appearance must always have HER FATHER AND MOTHER 19 been charming great elegance of figure and carriage, a profusion of brown hair, hazel-brown eyes, a clear complexion, and much fascination of manner. The various portraits of her and of her child go to prove both her excellent taste in matters of the toilette and her sense of dis- tinction in dress, of which she was very fond. She had a very warm heart, and was by nature faithfully affectionate and a lover of social life. She was also an admirable musician, and a thoroughly well-read, cultivated woman, and the letters written by her to the Bishops of London and Lincoln, which I have now the privilege of publishing for the first time, show her to be a woman of uncommon ability and sense, clear-sighted, dignified, and above all, unselfishly devoted to duty. All her own in- terests and affections were naturally centred in her native land, and more especially in her charming Bavarian home, Amorbach, where she spent peaceful, blameless days as the Princess of Leiningen, and the first happy months of her second marriage with the Duke of Kent, who adored her. After his death she must have longed to return there, but her splendid sense 20 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA of duty, her loyalty to his wish that his daugh- ter should be in all things an Englishwoman, helped her to crush down her own desire, and live the life of an exile from her own country and her mother-tongue ; hindered, unappre- ciated, and often misunderstood by those who should have been the first to help her in her difficult task. She had possibly the faults of her qualities. Her natural gaiety and sweetness of disposition may have been sometimes obscured by her in- tense devotion to duty and desire to perfect her child for the great place she had to fill. To some she may seem to have been too stern a parent, and too jealously anxious to keep the Princess under her sole care. But when we remember the state of society in the beginning of the century, and the atmosphere of the Court during the Princess's childhood and girl- hood, we must admit that it was a fault on the right side. Several, who remember the Duchess well in her later years, have told me that she was the kindest and most gracious and simple-mannered of women, though she had always a strong sense of personal dignity. HER FATHER AND MOTHER 21 She was passionately attached to her own children and family, and the letters of the Prince Consort show how devoted a son he was to her, and the affection that existed be- tween them. Like most grandmothers she indulged his present Majesty and his brothers and sisters much more than she had done her own child, their mother, and was much beloved by them. She survived her husband by some fifty-seven years, and died at her own house at Frogmore in the arms of her devoted daughter, after a long and painful illness. She showed through the whole of her life a strong religious spirit. Baptized into the Lutheran Church, she remained a staunch ad- herent of it till such time as the Princess Victoria was old enough to be taken to public worship, when she saw the necessity of bring- ing her up in the Anglican communion, and gave one more proof of her unflinching self- sacrifice by leaving the German Chapel at St. James', which she was in the habit of fre- quenting, and attending instead an Episco- palian service, conducted by Dr. Davys, then Dean, in the Chapel at Kensington Palace. 22 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA A letter written by the Duchess to Bishop Blomfield shortly after Queen Victoria's corona- tion, is so interesting, as showing her deep anxiety for the spiritual welfare of her child, that I cannot refrain from including it in this chapter : " BUCKINGHAM PALACE, i6th July 1838. " MY LORD BISHOP, I heard with great concern of your accident, but I rejoice to learn that you are doing so well. Pray assure Mrs. Blomfield that I entered into Her feelings on the occasion. " I must now express to your Lordship my cordial thanks for your attention in coming here, to deliver to me copies of your two late sermons. " I would have had the pleasure to have received them from your Lordship's hands, but that I was far from well, and not prepared to receive visitors. I can hardly trust myself to say much on the subject of these sermons ; if I had feelings of the dearest interest excited on hearing them, these feelings were increased on perusing them. It may perhaps be in your Lord- ship's recollection, in the aid you often afforded me, my sincere, my anxious wish that the Queen, my Daughter, should be trained to have Religion at Her heart. If there is a Person in the Country who needs that support most, it is Her, who is first in it. HER FATHER AND MOTHER 23 " The Queen's youth, Sex, and the difficult times in which She is summoned to fill so high a station, call aloud for the expression of our feelings in prayer for Her. And if, on Her part, She keep before Her what was said of the good Josiah, as Her guide, She will be blessed here and hereafter. " I must take the liberty of saying that I have no words sufficiently strong to express my approbation of your Lordship's Sermon on the occasion of the Corona- tion. I hope and trust that the Queen will very often turn to it. In it She will find support, consolation, and a guide to act right, and to deserve happiness, where it is only to be found. For all this I humbly and maternally pray. " Believe me always to be with regard and esteem, My Lord Bishop, your Lordship's very sincere friend, " VICTORIA." The Duke of Kent had been a faithful and sincere Christian, and his last words to his wife are said to have been, " Act uprightly, and trust in God." She nobly followed his advice, and thus to her parents Queen Victoria owed by nature a foundation of genuine piety, which the grace of God confirmed in her, and which was the true secret of her great personality and power. CHAPTER II AMORBACH AND KENSINGTON 1818-1819 CHAPTER II AMORBACH AND KENSINGTON, 1818-1819 ON November 5, 1817, England was over- whelmed by the sudden death of the only child of the Regent, the young, lovely, and much-loved Princess Charlotte, on whom the hopes of the country were set. She had mar- ried in 1816 Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg and Saalfeld, afterwards Leopold L, King of the Belgians, who brought among his suite a cer- tain Dr. Stockmar as his physician. Dr. Stock- mar, who was subsequently raised to the title of Baron Stockmar, was a man of great abilities, and of remarkable force of character. He be- came the chief physician to the Duchess of Kent and her child, and in later days the honoured friend and adviser of Queen Victoria and the Prince Consort. He has left many interesting sketches of personages he met on his first coming to England, amongst others 28 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA the following description of the Duke of Kent : " A large, powerful man, like the King (George the Third), and as bald as any one can be. The quietest of all the dukes I have seen ; talks slowly and deliberately ; is kind and courteous." The Doctor had a great curiosity to see Princess Charlotte, to whom he became much attached, for he was devoted to Prince Leopold, and anxious as to the result of the marriage. It was one, however, of real happiness and of true affection, and the Princess was about to become a mother, when both she and her infant perished at its birth. Writing of this event, Lady Jerningham says : " The death of Princess Charlotte has been really to every one as a private loss. Prince Leopold, who has from his first arrival distinguished himself by an uncommon propriety, is really incon- solable." Dr. Stockmar writes of the Prince with the liveliest appreciation : " He is good and every day grows better ; his whole sorrow he turns into a blessing. One needs a large heart to love him as he deserves." The Prince deter- AMORBACH AND KENSINGTON 29 mined to remain in England and to live on at Claremont, where he had spent the few short months of his happy married life. This decision proved, as it afterwards turned out, of the greatest moment to his sister the Duchess of Kent and her child. To bring about a match between this favourite sister and the Duke of Kent had been a secret hope of his and of the Princess Charlotte's, and she had taken the greatest pleasure in promoting it. The Duke of Kent's kindness to her unfor- tunate mother, Queen Caroline, even while he disapproved of her conduct, must have won the heart of his impulsive, affectionate niece, who had always been attached to him. The death of this charming Princess was not only a loss to the nation, but plunged it also in anxiety as to the succession. The Regent was separated from his wife, and there was little likelihood of a reconciliation. The Dukes of York and Cumberland had had no children by their marriages, and the remaining sons of the poor old King were unmarried. Within a few weeks of each other the Dukes of Cla- rence, Kent, and Cambridge all took to them- 30 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA selves wives. The Duke of Clarence married a Princess of Saxe-Meiningen, afterwards the Good Queen Adelaide ; the Duke of Cam- bridge a Princess of Hesse ; and the Duke of Kent, Victoire Marie Louise, widow of Prince Emich Charles of Leiningen, youngest child of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Saalfeld, and sister of the widowed Prince Leopold, who was the instigator of this second marriage, which he rightly judged would be one of happiness for his sister. She was living quietly at her home in Bavaria with her two children Prince Charles and Princess Feodore, and here the Duke of Kent met and speedily fell in love with her. He had first made her acquaint- ance in 1816, and had no doubt pleasant re- collections of the pretty, bright young Princess. They were married by the rite of the Lutheran Church at Coburg on the 29th of May 1818. In the following July the marriage was re- solemnised according to the Church of England on the same day as the marriage of the Duke of Clarence. This was doubtless one of the reasons that drew the Duchess of Clarence so affectionately in after life to her sister-in-law. 3 1 An eye-witness gives the following account of the event: "This day (Monday, July I3th) took place the marriage of the Duke of Cla- rence with Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Mein- ingen, and the re-marriage of the Duke of Kent to the Princess Victoria of Saxe-Coburg. Fortunately the Queen's (Queen Charlotte) health was so far improved as to permit Her Majesty to be present at the double ceremo- nial, for which purpose a temporary altar was fitted up in the Queen's drawing-room, which looks into Kew Gardens. At four o'clock, the royal parties having arrived, her Majesty took her seat at the right-hand side of the altar, attended by the Prince Regent, and was followed by the other members of the reign- ing family and the great officers of State. The Duke of Clarence and his intended bride, and the Duke and Duchess of Kent, having taken their respective stations at the altar, the Archbishop of Canterbury commenced the marriage ceremony, assisted by the Bishop of London. The brides were given away by the Prince Regent. At the conclusion of the pro- ceedings the Queen retired. 32 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA " At five o'clock the Prince Regent and the remainder of the company sat down to a most sumptuous banquet. Soon after half- past seven o'clock the Duke and Duchess of Kent left in Prince Leopold's travelling chariot for Claremont." Claremont was then the home of the Duchess's brother, Prince Leopold, and must have been an ideal place for a honeymoon. Let us hope the English summer and the typical English landscape smiled upon the bride, still a young and blooming woman. But her heart was in Bavaria with her chil- dren and her castle of Amorbach. There are no greater lovers of their country than the Germans, and the Duchess was no exception to her countrymen. After a very brief stay in England she and the Duke journeyed back to Amorbach, where they enjoyed some happy months, alas ! the last they spent together there. Writing to Queen Victoria in June 1841, when she returned for the first time after the Duke's death to Amorbach, she says : "It is like a dream that I am writing to you from this place. My heart is so full. I am AMORBACH AND KENSINGTON 33 so occupied with you and Albert and the pre- cious little creature (the Princess Eoyal). I was quite upset by the kind reception the poor people here gave me. Everywhere I have found proofs of affection and gratitude. I occupy the rooms where your dear father lived." One can well imagine how the twenty-two years that had elapsed since the brief months she spent with him at Amorbach must have seemed indeed " a dream." They were months spent with him in a retirement which the deeply embarrassed circumstances of the Duke rendered most necessary ; but we may be sure that such retirement was congenial to the royal lovers. Their life there was spent among lovely scenery and a kindly, affectionate people, and there was early the prospect of a yet greater happiness. The Duchess was about to be- come once more a mother to a child who might be of the greatest importance to the English nation. A few precarious lives stood between the Duke and the throne of Eng- land, and it was doubtless for this reason, and also because he loved his native land, as the C 34 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA Duchess loved hers, that he determined, with her consent, that their child should be born in England. Writing to Dr. Rudge from Amorbach in March of this year, he says : "The interesting situation of the Duchess causes me hourly anxiety, and you, who so well know my views and feelings, can well appreciate how eagerly desirous I am to hasten our de- parture for Old England. The event is thought likely to occur about the end of next month. My wish is that it may take place on the 3rd of June, as that is the birthday of my revered father, and that the child, too, like him, may be Briton-born." The little one, though " Briton-born," arrived ten days before the birthday of her aged grand- father, and a month later than she was ex- pected, so that this wish, like many others of the good Duke, was destined to disappoint- ment. The journey in those days was a long and tiring one, and most perilous to the Duchess at such a critical moment. The Duke was so anxious over her that he would permit no one to drive her on the land journey but him- AMORBACH AND KENSINGTON 35 self, and was all thought and tenderness for her. Rooms had been prepared for them at Kensington Palace, looking out on one side upon the then quaint, picturesque High Street its houses too low to overlook the Palace gardens and on the other over the private grounds to the Round Pond. Kensington was even then a very fashionable suburb ; indeed, at the end of the seventeenth century, when the Palace was built, we are told by Bowack, the antiquarian, that it had begun to appear more like a part of London than a country village. It was, however, at that time sufficiently far from the capital to make the journey to and fro one of real danger from the footpads who infested Hyde Park and the road to London. Kensington, possibly derived from "cyning's tun" or "the king's town," was for long a favourite resort of royalty. Tradition has it that here Henry VIII. established a nursery for his children, but William III. is the first king who took up his abode in Kensington. He bought Kensington Palace, then known as Nottingham House, for the sum of ; 18,000 36 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA from its owner, the third Earl of Nottingham nicknamed "The Dismal" from the funereal expression of his face and began at once to turn the Jacobean villa into his idea of a palace. The gardens were laid out in the Dutch style, with stiff beds and walks, and yew trees cut into quaint beasts and birds. There is an old print of the period which makes the grounds surrounding the Palace look more like a geometrical puzzle than our modern idea of a garden. But nothing could take from the comfortable look peculiar to the Jacobean style of architecture, a style of homely, solid dignity admirably adapted to the English climate and character. "A place to drink tea in," says Leigh Hunt of the birth- place of Queen Victoria, and so it strikes one to-day; "noble but not greate," was Evelyn's verdict on it. Here died William and Mary, and here came their successor, Queen Anne, who loved it even more than they did, and spent much time and money on the laying out of the grounds. She built " The Orangery," a building of exquisite proportions, designed by Sir Christopher Wren, AMORBACH AND KENSINGTON 37 and enriched with carvings by Grinling Gibbons, in which she gave concerts and balls, and, in the beautiful alcoves at either end, doubtless played cards and drank " tay " at sixty shillings a pound ! She and her consort, Prince George, both died in the Palace, and gave place to George L, who lived here in great seclusion, adding, however, the eastern front to the building. During his reign the Gardens be- came the fashionable promenade, and con- tinued so through the reign of his successor, George II, whose Queen, Caroline of Anspach, made further additions and alterations in the Gardens. She it was who first planted and laid out what is now known as Kensington Gardens, and to her we owe the Round Pond with its converging avenues and vistas, the conversion of a succession of small ponds into the present Serpentine, and the making of the Broad Walk. Neither George III. nor George IV. ever lived at Kensington Palace, though the Gardens continued to be the fashion- able resort for the belles and dandies of their respective ages. The ill-fated, ill -balanced Caroline of Brunswick occupied the Palace at 38 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA intervals between 1810 and 1815, and greatly scandalised the well-bred inhabitants by her freedom of behaviour and eccentricities. They must have found the next royal inhabitants much more to their taste. The journey from Amorbach being safely accomplished, the Duke and Duchess of Kent arrived at the Palace on April 15, 1819, and proceeded to take possession of the old state- rooms in the eastern part of the building, which had been put in order for their use. These look directly over the Kound Pond, and the view from the windows must then have been even lovelier, because wilder and more rural, than it is to-day. The glades must have been just bursting into leaf and blossom, and the May- trees just ready to welcome "the little May- blossom " when a month later she came into the world, where she was to play so great a part. The second floor of the eastern front contains Queen Victoria's bedroom ; an ante- room leading into the nursery (afterwards the birthplace of the present Duchess of York) ; the King's drawing-room, a beautiful room with a fine painted ceiling and cornice designed by AMORBACH AND KENSINGTON 39 Kent ; and leading out of it the King's privy chamber. Immediately below this room, on the first floor, is a charming room, spacious and cheer- ful, with a somewhat low ceiling, and three long windows looking on to the private gardens. In this room the Duchess of Kent gave birth to a daughter on the 24th of May 1819, at four o'clock in the morning. Dr. Blagden, afterwards a great favourite with the royal child, was one of the doctors in attendance, but the baby was brought into the world by a celebrated accoucheuse and lady doctor from Berlin, Madame Charlotte Siebold, familiarly known as " Dr. Charlotte." There were present at the birth H.R.H. the Duke of Sussex, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Duke of Well- ington, the Marquis of Lansdowne, Earl Bath- urst, the Bishop of London, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, and the Right Hon. George Canning. In the ante-room was the Duke's faithful, devoted friend, Sir Frederick Wether- all, for fifty years in turn A.D.C., Equerry, and Controller of the Household to his Royal Highness. As soon as the child was born, the Duke sent for Sir Frederick and desired 4 o CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA him to send one of the royal carriages at once to Castle Hill, Baling the Duke's private residence to fetch his daughter, Augusta Wetherall, then quite a child, to the Palace. Sir Frederick, scarcely less delighted than his royal master at the birth of the child, hastened to obey. One can imagine the excitement of the little Augusta during the drive ! When her father brought her into the Palace, the Duke came forward with his new-born baby in his arms, and putting her into those of the little girl, said " Take Victoria in your arms, and be as loyal to her as your father has been loyal to me." Augusta very faithfully kept that sacred trust. She and her cousin, the daughter of Sir George Wetherall, were almost the only playmates the little Princess Victoria ever had, except her half-sister, Princess Feodore, who, though eleven years her senior, was her con- stant companion. In after years the cousins never willingly missed any Drawing-room at which Queen Victoria was present, and people would often ask who were the two favoured persons whom her Majesty would embrace with AMORBACH AND KENSINGTON 41 such warmth, holding their hands and patting them affectionately, and asking after the mem- bers of their families by their Christian names. There was great joy at Coburg over the birth of the Princess. The Dowager-Duchess writes to her daughter, the Duchess of Kent, congratu- lating her, and says, " Again a Charlotte, de- stined perhaps to play a great part one day, if a brother is not born to take it out of her hands. The English like Queens, and the niece of the ever-lamented Princess Charlotte will be dear to them." She prettily nicknamed her little granddaughter " The May-flower." It is curious that another little May-flower, also destined perhaps for the throne of England, should have spent her childhood at Kensington Palace, and have become the granddaughter by marriage of the earlier " May-flower." The christening of the little Princess took place a month after her birth in the gorgeous cupola room, the Grand Saloon, in Kensington Palace. A beautiful gold font was brought from the Tower and used for the occasion, and the ceremony was performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London. The 42 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA sponsors were the Prince Regent ; the Emperor Alexander of Russia, represented by the Duke of York ; the Queen-Dowager of Wurtemburg, represented by the Princess Augusta ; and the Dowager-Duchess of Coburg, represented by the Duchess of Gloucester. The child was named Alexandrina Victoria, both names being, curiously enough, united in the name of the beautiful little Alexandrine or Victory laurel, with which the Greeks used to deck the brows of their heroes. The former name a compli- ment to the Emperor fell early into abeyance, and the single, and to all her people beloved, name of " Victoria " was used alone. Sir Walter Scott thought it fanciful, and hoped it might be changed. It had certainly been the occasion of renewed friction between the royal brothers. Greville in his Memoirs, Decem- ber 24, 1819, remarks: "The Duke of Kent gave the name of Alexandrina to his daughter in compliment to the Emperor of Russia. She was to have had the name of Georgiana, but the Duke insisted upon Alexandrina being her first name. The Regent sent for Lieven and made him a great many compliments (en le AMORBACH AND KENSINGTON 43 persiflant) on the Emperor's being godfather, but informed him that the name of Georgiana could be second to none other in this country, and therefore she could not bear it at all." The Georgian name was not so happily starred for us to regret she did not bear it. It is said that her father wished her to be called Elizabeth, no doubt with an eye to her possible future, but great as was glorious Queen Bess, Victoria was greater, and, to quote the Kegent, we would have her " second to none in this country." On Sunday, June 29, 1819, we read in the chronicles of the day that " This afternoon her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent was publicly churched, in the Parish Church of Kensington, by the Bishop of Salisbury. The Duke of Kent led the Duchess to the Com- munion-table." In August the little infant, who is described as a lovely, fair-haired, blue-eyed, chubby, and cheerful little being, was vaccinated, " the first royal baby to be inoculated after the method of Jenner," says Miss Tooley in her " Personal Life of the Queen." 44 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA It was about this time that an event took place of great moment to the after-life of the little Victoria. On August 26, a son, named Albert, was born to the Duchess of Kent's brother, the same " Dr. Charlotte " assisting at his birth as at his cousin's. The Dowager- Duchess of Coburg writes next day that he already " looks about like a little squirrel, with a pair of large blue eyes," and goes on to speak of "the May-flower" as "a dear little love," whom " Siebold cannot sufficiently describe." She owed, no doubt, much of her health and beauty to the devotion of the Duchess, who, no half-mother, insisted on nursing the child her- self, and in the absence of her special nurse, Mrs. Brock, washed and dressed her herself. Queen Victoria followed her mother's example in this, and always gave the closest personal attention to her babies and their wants. The Duke was enormously proud of his baby, and drove her at the early age of four months to a military review on Hounslow Heath, her first acquaintance with the Army, to which she was always so attached. This gave great um- brage to the Regent, who sharply remarked, AMORBACH AND KENSINGTON 45 "That infant is too young to be brought into public." He showed a small and incessant jealousy of the royal child to the end of his life, and when this, as well as his injustice to the Duke of Kent, is remembered, it is not to be wondered at that not much love was lost between himself and the Duchess. Several people were privileged to see the little Princess at this time; Robert Owen, the Socialist, is said to have been one of the first men to hold her in his arms, a fitting tribute to one who always had the interests of her poorer subjects so close at heart. Bishop Fulford, of Montreal, remem- bered to have also taken her in his arms when a baby. Towards the end of the year the Duchess began to show signs of weakness, due to her unwearied personal attention to her child. The Duke, writing to Dr. Collyer in September, thanks him warmly for his " obliging remarks upon the Duchess's conduct as a mother ; upon which," he says, " I shall only observe, that parental feeling and a just sense of duty, and not the applause of the public, were the motives that actuated her in the line she adopted. She 46 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA is, however, most happy that the performance of an office, most interesting in its nature, has met with the wishes and feelings of society." Sidmouth, that veritable winter sun-trap, then a quiet, rural place, was decided on as a refuge from the cold and fog of London, and there the happy parents took their little one in the December of 1819. " Two or three evenings previous to his visit to Sidmouth," writes one who knew the Duke intimately, " I was at Kensington Palace, and on my rising to take leave, the Duke intimated his wish that I should see the infant Princess in her crib ; adding, ' as it may be some time before we meet again, I should like you to see the child and give her your blessing.' The Duke preceded me into the little Princess's room, and on my closing a short prayer that as she grew in years she might grow in grace and in favour both with God and man, nothing could exceed the fervour and feeling with which he responded in an emphatic Amen. Then, with no slight emo- tion, he continued, 'Don't pray simply that hers may be a brilliant career, and exempt from those trials and struggles which have pur- AMORBACH AND KENSINGTON 47 sued her father ; but pray that God's blessing may rest on her, and that in all her coming years she may be guided and guarded by God.'" The prayer was offered, and despite the many trials that befell the infant Princess in later life, how fully it was answered, we, who live to bless her memory, know well. CHAPTER III SIDMOUTH AND KENSINGTON, 1820, 1821, 1822 i) CHAPTER III SIDMOUTH AND KENSINGTON, 1820, 1821, 1822 TOWARDS the end of December 1819, the Duke and Duchess and the Princess Victoria, then a little infant of seven months old, set out for Sidmouth in Devonshire, where they intended to winter before returning in the early spring to Amorbach. On their way down, they stayed a couple of nights with the Duke's old tutor, the Bishop of Salisbury, and one may picture the pleasure the visit must have been to the good old man. The Duke and Duchess were at the height of their happiness, tenderly attached to each other and their lovely child, and no doubt proud, as all devoted parents are, to show their treasure to one who they knew would value her little less than they did. The good bishop delighted in tossing the little creature in the air, to the detriment of his powdered wig, which she would clutch so vigorously that, the 51 52 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA story goes, she pulled off not only the wig but a lock of the poor man's own hair with it. He would easily pardon the loss of it to the child of his beloved pupil. The Duke and Duchess did not announce the day of their arrival at Sidmouth, as they wished to live there quite privately. Sidmouth, however, was much elated at the honour done it. It was then little more than a village, charmingly situated on the south coast of Devonshire, and enjoying a perfect climate. The Duke had taken Woolbrook Glen com- monly known as "The Glen" described by Mrs. Emma Marshall, in her delightful book " In Four Reigns," as " covered with climbing plants which shadow the verandah," and as being " scarcely more than a cottage. It stood back from the sea, and the approach was by a drive of about a quarter of a mile, shaded by trees, and skirting a sloping belt of turf, at the bottom of which a little stream ran to meet the sea. The ground rose on one side of the house, and on this a large bay-window opened, also sheltered by a verandah, the light pillars which supported the roof being entwined with honey- suckle and roses." THE DUCHESS OF KENT AND THE PRINCESS From a painting by SIR WILLIAM BEECHY SIDMOUTH AND KENSINGTON 53 The royal baby was carried about the grounds for her daily airing, and was watched with the deepest interest by the inhabitants of Sidmouth, who already began to realise the fact that in her they saw their possible future sovereign. Mrs. Marshall, in the person of Mrs. Allingham, says, " She was a very fair and lovely baby, and there was, even in her infant days, a charm about her which has never left our gracious Queen. The clear, frank glance of her blue eyes " (described as late as the last Jubilee of 1897 by an on- looker as " literally flashing great blue eyes "), " and the sweet but firm expression of her mouth were really remarkable, even when a baby of eight months old." The Duke was inordinately proud of her, and was in the habit of saying to those about her, " Take care of her ; she may yet be Queen of England." Writing of her to a friend about this time, he says : "My little girl thrives under the influence of a Devonshire climate, and is, I am delighted to say, strong and healthy ; too healthy, I fear, in the opinion of some members of my family, by whom she is regarded as an intruder ; how largely she contributes to my 54 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA own happiness at this moment it is needless for me to say to you, who are in such full pos- session of my feelings on the subject." A day or two after thus writing, the little Princess run the first of many risks of her life that befell her. We read on December 30, 1819, that, "yesterday and this day, the weather proving favourable, their Royal Highnesses the Duke and Duchess of Kent and the Princess have been each day on the promenade, where they continued walking a considerable time. The dangerous practice of inexperienced per- sons being trusted with guns had yesterday been nearly attended with disastrous consequences : an apprentice boy, shooting at small birds, had the hardihood to approach so near the resi- dences of their Royal Highnesses, that the shot broke the windows of the nursery, and passed very near the head of the infant Princess, who was in the arms of the nurse. The delinquent was detected ; but, at the request of the Duke, he was pardoned, upon a promise of desisting from such a perilous recreation." One can imagine the consternation of the Glen household, and the terror of the "appren- SIDMOUTH AND KENSINGTON 55 tice boy," in dread of the punishment which might fall on his head. It speaks volumes for the kindness of that " severe disciplinarian," the Duke, that he should have interceded for a lad who had so nearly killed his adored child. All unconscious of the shadow of death hanging over his own head, the Duke writes later on in January 1820 to Dr. Rudge, only two days before he was taken ill : " I fear it will be some time before we meet again ; I shall, therefore, avail myself of this opportunity of wishing you health and happiness until Spring, when I hope I shall again have the pleasure of seeing you before our return to the Continent, where, on account of the Duchess's duties as guardian of her two children, and Regent of her son's principality, we cannot avoid going towards the end of April." It was the day after this letter that Mrs. Marshall gives, in the mouth of Mrs. Allingham, an account of a meeting with the royal pair and their child which is as pathetic, in view of what was to come, as it is charming. She says, speak- ing of the baby Princess : " I can recall her then, just as the New Year of 1820 had dawned. 56 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA We were all returning from an excursion in the bright sunshine of the January noon when we saw the royal party crossing the road just before us with their attendants. The Duke and Duchess were linked arm-in-arm, and the little Princess, in her white swansdown hood and pelisse, was holding out her hand to her father. I can see now the smile on her rosy face, and the delighted outstretched arms of her father, as he took her from the lady's arms who was her nurse. " We all waited, drawn up in a line, Stephen on a donkey, and the rest on foot. My hus- band and St. John uncovered, of course, and Stephen tugged at his hat-strings. . . . My two girls and I curtseyed respectfully, and Stella exclaimed, ' What a beautiful baby ! ' "The Duchess, hearing Stella's words, turned round with a pleasant smile, and said, 'Would you like to kiss the baby ? ' " Stella coloured with delight and looked at me for permission. The Duke kindly held the little Princess down towards Stella, and said : ' T am glad my little May-blossom finds favour in your eyes/ SIDMOUTH AND KENSINGTON 57 " Then a shout was heard from the donkey where Stephen sat. ' Me too, please, Duke.' " Instead of being the least shocked with my boy's freedom, the Duke laughed, and saying, ' Dismount, then,' Stephen scrambled down, and coming up, received the longed-for kiss." Some conversation followed, in the course of which Colonel Allingham remarked that the climate was salubrious, and was answered by the Duke, " Yes, yes ; but for all that there is a treacherous wind from inland; it is blowing to-day." It was blowing the death summons of the Duke. That very afternoon he took a long walk with one of his attendants, Captain Conroy, and came back to the Glen with feet thoroughly soaked. In vain was he urged to change his boots and stockings. The charm of playing with his baby overcame his natural prudence ; he could not tear himself away, but stayed fondly caressing and amusing her till he had to dress for dinner. That night he felt the first symptoms of a feverish chill, and the doctor was called in. The Duke refused all medicine, to which he 58 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA had a great dislike, and said he should be all right again in the morning. But the morning only brought renewed fever, and three days after, on Sunday, January 23, at ten o'clock in the morning, he died. He blamed himself in his last moments for not having taken Dr. Wilson's prescriptions ; and he met his death with great fortitude and piety. One who was about his person to the last, Sir Frederick Wetherall, to whom he was greatly attached, says, "Nothing could be more exemplary than the religious bearing of my late dear master, the Duke of Kent. His Royal Highness was only aware of his state on Satur- day, the 22nd. He executed his will towards night ; and after that he took leave of his gentlemen, but, on our retiring, he sent for me to come back, and in much conversation with me on many subjects, he forgave as he hoped to be forgiven. It was the Duke's intention to have received the sacrament, but it was delayed to the following morning, which was too late. When I left his bedside he had begun to doze and wander, and it was about two o'clock on the Sunday morning that he gave his dying SIDMOUTH AND KENSINGTON 59 injunctions to the Duchess, who for many days and nights never left him never, in fact, till all was over." He died in the arms of his faithful friend and gentleman, Sir Frederick Wetherall, who had hurried from London to his beloved master, and, when dying, drew a ring off his finger and gave it to Sir Frederick, saying, " Take it ! It is my last gift on earth." So died one of the best and kindest of men, a loving husband and adoring father, leaving desolation behind him. Prince Leopold had hurried to Sidmouth with Dr. Stockmar on hearing of his brother- in-law's illness, and was in time to see him before his death and to console his widowed sister, who had never taken off her clothes for five nights, and was worn-out with her devotion as well as her grief. The body of the Duke lay in state for a short time at the Glen, and was seen by a great number of people in the neighbourhood, with whom he had become very popular. It was then removed by stages to Windsor, where it was buried with royal honours. 60 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA The Duke, in his will, appointed his " be- loved wife Victoire to be sole guardian to our dear child, the Princess Alexandrina Victoria, to all intents and for all purposes whatsoever." He left his estate, real and personal, to Lieu- tenant - General Sir Frederick Wetherall, in trust for his wife and child, and together with Sir John Conroy, appointed him executor of his will. The House of Lords, in passing an address of condolence to the King, George IV., spoke in the highest terms of the behaviour of the Duchess throughout the Duke's illness. But no human praise could console her for her irreparable loss. Her first and best consola- tion, after her faith in God, was her child ; her brother, too, must have known how, out of his own bereavement, to minister to hers. He took her back to Kensington Palace two days after the death of her husband, the little Princess, unconscious of her loss, crowing and dancing in her nurse's arms, and beating upon the carriage window with delight. Their going was watched by many, whose hearts must have been deeply touched for both mother and child. SIDMOUTH AND KENSINGTON 61 They broke their journey at the good Bishop of Salisbury's house, for the Duchess was ex- hausted by grief and nursing, and during the drive had never had her fatherless child out of her arms. How different from the happy journey of only a few weeks before ! Prince Leopold in his " Reminiscences " says : " The Duchess, who had lost a most amiable and devoted husband, was in a state of the greatest distress. The poor Duke had left his family deprived of all means of subsistence. The journey to Kensington was very painful, and the weather very severe." It may be mentioned in passing that the deplorable state of the Duke's finances was largely due to the fact that he -had always been kept by his family much too short of money for a man in his position, with its many calls and obligations. Everything he possessed went to liquidate his debts, and one of the first things Queen Victoria did on coming to the throne was to pay off all that remained of them. The Duchess behaved with her usual strong sense of duty and propriety in giving up everything she inherited from her husband to satisfy his 62 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA creditors. By her marriage with him she had forfeited much of the income derived from her first husband. She had no legal home in this country ; it was months before she could touch the jointure which had been settled on her at her second marriage, and but for the generous help of her brother, Prince Leopold, she would have been in a pitiable position. Yet in face of all this, she renounced all idea of returning to Bavaria, to her beloved Amorbach. She writes pathetically of herself and her fatherless child : " We stood alone almost friendless, and alone in this country ; I could not even speak the language of it. I did not hesitate how to act : I gave up my home, my kindred, my duties " (as Regent of Leiningen) " to devote myself to that duty which was to be the sole object of my future life." It is almost impossible to over-estimate the courage of this decision, nor its importance to the welfare of this country. We can hardly imagine what a difference it would have made in Queen Victoria's life, her character and point of view, had she been brought up in Germany, with foreign ideas, language, SIDMOUTH AND KENSINGTON 63 and surroundings. The Duchess did not even speak our tongue, yet she set to work, and so far acquired it, that her own was never spoken, except as an alien one, to the little Princess. Scarcely a week after the death of his son, the poor old King George III. died, and was succeeded by the Regent, George IV. The Duchess of Kent tried to obtain an acknowledged position at Court after the old King's death, a position to which she was the more entitled since she was sole guardian of a child who stood so near to the throne. This position George IV. denied her, and indeed it is no secret that she was unkindly and discourteously treated by both him and his successor. The Duchess of Clarence, afterwards Queen Adelaide, was always much attached to her sister-in-law and her child. Her own two little girls, Charlotte called after the cousin she had lost born in 1819, and Elizabeth, born in 1820, lived but a very short time, and the bereaved mother turned with generous interest to the little Princess Victoria. Queen Adelaide had a most 64 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA beautiful and tender nature, and was always much beloved by her little niece, as indeed she was by the whole country. In Lady Jerningham's letters we find the following testimony to her active sympathy with the widowed Duchess : " Captain Usher called upon me yesterday (February 4th) in Black. He said he had just handed the Duchess of Clarence into her Car- riage to visit the Duchess of Kent, where she goes every day. The Duchess of Kent is in deep affliction, and the Duchess of Clarence, after the first interview with Her, was so affected she could not recover Herself." On the 2ist of the same month she reports to her daughter, Lady Bedingfield, that " the Duchess of Clarence visits the Duchess of Kent Daily, and the Latter is a little Better." About a month later Lady Bedingfield was visiting the Duchess of Clarence, and says she observed to her " that Her kind and constant visits to the widowed Duchess of Kent must be a source of great comfort to Her. She re- plied that the Duchess of Kent's consolation came from a Much higher Source ; that she was SIDMOUTH AND KENSINGTON 65 truly religious. She also said that the Duchess of Kent's little girl was a very fine Child and full of Spirits. Some one sent its Mother a miniature Picture of the late Duke, done when he was very young, which she suspended round the child's neck. When the little girl was brought to the Duchess of Clarence she had her two little Hands spread over the Picture and laughed as if delighted. In an Infant under a year the circumstance must have been accidental, but my amiable Duchess " (of Clar- ence) " said it affected her very much ; as also when, the Duke of Clarence entering, the Child pointed to the Star and exclaimed ' Papa ! Papa!'" From this time forward the Duchess and the little Princess lived the most secluded life at Kensington Palace. Independently of her grief and position as a widow, there was little to tempt a woman of her rectitude, refinement, and staunch religious principles in the Court of George IV., with its loose living and looser conversation. She was bound to the King by no ties of affection, and her motherly feelings must have been deeply hurt by his jealous atti- 66 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA tude towards his fatherless little niece. She devoted herself to the care of her child and its health, and the little one throve and grew stronger and bonnier every day. She was con- stantly to be seen in the palace gardens, unless prevented by bad weather, taking the air in the arms of her nurse, Mrs. Brock, " dear Boppy," as she afterwards called her, and was a source of much interest to the public. The Duchess, like her husband, Prince Edward, was an early riser, and was in the habit of eating her break- fast at eight o'clock, in the garden if possible. To this custom Queen Victoria probably owed her fondness for open-air meals and fresh air generally. The Duke of Argyll tells us that, "The Queen used to say that her earliest recollec- tion was that of crawling on the floor on an old yellow carpet at Kensington Palace and playing with the badge of the Garter belong- ing to Bishop Fisher of Salisbury." The Bishop took the deepest interest in her. Another picture of her in August of this year, 1820, is from the pen of the witty, lively Lady Harriet Granville : " I had almost for- SIDMOUTH AND KENSINGTON 67 gotten to talk of my royal morning. I spent two hours at Cleveland House with the Duchess of Gloucester, an amiable good soul who talks of Trimmer and Mr. Hodson ; the Duchess of Clarence, ugly, but with a good tournure and manner ; the Duchess of Kent, very pleas- ing indeed, and raving of her baby. ' C'est mon bonheur, mes delices, mon existence. C'est I'image du feu roi ! ' Think of the baby ! They say it is the Roi George in petticoats, so fat it can scarcely waddle." In other words, a plump and lovely infant, with the dazzling skin and complexion for which she was always famous. Lady Harriet's pen runs away with her somewhat, but those few touches of the Duchess of Kent give one a very appealing picture of motherhood. The Duke had always been devoted to his father, and to know that his child was called " King George in petticoats " would have given him intense delight. The years 1821 and 1822 passed by very uneventfully for the little Princess. She lived a life of great simplicity and regularity, of plain food, plenty of fresh air and exercise, and, we 68 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA may be sure, the strictest ruling. It was the age of Mrs. Trimmer and of " The Fairchild Family," an age when Nature in human beings was looked upon with the gravest suspicion, and regarded as congenitally evil. Hereditary tendencies were no excuse for naughty con- duct, but sins to be crushed out of the growing child. Pleasures were rewards, not necessities as they are nowadays. High spirits, of which the little Princess Victoria had her full share, were to be kept in check, and smart speeches and insubordinate conduct were things not to be laughed at and admired, but stigmatised as " pertness " and " disobedience." In a word, it was an age of backboards and Duty with a very " big, big D," just as to-day is an age of easy-chairs and self-indulgence. The little lady was something of a romp, and though she had no playmates but her much older half-sister, Princess Feodore, and the two little Wetherall girls, who were also much her seniors, she was liberally supplied with toys, and satisfied her maternal instincts with innu- merable dolls. William Wilberforce, the great philanthropist, who was a near neighbour of the SIDMOUTH AND KENSINGTON 69 Duchess's, writes to Hannah More that " in consequence of a very civil message from the Duchess of Kent, I waited on her this morn- ing, and found her with her fine, animated child on the floor by her side with its playthings, of which I soon became one." Amongst other treasures of the Princess's babyhood were a tiny silver teapot and sugar- basin marked with a "V.," and dated 1822. She had also a little rosewood chair and table at which she took her breakfast of bread and milk and fruit, with her nurse in attendance beside her. " Boppy " was a great resource for romps in the long rooms of Kensington Palace when Princess Feodore was busy with her governess, Miss Lehzen. Breakfast was at eight after family prayers in the breakfast- room, lunch at two (let us hope she had some- thing in the shape of what the servants call " elevens ! "), and dinner at seven. All these meals were taken in company with her mother, who scarcely bore to have her out of her sight. Princess Fe'odore delighted in drawing her little sister about in a hand-carriage ; but when she grew out of babyhood Princess Victoria drove 70 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA either in her own tiny pony-chaise, or with the Duchess in the afternoon. At nine o'clock a somewhat late hour to our modern notions she was put to sleep in a beautiful little French bed, which stood beside her mother's, Princess Feodore's being on the other side of the Duchess. The younger child never slept out of her mother's room till she came to the throne. Her uncle, the Duke of York, gave her a donkey, which she took great delight in riding, attended by an old soldier, who had to use all his wiles to get the little lady to dismount and exercise her little legs. " It will do my little Princess good to run on the grass " sometimes failed of its effect, for the said Princess was a wilful little creature, and " had a way with her," as the Irish say, which got the better of most people. Her grandmother, the Dowager-Duchess of Coburg, took the tenderest interest in her " May-blossom," and was constantly writing of her to the Duchess, her daughter, and giving at the same time accounts of the progress of the little Prince Albert " Alberinchen" who, SIDMOUTH AND KENSINGTON 71 she says, "is a pendant to the pretty cousin." He was a most beautiful child, with a head and face like an angel, as his early portraits testify. From her earliest years the Duchess read the Bible to the little Princess, and taught her the first truths of religion ; and if hers was a very quiet, secluded babyhood, it was a very healthy, and, in spite of discipline or because of it a happy one. CHAPTER IV KENSINGTON, RAMSGATE, AND CLAREMONT, 1823 CHAPTER IV KENSINGTON, RAMSGATE, AND CLAREMONT, 1823 IN this year Princess Victoria began, what I cannot but think is in many instances mis- named, her education. So wise and clever a mother as the Duchess of Kent must have realised the fact that education, properly so called, really begins at birth, and we know that she began early to form her child's naturally strong character. She had taught her, not without difficulty, the alphabet, for we are told that the tiny scholar at first refused to recognise the necessity for mastering her A.B.C. But upon its being pointed out to her that without this preliminary step she would never be able to read "like grown-up people," she eagerly cried, "I learn too ! I learn too ! " Hers, however, was a daring, adventurous nature, and like all such, very wilful. There 75 76 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA must have always been a masculine element, common to great people of both sexes, an in- dependence of thought and action about her, which she retained throughout her life, and which doubtless made her difficult to manage as a little child. In the spring of this year the Duchess came to the conclusion that she would make greater progress and show a more docile spirit if she were under the tuition of a man. She chose for the purpose the Rev. George Davys, afterwards Bishop of Peterborough, a man of a singularly gentle and retiring disposi- tion, and a poetical mind. I am indebted to his son, Canon Owen W. Davys, of Wheathamp- stead, for the following note : " Bishop Davys, when living at Kensington, was holding the family living of Willoughby-in- the- Wolds, Notts, a small parish with no resi- dence, and was engaged with private pupils, also, I believe, holding a preachership in London. He was eminent for his skill in writing for the poor, not a common talent in those days ; Messrs. Rivington were his publishers, and it was after a meeting there of authors that he was asked by the Vicar of Kensington whether he could arrange RAMSGATE AND CLAREMONT 77 to read English with the Duchess of Kent. This he undertook, and at the end of a week or two, her Royal Highness said, * You teach me so well that I wish you would teach my little daughter.' This he began with the alphabet and a box of letters, and finished by hearing her Majesty privately rehearse the delivery of her first speech in the House of Lords." Dr. Davys wrote " A Plain and Short History of England for Children," in letters from a father to his son, with a set of questions at the end of each letter. It was first pub- lished in The Cottager's Monthly Visitor, and was probably written for the Princess. Mr. Davys was appointed to the living of All Hallows', London Wall, in 1830, not then so good a piece of preferment as it afterwards be- came. He was made Dean of Chester in 1832, at the suggestion of the Duchess, in reply to the objection raised by the King and his ministers that Mr. Davys was not a person of sufficient importance to have charge of the education of the heir to the throne. " If," she said, "a digni- fied clergyman is indispensable to fill the office of tutor to my daughter, the Princess Victoria, 78 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA there could be no objection if Mr. Davys received the preferment he has always deserved." He was made Bishop of Peterborough in 1839, and died in 1 864, retaining to the last the affec- tionate friendship of his royal pupil. He lived to see her happy marriage, her inconsolable widowhood, and the marriage of their present Majesties, King Edward and Queen Alexandra, which took place the year before he died. His simple, steadfast goodness must have left a mark on the mind of the wonderful child he helped to educate, and who, in the midst of all her greatness, was greatest in this that, like her old tutor, she lived simply, " and walked humbly with her God" to the end of her noble life. Mr. Davys came daily to the Palace to teach the little Princess, in addition to his lessons with the Duchess and Princess Feodore. The good Duchess of Saxe-Coburg seems to have feared lest her beloved "May-blossom" should be too early forced into learning, for she im- plores her daughter not to " tease your little puss with learning. She is so young still," and in- forms her that " Alberinchen " is only making RAMSGATE AND CLAREMONT 79 eyes at a picture-book. But in spite of her re- monstrances Mr. Davys was introduced, in his capacity of tutor, to the Duchess of Kent by Captain (afterwards Sir John) Conroy on April 7th, and on the i6th began his duties. The little Princess was put through her paces in the alphabet, and then began to tackle the difficulties of " ba, be, bi," &c., which, I think, appears to most children a senseless lesson enough. The Princess seems to have shared the common aversion to it, for we are told that she did not quite conquer it. Her mother pro- mised her a reward if the lesson were a good one, and we get an amusing insight into her character, for, says Mr. Davys, " the Princess asked for the reward before she began the lesson," on the principle, no doubt, that "a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush." The lesson lasted about three-quarters of an hour. The little lady does not seem to have made rapid progress during the first month, and showed "a will of her own," and a desire to make "o's" on her slate when "h's" were the order of the day, and vice versd. Mr. Davys used to write little words on bits of card, and, 8o CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA placing them about the room, endeavoured to teach his royal pupil by making her bring the ones he called out to her. On April 25th he remarks that " she seems a sweet-tempered child, and is soon brought to obedience." He also adds that he brought by the Duchess's wish "the nursery rhymes, and read the story of a little girl who cried to be washed." Does Mr. Davys mean "at being washed," and if so, can the little girl be Mrs. Turner's immortal " Miss Caroline " whose mamma had ordered Ann, the maid, to wash her, and whose tears and vanity anent her pink sash ended in a whipping from papa? Mrs. Turner was all the fashion in nurseries of that date, and there is a spirited directness about her rhymes and her morality which I feel sure must have pleased Princess Victoria. A few days later we learn that she was not well enough to take her lesson, and being asked to spell, amongst others, the word "bad," took it, apparently, to herself, and wept over it. She was, as her good tutor says, "a child of great feeling," and was encouraged in learning to write in the hope of being able to write a letter to inquire after one Richard Hayes, RAMSGATE AND CLAREMONT 81 who had been in waiting on her, and who had broken his leg. It was about this time that Dr. Blagden, who attended to the Princess's health, was given by her a large sugar almond, a great treasure in her eyes, and a still greater one in his, for he kept it carefully in a little ornamental box to the day of his death. He had a wonderful emerald ring which his little patient much coveted, but which he never would give her. She might have anything else of him, he said, but the ring had an uncanny story attached to it, and the good doctor had, perhaps, in spite of his science, a little latent superstition left in the corner of his mind ! Mr. Davys seems to have been much impressed with his pupil's honesty. She was magnificently honest to the end of her life, and about this time Mr. Davys tells a story of this quality which is a curious replica of one told of her father when a boy. He had destroyed a very valuable orna- ment, and on being told that he made both him- self and his tutor sorry, remarked, "No, you may be sorry, but honestly / am not." His daughter was told by her mother that "when 82 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA you are naughty, you make both me and yourself very unhappy." " No, mamma, not me, not myself, but you" was her reply. The Duchess told Mr. Davys, who was in- quiring one day after the Princess's behaviour, that the day before there had been " a little storm." " Yes," remarked the small lady, " one at dressing and one at washing." Miss Caro- line's sad fate had evidently made but small impression. The Duchess showed the greatest anxiety for her daughter's progress. She was always present at her lessons, and took lessons herself of Mr. Davys in English. She also carefully educated her conscience, for he says she " gave some advice to her little daughter in a beautiful manner, teaching her that her behaviour should be just the same whether she was seen or not. ' Your Father in Heaven sees your heart at all times.' " The little girl was much pleased at one of his devices for interesting her in her lessons, which consisted in engaging Princess Feodore and Mdlle. Lehzen to stand up with her as in a National School class. Her gentle, imaginative RAMSGATE AND CLAREMONT 83 tutor must have made the first steps of learning easy to her little feet. The 24th of May, her fourth birthday, was of course a holiday and a great day, for she was bidden with the Duchess by George IV. "Uncle King" as she called him to a State dinner-party at Carlton House. She, however, only appeared for a moment to see the King and the Royal Family. She was at this time a very attractive child, with the quick wit and tact that always distinguished her, and she always seems to have contrived to highly amuse her " Uncle King." In the evening she had a party of children, to whom she showed her many presents, spread out on a table. Mr. Davys says she was most generous in giving and lend- ing her playthings to her little friends, and was no doubt amply repaid by the novelty of so many playmates. Shortly after this Mr. Davys' little boy fell ill of measles, and Princess Fe*odore seems to have been mainly responsible for the lessons in the tutor's enforced absence, and to have improved on what she had already learned. The prime difficulty seems to have been to fix the little 84 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA Princess's attention. " Volatile," her tutor says she is, and seems to think she " could an she would" show more concentration. Poor little lady. She was only four years old, and in spite of her inattention she was "very good- tempered and very affectionate," and showed "the marks of a tenderness of disposition" which was easily evoked by any tale of dis- tress, especially in animals, of whom she was very fond. On August 1 5th of this year she went with the Duchess and her household to Ramsgate for nearly two months, and from there she evidently wrote the accompanying letter to her tutor. It is probably the first she ever wrote, and does equal credit to her heart and her progress. Very few children could have written as neatly and concisely after little more than six months' teaching. The signature almost exactly re- sembles the one written in the same year, and now in the British Museum, except that the R is neater and firmer in that of the letter. The journey to Ramsgate was made by steamer from the Tower, which sounds delight- nr DEAR sir\ DO MOT FO RG FT MY LETTERS ' NOR WILL ET YOU VICTORIA RAMSGATE AND CLAREMONT 85 fully old-fashioned, and must have been an enjoyable mode of travel to a bright, intelligent child. The visit to Kamsgate was brightened by the presence of Prince Leopold, who was adored both by the Duchess and her child. He was equally devoted to them, and all his niece's happiest childish moments seem to have been connected with him. She was allowed to play on the sands with absolute freedom, and let us hope, went back to Kensington with roses on her pretty face, for a writer in Fraser's Magazine speaks of her as "pale as well as pretty," when he first saw her on the Ramsgate beach. "She wore," he says, "a plain straw bonnet with a white ribbon round it, and as pretty a pair of shoes on as pretty a pair of feet as I ever remember to have seen from China to Kamschatka." He says she was allowed to ride donkeys and play with other children, possibly the little daughter and niece of Sir Frederick Wetherall, for the Duchess was extraordinarily careful as to the companions of the Princess, and we know from her own lips that hers was a somewhat dull childhood in this respect. There must have been some lessons during this 86 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA seaside visit, for on coming back to Kensington and resuming work with Mr. Davys on the 6th of October, he finds her " somewhat less averse to looking at her book." An old lady who lived in Kensington has described the Princess at this time as being always prettily but plainly dressed, and often to be met riding her donkey or driving in her little pony-chaise, or skipping along between her mother and sister, ready to smile at and greet every one, or give her dainty little hand to be kissed. Early in October the whole family went to stay at Claremont with the beloved uncle, Prince Leopold. One can imagine the games they would have, and the delightful walks and drives that would be taken about Esher and the charming country round it. Writing from Claremont to King Leopold as he afterwards became in 1843, the Queen says: "This place has a particular charm for us both, and brings back recollections of the happiest days of my otherwise dull childhood, when I ex- perienced such kindness from you, dearest uncle kindness which has ever since con- RAMSGATE AND CLAREMONT 87 tinued. . . . Victoria (Princess Royal) plays with my old bricks, &c., and I see her running and jumping in the flower garden, as old, though I fear still little Victoria of former days used to do." But even here education was not to be neglected. Mr. Davys went over in a gig of the Duchess's twice a week. The kind Duchess was much distressed because he arrived for the first time in a gig without a "head" on a cold, raw day, and immediately dosed him with hot tea, and ordered a new gig to be got ready for him. Prince Leopold was present at the lesson, and " seemed mortified " at the little Princess's dislike of reading from a book. A report of the Princess Victoria's progress was regularly forwarded to Prince Leopold, who took the most fatherly interest in his little niece's education. The combined joys of Ramsgate and Clare- mont, however", seem to have unsettled her, for we read a few days later that "the Prin- cess was very inattentive." A visit to Prince Leopold's farm appears to have confirmed Mr. Davys' opinion of her affectionate dis- 88 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA position, the farmer's baby and a lamb dividing the honours in her delighted interest. There is a pretty and authentic anecdote told of the Princess about this time, giving another proof of her passion for infant creatures. She was in the habit of driving from Kensington Palace to Kew Green, for the benefit of the fresh air, and one day saw on the Green a flock of tiny ducklings. The pretty, fluffy things caught her quick eye, and she begged her lady attendant to allow her to get out of the carriage and take one in her arms. The lady told her she must ask permission of the owner of the ducklings, a young girl, who sat in her cottage porch watching the brood. She gladly caught one and gave it to the little Princess, who clasped it fondly to her breast, and could with difficulty be induced to part with "the nicest thing" she had ever had to pet. One can see the eager, flushed face of the child bent over the little yellow ball of feathers. The story was told to a friend of the present writer by the cottage girl herself. The visit to Claremont, with its rural joys, lasted till the end of the year, when the royal party returned to Kensington. CHAPTER V KENSINGTON, RAMSGATE, AND CLAREMONT, 1824-1825 CHAPTER V KENSINGTON, BAMSGATE, AND CLAREMONT, 1824-1825 WE find Mr. Davys writing in his diary on January 12, 1824, that "the Princess Victoria is improving in reading. Miss Lehzen has taken great pains with her." It was about this time that a new element came into the Princess's life, in the more immediate care of Miss afterwards Baroness Lehzen, whose management of her charge wins the good tutor's warmest approval. She was the daughter of a Hanoverian clergyman, and had come over to England as governess to Princess Fe'odore. She seems to have been a very strict disciplinarian, and to have kept her royal pupil's somewhat headstrong spirit under stern control, and yet to have inspired her with great affection. The latter writes of her in 1870: "My dearest, kindest Lehzen expired on 9i 92 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA the 9th (September) quite gently and peace- ably. She knew me from six months old, and from my fifth to my eighteenth year devoted all her care and energies to me, with the most wonderful abnegation of self, never even taking one day's holiday. I adored, though I was greatly in awe of her. She really seemed to have no thought but for me." Sir Charles Murray, while staying at Windsor in 1837, soon after the young Queen's accession, re- marks that " every day that I have passed here has increased my admiration for the excellent judgment shown by Madame Lehzen in her (the Queen's) education, and for the amiable and grateful feeling evinced by the Queen to- wards her governess. It does the highest honour to both." His admiration was evidently fully shared by Mr. Davys in these early days, for in the last entry for this year in his little diary of the Princess's doings, he says that " Miss Lehzen's management of the Princess is extremely good. She allows of no indulgence of wrong dispositions, but corrects everything like resistance or a spirit of contradiction, such as all children will indulge if they can." RAMSGATE AND CLAREMONT 93 But the kindly tutor cannot bear to reflect in any way upon his beloved little pupil's conduct, without hastening, as ever, to inform us that she had a most amiable and affectionate dis- position, and relating how, when one day her old nurse no longer in the Duchess's service came to see her, "the little girl was so affected at the sight of her, that she could not recover herself for some hours, shedding tears and sobbing at the thought of her dear 1 Boppy.' " The little Princess was trained from the first in the strictest principles of economy, "in as much honesty and care about money matters," says Miss Martineau, "as any citizen's child." Her clothes were of the simplest fashion and materials ; plain straw bonnets and hats, and cotton frocks adorned only by a silk fichu, formed her summer wear, and very comfortable they must have been for playing in the hay or on the sands. No fear of damaging costly and uncomfortable frills and furbelows ! She was also made to finish whatever she began, one of the most valuable and least commonly acquired lessons a child can learn. To this discipline 94 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA she must have owed her love of order, her admirable management of both private and public business, and her wonderful sense of the dignity and importance of work. In spite of the simplicity of her life and dress, the little Princess seems to have im- pressed every one who saw her with her air of distinction. Even as a child she looked "a great personage," we are told, and Leigh Hunt dwells with delight on the magnificence of the footman who attended her in her walks in the park, and who was all glorious in royal scarlet, and had "the splendidest pair of calves in white stockings we ever beheld." Princess Victoria showed from the first the passionate love of music which always distin- guished her. At what age she actually began to study music we are not told, but even here she strongly objected to coercion, and when her music-master told her that " she must practise like every one else," she angrily locked the piano, put the key in her pocket, and informed him that there was " no must about it at all." But this is an anecdote of a later period than 1824. It must have been about this time that the RAMSGATE AND CLAREMONT 95 Duchess, wishing to give her little daughter pleasure, and, as one cannot help supposing, an incentive to her to work at music, sent for a gifted child harpist called "Lyra," who was then all the vogue. The two little creatures were left for a moment or two alone, and when the Duchess came back, they were seated on the floor, deep in discussing not music but dolls ! A whole army of dolls made up to the little Princess for the lack of companions, but imagine the joys of displaying their beauties and retailing their histories to a sympathetic person of one's own age ! Some of these dolls, together with other playthings of Queen Victoria's childhood, may still be seen at Kensington Palace ; and we hope the little harpist admired as much as the present writer did the wonderful little toy loom for weaving, the stately yellow and black chariot with a large crown painted on its doors, and the mechanical doll, prancing gaily, with " pas de fascination," down an alley of impos- sible trees. Four mysterious-looking Chinese dolls sit facing each other in a curious glass globe, and two or three forlorn Dutch dolls 96 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA inhabit the large two-roomed dolls' house, and seem to regret " the touch of a vanished hand " that dressed and drilled them, and the busy brain that wove such wonderful histories round their wooden personalities. A set of small bibs, neatly hemmed and worked with the initials of various dolls in tent-stitch, show that the little Princess could wield a needle, and two long wooden dumb-bells prove that physical develop- ment was attended to as well as mental. There is a doll's tent, a headless Indian prince on a white charger, a set of battledores, a German village cut out of solid blocks of wood, a doll's dressing-table, and a once gorgeous couch of white satin and silver filigree. The Princess Victoria's bedroom and nursery are particularly cheerful rooms, lofty and airy, with large, old-fashioned fireplaces, and wide, high windows, looking on to the Kound Pond and the avenues stretching over undulating ground to Hyde Park. The bedroom had a suite of particularly charming chairs of white wood with cane backs, painted in a pattern of green and white, wide-seated, and cushioned with a sort of thick ivory Chinese silk, em- RAMSGATE AND CLAREMONT 97 broidered with a design of leaves in a delicate shade of green. They suggest freshness and youth, and when new must have been the daintiest furniture imaginable for a young girl's bedroom. A very beautiful gold and crimson suite of Empire furniture may still be seen, which was once in the Duchess of Kent's drawing-room, and now is placed in the room where Queen Victoria was born. In the autumn of this year the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg came over to England to visit her son and daughter, and stayed with Prince Leopold at Claremont, where the Duchess of Kent and her two daughters joined them. The reunited family spent the whole autumn to- gether there, and if as her letters prove the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg was inclined, like all grandmothers, to indulge her grandchildren, as she never would their parents, the two Prin- cesses must have had a happy time, and let us hope long holidays. The royal party was constant in its attend- ance at the little village church of Esher on Sundays. Miss Jane Porter, authoress of "The 98 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA Scottish Chiefs," lived with her mother and sister in a cottage close to Claremont, and speaks in rapturous terms of the beauty of Princess Victoria at this time. Her pew faced the royal one, and we feel sure she must have had many sore conflicts between her con- science and her curiosity. One day curiosity conquered, to the gain of succeeding genera- tions. Miss Porter's style is so delightfully quaint and Johnsonian that I make no apology for quoting her at length, though the story has often been given before. " One day at Esher Church, my attention was particularly attracted to the Claremont pew, in which she (Princess Victoria) and the Duchess of Kent and her royal uncle sat. The pew occupies a colonnaded recess, elevated a little in the interior of the south wall of the church ; parallel with it runs a small gallery of pews, from one of which (my mother's) I could see all that passed. I should not volun- tarily have so employed myself at church " ' Qui s' excuse, s' accuse/ Miss Porter ! " but I had seen a wasp skimming backwards and for- wards over the head and before the unveiled THE PRINCESS VICTORIA IN 1823 From a Dinting by DENNING RAMSGATE AND CLAREMONT 99 summer bonnet of the little Princess, and I could not forbear watching the dangerous insect, fearing it might sting her face. She, totally unobserving it, had meantime fixed her eyes on the clergyman, who had taken his place in the pulpit to preach the sermon, and she never withdrew them thence for a moment during his whole discourse. "Next day a lady, personally intimate at Claremont, called at our humble abode, and I remarked to her the scene I had witnessed on the preceding morning at church, wonder- ing what could possibly have engaged the young Princess's attention so unrecedingly to the face of the preacher, a person totally un- known to her, and whose countenance, though expressive of good sense, was wiry and rough- hewn, and could present nothing pleasing enough to fix the eyes of a child. ' It was not himself that attracted her fixed eyes/ replied our visitor, * it was the sermon he was preach- ing. For it is a custom with her illustrious instructress to inquire of Princess Victoria not only the text of the discourse but also the heads of its leading subjects. Hence she ioo CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA neither saw the wasp when in front of her, nor heard the whisking of her uncle's protective handkerchief behind her. Her whole mind was bound up in her task a rare faculty of con- centration in any individual, and therefore more wonderful in one hardly beyond infancy and with a most surprising understanding of the subjects, she never fails performing her task in a manner that might grace much older years.' " "Protective handkerchief" is a delightful touch, but one thinks pityingly of the poor little baby Princess on a hot summer morning, especially when one remembers the length, the dry manner and elaborate matter of " dis- courses " of that date. But the exercise, though severe, helped to counteract the discursive ten- dency of the child's mind, and trained her to the marvellous exactness and grasp of detail she showed in her later life. There is very little to learn of the Princess's life during the following year, 1825, though there were the usual visits to Claremont and Ramsgate. An old inhabitant of Kensington relates that her sister, "an unknown little girl," RAMSGATE AND CLAREMONT 101 meeting the Princess driving in her pony- chaise, asked if she might kiss her. Princess Feodore allowed her to do so. Such anecdotes show how lovable the royal child must have been. Another anecdote shows her in a very do- mestic light. When visiting her Aunt Adelaide one day, the latter asked what she would like to do to amuse herself; whereupon the little lady implored to be allowed to " clean the windows." Like all healthy-minded little girls, she loved to play at being the housewife. The Duchess of Clarence was herself a woman of simple and housewifely tastes, and must have been charmed with this trait in her little niece. There is a letter extant from her, when Queen Adelaide, to the present writer's grandmother, Mrs. Blom- field, thanking her warmly for the recipe for Norfolk dumplings which she had begged of her. The little Princess and her mother spent many happy hours with the gentle, kindly Duchess, who would have thoroughly spoilt the little girl, had she been allowed. A very strong affection always existed between Victoria and her Aunt Adelaide, who remained to the 102 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA end of her life the firm friend of the Duchess of Kent. The last entry in Mr. Davys' little diary mentions that on April 6, 1825, the Princess began to take regular writing lessons of Mr. Steward. He says that he has kept no notes for some time, " one day being so much like another, but continued experience convinces me of the delightful disposition of the child." She was " quick of comprehension," and inte- rested in all she read, taking especial delight in nursery rhymes. Were they the " Cowslip," the "Daisy," the "Kose," and the "Pink," which the children of that generation seemed to have appreciated as warmly as we do, though doubtless from a more reverent point of view ? The little Princess would learn that power and place do not necessarily conduce to love, that " Tis not the gold that we possess That constitutes our happiness," and many another useful " morality," through a pleasanter medium than the long-winded discourses she listened to from the preachers of the day. It is only fair to add that when RAMSGATE AND CLAREMONT 103 Mr. Davys held services in Kensington Church, the Duchess found his sermons both " good and short." On her sixth birthday in this year the little Princess gave a very beautiful token of her affection to her father's and her friend, General Sir Frederick Wetherall, in the shape of her miniature, beautifully painted, and encircled by a thick lock of her own fair hair, set in an exquisite frame of gold and pearls of French workmanship, and with the inscription " To my dear old friend, General Wetherall, on my sixth birthday. VICTORIA." at the back. This treasure is still in the posses- sion of the Wetherall family, and was sent by them to Queen Victoria at her first Jubilee. She was much pleased at seeing it again, and said that it had always been considered an ad- mirable likeness. On the I5th of November 1825 the Princess began to learn French under the direction of Monsieur Grandineau, and seems to have made rapid progress in this and in her writing, for there is a little letter to Mrs. Louis, one of 104 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA Queen Charlotte's women, dated December 15, 1825, and running thus " My dear Louis, God bless you ! " VICTORIA." which shows that she had abandoned printed writing for a round hand, and, moreover, proves her warmth of heart ! CHAPTER VI KENSINGTON, WINDSOR, AND TUNBRIDGE WELLS 1826 AND 1827 KENSINGTON, WINDSOR, AND TUNBRIDGE WELLS, 1826 AND 1827 THIS year marks a distinct advance in Princess Victoria's life and education. Intercourse between King George IV. and his sister-in- law had, for many reasons, been of a very formal and infrequent character, but in 1826 he invited her to bring the little Princess on a three days' visit to him at Windsor. The Castle had long been in a dilapidated condi- tion, and was undergoing very necessary re- pairs, during which the King occupied the Royal Lodge in the Park. The Duchess of Kent and her child were located at Cumber- land Lodge, as the Royal Lodge had no room for visitors. The visit to " Uncle King," as she called him, was one of peculiar interest to the little Princess, since she now saw, for the first time, 107 io8 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA the great historic pile that was to be for so long one of her future homes. She had already begun to read a childish history of England, and we can imagine the intelligent interest she would take in Windsor Castle. She seems to have made quite a conquest of her "Uncle King" by her wit and readiness and her engaging brightness of manner. She dis- played a tact and appreciation of him and his position which must have gratified his marked vanity. One day, coming into the drawing-room, he took her by the hand and said, " Now, Victoria, the band is in the next room, and shall play any tune you please. What shall it be?" "Oh, Uncle King, I should like ' God save the King,' " was the prompt and flattering reply. Another day his Majesty asked her what she had most enjoyed during her visit. "The drive I took with you," she answered. The King had driven her himself, together with the Duchess of Gloucester, in his pony phaeton, and if he exercised his well-known charm of manner on his little niece there was probably as much truth as tact in her rejoinder. WINDSOR AND TUNBRIDGE WELLS 109 Be that as it may, the little Princess treated his Majesty with fearless affection, and so de- lighted him that he gave her, at parting, a badge worn only by members of the Eoyal Family, and promised to invite her very shortly again. On her eighth birthday the little Princess Victoria had a present of a tiny, melon-shaped silver teapot with a very short spout, and the date and a " V." surmounted by a crown inscribed on either side, the handle being formed of a butterfly poised on a rose. This was a favourite plaything of hers, and afterwards of her chil- dren, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, and exists to this day. Her education now began to assume a more serious character. In the previous year she had started upon regular lessons with Mr. Steward, and had begun a course of French with M. Grandineau, a well-known French master of the day. One can see what great strides she had made in her writing during but little more than a year by a comparison of her note to Mrs. Louis, to which we referred in our last chapter, a very infantile production no CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA written between double lines, and the pretty, graceful letter she writes to her uncle in August 1826. Very few children nowadays of seven years old could write such an even, beautifully formed hand, even if we take into considera- tion the evident pains taken to make it as perfect as it is. It is a prettily expressed epistle too, with enough of nature in it to show that it was the Princess's own composi- tion. She writes from Tunbridge Wells, where she was spending the summer : " TUNBRIDGE WELLS, i6th August 1826. " MY DEAR UNCLE, I offer you many affectionate congratulations on your birthday very many with my best love for all your kindness to me, and it has been a great pleasure to me, to be able to write this year, to my Uncle, the King, and to you. We hope to hear that Brighton does you a great deal of good. " Believe me, my dear Uncle, your very affectionate Niece, VICTOKIA." Miss Martineau tells an anecdote of this visit to Tunbridge Wells which illustrates the care- ful strictness with which the Duchess educated WINDSOR AND TUNBRIDGE WELLS in her little daughter in the matter of her ex- penditure. " It became known at Tunbridge Wells," says Miss Martineau, " that the Princess had been unable to buy a box at the bazaar be- cause she had spent her money. At this bazaar she had bought presents for almost all her rela- tions, and had laid out her last shilling, when she remembered one cousin more, and saw a box priced at half-a-crown which would suit him. The shop-people, of course, placed the box with her other purchases ; but the little lady's governess admonished them by saying, * No ; you see the Princess has got no money, therefore she cannot buy the box.' This being perceived, the next offer was to lay by the box till it could be purchased, and the answer was, ' Oh ! well, if you will be so good as to do that/ On quarter day, before seven in the morning, the Princess appeared on her donkey to claim her purchase." The donkey, by the way, was such a treasured possession that when the Princess paid her pro- mised visit to the King again in the autumn, she could think of no greater compliment to his Majesty than to go down on her donkey and H2 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA give him the delight of making the beloved animal's acquaintance. Lord Albemarle, then in attendance on the Duke of Sussex at Kensington Palace, gives a very attractive picture of the royal child. " One of my occupations on a morning, while waiting for the Duke, was to watch from the window the movements of a bright, pretty little girl of seven years of age. She was in the habit of watering the plants immediately under the window. It was amusing to see how im- partially she divided the contents of the water- ing-pot between the flowers and , her own little feet. Her simple but becoming dress contrasted favourably with the gorgeous apparel worn by the little damsels of the rising generation a large straw hat and a suit of white cotton ; a coloured fichu round the neck was the only ornament she wore." In the following year, 1827, the Duke of York died at the house of the Duchess of Rutland in Arlington Street, leaving no chil- dren, and thus bringing the Princess Victoria still nearer the throne. There are numerous stories told of the affection that existed between WINDSOR AND TUNBRIDGE WELLS 113 the uncle and niece ; but, as a matter of fact, she never visited him till shortly before his death, when he was living in a house in King's Road belonging to Mr. Greenwood, where, Mr. Holmes tells us, " he had Punch and Judy to amuse the child." The stories are therefore without foundation, and probably grew out of the devotion of the little Princess to her donkey, which had been sent to her by the Duke of York, a confusion of the gift with the giver, not altogether flattering to his Royal High- ness ! There are also several stories illustrative of the little girl's kindly heart and ready tact, all of which probably have some foundation in fact, though not authenticated by her late Majesty. She was an extraordinarily fearless child, and delighted in riding, often terrifying her attendants by her wild gallops. A well- known riding-master, who remembered her in her early married days, told the present writer that though she was too small to look imposing on horseback, she had a beautiful seat and a light hand, and was always a most courageous horsewoman. He once saw her at a review, H 1 1 4 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA when an unfortunate man was accidentally crushed under a gun-carriage, cover the poor dead face with her own handkerchief, never flinching, in spite of her tender thoughtful- ness, at a sight which would have sent many a smaller-spirited woman into a fainting or hysterical fit. Besides her rides and drives the little Princess breakfasted in the open air whenever it was possible, and Mr. Charles Knight, in his " Pas- sages of a Working Life," gives us a pretty picture of this alfresco meal : " In the summer of 1827 I delighted to walk in Kensington Gardens, sometimes of a holiday afternoon, with my elder girls more frequently in the early morning on my way to town. In such a season, when the sun was scarcely high enough to have dried up the dews of Ken- sington's green alleys, as I passed along the broad central walk I saw a group on the lawn before the palace which was to my mind a vision of exquisite loveliness. The Duchess of Kent and her daughter, whose years then numbered eight, are breakfasting in the open air, a single page attending upon them at a WINDSOR AND TUNBRIDGE WELLS 115 respectful distance. The matron is looking on with eyes of love, while the fair soft English face is bright with smiles. The world of fashion is not yet astir, the clerks and mechanics pass- ing onward to their occupations are few, and they exhibit none of that vulgar curiosity which is, I think, more commonly found in the class of the merely rich than in the ranks below them in the world's estimation. What a beau- tiful characteristic it seems to be of the training of this royal girl that she should not have been taught to shrink from the public eye ; that she should not be burdened with the premature conception of her probable high destiny ; that she should enjoy the freedom and simplicity of a child's nature ; that she should not be restrained when she starts up from the break- fast-table and runs to gather a flower in the adjoining parterre ; that her merry laugh should be as fearless as the notes of the thrush in the groves around her. I passed on and blessed her, and I thank God that I have lived to see the golden fruits of such training." This is an early tribute to the birdlike beauty of Queen Victoria's " silver voice." u6 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA Later on in the spring of 1827 Prince Leopold returned from abroad where he had been for more than a year, and, doubtless to the joy of his sister and niece, spent the greater part of the year with them at Claremont, Tunbridge, and Ramsgate. There is a portrait of him by Lawrence, which gives a most charming idea of the Queen's favourite uncle. It is a very hand- some refined face, of great sweetness and humour, a face to win any child's heart. This was the last year the family spent to- gether, for in the following year Princess Feodore married. Princess Victoria used to sketch with her uncle in the picturesque neigh- bourhood of Esher, a favourite occupation of hers till quite late in her life. She was taught drawing by Westall, R.A., and showed great talent and aptitude. There is a sketch of an old spectacled dame reading by her cottage door, quite remarkable for the work of a child of twelve years. Some idea of the progress the Princess had made in her lessons may be gathered from a list of books read by her during these two years with Mr. Davys and M. Grandineau. Mr. WINDSOR AND TUNBRIDGE WELLS 117 Davys' list is quite alarming in its extent, and is interesting as showing the attempt made to give his royal pupil, even at this early age, a comprehensive education. Under the heading of " Religion " we learn that she read " Scriptural Stories," by the author of the "Decoy," who follows the method of Socrates, and conveys information by means of ingenious questions and answers ; " A Stranger's Offering ; or, Easy Lessons of the Lord's Prayer;" a "Descrip- tion of a Set of Prints of Scripture History, contained in Easy Lessons," and "Scriptural Lessons, Designed to Accompany a Series of Prints from the Old Testament," both by Mrs. Trimmer, a great educational light in her day, and the pioneer of short cuts to learning. The works of Mrs. Trimmer figure so largely in the early education of Queen Victoria, that a slight sketch of her life may be interesting. Sarah Kirby, afterwards Mrs. Trimmer, was born at Ipswich on the i7th of January 1741. Her father was an architectural artist, who came to London and gave lessons to the Prince of Wales when his daughter was fourteen years of age. The little girl met many interesting n8 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA people at this period of her life, and captivated the great Dr. Johnson at a party given by Sir Joshua Reynolds. A passage in " Paradise Lost" was under dispute, when Mr. Kirby remarked that his daughter was so passionate an admirer of Milton that he was sure she could produce the volume from her pocket. The little maid, blushing to the roots of her hair, pulled " Paradise Lost " from her reticule, and so delighted the great lexicographer that he invited her to come and visit him next day, and presented her with a copy of his "Rambler." When she was one-and-twenty she married Mr. Trimmer, who lived at Brentford, a union of great happiness, and became the mother of six sons and six daughters. She educated her family herself, in addition to many other cares and duties, and it was then that she felt the need of an easier road to learning than was trodden by the children of her day. Mrs. Barbauld's " Easy Lessons " suggested Mrs. Trimmer's first book, " An Easy Introduction to the Knowledge of Nature." Queen Charlotte was her warm admirer, and gave a great vogue WINDSOR AND TUNBRIDGE WELLS 119 to her books. Mrs. Trimmer may almost be said to have created the modern idea of teaching children by means of pictures, and conveying knowledge to their minds in a graphic, colloquial way, very different from the stiff, formal method then in fashion. She was an ardent lover of Nature, a great admirer of her own sex, and a sweet, natural, charitable, and humble woman. Though "deeply religious, her religion took a practical rather than a controversial turn, as did the belief of the royal child who learnt from her books. She had the greatest horror of scandal and evil- speaking, and took herself roundly to task for the smallest lapse from perfect charity. She was the first woman to interest herself in Robert Raikes' scheme of Sunday Schools, for which she worked hard to the end. Her hus- band died in 1792, and on December 15, 1810, she followed him, literally " falling asleep " while seated among her children with her writing materials before her. Her delightful "Story of the Robins" is a nursery classic to this day, and gives one a very pleasant idea of the authoress. Her 120 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA daughter, who also wrote, must have been a much primmer and less charitable individual than her kindly mother, for the lively Lady Harriet Granville remarks in one of her letters anent the affairs of the unhappy Queen Caro- line : " Miss Trimmer does not know where to shelter her morality, and her comments are for the most part groans." And in a later letter, commenting on the low pitch of decency and morals in 1820, she describes a walk taken with her husband in Kensington Gardens, where she saw "most of the little affairs" and finds them more glaring by daylight. " I felt," she cries, " like a clergyman or Miss Trimmer, and held tight to Granville ... as if it was catching." She tells us that she took Miss Trimmer " a royal and loyal junket, to leave my name with all the Princesses. Do you not see her look of calm approbation during our anti- radical progress ? " Miss Trimmer wrote the sequel to her mother's " Easy Introduction to the Knowledge of Nature," both of which books the Princess read under the head of " Moral Stories," together with " Maternal Instructions," by Elizabeth Helme WINDSOR AND TUNBRIDGE WELLS 121 who afterwards married Campe, a well-known educational writer and " Aunt Mary's Tales." These latter mingle the most stirring adventures with the most excellent morals, and contain a delightful set of verses called "A Ghost Story," which describe the sufferings of a certain timid Charles at the hands of his mischievous play- mates. We are told that when he went to bed he "pigged" 'neath sheet and rug "pigged" is a good word, if forcible and we are also bidden " Now learn from this true story told, Ye ghost-believing train, And when a spectre ye behold Take heart and look again ! " There was nothing namby-pamby about our ancestors a hundred years ago. They called a spade a spade, and indulged in no delicate half shades of meaning. Witness the sad story in Mrs. Trimmer's "Introduction to the Know- ledge of Nature " of the little boy who, wiser than his mother, forsooth ate green gooseberries and unripe currants, " by which means," says the excellent lady, "his stomach being filled with nasty trash, he entirely lost his appetite 122 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA and his rosy cheeks became as pale as death ; at last worms, live worms " (what a touch of horror is here !) "came into his bowels. . . . He had like to have died," but was saved to see other children eating the ripe fruit he dared not. This is perhaps drastic literature, but what child would dare eat unripe fruit who had been carefully brought up on this lurid anecdote ? Mrs. Trimmer would have had scant patience, too, with our modern Little Englanders and Pro-Boers, for in the same book she gives the following sound advice to one " Henry," whom she is instructing in the way he should go : "You are an Englishman, Henry, so must love England the best, and if you travel all the world over you will never find a better country. But you must not despise people of other countries because they do not speak, act, and dress as we do, for to them we appear as strange as they do to us." This is the true philosophic spirit tempering a too ardent patriotism, but Mrs. Trimmer seems to have always united a wide charity with common-sense and honest directness of WINDSOR AND TUNBRIDGE WELLS 123 speech. Her style, too, is breezy and wholesome, and she thoroughly understands a child's love of clear-cut and often to us grown-ups tire- some details. But it is in her " Concise His- tory of England," read by Princess Victoria in 1827, after a preliminary canter in 1826 through the good lady's descriptions of " Prints of the History of England," that her judicial charity shines forth. Each chapter follows a clear plan and ends with a summary of the monarch's character, and the book is illustrated by the quaintest old engravings. Canute is depicted sitting in an easy-chair with his feet in the sea, after the manner of a foot-bath, his crown elegantly suspended on the two last fingers of his right hand, while the attendants stand round in various attitudes of genteel horror. Caractacus before Claudius exhibits muscles that would put a Sandow to shame, and King Alfred studying a map of the world is the smuggest of superior persons. Elizabeth surveying her troops at Tilbury is mounted on a fat, rearing steed, and certainly has a wonderfully good seat on horseback. By-the-bye, though Mrs. Trimmer shares the 124 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA ancient prejudice against poor "Bloody Mary," and leaves her with " very few good qualities," she does not give her her disagreeable nick- name, and she is quite modern in ignoring the legend of Alfred and the cakes. She has a dis- tinct leaning towards the Stuarts ; James II. is thus gently disposed of : " It may be said of his character that all his qualities were sullied by weaknesses, but embellished by humanity." Her view of Charles I. is a modified version of " the best of gentlemen and worst of kings," but for Charles II. she has a marked weakness. He was, she tells us, "a most pleasing com- panion and extremely well-bred ... an oblig- ing husband, a friendly brother, an indulgent father, and a good-natured master, but unsteady in his friendships." This is indeed charity from so severe a moralist as Mrs. Trimmer, but we suspect that, like most of her contempo- raries, she ranked good breeding very close to godliness. When she approaches the Hanoverian suc- cession, she becomes positively diplomatic. George I. has ample justice done to his courage and ability as a military commander, WINDSOR AND TUNBRIDGE WELLS 125 and it was, she tolerantly remarks, "impossible to conduct himself to the satisfaction of all parties." The character of George II. is passed over in discreet silence, and for "our present Gracious Majesty" George III. she has nothing but praise. She winds up the book with this admirable address to her young readers on the glories of England: "I hope you perceive that it is a most desirable country to live in, and that you have great reason to be thankful to God that you are a subject of it. As you increase in years and knowledge I hope your attachment to its Constitution, both in Church and State, will increase also, and that you will have a true love for your native land ; for this will lead you to contribute your part toward its prosperity, by practising that righteousness which alone exalteth a nation." The Princess began her acquaintance with Natural History through the pages of a very quaint little work, " The Rational Dame," with the engaging sub-title of " Hints towards Sup- plying Prattle for Children." Fancy a twen- tieth century child being taught to prattle ! Perish the thought ! There is a frontispiece 126 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA which shows the Rational Dame as a most plump and pleasing person, in a charming Leghorn hat and a flowing negligee, taking her boy and girl, in frilled pantaloons and high waists, for an instructive walk. Her style is distinctly epigrammatic, and unembellished by any flights of fancy. We learn from her that " Pigs seldom know their own mothers," and that " A hog is a disgusting animal ; he is filthy, greedy, and stubborn ; but he is very useful at his death." The first item was news to the present writer, and I doubt the hog is maligned ; it is, however, consoling to know that his end justifies his existence. A much more attractive work is the second on the Princess's list for 1826, "Afternoon Amusements ; or, Tales of Birds." It is adorned with many charming woodcuts, one for each bird under discussion, the birds themselves being gigantic in size compared with the sur- rounding landscape, though quite correctly drawn. A pair of fond turtle-doves are quite as large as the limb of the tree on which they are perched. As usual, information is conveyed by conversation between a mother, Lady Har- WINDSOR AND TUNBRIDGE WELLS 127 court, and her two children, Charles and Emily, who alternately address her as " Madam " and " Mamma." A little tale is told, not only to illustrate the nature and habits of each bird, but to convey the distinct moral lesson which each is supposed to teach. A remarkable parrot betrays a certain naughty little Lucy who has spilt ink on a very valuable drawing, and who remarks aloud in the parrot's presence that she will lay the blame on a poor innocent orphan of the name of Fanny. While Lucy is glibly fibbing to her good aunt, the parrot gives her away badly by shouting out her original remarks. The result is a lecture from the aunt, and confinement to her room for a week on a diet of bread and water. This gives one an idea of the severe punishments in favour with the higher powers in the beginning of the last century. Princess Victoria was further instructed in Natural History by a work that survived as a class-book till long after her young days, Mavor's " Elements of Natural History," and by Quin's " Description of Quadrupeds, Birds, Fishes, Serpents, and Insects," of which we 128 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA can find no trace. It sounds comprehensive enough, but, as Princess Victoria's course of instruction follows a nicely graduated scale suited to her advancing years, it was probably written on the simple plan which we find common to most of her first lesson -books. Poetry presents the same difficulty, for no trace can we find of either the " Infant Min- strel," " The Literary Box," or " Poetry Without Fiction," a title which is, to borrow an expres- sion from our French neighbours, intriguing to the last degree. " The Keepsake " was an annual for young people, beautifully got up with fine steel engravings and clear print, the contributors being nearly all well-known popu- lar writers of the day, such as Mrs. Barbauld, Lucy Aikin, and Montgomery. Some of the prose is readable enough, but the poetry scarcely deserves the name, and is both dull and pretentious. But when we come to the head of General Knowledge we find ourselves in very pleasant company. Jehoshaphat Aspin's name alone suggests old-world associations, and when we open his " Picture of the Manners, Customs, WINDSOR AND TUNBRIDGE WELLS 129 Sports, and Pastimes of the Inhabitants of England," we find we are not deceived. It was printed in 1825, and is a selection from Strutt's "Manners and Customs," a voluminous and costly book, in compressing which Mr. Aspin assures us that he has taken great care to avoid anything " which might now be deemed coarse and indelicate." We begin with a three days' feast of St. John the Baptist, to which the children, pegs as ever for the hanging of instruction, are bidden, and our mouths water with the good things prepared for it ; ale, mead, currant wine, cheesecakes, and other antique delicacies, which no doubt sound nicer than they really were. The chil- dren start with the ancient Druids and their habits, and go through centuries of curious information respecting feasts, feats, and frolics of every description. There was a feast at Kiddington in Oxfordshire on Whit-Monday, which seems to have been still held in the eighteenth century. A fat lamb was provided, and the maidens of the town, each with her thumbs tied behind her, chased the unfortunate animal till one of them took hold of it with her I i 3 o CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA mouth. She who first succeeded in doing this was called "The Lady of the Lamb." The lamb was then killed and cleaned, the skin and fleece being left upon it, and was carried in triumph before the lady and her companions on a long pole to the village green, with music and a morrice dance of men and women. Next day, to satisfy the tastes of all, the lamb was part roasted, part baked, and part boiled, and was eaten at the lady's feast " to the sound of music." There are many other old customs so interestingly described, that one longs to revive them. Another book published in 1825 and added to the Princess's list in 1826 is the Rev. J. Goldsmith's " Wonders of the United King- dom," a finely illustrated and most comprehen- sive account of abbeys, castles, public halls, places of amusement, hospitals, bridges, docks, picture galleries, universities, and such natural wonders as celebrated caves, and the like. The child who had really digested its information would be ready, as Princess Victoria was a year or two later, to intelligently enjoy a tour through her native land. She would be further helped WINDSOR AND TUNBRIDGE WELLS 131 to do this by another delightful book which she read in 1826, the Rev. Isaac Taylor's " Scenes of British Wealth." The whole three king- doms are laid under embargo to provide the youthful reader with instruction concerning every imaginable trade and industry pursued within their borders. We have cable-making at Deptford, straw-plaiting at Dunstable, brew- ing at Reading, lace-making at Buckingham, which we are told is so distressing to the eyes that " we cannot wish any young ladies to do much of it, except such as are idle and would otherwise read trifling books." No anxiety appears to be shown as to the eyes of the young peasants engaged in the trade. There is an enthusiastic description of the new discovery of gaslight, which one of the children in- structed finds "brighter than day"; one won- ders what she would have said to electric light. The book has fascinating little pictures of each trade, and is interspersed with occasional verses, setting forth the moral lessons to be learned from them. The best is the following, on the making of Worcester china : 132 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA "CHINA WAKE. " Like the china, from the earth, Man starts up, a piece of clay, Small in value at his birth, Useless, feeble, soft as they. But he grows in shape and size, Under education's hand, Lovely to our wondering eyes, Delicate, or simply grand. Like the painted vase he shows, Beauties rise his form to grace, Science, morals, arts he knows, Glazed to brilliant perfectness. Taste and wealth the work admire, Fashion will its beauties hail ; What now could you more desire ? Ah ! I wish it were not frail. Pity to ignoble use Vice should put what thus they make, Clustered cobwebs vile, abuse ; Carelessness, or malice break. Nay, with all our greater care, Danger may on caution tend ; Time may crack the brittle ware, Death must bring it to an end." WINDSOR AND TUNBRIDGE WELLS 133 The above is a very fair specimen of the didactic poetry taught to children in the earlier part of the nineteenth century; the rhymes would make a fastidious critic shudder, but such writers as Mrs. Barbauld, Mrs. Turner, and Jane and Ann Taylor have all a curious bluntness of ear, though their scansion is rarely at fault. In 1827 the Princess makes a stride in poetry, and comes to the Fables of " the late Mr. Gay," written in 1726 for the instruction of the young Duke of Cumberland, in an easy, colloquial style, after the manner of La Fontaine's, though inferior to his in artistic merit. The little Princess probably enjoyed learning them, for she had a strong sense of humour and a great love of animals. " The Reciter," a selection of prose and verse for young people of all ages, by the Rev. E. Ward, also figures among the lesson-books of 1827. It was compiled in 1812, and was dedicated to "The Right Honourable Lady Olivia Sparrow, of Brampton Park, Huntingdonshire," to whose son Mr. Ward was tutor. It includes poems by Watts, Cowper, Doddridge, Montgomery, Scott's "Lay of the Last Minstrel," Milton's fine i 3 4 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA "Morning Hymn," Addison's "When all Thy Mercies, oh, my God ! " and " The Spacious Firmament on High," Gay's " Shepherd and Philosopher," and Pope's " Man of Ross." Among the prose selections are two noble speeches by North- American Indian chiefs, the Dying Charge of Cyrus the Great, the reply of Fabricius to Pyrrhus, defending and extolling his poverty, and, perhaps finest of all, the well- known speech of Queen Elizabeth when review- ing her troops at Tilbury. It will bear quoting from, for the opening words are curiously like in spirit the reply given by our beloved Queen when, on her last visit to Ireland, she was entreated not to go abroad without a strong bodyguard. It will be remembered how she refused it, and how her trust in the "loyal hearts and good will " of her Irish subjects was splendidly repaid. Here is a part of Queen Elizabeth's speech, which she spoke, mounted on horseback, to the soldiers and populace at Tilbury : "My loving people, We have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety to take heed how We commit ourselves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery ; but, I assure you, I do not desire to live to WINDSOR AND TUNBRIDGE WELLS 135 distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear! I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good will of my subjects. . . . I know I have but the body of a weak and feeble woman, but I have the heart of a king, and a king of England too." Brave words of the Maiden Queen, treasured to still braver issues by her great successor, Victoria the Good. The little Princess made the acquaintance of other great historical personages in the pages of Mrs. Trimmer's quaint little " Roman History." It was when reading the noble answer of Cor- nelia, mother of the Gracchi, "These are my jewels," that the Princess is said to have made the quick-witted remark, " She should have said, ' These are my cornelians.' " Another noble Roman, Hersilia, the peace-maker between the Romans and Sabines, is described by Mrs. Trim- mer as "a sensible lady." Good sense was a quality held in high esteem by the excellent Mrs. Trimmer, and she gives a proof of it by making short work of the lives of the Roman Emperors, evidently considering them unedifying reading 136 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA for young people. We meet the Eoman Em- perors again in " The Picture Gallery Explored," the pictures in question being mainly places of note, varied by a few historical subjects. The usual method is employed to convey informa- tion, namely, conversations between a father and his children, which begin with the history of London and end with stories of Vespasian and Pericles, discursive enough but brightly written, and full of interesting and out-of-the- way facts. Like all Princess Victoria's lesson- books, it is beautifully illustrated. "Scenes of British Wealth" was followed up in 1827 by the "Book of Trades," a fuller and more technical work on the same subject. In the same year the Princess began to learn Latin, and had made excellent headway in French under the care of M. Grandineau. M. Grandineau was the author of several educational books, one of which, La Gram- maire Royale, was dedicated to the Duchess of Kent, and was inspired, he tells us in his preface, by " the progress made under the influence of these views by an august pupil" WINDSOR AND TUNBRIDGE WELLS 137 the Princess Victoria. In somewhat flowery strains he continues, "The purity of her dic- tion, the happy choice of her expressions, the ease which characterises her conversations in this language, permit me to refer a portion of the success to the choice of means, and have emboldened me to present the result of my labour to the public under the patronage of the illustrious Princess, who has deigned to accept the dedication." He had some grounds for self-congratulation, for he only began to teach the Princess in the November of 1825, and in 1826 she was fairly embarked upon Le Livre des Enfans, a French spelling-book written in 1808 by one Sarah Wanstrocht, who dedicates it to a Miss Mary Ann Birch. It treats, in the smallest possible space, of every subject under the sun after the ideal of the day, which was to be generally well- informed on many subjects rather than to be particularly erudite in one. In the two years we are treating of, M. Grandineau's royal pupil added to her French studies Miss Dickenson's "French and English Dialogues," Berguin's L'ami des JEnfans, Madame Elizabeth du Bon's 138 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA L'aimable Enfant the title suggests priggish- ness Les Soirees de Londres, and last but not least, Lindley Murray's Introduction au Lecteur Franpais, and two grammatical books by Nicolas Hamel stiff work for a child of seven years old. CHAPTER VII KENSINGTON, 1828 AND 1829 CHAPTER VII KENSINGTON, 1828 AND 1829 THE first record we have of our royal heroine in 1828 is a pretty little letter she wrote to the Duchess of Kent on the occasion of the birth- day of her grandmother, the Dowager-Duchess of Coburg. That it was written without super- vision is shown by the fact that the youthful scribe got into difficulties over " affectionately," and compromised matters with a blur for ending : "MY DEAR MAMMA, I congratulate you on dear Grandmamma's birthday. I hope you will have a very happy day. Yours very affection " VICTORIA. "Jan. igth, 1828." The letter is in a pretty round hand, very carefully written, clear and decided, and its tenor shows that the Princess was brought up in the true German veneration of anniversaries, 142 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA especially of family birthdays. There is a little anecdote told which, if true, shows the loving sympathy that existed between the Duchess of Kent and her child. The Princess slipped one day and fell while out with the Duchess, and, while being helped to her feet, her first anxious question was, "Does mamma know I am not hurt?" Another well-known story is vouched for by Mr. A. F. Story, and is so consistent with her late Majesty's habitual kindliness, that it speaks for its own truth. He says that "The Princess Victoria had set her heart on buying a doll she had seen in a shop-window. But her mother, the Duchess of Kent, did not let her buy it until her next allowance of pocket-money allowed her to do so. At last the day came, when she hurried to the shop, paid over the six bright shillings, and got the long-coveted doll. On coming out of the shop with her treasure in her arms, the young Princess encountered a wretchedly miserable, tramp, who plucked up his courage and asked for help. The Princess Victoria hesitated a moment ; then, realising that she no longer had any money left for the KENSINGTON, 1828 AND 1829 143 man, she returned to the shopkeeper and gave him back the doll. He gave her the six shillings again, promising also to keep the doll for her for a few days. The little lady hurried out of the shop and thrust the whole of the money into the hands of the poor beggar, who was astonished at the extent of his good fortune." This must have been a real sacrifice to the little girl, for she had a perfect passion for dolls. Miss Sarah Tooley tells us that she had one hundred and thirty-two, a large number of which she dressed herself as historic characters in appropriate costumes. She kept a list of them and their names and histories in a copy-book, and had a long board fitted with pegs which held the dolls' feet, and on this she enacted and rehearsed court-receptions and other official functions. She had always a strong love of drama, and nobody enjoyed a good play or opera better than she. Her faithful companion and dearly-loved half-sister, Princess Feodore, married in this year Prince Hohenlohe-Langenburg. This was a great blow to the little Princess, and her first 144 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA taste of real sorrow, for Princess Feodore meant much to the lonely child, and she must have missed her terribly. Princess Feodore had three children ; the son of the eldest, Count Gleichen, fought with his regiment, the Grena- dier Guards, in the South African War, and was wounded at Modder River. Both he and his sisters exhibit a marked talent for art. Henceforth there was a gap in the happy family party ; and the visits to the seaside and Tunbridge Wells must have been the duller for Princess Feodore's absence. About this time, too, came the Greek struggle for independence, and the offer of the rulership of that country to Prince Leopold. The Prin- cess Victoria must have been old enough to take an interest in a war which had many romantic features likely to attract an intelligent child ; one, too, in which her beloved uncle was deeply concerned, and which might result in his permanent absence from England. The little girl must have known many anxious hours, for the Duchess seems to have been always desirous of giving her daughter an interest in what was taking place around her ; KENSINGTON, 1828 AND 1829 145 and she could scarcely have failed to share in the general excitement the war aroused all over Europe. Princess Victoria was spared the loss of her uncle and her happy home with him at Claremont for some time to come, for in the end, in spite of much adverse criticism upon his decision, the Prince refused the offer made him, on the ground that it was not really inspired by the wishes of the Greeks them- selves. He afterwards accepted the crown of Belgium, and became Leopold I. of that country. His niece's devotion to him never waned ; he had been a second father to her, and he took the deepest interest in her marriage ; and it was to him that she and the Prince Consort owed the friendship of that remarkable person, Baron Stockmar, a man of great ability, wisdom, and integrity, and of an incorruptible honesty. The Baron had many opportunities of studying the young Princess's character, and he leaves this record of her, written to Baroness Lehzen in 1839 : " As I have always known the Queen, she was always quick and acute in her per- ceptions, straightforward, moreover, of singular K 146 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA purity of heart, without a trace of vanity or pretension." A noble tribute from a man whose lofty ideals made him hard to please. On May 19, 1828, a few days before the Princess's tenth birthday, Sir Walter Scott records in his diary that he dined with the Duchess of Kent. "Was very kindly received," he writes, " by Prince Leopold, and presented to the little Princess Victoria, the heir-apparent to the Crown, as things now stand. . . . This little lady is educated with much care, and watched so closely that no busy maid has a moment to whisper ' You are heir of England.' I suspect, if we could dissect the little heart, we should find some pigeon or other bird of the air had carried the matter." There can be little doubt, I think, that so intelligent a child as Princess Victoria must have had some suspicion of her possible destiny; indeed, the Queen herself said that the know- ledge came to her gradually and made her very unhappy. To a child, brought up with such rigid ideas of duty and "noblesse oblige," the responsibility of so great a future must have seemed little less than appalling. But the KENSINGTON, 1828 AND 1829 147 definite discovery of her future position did not come till 1830. On the 28th of May 1829, the young Princess, who was just ten years old, had the excitement of meeting another little personage, just a month older than herself, Donna Maria La Gloria, Queen of Portugal. This little lady on the abdication of her father, Don Pedro, had succeeded to the throne on the 2nd of May 1826. England had espoused her cause, and the King gave a juvenile ball in her honour on her first visit to this country. Greville, in his " Memoirs," gives an account of it, and is not over-gallant to our little Princess. " Yester- day," he says, writing on May 29th, " the King gave a dinner to the Dukes of Orleans and Chartres, and in the evening there was a child's ball. It was pretty enough, and I saw for the first time the Queen of Portugal and our little Victoria. The Queen was finely dressed with a riband and order over her shoulder, and she sat by the King. In dancing she fell down and hurt her face, was frightened and bruised, and went away. The King was very kind to her. Our little Princess is a short, plain-looking 148 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA child, not nearly so good-looking as the Portu- guese. However, if nature has not done so much, fortune is likely to do a great deal more for her." Greville's unflattering opinion of the Prin- cess's looks was not at all generally shared. Many comparisons were made between the English "May-flower," dressed very simply in white, and the little Queen, gorgeous in a gown encrusted with jewels, comparisons entirely in favour of the former. The two little girls danced in the same quadrille ; the Princess's partners during the evening being Lord Fitz- Allan, heir to the dukedom of Norfolk, Prince William of Saxe- Weimar, young Prince Ester- hazy, and the sons of Lord De La Warr and Lord Jersey. This was her first appearance at a public ball, and her manners and appearance were generally admired. Lady Bedingfield, writing four years later of Donna Maria, when she paid her second visit to England, is by no means struck by her personal charms, for she describes her as stout, with small and childish features, fat cheeks, no expression whatever, no colour, and not fair, though with light eyes and KENSINGTON, 1828 AND 1829 149 hair, and a habit of squeezing up her mouth, in a word, prematurely old. The Princess, on the contrary, was still a child in appearance, and a very attractive one, if one may judge from Nicholas' portrait of her at the age of thirteen in a quaint cap tied under the chin and sur- mounted by a big black beaver hat, a lace- topped fur tippet and great fur muff, and a look both of purity and wisdom in the large blue eyes. A propos of the ball, Greville remarks in speaking of George IV., that "not one great object connected with national glory or pros- perity ever enters his brain. I don't think I mentioned that when he talked of giving the child's ball, Lady Maria Conyngham said, ' Oh ! do, it will be so nice to see the two little Queens dancing together,' at which he was beyond measure provoked." He was not proof, however, against the charms of his little niece, for her grandmother, the Dowager - Duchess of Coburg, writes to the Duchess of Kent, speaking of a visit paid this year to King George at Windsor by her and the Princess Victoria : "I see by the English 150 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA papers that ' her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent went on Virginia Water with his Majesty/ The little monkey must have pleased and amused him, she is such a pretty clever child." This was the last time the Princess ever saw her "Uncle King"; he died in the June of the following year, and was succeeded by his brother William IV., at whose accession the royal child became the direct heir to the throne of England. The summer of 1829 was spent by the Duchess and her daughter at Broadstairs, and on the way back to Kensington they paid a two days' visit to Lord Winchelsea at Eastwell Park, near Ashford. This was one of the very few visits Princess Victoria ever paid to other than the members of her own family during the first ten years of her life. While at Broadstairs the Duchess occupied a comfortable old-fashioned house, Pierremont by name, now used as a school for boys. Some of the bedroom furni- ture used by Princess Victoria is still pre- served ; the bed is a curious wooden one, with upholstered ends and drawers underneath it, where the little lady, trained ever in neatness, KENSINGTON, 1828 AND 1829 151 must have kept the simple toilettes that roused so much admiration. The music-room of the house is a detached building with a deep bow- window, and is now used as a class-room. Here her late Majesty used to practise to such pur- pose that she became a fine musician. She sang so charmingly that she won the heart of Mendelssohn, who says that she rendered one of his songs " quite faultlessly, and with charm- ing feeling and expression"; and in 1830 she further delighted Thomas Moore, the Irish poet and singer, with her " very pretty German songs." She learnt her first lessons in music and singing from Mr. J. B. Sale, who had been an important member of the Chapel Royal Choir ; but she afterwards took singing lessons of the famous Lablache, one of the greatest singers of his or any day. Dancing she learnt of Madame Bourdin, the first dancing-mistress of the time, and the Duke of Argyll thinks that it is very probable that to her Queen Victoria owed the grace and dignity which marked her every movement and attitude. But Queen Victoria had an innate love of beauty of movement, inherited from both sides 152 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA of her family. Her uncle, George IV., was noted for his perfect deportment, and her father was not far behind his brother in that respect. Every one seems to have been struck with the elegance and dignity of her mother's carriage, and as the Princess lived entirely under the Duchess's eye for the first seventeen years of her life, she probably unconsciously imitated her, as children do the manners and habits of those about them. Dancing was a favourite amusement at court in the early years of Queen Victoria's reign, and she always took pleasure in watching the great professional danseuses of the day, and was a severe critic of the manners and deportment of those about her. Her drawing-lessons were continued under the care of the celebrated Academician, Mr. Westall, who was by that time quite an old man. It was about this time, also, that the Princess took riding-lessons from a very well known riding-master of the period, Captain Fozzard, commonly known as " Old Fozzy." The actress, Fanny Kemble, was one of his favourite pupils. She speaks of her master as " the best and most popular riding-master in KENSINGTON, 1828 AND 1829 153 London," and to her we are indebted for the following account of the Princess's first appear- ance at the riding-school : " One day, when I had gone to school more for exercise than a lesson, and was taking a solitary canter in the tan for my own amusement, the little door under the gallery opened and Fozzard appeared, introducing a middle-aged lady and a young girl, who remained standing there while he advanced towards me, and presently began to put me through all my most crucial exercises, apparently for their edification. I was always delighted to go through these particular feats, which amused me excessively, and in which I took great pride. So I sat through them all, till, upon a sign from the older lady, Fozzard, with extreme deference, opened the door and escorted them forth, and then, returning to dismount me, informed me that I had given a very satisfactory sample of his teaching to the Duchess of Kent and the Princess Victoria, the latter of whom was to be placed under his tuition forthwith. "This was the first time I ever saw the woman who holds the most exalted position in 154 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA the world, the Queen of England, who has so filled that supreme station that her name is respected wherever it is heard abroad, and that she is regarded by her own people with a loyal love such as no earthly dignity but that of per- sonal worthiness can command." One may imagine that Princess Victoria, who was taken in early life to the theatre and opera, was also interested in the pretty, sprightly Fanny Kemble, the daughter of a great theat- rical family. Queen Victoria was always re- markably gracious and kindly to all actors and actresses who had the honour of playing before her, particularly to nervous young people or beginners. A young actress once told the present writer that she was much terrified at the idea of having to speak to the Queen for the first time, but that the moment she came into her presence all her fears vanished, and nothing but a sort of charmed ease remained. There is a freemasonry about genuine simplicity which brings the highest and lowest into touch with each other, for it is the only true ground- work of fine breeding in prince or peasant. In Queen Victorias case great consideration for KENSINGTON, 1828 AND 1829 155 others was added to this foundation of simpli- city, and these two qualities won her, more than any others, the devotion of all who were privileged to come in contact with her. Amongst other natural gifts her late Majesty had a very quick ear for sound. She was a fine linguist, and this aptitude for languages was early trained in her. In 1828, when she was barely nine years old, she was working at French, German, and Latin, and had made con- siderable progress in all three by the year 1829. In 1828 she read with Monsieur Grandineau Contes Offerts aux Enfans de France, by one Brouilly, " The Tourist's French Companion," by De Bouillon was it a sort of juvenile Baedeker ? and La Bibliotheque d 'Arthur, by Madame Delafaye-Bre'hier, a collection of highly moral and sentimental stories, illustrated by prints which do not give one an exalted idea of the beauty of the young France of that day. Two quite hideous young ladies in high- waisted frocks, who rejoice in the romantic names of Palmire and Emilie, are embracing stiffly in front of a garden seat. Underneath is written : " Emilie, penetrated with her misdeeds, 156 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA throws herself into the arms of her little friend." Our little Princess certainly did not learn grace from the contemplation of these wooden young persons. She finished Hamel's " Grammar and Exercises," and Miss Dickenson's " French and English Dialogues," and embarked in the following year (1829) on De Bouillon's " Gram- matical Institutes of the French Language," and Legons de Grammaire en Action, by the Abb Gaultier. Gaultier had invented a system of learning languages, geography, history, and even morals, by a sort of game. In the game of grammar "the preceptor, becoming the friend and com- panion of his pupils, places himself gaily at the table, and has always the appearance of being himself instructed with them." This is quite as it should be, always provided the effort after equality was not too self-evident. The preceptor lays upon the table a board called La Table du Mechanisme, on which are written the different parts of speech, such as noun, verb, &c. He has also a bag containing cards with the words "Noun," "Verb," &c., written on them, and two baskets of counters, one for KENSINGTON, 1828 AND 1829 157 marking mistakes, and the other for paying right answers. The pupil on his right draws a card and lays it opposite the same part of speech indicated on the board. If he draws "Noun," for example, he must at once name a noun, explain its meaning, and form a sentence in which it occurs. He gets a counter for each right answer, but if he fails it passes to his neighbour, who doubles the counters for right answers, or, on his failure, to the third pupil, who trebles them. One wonders who shared the game with the Princess ; probably the Duchess of Kent and Miss Lehzen. There is an element of sport and emulation about it that must have made it attractive to a quick-witted child. The Princess also read a story by Madame de Bakker called Le Souterrain, ou les Deux Sosurs, Le Portefeuille des Enfans, by Bertuck, trans- lated from the German, and Le Robinson de Douze Ans, by Madame Malleus de Beaulieu. This is Robinson and water with a vengeance ! The hero is a headstrong youth who will go to sea, despite the prayers of his mother. He is wrecked on a desert island, finds a baby cast- 158 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA away, and just as it begins to be a trouble to him, discovers a half -dead woman, also cast ashore. She turns out to be his long-suffering mother, who immediately takes charge of him and the baby. They are all rescued in the end by an English man-of-war, whose captain is a certain Sir Edward Valter. He is alternately spoken of, in true Gallic fashion, as Sir Valter and Sir Edward ; indeed, he presents the infant with a gift, on which he writes : " From Sir Valter." The English sailors inform the hero that he is " France, nous Engliss, mais amis de tous les hommes," the sentiment, of which is better than the French. It is a naive little book, and is probably more interesting to a child than the same author's Conversations sur I'histoire de France, also read by the Princess, probably as a help to her lessons with Mr. Davys in Mrs. Markham's " History of France," which they were reading at the same time. The most remarkable point about this well- known book is the excessive priggishness of Mrs. Markham's three children. Richard, the eldest, is quite unbearable ; he was evidently in training for a schoolmaster. George is the KENSINGTON, 1828 AND 1829 159 most human, though he scarcely escapes the prevailing taint ; and one longs to box Mary's ears. Mrs. Markham herself is vry just to our neighbours over the water, and considers them more honest and sober than we are. Their faults are ferocity and insincerity ; ours are " pride and arrogance in the highest classes, and dishonesty and drunkenness in the lower." Mary, however, lest she should become too humble, happily reminds her mother that we have a better religion and a better government, and can therefore feel ourselves superior to the French. Mrs. Markham makes one singularly true criticism of the French people. " Time," she says, " leaves the French very much as he finds them." A more modern critic has ex- pressed the same view in rather different lan- guage ; the French, according to him, are " the Chinese of Europe." This is entirely opposed to the superficial notion that the French are a changeable nation. Inconstant in their pas- sions they may be, but not in their prejudices or their ideas. In these two years Latin was added to the Princess's curriculum, and taught her by Mr. i6o CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA Davys from " The Introduction to the Latin Tongue, as Printed for the Eton School," and other similar works. German she learnt as a foreign tongue under a certain M. Barez, and when she first came to the throne spoke it charmingly but not always correctly. The Duchess of Kent, with great self-denial, always spoke English, though with difficulty, to her daughter, and the idea that German was the language of their more intimate moments is quite incorrect. Nevertheless Nature helped the Princess, for in a very short time she had no need to translate her simpler German books when reading them, and in 1830 had a know- ledge of " about 1 500 " words of common use, M. Barez tells us. She made use of German whenever she wanted to coax favours from her mother, but soon relapsed into English. In order to perfect his royal pupil in the art of letter-writing, Mr. Davys gave her Lucy Aikin' s " Juvenile Correspondence ; or, Letters Designed as Examples of Epistolatory Style for Children of Both Sexes." Lucy Aikin was the niece of Mrs. Barbauld, and daughter of Dr. Aikin, joint - authors of "Evenings at KENSINGTON, 1828 AND 1829 161 Home," and other juvenile classics. She seems to have been somewhat overshadowed by these worthy relatives ; but she made many interest- ing friends, and carried on a correspondence, amongst several others, with Dr. Chalmers. " Juvenile Correspondence " deals with the letters of an imaginary family, Monkton by name, who are separated at intervals, and write accounts of their doings to each other. Eobert, the eldest, keeps a journal during his parents' absence, which he sends for their edification. He gets up invariably at six o'clock, a charac- teristic peculiar, alas ! to a hundred years ago ; he works in his garden till eight, when we will hope he breakfasted, though he makes no men- tion of the trivial fact ; he then reads Virgil with his uncle ; " makes " a Greek and Latin exercise ; reads some English history ; and, like any ordinary human boy, makes bows and arrows till dinner. After dinner he draws a head, and seems pleased with the result ; he then goes to drink tea with a most instructive and botanical neighbour, Mr. Hargrave, who takes him about his wonderful garden, and so ends his virtuous day. Mr. Hargrave possesses two sons, who, 162 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA we learn from another member of the Monkton family, Edward, are "brave, honest boys, who scorn to tell a lie, and that is what pleases me." Their cousin, one Stephen Thompson, on the contrary, strikes a little girl, and is beaten in " a fair battle " by the gallant Edward, vho punches him till his nose bleeds. This is a refreshing change from Robert, who is reading Plutarch, and remarks to his parent that he is " never satisfied with those delightful stories about the good and great men who lived so long ago." There is some ambiguity about that "never satisfied," and we almost suspect Robert of laughing in his sleeve at his excel- lent parents. He goes to Kensington Gardens, and expatiates in the most correct fashion on their beauties, but is saddened by the fact that " people come here to show their fine clothes and meet their acquaintances rather than to enjoy the gardens." But in spite of Robert's priggishness, Miss Aikin succeeds in making her young people's letters graphic and in some cases natural and interesting, and shows her readers how they may get past the difficulty of " What shall KENSINGTON, 1828 AND 1829 163 I say next?" when writing to their friends. Robert Monkton may be almost excused the airs of the superior person if he had read and mastered, as Princess Victoria seems to have done, a work entitled " The Introduction to Astronomy, Geography, and the Use of the Globes," by John Sharman. The use of the globes, even in the writer's young days, was confined to meeting them in certain old houses side by side with jars of pot-pourri and other ancient joys, and spinning them round to a delicious whirring hum, with a vague wonder as to the meaning of the wonderful beings painted on the globe marked " Celestial." Far different was it for children in the beginning of the century. The occult meanings of the celestial globe was plain reading to them, and so we suppose were the terrible problems at the end of Mr. Sharman's book, such as "At what hour will the morning twilight begin and the evening twilight end on the i6th of February, also on the 2 yth of August, in Dublin ? " or " To find the sun's oblique ascension, his eastern amplitude and azimuth, with the time of rising on any given day." The brain reels 164 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA at the prospect of solving either of them, and the Princess was only nine years old ! No wonder she grew into the " best- educated young Englishwoman of her day." There is a table of climates from the Equator to the North Pole, which must also have presented difficulties. The geographical part of the book is clear, and contains a good deal of information with regard to the government of the different cities and countries and any special points of interest, but it seems very meagre to a modern student. But then one must remember that it was written in the end of the eighteenth cen- tury, when Africa comes under the heading of " Terra Incognita," and we learn that " scarce any part of it is known but the sea-coasts, and even these imperfectly." North America, com- prising " all that vast tract west of the British settlements, from Canada and the lakes west- ward, are (sic) perfectly unknown to us." Among the new discoveries we find the Sand- wich Isles and New Zealand, and Canada, we are told, is 600 miles long and 200 broad. One might now almost add a " o " to the first number and not be far out in the reckoning. KENSINGTON, 1828 AND 1829 165 From Geography we pass to Natural History, and here the Princess had made great strides, and was promoted to a three -volume work, " Animal Biography," by the Rev. W. Bingley, a most comprehensive survey of the animal kingdom. There is a very long list of authori- ties consulted by the reverend author at the beginning of the book, and a delightful folded frontispiece, an engraving by Reeve of " A Lionness and her Whelps " in a great cage. The cubs are odd-looking little beasts, but the pose of the " lionness," on guard, is very fine and impressive. The copy of this book con- sulted by the present writer had once belonged to Queen Victoria's grandfather, his Majesty George III. Mr. Bingley's information is ex- haustive, and his style easy and simple, free from academic technicalities ; his anecdotes are interesting, and the arrangement of his subject- matter clear. Another delightful book, read by Princess Victoria in 1828, was " Parry's Three Voyages " in search of the North-West Passage into the Pacific. Lieutenant Parry, as he then was, started in command of H.M.S. Hecla first 166 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA in May 1819, and returned in November 1820. His second voyage lasted from April 1821 to October 1823, and the third from July 1824 to October 1827. It will therefore be seen that his journal was quite a new publication when the Princess read it, and his adven- tures excited much the same popular interest as Nansen's have done in our own day. They are still very interesting and exciting reading, especially for the young and adven- turous, and must have been a pleasant change from grammar and the use of the globes. The poetry, too, learned by the royal child in these two years must surely have pleased her, for she was launched now upon two real classics of the eighteenth century, Cowper and Goldsmith. Oliver Goldsmith, who was born in Ireland in 1728, and died in 1776, will be best known to posterity as the author of " The Vicar of Wakefield," one of the most perfect pieces of prose in the English language ; but every one knows " The Deserted Village," if not by heart at least by name, and most people remember his "Edwin and Angelina," a delicate bit of KENSINGTON, 1828 AND 1829 167 sentimentality, and the celebrated " Stanzas on Woman." Goldsmith's muse was small but admirably finished, easy and natural, with the ease which is the outcome of accomplished art. His sweet, genial nature turned instinctively towards simple, homely, natural subjects, and his treatment of them is marked by the kindliest humanity, and his descriptions of Nature are drawn to the life, with the pen of a lover. It is as a lover in quite an objective, material sense that Gold- smith writes of Nature. His contemporary, Cowper, who was born in 1731, and died in 1800, saw her from a loftier point of view in her inner spiritual relation, on the one hand, to the life of God, and on the other, to the life of man. But both loved her, and to both, from their different standpoints, we owe some of the loveliest mental pictures which can " flash upon that inward eye which is the bliss of solitude." Who that has known it can forget " Sweet Auburn, loveliest village of the plain," or the description of a snowy day in "The Task"? Cowper, especially, was a master of " poems in miniature," as Archbishop Trench has happily 168 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA described certain solitary lines in poetry. " While morning kindles with a windy red " is a poem in itself, and conjures up a perfect picture of a day that heralds in a storm. "Dupe of to-morrow, even from a child," gives poor Cowper's root of melancholy in seven words, sums up his sad life in one short sentence. Had his deep spirituality been of a calmer, happier turn, his poetry would have had an even greater influence than it has upon his countrymen. He forgot to " Rejoice in the Lord always." But it would have been hard to find two better guides to love of God, and Nature than Goldsmith and Cowper.-- It is true that far greater poets were living during Princess Victoria's childhood : such giants as Wordsworth, Coleridge, Byron, Shelley, and Keats were abroad, but it must be remembered that Time had not yet assigned them their places in the Temple of Fame, and that many of them were associated in those early days with ideas of revolt and turbulence, alarming to orthodox minds. Shelley was not to them "the poets' poet," but a youth who, forgetting his decent birth and upbringing, had KENSINGTON, 1828 AND 1829 169 been expelled from college for insubordination, and was a sort of high priest of revolution. Byron, too, would be looked upon with grave suspicion by so pure and gentle a nature as Dr. Davys, imaginative and poetical though he was. His royal pupil had a more practical turn of mind, and such poetry as she cared for in after life was of the kind that appealed to the heart rather than to the imagination. CHAPTER VIII KENSINGTON, 1830 CHAPTER VIII KENSINGTON, 1830 PRINCESS VICTORIA was now fast approaching the dividing line between childhood and girl- hood. She had made marked progress in her lessons, and had begun to fill the place in the eye and heart of the nation left vacant by the death of their beloved Princess Charlotte, whom she strongly resembled. Her uncle, George IV., was in a dying condition, and in a few months' time she was to become the direct heir to the throne of England. It was probably these considerations which decided the Duchess of Kent upon obtaining some definite and reliable opinion as to the course she had pursued in the education of her daughter. From the time of the Duke of Kent's death she had had but one thought, to bring up his child in a way worthy of him and of her own probable great position. Trusting to her own 173 174 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA good sense and to a single-minded devotion to her duty, she had taken her own line with regard to the Princess's upbringing and had never swerved from it. She had been subjected to much unkind criticism, much covert and overt opposition ; she must have felt them, for she had a warm, sympathetic nature, and the lonely life her course of action forced upon her must have been scarcely congenial to her. In the first years of her grief seclusion from much society would be only natural and fitting, but when the keen edge of sorrow had been some- what blunted by time, her native liveliness and love of society must have often tempted her to a less retired life. She was rewarded, however, for her fidelity to a high ideal of conduct by the warm apprecia- tion of the country and of both Houses of Parliament. She had received the deputation sent by Parliament to offer its condolences on the death of her beloved husband clad in the deepest mourning, and with her fatherless child in her arms, and the dignified, , pathetic im- pression she then produced was maintained by her subsequent course of conduct. In 1825 THE PRINCESS VICTORIA IN 1830 From a fainting by R. WESTALL KENSINGTON, 1830 175 Lord Liverpool, in a speech to the House of Lords, paid her this fine tribute : " I have opportunities for observing the conduct of the Duchess of Kent, which is unexampled for pro- priety, domestic affection, and moral purity." At the same time the Chancellor of the Exchequer informed the House of Commons that "the young Princess had been exceedingly well brought up, the greatest pains had been taken with her ; she had been reared with that attention to manners, morals, and piety which became her condition. She had, moreover, been taught to entertain a becoming sense of her own dignity and the rank which perhaps awaited her; these were made cardinal points in her education." She had certainly been taught to believe that God had called her to a great position and that she must respond to the call by an unswerving devotion to its responsibilities. "Queen by the grace of God," she did most assuredly be- lieve herself to be, and in that sense the Divine right of kings was a real truth to her in the loftiest sense of the words. The Duchess must have been satisfied that her method of educating 176 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA her daughter met with the approval of the nation, but she was anxious to have an intellec- tual opinion. To this end she chose two of the most scholarly of the bench of Bishops, Bishop Blomfield of London, and Bishop Kaye of Lincoln, both men whose public and private lives lent a lustre to their learning, and whose merits alone had secured for them the high positions which they held in the Church of England. The following letter, written to the Bishops conjointly, is a noble and able exposition of her plan with regard to the young Princess's educa- tion. Her position, the sacrifices she had made, and her confidence in her own judgment are set forth with as much modesty as dignity, and subsequent years have confirmed her estimate of her daughter's character as a singularly just one. Her style scarcely betrays her foreign birth, and is ample and leisurely, and yet ex- tremely clear. Some of her epithets are re- markably happy, notably the use of the word "benignant" in speaking of Princess Victoria's judgment, and there is a touch of unconscious pathos throughout the letter : KENSINGTON, 1830 177 Most Confidential. " KENSINGTON PALACE, ist, of March 1830. "MY LORDS, It is very agreeable to my feelings, to solicit your council and assistance on a matter, most important to my child, of great moment to myself, and of paramount consequence to the Country. " I have that confidence in your Lordships' char- acters for the exercise of all those sentiments that belong to your sacred office : That disposition to lean on your piety, learning and moderation in temporal matters : That, I feel assured of deriving much benefit on the subject, I wish to bring under your con- sideration. " The position of the Princess is too well known, to render it necessary for me to dwell much on it. " The Princess will be eleven years of age in May ; by the death of her revered father, when she was but eight months old, her sole care and charge de- volved to me. " Stranger as I then was, I became deeply impressed with the absolute necessity of bringing her up entirely in this country that every feeling should be that of her native Land ; and proving thereby, my devotion to my duty, by rejecting all those feelings of home and kindred, that divided my heart. "When the Princess approached her fifth year, I considered it the proper time to begin, in a moderate way, her education : an education that was to fit her M 178 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA to be either the Sovereign of these Eealms, or to fill a junior station in the Koyal Family, until the will of Providence should shew at a later period, what Her destiny was to be. " With this view, the Eeverend Mr. Davys was named by me to be Her Principal Master: This Appointment was made without any personal feeling whatsoever : He obtained it without solicitation, on the ground that he appeared to me, of all those named, the person most likely to suit the situation. " By this measure a system was acted on, from the first, with steadiness ; but I allowed no attempt to be made to push the Princess intellectually beyond her years : On this point I was firm satisfied, as far as my poor judgement could direct me; that it was the safest and surest course, although not the most brilliant. "I send herewith a List of the Princess's various Masters as in every Department she has a Master, except in carriage and Dancing, which, from feelings of delicacy, I have given charge of to a female. " I also enclose : Papers, shewing the course of the Princess's studies; and progress with each of Her Masters : as well as a List of all the Books she has read. " I will also lay before you a record that has been kept of every lesson she has taken. " And I send with this a copy of the distribution of Her time. "I gradually, as the Princess got older, added to Her studies, naming a master for the studies she was KENSINGTON, 1830 179 about to commence : And always on the same principle that influenced me in the appointment of Mr. Davys, rejected all interest taking that Person who in the various points to be attended to, seemed nearest what was required : I have the gratification of stating that in no one instance have I had the slightest reason to regret having made any one of these Appointments. On the contrary, from my experience of these Persons, I would select them again, if I was called on so to do : This tribute I owe them, as valuable Assistants. " A review of the Papers, I send you herewith, will best shew Your Lordships the System pursued, the progress made, &c. I attend almost always myself every lesson, or a part and the Princess's Lady attendant is always with her and from being a very talented Person, assists her in preparing Her Lessons for the various Masters : As I resolved to act in that manner, so as to be Her Governess myself. " I naturally hope that I have pursued that course most beneficial to all the great interests at stake. At the present moment no concern can be more momen- tous, or in which the consequences, the interests of the Country, can be more at stake, than the Education of its future Sovereign. " I acknowledge the extreme difficulty and delicacy of the undertaking and after that avowal I feel my mind relieved by the aid I hope to obtain. " Had the object been a Prince, the case would have been different as then, the established plan adopted in i8o CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA such cases would have been pursued : But here, I must take care that the course of study is not adopted alone to the Sex, but that it shall be conducted on a large and liberal system rather than to the circumstances of the Princess for until lately her station was doubtful. "I have had naturally many difficulties to encounter: Some opposite oppinions to allow to pass unrefuted : But I have been supported in my great undertaking by the conviction, that a Parent, situated as I am, acting under an honest and affectionate solicitude for Her singularly situated Child (as I trust I have done) might hope, availing herself of her knowledge of the character and disposition of her child to conduct her education as it ought to be. "From the Proceedings of Parliament in 1825, when I could hardly have supposed that my retired and un- obtrusive life would have allowed my conduct to be known, I have derived great support It gave me con- fidence they were indeed calculated to make me feel most solicitious, to discharge my duty to the advantage of my child and the Country. " I have had every reason to be most grateful to His Majesty for his unbounded confidence no interfer- ence, and a feeling that I had His cordial approbation, from His repeated expressions of satisfaction at those times the Princess has been seen by him. " The time is however come that I feel, that what has been done, should be put to some test: That if anything has been done in error of judgement, it may KENSINGTON, 1830 181 be corrected : And that the plan for the future should be open to consideration and revision. "I do not presume to have an over-confidence in what I have done, on the contrary, as a Female, as a Stranger (but only in birth, as I feel that this is my Country by the duties I fulfill, and the support I re- ceive) I naturally desire to have a candid opinion from authorities competent to give one. " In that view, I address Your Lordships, I would propose to you that you advert to all I have stated to the Papers I lay before you, and that then that you should personally examine the Princess with a view of telling me : " ist. If the course hitherto pursued in Her education has been the best, if not, where it was erroneous ? " 2nd. If the Princess has made all the Progress she should have done ? " 3rd. And if the course I am to follow, is that you would recommend : And if not, in what respect you would desire a change and on what grounds ? " If I have defined certain points for clearness' sake, and for my own satisfaction, do not imagine that I wish to limit you to them : On the contrary, I shall gratefully receive any other observations you may wish to offer. " Mr. Davys will explain to you the nature of the Princess's religious education, which I have confided to him, that she should be brought up in the Church of England, as by law established. 182 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA "When she was at a proper age, she commenced attending Divine Service regularly with me ; and I have every feeling that She has Religion at Her heart, that She is naturally impressed with it, to that degree, that she is less liable to error by its application to Her feelings, as a Child, capable of reflection. " The general bent of her character is strength of intellect, capable of receiving with ease information, and with a peculiar readiness in coming to a very just and benignant decison on any point Her opinion is asked on. " Her adherence to truth is of so marked a character, that I feel no apprehension of that bulwark being broke down by any circumstance. "I must conclude by observing, that, as yet, the Princess is not aware of the Station that she is likely to fill : She is aware of its duties, its cares, and that a Sovereign should live for others : so that when her innocent mind receives the impression of Her future fate: She receives it with a mind formed to be sensible of what is expected from Her : and it is to be hoped She will be too well grounded in Her principles to be dazzled with the station She is to look to. " Believe me to be, My Lords, with every sentiment of consideration, Your Lordships' very sincere friend, " VICTOKIA. "To The Right Honble. and Right Reverend THE LORD BISHOP OF LONDON, and The Right Reverend THE LORD BISHOP OF LINCOLN." KENSINGTON, 1830 183 The following documents were sent by the Duchess with her letter to the Bishops, and we think cannot but prove of great interest to the reader. They have never before been published. The first in order is : A LIST OF THE MASTEES, &a, IN ATTENDANCE ON HER HIGHNESS THE PRINCESS VICTORIA. Principal Master . . . The Eev. G. Davys, M.A. Drawing Master . . . K. "Westall, Esq. French Master . ... . Monsieur Grandineau. German Master .... The Eev. H. Barez. Writing Master . . . Mr. Steward. Music Master .... Mr. J. B. Sale. Dancing Mistress . . . Mrs. Bourbin. Next we have the reports of the five first- mentioned, music and dancing scarcely, in the Duchess's judgment, coming under the head of subjects she could ask the Bishops to consider. Had Mr. Sale and Mrs. Bourdin, or Madame as she is more often styled, sent in their reports we know that they would have been of the most satisfactory character, for the Princess even then played charmingly, and her dancing was excep- tionally graceful. The report of the Principal Master, with his list of books, &c., naturally 184 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA occupies the largest space, and is far the most intimate in character. The sentence in the re- port, " I am afraid of saying too much, because my feelings towards the Princess may prevent me from being an impartial judge," is a touch- ing tribute to his devotion to his pupil. The whole document is as straightforward, simple, and tender-hearted as its writer. "THE PRINCIPAL MASTER. "March 2nd, 1830. " MADAM, Your Royal Highness will herewith re- ceive a list of the books which the Princess Victoria has been reading during the last four years ; and your Eoyal Highness will, I trust, have observed, that this course of study has supplied the Princess with a degree of information as great as, at such an age, could be expected. " During the last year the Princess has made con- siderable progress. That absence of mind which your Eoyal Highness had, for some time, so much lamented in the Princess, has been in a great measure corrected by the improving understanding of Her Highness ; and there is now much reason to believe that the powers of exertion will every day be growing stronger, and that there will be a corresponding progress in all sub- jects connected with the education of the Princess. KENSINGTON, 1830 185 " I am afraid of saying too much, because my feelings towards the Princess may prevent me from being an impartial judge ; but it certainly is my expectation (as much as it is my most sincere desire) that the disposi- tion and attainments of the Princess will be such as to gratify the anxious wishes, as well as to reward the earnest exertions, with which your Eoyal Highness has watched over the education of the Princess. " I have the honour to be, Madam, your Eoyal High- ness's most dutiful and grateful servant, " GEORGE DAVYS." Mr. Davys sends with his report a list of books read with Princess Victoria during his term of office as tutor, both secular and reli- gious, the latter headed " Subjects connected with Religion." BOOKS BEAD IN THE PEINCESS VICTORIA'S LESSONS IN THE YEARS 1826, 1827, 1828, AND 1829, WITH THE PRINCIPAL MASTER. Religion. 1826. 1. "Scriptural Stories." By the Author of "The Decoy." 2. "A Stranger's Offering; or, Easy Lessons of the Lord's Prayer." 3. Mrs. Trimmer's "Description of a Set of Prints of Scripture History" contained in easy lessons 186 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA Religion (cwdinued). 4. " Scriptural Lessons, Designed to Accompany a Series of Prints of the Old Testament." Moral Stories. 1. "An Easy Introduction to the Knowledge of Nature." By Mrs. Trimmer. 2. "A Sequel to No. I." By Mrs. Sarah Trimmer. 3. " Aunt Mary's Tales." 4. " Maternal Instruction." By Elizabeth Helme. History. 1. "True Stories of Modern History." By A Mother. 2. " A Description of a Set of Prints of the English History." By Mrs. Trimmer. Geography. 1. "Easy Dialogues for Young Children." By A Lady. 2. Pinnock's " Catechism of Geography." Grammar. 1. "The Decoy." 2. " The Child's Grammar." By Mrs. Lovechild. Natural History. 1. " The Eational Dame." 2. " Tales of Birds." By Mrs. Matthews. 3. " A Description of Quadrupeds, Birds, Fishes, Serpents, and Insects." By A. D. M. Quin. 4. "Elements of Natural History in the Animal Kingdom." By William Mavor. KENSINGTON, 1830 187 Poetry. 1. " The Infant's Minstrel." 2. " Poetry Without Fiction." By A Mother. 3. " The Keepsake." 4. "The Literary Box." General Knowledge. 1. "Scenes of British Wealth." By the Eev. J. Taylor. 2. "A Picture of the Manners, Customs, Sports, and Pastimes of the Inhabitants of England." By Jehoshaphat Aspin. 3. "The Natural and Artificial Wonders of the United Kingdom." By the Eev. J. Goldsmith. Religion. 1827. 1. " Scriptural Lessons, Designed to Accompany a Series of Prints from the Old Testament " (continued). 2. " Stories from Scripture, on an Improved Plan." History. 1. "A Concise History of England." By Mrs. Trimmer. 2. " Eoman History." By Mrs. Trimmer. Geography. 1 . Pinnock's " Catechism of Geography " (continued). 2. " An Introduction to Astronomy, Geography, and the Use of the Globes." By John Sharman. i88 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA Natural History. i. "Elements of Natural History." By W. Mavor (continued). General Knowledge. 1. " A Picture of the Manners, Customs, Sports, and Pastimes of the Inhabitants of England." By Jehoshaphat Aspin (continued). 2. " Eelics of Antiquity." 3. " Picture Gallery Explored." 4. " The Book of Trades." 5. " Polar Scenes." By Campe. 6. Parry's "Three Voyages." Poetry. 1. " Fables." By the late Mr. Gay. 2. " The Eeciter." By the Eev. E. Ward. Books used for Dictating in the Geographical Lesson. i. " Juvenile Correspondence." By Lucy Aikin. Religion. 1828. 1. "Stories from Scripture, on an Improved Plan" (continued). 2. "The Catechism of the Church of England," to learn by heart. 3. "An Abridgment of the Two Testaments." By Mrs. Trimmer. History. 1. "A Concise History of England." By Mrs. Trimmer (continued). 2. Markham's " History of France." KENSINGTON, 1830 189 Geography, i. "An Introduction to Astronomy, Geography, and the Use of the Globes." By John Sharman (continued). Natural History. i. "Animal Biography." By the Eev. W. Bingley. General Knowledge. 1. "The Book of Trades " )_ (mntinwf) , 2. Parry's "Voyages" \ Poetry. i . " The Eeciter." By the Eev. E. Ward (continued). Books used for Dictating in the Geographical Lesson. I. "Juvenile Correspondence." By Lucy Aikin (continued). Latin Books. 1. "The Introduction to the Latin Tongue," as printed for the Eton School. 2. "A Eadical Vocabulary, Latin and English." By John Mair. Religion. 1829. i. "An Abridgment of the Two Testaments." By Mrs. Trimmer (continued). History. i. Markham's " History of France " (continued). Geography. i. "Elements of Geography, for the Use of Young 190 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA Children." By the Author of "Stories of the History of England." Natural History. I. "Animal Biography." By the Eev. W. Bingley (continued). General Knowledge. i. " The Book of Trades " (continued). Poetry. 1. The Poems of Goldsmith. 2. Cowper's Poems. Latin Books. 1. "The Introduction to the Latin Tongue," as printed for the use of Eton School. 2. " A Kadical Vocabulary, Latin and English." By John Mair. 3. " A Collection of English Exercises, Translated from the Writings of Cicero." By W. Ellis, M.A. 4. Delectus Sententiorum et Historiarum. MB. DAVYS' REPORT. Subjects connected with Religion. The Princess is reading parts of the Old and New Testament, and as far as we have advanced, I think Her Highness has a right understanding on these subjects. KENSINGTON, 1830 191 The Princess can also repeat the Church Catechism, and appears to me to comprehend the doctrines which are taught in it. Besides our stated religious lessons, other books which The Princess reads will naturally lead to a con- sideration of this important subject. History. The Princess is better informed, in History, than most young Persons of the same age. G-eograpJvy. The same remark is applicable to Geography. Poetry. The Princess can read Poetry extremely well ; and I think understand what She reads as well as, at Her age, could possibly be expected. Latin. We are not far advanced in Latin, but I think The Princess would be able to undergo an examina- tion in those parts which She has read. M. Grandineau follows next in order ; there is something almost comically pathetic in his humble petition that the Princess may " con- secrate " more time to the study of French ! THE FRENCH MASTER. " J'ai 1'honneur de soumettre a Votre Altesse Eoyale, que j'eus 1'honneur de donner la premiere le^on de 192 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA Fran^ais a Son Altesse la Princesse Victoria, le Mardi 15 Novembre 1825. La Princesse a lu les livres suivant. 1826. 1 . " Le Livre des Enfans." Par Sarah "Wanostrocht. 2. " Introduction au Lecteur Frangais." Par Lindley Murray. 3. "French and English Dialogues." By Miss Dickenson. 4. " A New Universal Grammar." By Nicolas HameL 5. " Grammatical Exercises upon the French Lan- guage." By N. Hamel. 1827. 1. "French and English Dialogues." By Miss Dickenson. 2. " A New Universal Grammar." By N. Hamel. 3. "Grammatical Exercises upon the French Lan- guage." By N. Hamel (continued}. 4. " L'ami des Enfans." Par Berquin. 5. " L'aimable Enfant." Par Madame Elizabeth de Bon. 6. " Les Soirees de Londres." 1828. 1. "French and English Dialogues." By Miss Dickenson (continued). 2. " A New Universal Grammar." By N. Hamel (continued). KENSINGTON, 1830 193 3. "Grammatical Exercises upon the French Lan- guage." By N. Hamel. 4. " La Bibliotheque d' Arthur." Par Madame Dela- faye Bre"hier. 5. " Contes Offerts aux Enfans de France." Par Brouilly. 6. " The Tourist's French Companion." Par de Bouillon. 1829. 1 . " Grammatical Institutes of the French Language." 2. " The Tourist's French Companion." Par de Bouillon (continued}. 3. " Lemons deGrammaire en Action." Par L. Gaul tier. 4. " Le Souterrain, ou les deux Soeurs." Par Madame de Bakker. 5. " Le Eobinson de douze ans." Par Madame Malles de Beaulieu. 6. " Conversations sur 1'histoire de France." Par Madame Malles de Beaulieu. 7. " Le Portefeuille des Enfans." Bedige par Bertuck. " La Princesse peut maintenant tenir une conversation en Franqais, mais Elle ne I'e'crit pas aussi bien qu'elle le parle. Elle est tres avence*e dans la grammaire de cette langue, et j'ai tout lieu de croire que Sa pronon- ciation sera parfaite. Je crois pouvoir assurer que La Princesse est beaucoup plus avancee que les enfans de Son age ne le sont ordinairement. N 194 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA " Me serait-il permis, de solliciter humblement, que Son Altesse consacrat quelques instans de plus a 1'^tude de la langue Franchise (si toutefois ses autres eludes pouraient le Lui permettre). "Veuillez, Votre Altesse Eoyale, d'accepter mon humble et respecteux hommage. Je n'ambitionne que 1'honneur de Vous plaire, en m'acquittant de mon devoir. "FRANCOIS GRANDINEATL "Le 3 Mars 1830." THE GERMAN MASTER. M. Barez, the German Master, makes his report in a more formal manner than the other two masters. He does not address him- self to the Duchess, but plunges at once in medias res. "Her Highness the Princess Victoria has ac- quired a correct German pronunciation, which is particular remarkable for its softness and distinc- ness. "Part of the lesson is devoted to conversation on historical, literary, or domestic subjects, in which Her Highness has made considerable progress. She has been reading and translating two elementary German works : " i. Glatz's Erzdlungen, which she understood so well KENSINGTON, 1830 195 in the last half year, that She merely read without translating them. " 2. Jucunda, a series of moral tales for young per- sons, by Wilmsen, which She translates literally. "A concise German Grammar, adapted to Her age and capacity has been written expressly for Her and fully explained. This Grammar She is studying, and there is no doubt of Her knowing the leading rules of the German language quite well. " To facilitate the application of general principles, She translates from English into German, with little or no assistance, an English tale called ' Mary and her Cat,' which has been selected on account of its simpli- city. She writes this translation twice, for the purpose of improving Her orthography, which is now tolerably correct. " Her Highness is also committing to memory an Alphabetical Vocabulary of German roots, expressly written for Her, which She seems to learn with con- siderable ease. " It may be asserted that She knows most words of common occurrence (about 1 500)." THE WEITING AND ARITHMETIC MASTER. Lastly, we have the report of Mr. Steward, addressed to her Royal Highness in the third person. " Writing Examples " we take to mean the heads of copy-books, and we suspect Mr. 196 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA Steward of paying a pretty compliment to his own handwriting in being so certain of their perfection ! " Mr. Steward most respectfully informs Her Eoyal Highness, The Duchess of Kent, that he considers The Princess Victoria has a peculiar talent for Arithmetic. Her correctness in working sums, and Her quickness in comprehending the explanation of Her rules, are excellent. " If the Princess endeavours to imitate Her "Writing Examples, Her Success is certain. "March 2, 1830. The following time-table, or as it is somewhat grandiosely called, " A Distribution of the Day," is specially interesting. Most of our readers will remember some such time-table in their youth, and may be amused by comparing it with their own " distribution of the day " at the same age. It will be seen that the Princess did no lessons at all during the middle heat of the day, from half-past eleven to three, nor after six o'clock in the evening. She did not go to bed till nine o'clock, so that her childish brain had three good hours' freedom from study before sleep ; KENSINGTON, 1830 197 a wise arrangement which we commend to modern parents and teachers. Each day's work is admirably varied, so as to avoid the pressure of any one subject, and the whole forms a very comprehensive curriculum for so young a child. 198 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA NOVEMBER 1829 DISTRIBUTION OF THI HOTJBS. MONDAY. TUESDAY. WEDNESDAY. From half -past 9 to half -past 10. Mr. Davys, Geography and Natural History. Mr. Steward, Writing and Arithmetic. Mr. Davys, English and Latin. From half -past 10 to half- past 11. Mr. Westall, Drawing Lesson. Mr. Davys, History. Mr. Sale, Music Lesson. From half -past lltol. Walking or playing. Walking or playing. Walking or playing. From 1 to 2. Dinner. Dinner. Dinner. From 2 to 3. Walking or playing. Walking or playing. Walking or playing. From 3 to 4. A Latin Exer- cise to make, and Drawing. An English Exercise to make. Learning the Catechism by heart, and German Repetition. From 4 to 5. Monsieur Grandineau, French Lesson. Mr. Davys, General Knowledge and Poetry. Monsieur Grandineau, French Lesson. From 5 to 6. Repetition for Mr. Sale and Mr. Davys. Repetition for Mr. Davys and M. Grandineau. Repetition for Mr. Steward and Mr. Davys. From 6 to half- past 6. Playing. Playing. Playing. KENSINGTON, 1830 199 DAY FOR THE PRINCESS VICTORIA THURSDAY. FKIDAT. SATURDAY. SUNDAY. Mr. Steward, Writing and Arithmetic. Mr. Davys, Latin and Geography. Mr. Davys, Repetition of lessons said in week (from half-past 10 to 11). Mr. Davys, Beligion. Mr. Sale, Music Lesson. ... Walking or playing. Walking or playing. Walking or playing. Dinner. Dinner. Dinner. ... Walking or playing. Walking or playing. Walking or playing. ... Mr. Barez, German Lesson. Learning Poetry by heart, and Needlework. Mr. Barez, German Lesson. Madame Bourdin, Dancing Lesson. Monsieur Grandineau, French Lesson. Writing Letters. ... Repetition for Mr. Sale and Mr. Davys. Repetition for Mr. Steward and Mr. Davys. Repetition for M. Grandi- neau. ... Playing. Playing. Playing. CHAPTER IX THE BISHOPS AND THEIR REPORT CHAPTER IX THE BISHOPS AND THEIR REPORT BEFORE giving the result of the Duchess of Kent's letter and enclosures to the two Bishops, it may not be uninteresting to the reader to hear something of the lives and characters of the men she chose as counsellors at this junc- ture. Both were men eminent in their day for piety and learning, but of the two we have the fuller record of Dr. Blomfield, whose fortunes took him more into the public eye than did Dr. Kaye's. Dr. John Kaye, the senior in years of the two Bishops, was the only son of Mr. Abraham Kaye, a man of business in the City of London, and of Susan, his wife, and was born at Hammersmith on December 27, 1783. He was for many years the favourite pupil of Dr. Burney, the celebrated Greek scholar, who had the highest opinion of his pupil's abilities and character 20 4 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA He went up to Christ's College, Cambridge, and there took his degree, and also won the double honours of Senior Wrangler and Senior Medallist CD a rare distinction shared by the late Baron Aldersen. In 1814 he became Master of Christ's College, and the year following was made D.D. by royal mandate. In 1816, on the death of Dr. Watson, Bishop of Llandaff, he was chosen as Regius Professor of Divinity, and his lectures were remarkable for the purity of their taste and for their elegant Latinity. Further honours awaited him in 1820, when he succeeded Dr. Mansell, Master of Trinity, as Bishop of Bristol, and finally in 1827 he was promoted to the See of Lincoln, where he re- mained till his death. On the death of Dr. Howley, Archbishop of Canterbury, he was elected Visitor by the Master and Fellows of Balliol, the last of the many honours showered upon him in his life. After his death his own friends and the clergy and laity of the diocese of Lincoln, to show how deeply he was loved and regretted, erected a memorial to him in Lincoln Cathedral, and also endowed a Divinity prize in the University of Cambridge. THE BISHOPS' REPORT 205 He has left many volumes of his works, chiefly classical and theological, and several smaller tracts, mostly of a controversial nature, which his biographer ays "are replete with learning, marked throughout by acute reason- ing and sound interpretation, and enhanced by a most delicate vein of pleasantry, which exposes the errors and inconsistencies of his opponents, without ever deviating from the courtesy of Christian controversy." His work is distinguished by the utmost simplicity of manner and method, in marked contrast to the obscurity of expression which marks obscurity of thought. His, too, was a genuine and humble piety, which showed itself in the gentlest manners and most unpretending deportment, and in " ' that pleasantness of disposition ' which the pious Herbert so justly deemed a great means of doing good." He was a man of much generosity and quiet benevolence, making but little show of his great liberality to charities, public and private. In short, he had all the gentler virtues in perfection, so much so, that Byron, writing to John Murray, his publisher, in 1821, about 2o6 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA his poem " Cain," uses him as a type of gentle manners, and says : " The two passages cannot be altered without making Lucifer talk like the Bishop of Lincoln, which would not be in the character of the former." Dr. Kaye died on the i8th of February 1853, at Biseholme, one of the latest acts of his life having been the restoration of its beautiful church. He had married in 1815 Eliza, eldest daughter of John Mortlock, Esq., banker, of Cambridge, by whom he had several children. His eldest son, William Frederick John, succeeded his father in .the living of Kiseholme, and is now Archdeacon of Lincoln. He married a daughter of Dr. Jackson, Bishop of Lincoln and afterwards of London, who writes of her father-in-law : "I am sorry to say I never knew Bishop Kaye, though as children it was a pleasure to see his face in the pew before us, when he was in London and came to St. James' ; and we were delighted when, shortly before his death, he presented a handsome, large Prayer Book to the pew, as he said he had contributed to wearing out the old one. I do not think he was one of whom THE BISHOPS' REPORT 207 many anecdotes could be told ; his words were well considered rather than many." Charles James Blomfield, who was a great personal friend of Dr. Kaye's, was born on the anniversary of the Restoration, May 24, 1786, at Bury St. Edmunds. His grandfather, James Blomfield, came from Ouseden to Bury in 1760, and there started a school, which afterwards numbered among its pupils many illustrious men. The Bishop's father, Charles Blomfield, succeeded his father James in the management of the school, and educated his son there till he was eight years old, when he sent him to the Bury Grammar School, where he remained for ten years. When asked as a boy what he intended to become, Dr. Blomfield's invariable answer was, " I mean to be a Bishop." At the age of eighteen he went up to Trinity College, Cambridge, and there had to compete with men whose educational advantages had been greater than his own. In order to keep himself up to the mark he spent half the night in reading, and never quite recovered from the effects of this overwork. He won successively Browne's Prize for a 2o8 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA Latin ode in 1805, the Craven University Scholarship, for which the great classical scholar, Person, examined him, in 1806, and in the same year Browne's Prize for a Greek ode on the death of Lord Nelson. This was followed in 1808 by his obtaining the place of Third Wrangler, and afterwards winning what was then the highest honour in classics the University had to give, the Chancellor's Classical Medal. He crowned his academical honours by winning the College Prize for a speech on William III., and the Members' Prize for a Latin dissertation in 1809. H G was elected Fellow of Trinity in the same year, and immedi- ately began to prepare his edition of j>Eschylus, at one time a celebrated translation, now super- seded by the works of later writers. Dr. Blomfield was a man of few and staunch friendships rather than of universal popularity. Among his circle of intimates were Professor Monk, afterwards Bishop of Gloucester, Baron Aldersen, Chief-Baron Pollock, Sharpe and Hustler of Trinity, the younger Rennell, and his own gifted and brilliant brother, Edward Valen- tine Blomfield, poet, painter, and scholar, who CHARLES JAMES BLOMFIEI.D BISHOP OF LONDON THE BISHOPS' REPORT 209 died while still a young man. These were all men of great learning and high character, congenial to Blomfield's fastidious taste and mind, but of the younger school of scholarship, which included Kaye, afterwards Bishop of Lincoln. Blomfield soon found himself in collision with such dis- tinguished scholars as Samuel Parr, Charles Burney, and Butler, of Shrewsbury, but in the end he won their admiration for the distinction and elegance of his work. In March 1 80 1 Blomfield was ordained deacon, and entered priests' orders in due time, when he took the curacy of Chesterford, of which place he afterwards became rector. He was presented to the living of Quarrington, in Lincolnshire, by Lord Bristol in October, and in November he married Anna Maria, daughter of W. Heath, Esq., of Hemblington, Norfolk. By her he had several children, but, with the exception of one daughter, all died in infancy. There being no house at Quarrington, he lived at Chesterton till, in December 1811, Earl Spencer made him Eector of Dunton, in Buckinghamshire, to which he removed. He gave up the curacy of Chesterton, but retained Quarrington, thus 210 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA becoming one of the class of pluralists against whom he afterwards waged war. While at Dunton he took pupils, and had the sons of several celebrated men under his charge. His literary work was not neglected during this period ; he published several editions of the Classics, and wrote constantly for the Museum Criticum, The Quarterly Review, and other periodicals. For Dr. Kaye he had the warmest admiration both as a man and a scholar, and he kept up a constant correspondence with his greatest friend, Professor Monk. In the summer of 1817 Lord Bristol pre- sented him with the benefices of Great and Little Chesterfield, which were more valuable than the living of Dunton. Since his curacy of these parishes there had been two incumbents, the second of whom had for his curate the Princess Victoria's tutor, then Mr. Davys, who had done much to improve the schools. In December 1819 he married, for the second time, Dorothy, daughter of Charles William Cox, Esq., and widow of Thomas Kent, Esq., barrister, by whom he had eleven children. It was a union of unbroken happiness and affec- THE BISHOPS' REPORT 211 tion. In 1820 Lord Bristol procured Blomfield the valuable living of St. Botolph's, Bishops- gate. He was allowed to retain Chesterford, but resided principally in London, and at the request of his parishioners, who said they had always had a Doctor for their rector, he took his D.D. at Cambridge by Royal Letter. He now began a life of great activity, and in 1822 won a fresh token of approval from the Bishop of London in the appointment to the Arch- deaconry of Colchester. He held office for little more than two years, and was led by its duties to take fresh interest in ecclesiastical law, a subject in which he was more learned than most clergy. But the work of Bishop Blomfield while rector of Bishopsgate, by which he will be best re- membered, is the publication in 1824 of his " Manual of Family Prayers," which obtained an immense circulation both in England and America. The custom of family prayers had fallen into general disuse, and Bishop Blomfield may almost be said to have revived it. The see of Chester, one of the least-paid and hardest-working bishoprics, falling vacant in 1824, it was offered by Lord Liverpool to 212 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA Archdeacon Blomfield. He accepted it, and was consecrated Bishop by Archbishop Vernon Harcourt and the Bishops of London and Exeter in Whitehall Chapel on June 2oth. On hearing of his promotion one of the Grammar School boys at Bury wrote the following witty epigram : " Through Chester-ford to Bishop's-gate Did Blomfield safely wade ; Then leaving ford and gate behind He's Chester's Bishop made." The new Bishop speedily became a power in the diocese. Parts of it, notably West- morland, then under the jurisdiction of Chester, were in a very neglected condition, and the Bishop's sharp enforcement of order and de- cency did not make him beloved by the laxer brethren. He also introduced the custom of Bishops preaching at ordinations, raised the tone and standard of examination for Holy Orders in no small degree, and fought hard against non-resident clergy, and against the disgraceful habit of intoxication prevalent amongst them. When in London he was constantly attending THE BISHOPS' REPORT 213 Committees, such as the Society for the Propaga- tion of the Gospel and for Promoting Christian Knowledge, and was always to be found in his place in the House of Lords when any subject relating to the Church or the spiritual welfare of the people was in question. The Bishop was a born statesman, and Daniel Webster, the American orator, thought him the finest speaker of his day in Great Britain. He never spoke but on subjects pertaining to his office, but his first speech, an impromptu answer to the attacks of Lord Holland upon the Established Church in the debate on the Catholic Emancipation Bill, gained him an attentive hearing on every occasion when he rose in the House. The death of Archbishop Manners -Sutton promoted Bishop Howley to Canterbury, and left the See of London open for Dr. Blomfield, to whom it was offered by the Duke of Wel- lington in July 1828. The new Bishop entered upon onerous duties. The population of Mid- dlesex had increased from 818,129 in 1801 to 1,358,200 in 1831, and there had been no cor- responding increase of churches or clergy. This crying want he set himself to supply by starting 214 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA a scheme for building fifty new churches in London, a scheme which he assisted by his great influence and by large gifts of money. He also fought steadily against the secularisa- tion of education, and was one of the promoters of King's College, founded for the purpose of counteracting that tendency. The Bishop was a warm supporter of the Reform Bill, and was one of the Commissioners for inquiring into the Poor Laws. He was also called on to play a prominent part in the legis- lation of the Established Church in Ireland. One of Sir Robert Peel's first acts, when he succeeded to office in 1824, was to organise a new Commission for the rearrangement of dio- ceses and benefices in order to augment the poorer livings and increase the number of the clergy. Bishop Blomfield used his power as an influential member of the Commission to for- ward his church-building scheme, for which he resigned much valuable Church patronage, and himself built and endowed out of his private income a church at Hammersmith. The Quar- terly Review speaks of his " almost super- human exertions " in this direction, and indeed THE BISHOPS' REPORT 215 a serious illness in 1836 had already given a warning that they were beyond his strength. The year 1837 saw the accession of Queen Victoria to the throne. Bishop Blomfield preached the Coronation sermon, as he had done that of King William IV. and Queen Adelaide, on both occasions at the request of the Archbishop of York, whose proper function it was. The next year found him urging a fund for endowing additional bishoprics in the Colonies in a letter to which the first Australian Bishop pays this tribute : " It will entitle his name to veneration in this hemisphere as long as the sun and moon shall endure." There is no doubt that the Bishop gave the first impetus to the exertions of Churchmen on behalf of the spiri- tual needs of Greater Britain. The remaining years of Bishop Blomfield's life were embittered and harassed by struggles and attacks from within the Church itself. He stood, as a passionately devoted son of the Re- formed Anglican Church, midway between the Calvinists on the one hand, and the Latinising party on the other, defending her from both, and 216 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA making to himself many enemies. An accident which happened to him at Osborne a bad fall on the polished floor of one of the passages began the final breaking-up of his health. It was followed by a slight attack of paralysis, and though he retained all his mental vigour, his nerves suffered, and he lost some of his habitual cheerfulness. He worked, however, as hard as ever for reforms in the Church and the bettering of the condition of the poorer classes. In 1850 he brought a Bill into the House for the trans- ference of the powers of the Committee of Coun- cil to the Upper House of Convocation. He made a great speech on this occasion, but the Government was too strong for him, and the Bill was rejected. Eitualistic disturbances pressed so hardly on him at this time that he writes on December 31, 1850, "This year ends in troubles ;" how- ever, the year 1851 saw the subsidence of the controversy, and the remainder of the Bishop's life was comparatively peaceful and uneventful. From this time onwards his health steadily failed, and he spent the greater part of his summer vacations abroad, taking great delight THE BISHOPS' REPORT 217 in travelling and in beautiful scenery. In October 1855 he had another paralytic seizure, from which he never really recovered, indeed his condition was so helpless in the following year that he asked to resign his office. For this there was no precedent, and a short Bill was introduced into the House under the title of "The Bishops pf London and Durham Re- tirement Bill," the aged Bishop of Durham having also begged to retire from his bishopric. This Bill was passed in the end of July, and Bishop Blomfield signed his resignation in the library at Fulham, where he had been carried on his couch, in presence of his family, the Registrar, his private secretaries, and his Ap- paritor. He took a touching farewell of them, and of the diocese with which he had been connected for over fifty years. The greatest sympathy and regret, together with the warmest appreciation of his labours, was shown him both privately and publicly. He lingered on, a hopeless invalid, till August 1857, and died at Fulham Palace on the 5th of that month. Dr. Davys, who was a personal friend of 218 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA both Bishop Kaye and Bishop Blomfield, had suggested them as examiners of the Princess ; and the Duchess wrote, as we have seen, to invite them to Kensington for the purpose of reporting upon her daughter's progress. Upon the receipt of her letter, the Bishops went down to Kensington, and we find this entry in Bishop Blomfield's diary for March 20, 1830 : " Went with the Bishop of Lincoln to Ken- sington, and examined the Princess Victoria in Scripture, Catechism, English History, Latin, Arithmetic the result very satisfactory." The picture of the fatherless little child destined to such high place, standing before two of the greatest scholars of their day, is a touching one ; and one is reminded, in all reverence, of that greater Child as He stood among the learned Jewish doctors, "both hear- ing and asking them questions," and of how He, when grown to manhood, " took a little child and set him in the midst of them." One can imagine that the two grave men would be very gentle and courteous to their little future Queen. Bishop Kaye's was a face and smile THE BISHOPS' REPORT 219 to win any child's heart, and we have the testi- mony of one of Bishop Blomfield's daughters that he was well fitted for the task before him. " One of my earliest recollections," she writes, " of my father, is his teaching me Latin, when I was between five and six years old. A Latin lesson with a little girl of six must often have been trying to the patience of a scholar ; but neither at that time, nor at any of the many lessons in Latin and Greek which he gave me in after years, do I recollect ever hearing from him one angry or impatient word. As I grew older I learnt to reckon the hour or half-hour spent with him before breakfast, as one of the happiest in the day. He used to take great pains in instructing his elder children, not only in Latin and Greek, but in a knowledge of the Scriptures, and of the doctrines and articles of our Church. When we were younger, we used to repeat the Catechism, and texts or passages of Scripture to him on Sunday afternoon or evening." She goes on to speak of " pleasant hours spent in the garden, in which he took such pride and delight ; these and many other such 220 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA quiet domestic pictures, in which he, with his bright, loving look and kind words, is ever the central figure, rise before me when I try to recall him to my mind as he was in his own home." The examination of Princess Victoria resulted in the following report from the Bishops : "MADAM, In obedience to your Eoyal Highness's commands, we have considered the course which has been pursued for the last four years in the education of the Princess Victoria, as described in the papers transmitted to us, with particular reference to the important circumstances pointed out in the communi- cation with which your Eoyal Highness was at the same time pleased to honour us ; and we have now most respectfully to state to your Eoyal Highness our entire approval of that course both as to the choice of subjects and the arrangement of Her Highness's Studies. "We have also, in compliance with your Eoyal Highness's directions, examined the Princess herself, with a view to ascertain her proficiency in the various branches of knowledge to which her attention has been directed, and we feel great satisfaction in inform- ing your Eoyal Highness that the result of that exami- nation has been such as, in our opinion, amply to justify the plan of instruction which has been adopted. THE BISHOPS' REPORT 221 In answering a great variety of questions which were proposed to her, the Princess displayed accurate know- ledge of the most important features of Scripture History and of the leading truths and precepts of the Christian Eeligion, as taught by the Church of England, as well as an acquaintance with the chronology and principal facts of English History, remarkable in so young a person. To questions on Geography, the use of the Globes, Arithmetic, and Latin Grammar, the Princess's anwers were equally satisfactory, and her pronunciation both of English and Latin is singularly correct and pleasing. "Due attention appears to have been paid to the acquisition of modern languages, and, although it was less within the scope of our inquiry, we cannot help observing that the pencil drawings of the Princess are executed with the freedom and correctness of an older artist. "The questions proposed to the Princess were answered in such a manner as to satisfy us that what she has learned has been learned with the under- standing as well as with the memory ; the one appears to have expanded in proportion as the other has been exercised. Upon the whole, we feel no hesitation in stating most respectfully to your Eoyal Highness our opinion, that the Princess should continue, at least for some time to come, to pursue her studies upon the same plan which has been hitherto followed, and under the sarna superintendence. Nor do we appre- 222 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA hend that any other alterations in that plan will be required than those which will be gradually made by the judicious director of Her Highness's studies as her mind expands and her faculties are strengthened. "In the success which has attended the course hitherto pursued in the education of the Princess, as it has supplied the best proof of the wisdom of that course, must be to your Eoyal Highness of the highest satisfaction. " That your Eoyal Highness may find cause of equal satisfaction in the future progress and improvement of the Princess is the earnest prayer of your Eoyal High- ness's most devoted and dutiful servants, " LONDON, "LINCOLN." The copy of this report is a rough one, and is not signed. The Duchess replied to it in the following gracious way, her warm-hearted de- votion for her daughter coming out strongly in the letter : " Most confidential. " KENSINGTON PALACE, 24th March 1830. " MY LOKDS, I received yesterday afternoon from Sir John Conroy your letter of that date on the subject of the Princess's education, on which we have been in communication . " I shall now, only briefly say, that I have perused THE BISHOPS' REPORT 223 with great attention and deep interest your letter : I beg also to assure you, I shall never forget the most valuable council you have afforded me, which gives me great confidence. " The Princess will herself, I feel assured, at no distant day look with satisfaction to what has occurred. I can only conclude by expressing my thanks warmly and sincerely for the way in which you have met my wishes ; the result is too gratifying for an anxious Mother to venture to dwell on. "Believe me to be, my Lords Bishops, with great esteem and consideration, your Lordships' very sincere friend, VICTORIA." CHAPTER X KENSINGTON, 1830 CHAPTER X KENSINGTON, 1830 WE have tried in the foregoing chapters to follow the life of the Princess Victoria from her cradle to the day when she ceased to be a child, with vague ideas as to the future, and became a young girl facing with clear know- ledge her great position. Her education had been conducted on ad- mirable lines, gradually expanding with her mental growth, and adapted by its comprehen- siveness to her station in life. The supreme art is the art of living; it is the great and natural end of education, and all other learning, arts, and sciences are but means to it. In reading through Princess Victoria's lesson-books one is struck by the fact that, though greatly inferior to ours in technical perfection, the education of that day stood in more workable relation to the conduct 228 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA of life. It tended to make better men and women of the world in the highest sense of the term than ours does to-day. One did not cram children then, with the inevitable certainty that they would suffer afterwards from a mental indigestion, but one gently fed them in relation to their growing brains, and saw to it carefully that they had properly assimilated one branch of study before they went on to the other. There is a sense of humour about the school- and story-books of that age lacking in ours ; they are didactic, but not dry ; priggish, but not inhuman, and conducive to self-reliance. Our little Princess had been led from one stage of knowledge to another, till at last she learnt to think for herself, and was in this way brought face to face with the fact of her exact relation to the throne of England. There have been many different accounts of the way in which the knowledge came to her, all with a germ of truth in them, none, I think, quite accurate. The Baroness Lehzen, writing when quite an aged woman to Queen Victoria, claims to have told her royal pupil that she KENSINGTON, 1830 229 stood in direct succession to the throne of England. "I ask your Majesty's leave," she says, "to cite some remarkable words of your Majesty's, when only twelve years old, while the Regency Bill was in progress. I then said to the Duchess of Kent that now, for the first time, your Majesty ought to know your place in the succession. Her Royal Highness agreed with me, and I put the genealogical table into the historical book. When Mr. Davys was gone, the Princess Victoria opened the book again, and seeing the additional paper, said, ' I never saw that before.' * It was not thought necessary you should, Princess,' I answered. ' I see I am nearer the throne than I thought.' ' So it is, Madam,' I said. After some moments the Princess resumed, ' Now, many a child would boast, but they don't know the difficulty. There is much splendour, but there is more responsibility.' The Princess, having lifted up the forefinger of her right hand while she spoke, gave me that little hand, saying, ' I will be good. I understand now why you urged me so much to learn, even Latin. My aunts, Augusta and Mary, never did ; but you told me 230 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA Latin is the foundation of English Grammar, and of all the elegant expressions, and I learnt it as you wished it, but I understand all better now/ and the Princess gave me her hand, repeating 'I will be good/ I then said, 'But your Aunt Adelaide is still young, and may have children, and of course they would ascend the throne after their father, William IV., and not you, Princess/ The Princess answered, ' And if it were so, I should be very glad, for I know by the love Aunt Adelaide bears me how fond she is of children.'" So much for the Baroness. But we have another account from the pen of Caroline Fox, writing in her Journal of a long visit from her friend, Mrs. Covgie, known as " the rightful Lady George Murray," who in the course of much gossip had told her that it was the Duchess of Kent herself who made known to her daughter the high position she might be called on to fill. She had set the Princess to reading the account of the death of Princess Charlotte, when the little girl, coming to a sudden stop, asked her mother if she should ever be Queen of England. The KENSINGTON, 1830 231 Duchess replied, "As this is a very possible circumstance, I am anxious to bring you up as a good woman, when you will be a good Queen also." Yet a third account of how the Princess heard of her destiny is told us by Canon Davys, the son of her tutor, Bishop Davys. " The story of the Princess discovering that she would be Queen has not generally been correctly told. My father had set her to make a chart of the Kings and Queens. She got as far as 'Uncle William.' Next day my father said to the Princess, ' But you have not put down the next heir to the throne.' She rather hesitated, and said, 'I hardly like to put down myself.' My father mentioned the matter to the Duchess of Kent, who said she was so glad that the truth had come upon her daughter in this way, as it was time she became aware what responsibility was await- ing her." Lastly and finally, we have now, for the first time, the Duchess of Kent's own version of the affair, in a hasty little note almost a scrawl, and lacking the formality of her other letters 232 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA written to the Bishop of London a few days after his visit with the Bishop of Lincoln to Kensington. " Most confidential. "KENSINGTON PALACE, March 1830. "My LORD, It is singular that since I had the pleasure of seeing you here, the Princess has become acquainted with the probable station she will eventually fill ; what accident has done I feel no art could have done half so well ; and the result as to impression was that I confidently anticipated would occur in the con- cluding part of my letter to you and the Bishop of Lincoln. " I cannot sufficiently express the happiness I feel on the occasion. We have everything to hope from this child ! " Believe me always to be, with great consideration, my Lord Bishop, your Lordship's very sincere friend, " VICTORIA. "The Rt. Honble. and the Rt. Rev. The LORD BISHOP of LONDON." "We have everything to hope from this child ! " A touching expression of motherly pride, well justified by the after-life of Queen Victoria. The most lofty hopes were satisfied KENSINGTON, 1830 233 in her as girl, wife, mother, and ruler by the purity of her life, the greatness of her patriotism, and the progress and splendour of her reign. Her late Majesty was so gracious as to explain to the present writer, through Sir Arthur Bigge, "that the 'accident' by which Princess Victoria became aware of her position with regard to the throne was due to studying a genealogical table of the British sovereigns, so that the published accounts on this point are practically correct." This point of the genealogical table all the different accounts have in common. Canon Davys' seems to us the most likely to be accurate. He had it from the Bishop, his father, who was a remarkably truthful, con- scientious man. In the Canon's possession is a chart of the Kings and Queens of Eng- land written out for Mr. Davys, as he then was, by Princess Victoria, on parchment. It was the making of this, or one like it, says another of Bishop Davys' children, which made the Princess consider who would come after " Uncle William." On her discovery that it would be 234 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA herself, Mr. Davys mentioned it to Mdlle. Lehzen, who doubtless had a weighty conversation with her illustrious little pupil upon the matter. Her account is curiously inaccurate. In the first place the Princess was not twelve years old, but scarcely eleven. The Regency Bill was not passed till the December of 1830, and it is pretty evident that it was Bishop Davys and not the Baroness Lehzen who was the moving cause of the discovery. It seems plain to the pre- sent writer that the Baroness had a serious talk with the Princess, and after the lapse of more than thirty-five years put her own axioms into the mouth of her pupil. The remark, " Now, many a child would boast," &c., sounds much more like the Baroness than the Princess, who never was priggish or conceited. Queen Victoria said she had no recollection of ever having said, "I will be good," though it is not improbable that her governess insisted on her being " good," and that she replied that she would try to be so. Her late Majesty also said that the knowledge of her position dawned on her gradually, and made her very unhappy. KENSINGTON, 1830 235 Her cousin, Prince George of Cumberland, a boisterous lad, is said to have been in the habit of teasing her when she failed in her lessons, or was in any way naughty, with the taunt, "A pretty sort of Queen you will make ! " Poor little lady, so carefully brought up and tutored to a sense of duty ! It was a heavy burden to lay upon such young shoulders, and one does not wonder that the thought of so much responsibility weighed terribly upon her childish heart. Could she have foreseen the enormous growth of her Empire, the almost unheard-of power she was to wield over the fate and policy of other kingdoms, the many and heavy sorrows that were to press upon her great heart, would she not have been more un- happy still? And yet could she have known even more fully than at the last she did, how the love that woke in her people's breasts for their girl Queen was to grow into the mighty passion for the "Great Mother" that filled the heart of the whole Empire, might she not have rejoiced more than she sorrowed? Her grandmother, the Dowager-Duchess of 236 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA Saxe-Coburg, wrote in the May of this year, 1830, "My blessings and good wishes for the day which gave you the sweet blossom of May. May God preserve and protect the valuable life of that lovely flower from all the dangers that will beset her heart and mind ! The rays of the sun are scorching at the height to which she may one day attain." A curious ante- dating this of Tennyson's " fierce light which beats upon a throne." "It is only by the bless- ing of God that all the fine qualities He has put into that young soul can be kept pure and un- tarnished. How well I can sympathise with the feelings of anxiety that must possess you when that time comes ! God who has helped you through so many bitter hours of grief will be your help still. Put your trust in Him!" Everything was indeed to be hoped from this " child of many prayers." No greater Queen, we think, has ever sat upon a mortal throne. Other queens may have equalled her in wise statesmanship, in royal dignity, in loving kind- ness, in piety and purity, but to none other has KENSINGTON, 1830 237 it been given to have all these graces at once, to none other has it been permitted to rule over such vast dominions, such various peoples, nor to influence the world as deeply and widely as she did. Hers is an influence that will never die so long as one subject of the British Empire remains. We have still " everything to hope from this child " ; her name " Victoria " will still stand for all that is loyal, good, and great, all that is white and pure in Queen or woman. We thank God for our " Great White Queen," as the Indians beautifully named her, and we pray that to those who come after her may be given not only her greatness and pros- perity and her crown of splendid old age, but her noble devotion to duty, her wisdom and her goodness, and the undying love and honour of the greatest of the world's Empires. "May children of our children say : 'She wrought her people lasting good. Her court was pure, her life serene ; God gave her peace, her land reposed ; A thousand claims to reverence closed In her as Mother, Wife, and Queen. 238 CHILDHOOD OF QUEEN VICTORIA And statesmen at her Council met Who knew the seasons when to take Occasion by the hand, and make The bounds of freedom wider yet, By shaping some august decree, Which kept her throne unshaken still, Broad-based upon the people's will, And compassed by the inviolate sea.' " THE END Printed by BALLANTYNE, HAUSOS London A SELECTION FROM J. Nisbet & Co.'s New Books The Dolly Dialogues. By ANTHONY HOPE. With Eight Illustrations by Howard Chandler Christy. Extra crown 8vo, 6s. This is the only complete edition, and will in future be the only edition, of the well-known Dolly Dialogues. It contains not only the Dialogues published before in a more or less fugitive form, but also four new dialogues to complete the series ; and the whole volume has been admirably illustrated by Mr. Christy. 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