Читать книгу The Life and Times of Queen Victoria (Vol. 1-4) - Robert Thomas Wilson - Страница 6

Table of Contents

A Remarkable Visit to Kensington Palace—Death of King William IV.—Details of his Last Days—Parliamentary Eulogies on his Character—Progress in the Last Half-Century—Ancestry of Queen Victoria—Her Descent traced to Odoacer, King of Italy—Saxon Ancestors of her Majesty—Liberal Views of the Duke of Kent, Father of the Queen—State of the Succession after the Death of the Princess Charlotte—Marriage of the Duke of Kent, and Birth of the Princess Victoria—Christening at Kensington Palace—The name “Victoria,” and its Associations—Death of the Duke of Kent—Kensington Palace in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries—Early Training of Victoria by her Mother—Child-life of the Princess—False Rumours of Ill-health—Anecdotes of Juvenile Years—The Princess and George IV.—Accession of William IV.—The Regency Bill—Prince Leopold and the Throne of Belgium—Studies of the Princess—Her Life of Retirement—Home Tours in Various Parts of England—Visit to the Cotton Mills of the Messrs. Strutt at Belper—Reception at Oxford and at Southampton—Benevolence to an Actress—Her Royal Highness declared of Age on the 24th of May, 1837.

THE ROYAL ARMS.

In the dawn of June 20th, 1837, immediately after the death of King William IV., the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Howley) and the Lord Chamberlain (the Marquis of Conyngham) left Windsor for Kensington, to convey the tidings to his late Majesty’s successor. They reached the Palace about five o’clock in the morning, and knocked, rang, and beat at the doors several times before they could obtain admission. When at length the porter was aroused, the visitors were shown into one of the lower rooms, where a long time passed without any attention being paid them. Growing impatient, they rang the bell (as we read in the interesting narrative of Miss Wynn), and desired that the attendant on the Princess Victoria might be sent to inform her Royal Highness that they requested an audience on business of importance. Another long delay ensued, and again the bell was rung, that some explanation might be given of the difficulty which appeared to exist. On the Princess’s attendant making her appearance, she declared that her Royal Highness was in so sweet a sleep that she could not venture to disturb her. It was now evident that stronger measures must be taken, and one of the visitors said, “We have come on business of State to the Queen, and even her sleep must give way to that.” The attendant disappeared, and a few minutes afterwards the young sovereign came into the room in a loose white robe and shawl, her fair hair falling over her shoulders, her feet in slippers, her eyes dim with tears, but her aspect perfectly calm and dignified.1 Lord Melbourne, the Prime Minister, was at once sent for, and arrived at nine o’clock, when, after an interview of half an hour with the Queen, he addressed himself to a rapid study of the ceremonials to be observed at the approaching Privy Council. Some time after, the Lord Mayor and other members of the Corporation reached the Palace, and the chief members of the Privy Council soon thronged the rooms.

Although the final illness of the late King had been rather brief, William had for some time been in declining health, and the nation had only to hope that his life would be prolonged until his niece, the Princess Victoria, had attained an age which could be regarded as constituting her majority. This had occurred on the 24th of the previous month, when the Princess completed her eighteenth year, which had been declared by Act of Parliament to be sufficient. William IV. was a man of very moderate abilities; but a certain simplicity and geniality of character had secured for him the regard and respect of the people, and had carried him through the revolutionary epoch of the Reform Bill with no great loss of popularity, even at a time when he was supposed to be unfriendly to the measure. For the last two years he had ceased to take any interest in the political tendencies of the day, while discharging the routine duties of his high office with conscientious regularity. Brought up in the midst of totally different ideas, he could not, at his time of life, accommodate himself to the flood of novel principles which had recently set in, and which he was equally unable to accept and powerless to resist. The result was that, as a well-qualified observer records, “he submitted to what he could not help, but evidently with a sense of weariness.”2 In the previous April he had been distressed by the death of his eldest daughter, Lady de Lisle, and of the Duchess-Dowager of Saxe-Meiningen, mother of Queen Adelaide. Great physical prostration ensued shortly afterwards, and by June it was evident that the end could not be far distant. His Majesty was attended by the Queen with the most affectionate devotion; but the weakness steadily increased, and soon reached a fatal termination.

Owing to the state of the King’s health, the Duke of Wellington proposed to dispense with the usual Waterloo Banquet at Apsley House; but on the 17th of June the dying monarch sent a message to the illustrious Field-Marshal, desiring that the occasion should be observed in the customary manner, and wishing the host and guests a pleasant day. On the anniversary of the great battle (the 18th), the Duke transmitted to Windsor, in accordance with the prescribed form, the banner by the presentation of which he held his estates. Lord Muncaster presented it to the King, who, raising himself up, grasped the folds of the flag, and exclaimed, “Ah! that was a glorious day for England!”3 The eulogies pronounced in Parliament on the character of the deceased sovereign may have been somewhat affected by the conventional or official tone inseparable from such utterances; but they probably contain a fair amount of truth, with no more than the usual omissions. The disposition of William IV. was certainly superior to that of his brother George; and the country recognised the difference with the true instinct of a free people.

The Modern Age, in its most distinctive developments, is almost coeval with the reign of his successor. It is true that the Railway service had already begun; but it was still in its infancy when Queen Victoria ascended the throne, and had not yet effected any great revolution in the sentiments or habits of society. The Electric Telegraph, though fully born in the brains of scientific speculators, had received no practical application. Steam and machinery had still to achieve some of their greatest triumphs. The Postal system of those days seems barbarian to our modern eyes. The Newspaper Press was an insignificant force compared with what it is at the present day. Education, in the popular sense, hardly existed. Nation with nation held but little intercourse, and the prejudices of Englishmen were scarcely less gross than they had been in the days of Hogarth. Manners were far more coarse and brutal than they are now; the laws were more complicated and uncertain; social order was less secure; the arts had not attained so wide and general a culture; medicine, surgery, chemistry, geology, and other sciences, were less cultivated; taste was less diffused and less instructed; the luxuries, and even the comforts, of domestic life were almost unknown to the poorer classes; and political power was held by only a small proportion of the community. The England of 1837 was so different from the England we now behold, that the “Pickwick Papers,” belonging to that date, require explanatory notes for the benefit of a younger generation. The history of these vast changes—in which the personal character and influence of her Majesty have had no small share—must be of the deepest interest to all thinking men; and it is this history which we propose to relate.

Alexandrina Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, and Empress of India, was born at Kensington Palace on the 24th of May, 1819. She is the daughter of Edward, Duke of Kent, fourth son of King George III.; and her mother was Victoria Mary Louisa, daughter of his Serene Highness Francis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld. The Duke of Kent was the second husband of this lady, who in 1802 had married Charles Louis, Prince of

WEST FRONT OF KENSINGTON PALACE.

Leiningen—an ill-assorted match, productive of no happiness. The second marriage took place in 1818; but the Duke of Kent died in less than two years. Her Majesty’s descent is very illustrious. It may be traced (conjecturally, at least) up to Odoacer, a warlike chief of the Heruli, who, after defeating the forces of Romulus Augustulus, the last Roman Emperor of the West, in the year 476 of the Christian era, disputed the kingdom of Italy with Theodoric the Ostrogoth. One of the supposed descendants of Odoacer was Boniface, Count of Lucca and Duke of Tuscany, who lived in the early part of the ninth century, and from whom sprang Alberto Azzo II., Marquis of Italy and Lord of Este, who, in the first half of the eleventh century, married Cunegonda, of the House of Guelph, by whom he had Guelph, Duke of Bavaria, the ancestor of the House of Brunswick, and consequently of the present Royal Family of Great Britain, who are called Este-Guelphs. According to some accounts, however, the Guelphs are derived from a younger brother of Odoacer, whose son, Olfigandus, held a command in the army of Belisarius. But in truth

KING WILLIAM IV.

these matters lie beyond verification, and are interesting only as affording a shadowy link between the present and the past.

One of the most famous ancestors of the Duchess of Kent, and therefore of Queen Victoria herself, was Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony in the early years of the sixteenth century, who ranks among the first converts to Protestantism, and who befriended Luther when that great reformer stood in peril of his life. The Prince Consort was likewise descended from the same family, and the Queen’s children are thus doubly connected with one of the most distinguished German houses of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. In later times, various members of the Saxon family have shown their prowess as warriors, or their capacity as rulers; but the father of the Duchess of Kent, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, was a man of pacific inclinations and retiring habits, with a taste for the fine arts. The Duke of Kent was remarkable as a generous supporter of popular government—even to an extreme bordering on democratic ideas—at a time when the Court and the ruling classes were fanatically enthusiastic on the Tory side. Tall and striking in aspect, trained to military service, irreproachable in private life, and exact in all his business habits, the Duke of Kent inherited the manly and sedate qualities of his father, George III., while superadding to them a breadth of intellect to which the King himself could advance no claim. As a commander in the British army, his Royal Highness incurred some temporary disfavour by his strictness as a disciplinarian; but this was afterwards removed by the liberal character of his political views. At a banquet, during which he replied to the toast of “The Junior Members of the Royal Family,” he said:—“I am a friend of civil and religious liberty, all the world over. I am an enemy to all religious tests. I am a supporter of a general system of education. All men are my brethren; and I hold that power is delegated only for the benefit of the people. These are the principles of myself, and of my beloved brother, the Duke of Sussex. They are not popular principles just now; that is, they do not conduct to place or office. All the members of the Royal Family do not hold the same principles. For this I do not blame them; but we claim for ourselves the right of thinking and acting as we think best.”

Like some of the other Royal Princes, the Duke of Kent refrained from marriage until after the death of the Princess Charlotte, on the 6th of November, 1817. That ill-fated lady—the only child of the Prince Regent, afterwards George IV.—had been married, on the 2nd of May, 1816, to Prince Leopold, third son of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg, and brother of the Princess who was subsequently united to the Duke of Kent, and became the mother of our Queen. Leopold (who, several years later, was chosen King of the Belgians) was distinguished, from his earliest maturity to his latest days, by high character and distinguished abilities; and the English people hoped much from a union which seemed to promise so fairly. But, unhappily, the Princess Charlotte died in childbed; and, as the infant was still-born, the succession to the throne was left in a very precarious state. Accordingly, in the following year (1818), the Duke of Clarence, third son of George III., and afterwards William IV., the Duke of Kent, fourth son, and the Duke of Cambridge, seventh son, contracted nuptial alliances; but that of the Duke of Clarence, the elder brother of the Duke of Kent, was unattended by any issue that survived, so that the Princess Victoria soon became heiress-presumptive to the crown of Great Britain.

For some time after their marriage, the Duke and Duchess of Kent resided abroad, chiefly from motives of economy, the allowance of the former being restricted within narrow limits by the servile Parliament of that day, owing to his political independence. In view, however, of an expected event, the Royal couple returned to England in the latter part of April, 1819, so that their child should be “born a Briton;” and, as we have said, the future Queen of England drew her first breath on the 24th of May. The Duke of Kent had been long estranged from his brother, the Prince Regent; but a reconciliation took place shortly after the birth of the Princess Victoria. The infant was christened on the 24th of June at Kensington Palace, where she had been born; on which occasion, the gold font was brought from the Tower, and the draperies were removed from the Chapel Royal, St. James’s. Chief among the sponsors were the Prince Regent and the Emperor Alexander of Russia, the latter represented by the Duke of York. It was in compliment to the Czar that the infant Princess received Alexandrina as her first name. In subsequent years, however, this Russianised Greek appellation was wisely abandoned, as unfamiliar and unwelcome to English ears, and the far nobler-sounding “Victoria” took its place. The second name, now famous throughout the world, is of course pure Latin, and no more native to our race than Alexandrina. But in a certain sense we are all Latins—we of the West of Europe; and the accents of the Imperial tongue are familiar to our ears. The meaning and sound of “Victoria,” moreover, are strikingly appropriate to the sovereign of a great Empire; and the omen has, on the whole, been happily fulfilled under the sceptre of her Majesty, not merely in the triumphs of war, but also in the victories of peace.

It is not generally known, that, so far as can be inferred from imperfect and obscure records, a monarch bearing the name of Victoria once before held sway in Britain. During the general weakness of the Roman Empire in the second half of the third century, several of the provinces detached themselves from the central authority, and for a while established separate governments. Spain, Gaul, and Britain formed a western realm of immense extent, the capital of which was at Trèves, on the Moselle, then a city of Gallia Belgica; and the sovereignty of this varied region passed in time to an ambitious and energetic woman named Victoria. She is mentioned in the great work of Gibbon; yet little is known of her acts or character. It is probable that she was a resolute and capable despot; but she appears in history as a name, and little else.

For the brief remainder of his life, the Duke of Kent dwelt principally at Claremont, which, but a short time before, had been the residence of the Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold, and which was rendered sadly memorable by the death of the former. But the unusually severe winter of 1819-20 induced the Duke and Duchess to visit Sidmouth, for the sake of the mild climate of Southern Devonshire. At Salisbury Cathedral, to which he made an excursion during the frosty weather, the Duke caught a slight cold, which, after his return to Sidmouth, became serious, owing, it would seem, to neglect and imprudence. According to the medical custom of those days, the patient was copiously bled, and not improbably owed his death to the exhaustion thus occasioned. He expired on the 23rd of January, 1820, in his fifty-third year; and so small were his means that he left the Duchess and the Princess totally devoid of maintenance. Such was the statement made long afterwards by Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, who was with his sister during the days of her trial and bereavement. Soon after the fatal event, the Prince accompanied the widowed lady to London, where addresses of condolence were voted by both Houses of Parliament. The address of the Commons was presented by Lords Morpeth and Clive, when the Duchess of Kent

CLAREMONT.

appeared with the infant Princess in her arms. The scene was one of the chambers in Kensington Palace; and that historic building can scarcely have witnessed a more affecting interview.

The edifice in which Queen Victoria passed most of her early years, and which yet attracts the interest both of Englishmen and Americans, dates, as a palace, from the time of William III., though, at a rather earlier period, the Finches, Earls of Nottingham, had a mansion on the same spot, of which a small portion is believed to be still existent. The second Earl of Nottingham sold the house and grounds to the illustrious Dutchman who came to rescue us from the Pope and the Stuarts; and his Majesty caused additions to be made to the building by the greatest English architect of that time—Sir Christopher Wren. Successive

DEATH OF THE DUKE OF KENT: PRESENTING THE COMMONS’ ADDRESS OF CONDOLENCE TO THE DUCHESS AT KENSINGTON PALACE. (See p. 8.)

sovereigns, down to George II., still further enlarged the domicile and the grounds; and, for sixty years of the eighteenth century, Kensington Palace was the most brilliant and courtly place in London. All the nobles, statesmen, wits, and beauties of the age assembled in its saloons, or paraded in its gardens. Many are the anecdotes (scandalous and otherwise) connected with this royal home; but there are pleasanter associations too. Tickell, one of the minor literati of the period which we associate with Queen Anne, though it extended into the reigns of George I. and his successor, wrote a pretty fairy tale, in verse, in connection with Kensington Gardens; and Pope may have studied in that courtly enclosure the belles and fops of his “Rape of the Lock.” In the Palace itself, Death was a frequent visitor, as he must be in houses which survive several generations. William III. and Queen Mary, Queen Anne, Prince George of Denmark, and King George II., all died within its walls; and then came an eclipse. The sedate and formal residence, with its stately gardens, fell out of favour with George III., though it is not easy to say why, since his own character inclined him to the formal and sedate. All the glancing lights of wit and beauty faded from its rooms; and, by the earlier years of the present century, the Palace had acquired the sombre and somewhat depressing character inseparable from all old buildings which have seen better days, and from which the laughter and the life of earlier times have passed away.

Such were the surroundings amongst which the Princess Victoria was brought up. They were far from inspiriting; yet they may have helped to form the character of the future Queen, and to give to it an element of gravity, not unbecoming the sovereign of countless myriads. The walls of the apartments were adorned with pictures belonging chiefly to the Byzantine and early German schools; and these probably did much in creating a taste for art. The training of the young Princess was conducted by her mother—a task for which she was admirably qualified. When the Prince of Leiningen died, in 1814, his widow, afterwards the Duchess of Kent, was left the guardian of her young sons, and the ruler of their territory until they came of age. These duties she had performed in a manner the most exemplary; and she afterwards showed equal good sense in the education of the Princess Victoria. The child was taught from her earliest years to rely on exercise and temperance as the best promoters of health; to devote a reasonable amount of time to riding and sailing; to be economical, yet charitable; and, while observing a courteous demeanour towards her inferiors, to keep aloof from the evil influence of parasites. In early years, it was rather the moral than the mental nature of the Princess that was cultivated. The Dowager-Duchess of Coburg wisely wrote to her daughter, in 1823, that it would be better not to force book-knowledge too soon on one so young; and this advice appears to have been followed.

As her Royal Highness grew up, however, she was well grounded in languages, music, and such branches of science as were then thought suitable to ladies. Her general education was afterwards entrusted to the Duchess of Northumberland, wife of the third Duke; and the Princess speedily developed many charming qualities. Living for the most part in retirement, she was but little known to the outer world; but her affability made an excellent impression on all with whom she came in contact. Her character was to some extent influenced by the great philanthropist, William Wilberforce, whom she saw very frequently. Several pleasing anecdotes are related of her charity and kindness; and it is said that in her visits to Ramsgate she was a great favourite with the bathing-women and other characteristic frequenters of the sands. When, a little later in life, it became nearly certain that she would succeed to the throne, owing to the childlessness of her father’s elder brothers, the Princess emerged more into public view, and took her rides and walks in places where she could be generally seen. It is said that, for some years, George IV. treated his sister-in-law and her infant with marked coldness; but the Duke and Duchess of Clarence—whose own disappointments, in the failure of offspring, might have furnished some slight excuse for neglect—showed much kindness to the Duchess of Kent and the Princess Victoria. This cordial sentiment continued after the accession of William IV., and the Queen never forgot, in later days, the respect and affection which she owed to Adelaide.

The early years of the Princess were passed under healthful conditions, and resulted in the formation of a strong constitution. Nevertheless, the public were disquieted by rumours to the effect that the daughter of the Duke of Kent would never attain her majority, or that, at any rate, if she lived to marry, she would never become the mother of a family. In proportion as these statements were believed, fears arose that the succession would pass to the Duke of Cumberland—a prince very generally disliked for his arrogance, and for faults and vices which may perhaps have been exaggerated by popular hatred. The connection between the kingdoms of Great Britain and Hanover—which would have been perpetuated by the succession of any one of the Princes, but which the existence of the Salic Law in the latter State rendered incompatible with the accession of a female sovereign in England—was another contingency which the people of this country regarded with the utmost distaste. For these reasons, the false reports concerning the Princess’s health created no little agitation. But it soon came to the public knowledge that the unwelcome tidings were wholly false; and it was evident, from her frequent appearances in the streets and parks, that the heiress-apparent to the British throne was not likely to die prematurely.

The studies of the Princess were pursued with a fair amount of diligence, though her Royal Highness would occasionally show her independence by refusing to be too closely bound by rules. On one occasion, she objected to that dull, mechanical practising of notes which the young learner of the pianoforte has perforce to undergo. She was told that this was necessary before she could become mistress of the instrument. “What would you think of me,” she asked, “if I became mistress at once?” She was told that that would be impossible; there was no royal road to music. “Oh, there is no royal road to music, eh?” repeated the Princess. “No royal road? And I am not mistress of my pianoforte? But I will be, I assure you; and the royal road is this”—whereupon she closed the piano, locked it, and took out the key. “There!” she continued, “that’s being mistress of the piano. And the royal road to learning is never to take a lesson till you’re in the humour to do it.” This, however, was spoken

QUEEN CAROLINE’S DRAWING-ROOM, KENSINGTON PALACE.

more out of a sense of fun than from any spirit of opposition; for, immediately afterwards, her Royal Highness resumed the interrupted lesson.

The readiness to admit a fault was amusingly shown by a little incident which occurred during a visit to the seat of Earl Fitzwilliam. The royal party were walking in the grounds, when the Princess ran on in advance. One of the under-gardeners pointed out that, owing to recent heavy rains, a certain walk was very slippery, or, as he expressed it, using a local term, “very slape.” “Slape! slape!” exclaimed the Princess, in the style of quick reiteration which characterised the utterance of her grandfather, George III.; “and pray what is ‘slape’?” The requisite explanation was given; but the little lady proceeded down the path, despite all warning, and speedily fell to the ground. Seeing what had happened, Earl Fitzwilliam called out, “Now your Royal Highness has an explanation of the term ‘slape,’ both theoretically and practically.” “Yes, my lord,” she replied, “I think I have. I shall never forget the word ‘slape.’” Another time, she persisted in playing with a dog against which she had been cautioned. The animal made a snap at her hand; and when her cautioner expressed his fears that she had been bitten, she replied, “Oh, thank you! thank you! You’re right, and I am wrong; but he didn’t bite me—he only warned me. I shall be careful in future.”4

An additional grant of £6,000 a year was made to the Duchess of Kent in the

QUEEN ADELAIDE.

early summer of 1825, in order that the Princess Victoria, then six years of age, might be enabled to live more in accordance with her rank and prospects. After this period, the King (George IV.) behaved with greater kindness to his sister-in-law and niece. The latter, however, was not seen much at court during the remainder of that monarch’s reign; indeed, her time was mainly occupied by the work of education. It was in 1830—shortly after the death of George IV.—that the Duchess of Northumberland was appointed, at the suggestion of the new King, to the office of governess to the Princess; and under her judicious care considerable progress was soon made. The accession of William IV. to the throne, on the 26th of June, 1830, placed the Princess Victoria in direct succession to the British Crown, as the Duke of York had died on the 5th of January, 1827. It was therefore thought advisable to make provision for the various contingencies of the future; and accordingly, towards the close of the year, a Regency Bill was introduced into Parliament, which provided that Queen Adelaide, in the event of her giving birth to a posthumous child, should be the guardian of such child during its minority, and also Regent of the kingdom. If that event did not occur, the Duchess of Kent was to be Regent during the minority of her daughter, the Princess Victoria, who was not to marry, while a minor, without the consent of the King, or, if he died, without the consent of both Houses of Parliament.

During these early years, Prince Leopold, brother of the Duchess of Kent, had acted the part of a father to the young Princess; but he was now removed to a different scene and other duties. A revolution broke out at Brussels on the 25th of August, 1830, with the ultimate result that Belgium was separated from the Kingdom of the Netherlands, of which, since 1814, it had formed a part. On the 12th of July, 1831, Leopold was elected King of the new nationality, and a week later entered the capital. He had shortly before been designated by the Great Powers to the sovereignty of Greece, which had just achieved its independence of Turkey; but he declined that perilous and doubtful honour. As the liberal and enlightened ruler of the Belgians, however, he acquired great and deserved distinction until his death on the 10th of December, 1865. The assumption of regal powers on the Continent removed Leopold from constant association with his niece; but the nearness of Brussels enabled him to make frequent visits to England, and in after years the Queen often consulted him on difficult matters of State policy. His decease was in many respects a serious affliction to the sovereign of this realm.

Under the general direction of the Duchess of Northumberland, the instruction of the Princess was conducted by various gentlemen of high repute in their several attainments. She made considerable progress in Latin; from Mr. Amos she received the elements of Constitutional Government as it exists in England; and Westall, the painter, taught her the lighter graces of drawing. Music was now studied with assiduity, and the future Queen revealed at an early age that passion for a noble art which has distinguished her to the present day. Shortly after the accession of William IV., the health of the Princess underwent some decline, due in part to the distracting gaieties to which she had been introduced since the change of reign. This failure of health appears to have been the reason why her Royal Highness and the Duchess of Kent were absent from the coronation of King William, on the 8th of September, 1831, though the circumstance gave occasion at the time to many sinister remarks, as if the favour of the new monarch had been suddenly withdrawn from his niece. Such, however, was not the case. The Princess was treated with the consideration befitting her rank; and, on the 24th of May, 1831, when she completed her twelfth year, Queen Adelaide gave a juvenile ball in her honour, the magnificence of which made a deep impression on the mind of the principal guest. It is evident, therefore, that the King and Queen retained their old affection for the Princess; but the Duchess of Northumberland saw that so much excitement was having a prejudicial effect on the health of her pupil, and she accordingly advised absence from court, and from the fatigue and turmoil of a coronation ceremony. Only a month before, the King had recommended to Parliament an increased allowance for the Princess; in consequence of which, an additional income of £10,000 a year, for her Royal Highness’s maintenance and education, was granted by the national representatives. The Princess, however, was still much sequestered; and it may be that the Court of William IV., though better than that of his brother, was not well suited to a young girl whose mother considered her purity more than anything else.

It was about this period that Southey, the poet, historian, and critic, being one morning at Kensington Palace, was admitted to an interview with the Princess, who expressed to him the great pleasure she had derived both from his poetry and his prose, especially from the “Life of Nelson,” which she declared she had read half a dozen times over. At the time of the coronation, the Duchess of Kent and her daughter were staying in the Isle of Wight, from which they afterwards proceeded to Worthing and Malvern. The Princess was a great admirer of ecclesiastical architecture and music, and she frequently visited such cathedral cities as Worcester, Hereford, and Chester. She was also entertained by the principal members of the nobility at their country seats, and thus acquired a knowledge of the semi-feudal state which still distinguishes the lives of our aristocracy. A very extensive home-tour was made in 1832, when, amongst other interesting events, the royal party visited the cotton-mills of the Messrs. Strutt at Belper, in Derbyshire. By means of a model, Mr. James Strutt explained to the Princess the various processes of cotton-spinning, and a great impression was produced by this exposition of a most important manufacture. It was a very felicitous thought to take her Royal Highness to one of those great seats of industry to which England owes so much, and to show her how varied, complicated, and far-reaching were the interests over which, in the maturity of time, she was to bear sway. From this visit, in all probability, may be dated the Queen’s intelligent appreciation of the commercial and manufacturing greatness of her Empire, which brings unparalleled wealth into the land, circulates wages amongst innumerable labourers, and furnishes a counterpoise to the preponderance of hereditary power. In 1856, the Queen conferred the dignity of a peerage, with the title of Baron Belper, on the son of Mr. James Strutt, who had conducted her over the factory four-and-twenty years earlier.

Before the conclusion of the royal tour, the Princess and her mother visited Oxford, where they were presented with an address in the Sheldonian Theatre by the Vice-Chancellor. In her reply, the Duchess of Kent said:—“We close a most interesting journey by a visit to this University, that the Princess may see, as far as her years will allow, all that is interesting in it. The history of our country has taught her to know its importance by the many distinguished persons who, by their character and talents, have been raised to eminence by the education they have received in it. Your loyalty to the King, and recollection of the favour you have enjoyed under the paternal sway of his house, could not fail, I was sure, to lead you to receive his niece with all the disposition you evince to make this visit agreeable and instructive to her. It is my object to ensure, by all means in my power, her being so educated as to meet the just expectation of all classes in this great and free country.”

THE DUKE OF KENT.

Their Royal Highnesses returned to Kensington on the 9th of November, 1832, and in the following year confined themselves to the south coast of England. The most memorable circumstance of this trip was one of those ceremonials in which the Queen has since so often taken part. While the Duchess of Kent and her daughter were residing at East Cowes, in the Isle of Wight, they attended the opening of the new landing-pier at Southampton, then beginning to acquire importance as a great southern port. In Southampton

THE QUEEN’S FIRST COUNCIL. (After the Painting by Sir David Wilkie). (See p. 19.)

Water, the Royal yacht, which had been towed from Cowes by a steamer, was met by a deputation from the corporation of the town, the members of which were stationed on board an eight-oared barge, with one of the town-sergeants bearing a silver oar. To the address of this deputation, the Duchess of Kent replied that she wished her daughter to become attached, at an early age, to works of utility—an attachment which, in later life, her Majesty has exhibited on many interesting occasions. The distinguished visitors were then rowed ashore, and entertained at luncheon; after which, the Duchess of Kent signified her pleasure that the new pier should be called the Royal Pier.

In July, 1834, the Princess Victoria was confirmed by the Archbishop of Canterbury (Dr. Howley) in the Chapel Royal, St. James’s. The remainder of the year was distinguished by no very remarkable events; but a little incident occurring at Tunbridge Wells gives a pleasing idea of the young Princess’s benevolence. The husband of an actress employed at the town theatre died under circumstances of poverty, leaving his wife on the eve of her confinement. Distressed at what she heard, the Princess obtained £10 from her mother, added an equal sum from her own resources, and personally carried the amount to the sufferer. After the accession of her Majesty to the throne, she conferred on the actress an annuity of £40 for the remainder of her life. The years 1835 and 1836 passed very quietly; but 1837 was destined to be a date of great importance. On the 24th of May, the Princess completed her eighteenth year, and was declared legally of age, according to the provisions of the Act of Parliament to which reference has before been made. The day was kept as a general holiday: Kensington was especially festive, and a serenade to the Princess was performed under the Palace windows at seven o’clock in the evening. Among the numerous birthday presents was a magnificent pianoforte from the King. Within a month from that time, William IV. had breathed his last.

COWES HARBOUR.