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In the early dawn of the 29th of May 1829, any belated ghosts, wandering homeward under the fading moon, must have been considerably startled to see two little girls in gauzy white dresses, one wearing a Portuguese Order, being ushered from the courtyard of St James’s Palace, each accompanied by a separate retinue. One little girl, who looked like a white water-lily floating on the dark waters of the dawn, was the Princess Victoria; the other, who preceded her, and was followed by a retinue of dark-complexioned and grave-mannered gentlemen, was the ten-year-old Queen Maria II da Gloria of Portugal, in whose honour the First Gentleman in Europe had given a children’s ball. The Queen and the Princess were driven away, and immediately afterwards there was a sound like the twittering of a myriad drowsy little birds, and a crowd of little girls and boys were ushered through the doors of the Palace, and whirled away in their own carriages through the sleeping Park.

Her Majesty of Portugal had arrived in state, with her suite following her in two carriages, and after being received with full military honours by the King’s Guard she was shown into the presence of the King, who was resplendent in a blue Field-Marshal’s uniform covered with stars—the Insignia of the Garter and all the principal Russian, French, and Prussian Orders. After the two monarchs had had some conversation, the Queen and the Princess danced quadrilles to the sound of the bright sharp military music (one quadrille, we are told, had a particularly fine and long passage for trumpets), and watched children who were not of royal rank dancing waltzes.^[19] But now it was dawn, and the little Queen and the still smaller Princess must be taken home and put to bed. And at midday there would be, for the latter little girl, lessons again with deep-voiced cawing Mr Davys, the Dean of Chester, rook-like and glossy in his black ecclesiastical clothes, and the exhortations to virtue and affectionate scoldings of dear watchful Lehzen. Signorina Taglioni, the great ballerina, would come to teach the Princess dancing, Mr Sale, the organist of St Margaret’s, Westminster, would arrive to give her a singing lesson, the smooth pastel melodies sounding thin and crumbling and even paler than their natural hues in her childish voice. Then Mr Richard Westall, R.A., would instruct her in the art of drawing—eventually the famous Mr Landseer himself became her tutor in this accomplishment—and over each lesson Baroness Lehzen presided, and the Duchess of Kent was, as well, present for part of the time.

It was felt, however, that the teaching of religion and the inculcation of moral virtues were even more important than either learning or grace, and so, when the Princess had reached the age of eleven, she went through an examination by the Bishops of London and of Lincoln, who professed themselves as highly satisfied with her progress. “In answering a great variety of questions proposed to her,” ran the report, “the Princess displayed an accurate knowledge of the most important features of Scripture History, of the leading truths and precepts of the Christian religion 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 in Geography, the use of the Globes, Arithmetic and Latin Grammar, the answers which the Princess returned were equally satisfactory.”

The Duchess was delighted, for she had already told the Bishops that, when the Princess “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 morally 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.” And she added: “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 decision 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 broken down by any circumstances.”^[20] Constantly watched, reflected the Duchess, under perpetual supervision, how could any faults spring up in her child’s character? Why, she even slept in her mama’s room, nor was she allowed to walk down the stairs without somebody holding her hand.

Two or three years after this satisfactory examination, lectures of the most alarming kind were instituted, and the small Princess, with her large blue eyes fixed on the lecturer, mastered at least the names of the subjects, and noted them in her diary. We find from this that on December the 30th 1833 Mr Walker lectured, and the following subjects were broached: “Properties of Matter—Particles infinitely small, divisible and hard, Cohesion, Capillary attraction, etc. Repulsion exhibited in various ways, as counteracting the preceding influences, Recapitulation, Mechanics, Gravity considered, its effects on descending and projected bodies, National weights and measures—Mechanical Powers explained by various machines, application, etc.... Draft of Horses, Defect of wheel carriages, road, etc... pointed out.”^[21]

It is a comfort to know that on the same evening Her Royal Highness was taken to see Old Mother Hubbard and her Dog: or Harlequin and Tales of the Nursery.

Such was the life at Kensington Palace—a life of lessons and an occasional pantomime. But there had also been, in the past, happy peaceful holidays with dear Uncle Leopold at Claremont. How much she enjoyed listening to him while he, with his eyes half-closed and that peculiar smile of his, spoke to her of the duties of royalty, of goodness and truth. Now, alas, he had left England^[22] to become King of the Belgians, and, instead of those long talks about Virtue and Prudence, there were only letters to be looked forward to; it was true that those letters were as long as the conversations, but the comfort of the King’s bodily presence was taken from her, Princess Feodore had gone far away to be married, and only dear good Lehzen was left—“the best, the truest friend she ever had”. For though she was very dutiful to her mama, and was fond of her—oh yes, of course she gave her mama a great deal of affection—it was Lehzen who was nearest to her heart, it was Lehzen who controlled her likes and dislikes. All these feelings and the simple pleasures of her life were recorded in her childish handwriting in her diary—which, like her letters to the King of the Belgians, throws at moments, unwittingly, a strong light on certain aspects of her character.

“It was a delightful ride. We cantered a good deal. SWEET LITTLE ROSY went BEAUTIFULLY”—a significant entry, for in her gentle yet obstinate nature there was, throughout her life, a strong vein of impatience; she never could bear to go slowly, though she learned at last to wait for events to shape themselves. She had at all times this unconscious gift of self-revelation, as when, much later, at the age of seventeen, she told the King of the Belgians in a letter: “I like Mrs Hutchinson’s life of her husband only comme cela; she is so dreadfully violent. She and Clarendon are so totally opposite that it is quite absurd, and I only believe the juste milieu.” It was the juste milieu that ruled her life. She was not, however, so developed in character at the time of the canters on dear little Rosy, and the opinions inherited from Lehzen find their way more often than not into the diary—her dislike for pertness, for instance, and her ideas on good breeding: “Read Mrs Butler’s Journal” (Fanny Kemble). “It is certainly very pertly and oddly written. One would imagine by her style that the authoress must be very pert and not very well-bred; for there are so many vulgar expressions in it. It is a great pity that a person endowed with so much talent as Mrs Butler should turn it to so little account and publish a book which is so full of trash and nonsense which can only do her harm.... The Bishop of Chester’s Exposition of the Gospel of St Matthew is a very fine book indeed! Just the sort of one I like, which is just plain and comprehensible and full of truth and good feeling.”^[23]

Far more delightful, however, than reading even the Bishop or Chester’s Exposition of the Gospel were the concerts, and hearing Malibran sing in Norma, and seeing Taglioni dance in a ballet, looking very pretty in a kind of Swiss dress. She first appeared, it seems, in a petticoat of brown and yellow, as bright as the artificial sunlight on the stage, with a gay little Swiss hat and with long plaits of her hair hanging down; and dressed like this she danced like a waterfall among the trellised wooden bridges and staircases formed by the orchestration, and the pastures full of wild flowers transformed into melodies. Her second dress was of scarlet and yellow silk, with a white apron, and the dancer wore a wreath of flowers in her hair, and her smile was brilliant and flashing as water.

Reading this diary, we can almost hear the childish treble voice of the little Princess who wrote it a hundred years ago, and the melodies of Donizetti, budding like wild flowers or floating down like the songs of naïve birds among the green and babyish leaves of an unfading spring.

Since the visit to Windsor, peace, or at least an armed neutrality, had existed between the Duchess and King George the Fourth, for the First Gentleman in Europe understood very well how to restrain the Duchess’s natural exuberance without letting her know that this was being done. But, on June the 26th 1830, poor Prinny, with his “dramatic royal distant dignity”, died of that terrible disease whose symptoms had excited the derision of Mr Creevey, and was succeeded by his brother the Duke of Clarence, who was scarcely able to conceal his delight; and from that moment a season of warfare, ever increasing in violence, succeeded the calm, for the Duchess of Kent aroused all the latent irritability of that very excitable, choleric, good-natured old gentleman, with his popping, bobbling gestures, his habit of exploding into a room rather than entering it, his obstinacy allied so strangely with extreme changeableness, his ideas that floated in and out of his mind as if they were blown by a sea-gale, his head shaped like a pineapple, and his eyes that floated on the surface of his face as if they were bubbles. Mr Greville remarked that “King William had considerable facility in expressing himself, but what he said was generally useless and improper”; and His Majesty put this gift of facility to full use when dealing with his sister-in-law.

For some time before his brother’s death, according to his biographer Mr Roger Fulford,^[24] the Duke of Clarence had been preparing for his inheritance, and had taken precautions as well against any chance that might deprive him of it; for the Duke of York had died in 1827, leaving debts to the tune of £200,000, and no one excepting King George the Fourth now stood between him and the throne. Remembering the fate of the Duke of Kent, he always wore “a magnificent pair of goloshes”, he gargled every morning, with a view to disposing of germs, he marched up and down in his study at Bushey on wet days in order to be in a good condition when the affairs of state would make a sedentary life necessary; he even took a pleasure in the voluminous correspondence, because, as he explained, it would keep his hand supple for his future task of signing “William” on endless documents.

Early in the morning that the news of his brother’s death was brought to the Duke of Clarence at Bushey, the people of Putney and Chelsea were much astonished by the spectacle of “an elderly gentleman with a long piece of black crape flowing from the crown of his white hat, whirling through the streets in his carriage, and grinning and bowing to all and sundry”,^[25] for the news of King George’s death had not yet reached them, and not many people knew King William by sight. The new King was on his way to St James’s Palace for his first Privy Council, and the Privy Councillors were nearly as much astonished at the behaviour of His Majesty as had been the people in the streets, when the door of the Council Chamber burst open, and a short, explosively energetic red-faced personage dashed into the room, and rushing straight up to the table, without acknowledging in any way those present, “seized a pen and signed ‘William R.’ with a bold splutter”.

From the moment of his accession the battles began, for His Majesty could not endure his exuberant, voluble sister-in-law, and now that he had become King he found her perpetual reminders of her daughter’s position as heiress to the throne galling in the extreme. He insisted, however, on his niece’s attendance at Court, even at this very early age, on all state occasions; and this attendance led to fresh battles. It is true that at the first of these functions,^[26] when the eleven-year-old Princess, dressed in the deepest mourning in memory of the late King, with a court train attached to her tiny figure and a long black veil which swept the ground, followed Queen Adelaide at a Chapter of the Order of the Garter, no outbreak occurred. But when, on February the 24th 1831, a Drawing-room was held in honour of the Queen’s birthday, His Majesty’s attention was attracted, and held, by the fact that the Princess watched him with a stony stare. In vain did kind, gentle Queen Adelaide try to smooth him down, changing the subject and directing his attention to other matters; His Majesty had remarked that stare and he remembered it.

The Duchess returned the King’s dislike fully, and she was determined that her daughter should go to Court as seldom as possible. She, the Duchess of Kent, was the mother of the heiress to the throne, and it was not for her to propitiate a foolish old man who behaved more like a sea-captain than a king, who had several illegitimate children and no legitimate child, and who was always growing touchy about one thing or another. He was King, it was true, but one day her child would be Queen, whether he liked it or not. The rarity of the Princess’s appearances at Court naturally formed a fresh grievance; and when, on the occasion of the King’s Coronation on September the 9th 1831, neither the Princess nor her mother was present, His Majesty’s wrath was thoroughly aroused. Indeed, their absence caused so much comment that a question was asked in Parliament as to the cause of this phenomenon, a question that was met with the discreet and evasive answer that His Majesty was perfectly satisfied with the reason. Actually, the Duchess had refused to come or to allow her daughter to be present, because a wrangle had occurred between the King and herself as to what place the Princess should occupy in the procession. The King, who had no clear ideas about this matter, wished her to follow, instead of precede, his brothers; the Duchess insisted clamorously that her daughter was heiress presumptive to the throne, and must therefore walk immediately after the monarch. Neither side would on any account give way, so the Princess was not allowed to attend the Coronation, and spent that day, and many days before, in tears. “Nothing could console me,” she told her children many years afterwards, “not even my dolls.”

The Duchess was, by now, determined to annoy His Majesty as much as possible by insisting on and emphasizing his niece’s position, and His Majesty, on his side, was determined that the position in question should be kept well within bounds. When, therefore, in August 1831, the heiress to the throne and her mother, who were on their way to the Isle of Wight, received a royal salute from the ships stationed at Portsmouth, King William asked the Duchess to forgo these honours and, when she refused, gave orders that they should not be paid in future. Later, he was to become still more infuriated by what he called the Princess’s “royal progresses”—in which, accompanied by her mother, she visited manufacturing towns and other public places, and received addresses. Or rather, the Duchess of Kent, all smiles, feathers, and rustling silks, received them, keeping well in the foreground and making speeches. The King, enraged by this exuberance and assertiveness, by the public speeches in which the Duchess spoke of “the future Queen”, adding, with a tactful smile, “I hope at a very distant date,” and by the behaviour of her major-domo Sir John Conroy, who arranged those speeches, rather in the manner of a Prime Minister, exclaimed, “The woman’s a nuisance, the woman’s a nuisance.” And the nuisance grew worse, not better. Nor were matters improved by the profound dislike which existed between King William and the King of the Belgians, a dislike that had been much enhanced on King William’s side by King Leopold’s unfortunate addiction to drinking water instead of wine. “What’s that you’re drinking, sir?” inquired King William one night at dinner. “Water, sir,” was the reply. “God damn it, sir! Why don’t you drink wine? I never allow anybody to drink water at my table.”^[27] Marquis Peu-à-Peu, as his father-in-law King George the Fourth had called him, made no reply; but he missed no opportunity in the future of warning his niece against the dangers of ill treatment to which she and her relatives would be exposed if they did not use caution in their dealings with King William.

The Princess, on her side, was never weary of her beloved uncle Leopold’s advice, both in conversation and in his letters: “To hear dear uncle speak on any subject,” she exclaimed in her diary, “is like reading a highly instructive book; his conversation is so enlightened, so clear. He is universally admitted to be one of the first politicians now extant; he speaks so mildly, yet firmly and impartially, about politics.” Nor about these alone; His Majesty was even firmer, more highly instructive, about moral worth, duty, self-examination, etc....

As time went on, the Duchess’s visits to the Court grew rarer and rarer; she did, however, make a slight attempt to propitiate His Majesty by giving a large dinner-party in his honour on April the 24th 1832, at which his niece, exhorted to virtue and caution beforehand by dearest Lehzen, made but a brief appearance. As a return for this politeness, the King gave a children’s ball for the Princess on her birthday in the following year, though neither of their Majesties was present—owing, it was said, to indisposition. And the Princess and her mother were invited to a Royal night at the Opera, where they were observed by watchful Mr Creevey, who wrote: “Billy 4th at the Opera was everything one could wish; a more Wapping air I defy a King to have—his hair five times as full of powder as mine, and his seaman’s gold lace cock-and-pinch hat was charming. He slept most part of the opera—never spoke to any one, or took the slightest interest in the concern.... I was sorry, not to see more of Victoria: she was in a box with the Duchess of Kent, and of course, rather under us. When she looked over the box I saw her, and she looked a very nice little girl indeed.”

Their Majesties were present at their niece’s Confirmation at St James’s Palace on the 30th of July 1835—an occasion on which she was shaking with fright and bathed in tears. As the little Princess, dressed in a white lace frock with a white crape bonnet and a wreath of white roses round it, drove in the chariot with her dear mama, followed by Lady Flora Hastings, Lehzen, the King and Queen, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, the Duchess of Gloucester, the Duke of Cumberland, the Duchess of Weimar, the Duchess of Northumberland and her husband, Lord Conyngham, Lord Denbigh, and Mr Ashley, the heat was so great that the sun had drunk all the water from the leaves, and there was a white mist through which the breath of the horses came in little curls like the buds of lilies-of-the-valley. The heat had turned the faces of the children who crowded round the carriages into those of negresses, but their hair seemed the long gold hair of planets, as they stared at the little Princess in her white dress like the heat-mist or the gauzy white roses that decorated the chapel. When they arrived at the chapel, the King advanced first, leading his niece, then came the Queen leading the Duchess of Kent. When, at a quarter to two, the service was over, and the Princess returned to Kensington Palace, the King gave her a fine set of emeralds, her dear mama gave her a lovely bracelet enclosing a piece of her hair, and a beautiful set of turquoises, whilst dear Lehzen was also given a bracelet in honour of the occasion. But even then all the excitements of the day were not over, for that very night the Princess heard that her beloved sister Feodore had given birth to a daughter. And in four days’ time the expected letter from her beloved uncle reached her.

In this, after complaining that “Hypocrisy is a besetting sin of all times, but particularly of the present, and many are the wolves in sheep’s clothes. I am sorry to say, with all my affection for old England, the very state of its Society and politics renders many in that country essentially humbugs and deceivers”, he comforted his niece by assuring her that whilst “others may tremble to have at last their real character found out, and to meet all the contempt which they may deserve, your mind and heart will be still and happy, because it will know that it acts honestly, that truth and goodness are the motives of its actions.”^[28]

The King of the Belgians, with commendable restraint, failed to name the actual identity of the wolf in sheep’s clothing, the humbugs and deceivers, the “others” who may tremble to have at last their real character found out, and to meet all the contempt which they may deserve; but we are left with a feeling that he could have named “them” had he wished, and that the plural number was used only from a sense of politeness.

[19] See the Morning Post, 30th May 1829.

[20] These, and subsequent passages denoted Letters, are quoted, by permission, from The Letters of Queen Victoria, edited by A. C. Benson and Viscount Esher (John Murray). Volume I, pp. 14-17. Strachey, op. cit., p. 26.

[21] The Queen’s Journal, 30th December 1833.

[22] In 1831.

[23] The Girlhood of Queen Victoria, edited by Viscount Esher (John Murray), Volume I, p. 129. Strachey, op. cit., p. 30.

[24] See The Royal Dukes, pp. 122-3.

[25] The Royal Dukes, pp. 123-4.

[26] 20th July 1830.

[27] The Greville Memoirs (Silver Library edition), Volume III, p. 377. Strachey, op. cit., p. 37.

[28] Letters; 4 August 1835.