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Queen Victoria

by Lytton Strachey · English · Gutenberg #1265 · 541,260 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Queen Victoria

Author: Lytton Strachey


        
Release date: February 19, 2006 [eBook #1265]
                Most recently updated: May 4, 2025

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK QUEEN VICTORIA ***

QUEEN VICTORIA

By Lytton Strachey



New York Harcourt, Brace And Company, 1921



CONTENTS

     I.    ANTECEDENTS
     II.   CHILDHOOD
     III.  LORD MELBOURNE
     IV.   MARRIAGE
     V.    LORD PALMERSTON
     VI.   LAST YEARS OF THE PRINCE CONSORT
     VII.  WIDOWHOOD
     VIII. MR. GLADSTONE AND LORD BEACONSFIELD
     IX.   OLD AGE
     X.    THE END
     BIBLIOGRAPHY




QUEEN VICTORIA




CHAPTER I. ANTECEDENTS

I

On November 6, 1817, died the Princess Charlotte, only child of the
Prince Regent, and heir to the crown of England. Her short life had
hardly been a happy one. By nature impulsive, capricious, and vehement,
she had always longed for liberty; and she had never possessed it.
She had been brought up among violent family quarrels, had been early
separated from her disreputable and eccentric mother, and handed over to
the care of her disreputable and selfish father. When she was seventeen,
he decided to marry her off to the Prince of Orange; she, at first,
acquiesced; but, suddenly falling in love with Prince Augustus of
Prussia, she determined to break off the engagement. This was not her
first love affair, for she had previously carried on a clandestine
correspondence with a Captain Hess. Prince Augustus was already married,
morganatically, but she did not know it, and he did not tell her. While
she was spinning out the negotiations with the Prince of Orange, the
allied sovereign--it was June, 1814--arrived in London to celebrate
their victory. Among them, in the suite of the Emperor of Russia, was
the young and handsome Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. He made several
attempts to attract the notice of the Princess, but she, with her heart
elsewhere, paid very little attention. Next month the Prince Regent,
discovering that his daughter was having secret meetings with Prince
Augustus, suddenly appeared upon the scene and, after dismissing her
household, sentenced her to a strict seclusion in Windsor Park. "God
Almighty grant me patience!" she exclaimed, falling on her knees in an
agony of agitation: then she jumped up, ran down the backstairs and out
into the street, hailed a passing cab, and drove to her mother's house
in Bayswater. She was discovered, pursued, and at length, yielding
to the persuasions of her uncles, the Dukes of York and Sussex, of
Brougham, and of the Bishop of Salisbury, she returned to Carlton House
at two o'clock in the morning. She was immured at Windsor, but no more
was heard of the Prince of Orange. Prince Augustus, too, disappeared.
The way was at last open to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg.

This Prince was clever enough to get round the Regent, to impress the
Ministers, and to make friends with another of the Princess's uncles,
the Duke of Kent. Through the Duke he was able to communicate privately
with the Princess, who now declared that he was necessary to
her happiness. When, after Waterloo, he was in Paris, the Duke's
aide-de-camp carried letters backwards and forwards across the Channel.
In January 1816 he was invited to England, and in May the marriage took
place.

The character of Prince Leopold contrasted strangely with that of
his wife. The younger son of a German princeling, he was at this time
twenty-six years of age; he had served with distinction in the war
against Napoleon; he had shown considerable diplomatic skill at the
Congress of Vienna; and he was now to try his hand at the task of taming
a tumultuous Princess. Cold and formal in manner, collected in speech,
careful in action, he soon dominated the wild, impetuous, generous
creature by his side. There was much in her, he found, of which he could
not approve. She quizzed, she stamped, she roared with laughter; she
had very little of that self-command which is especially required of
princes; her manners were abominable. Of the latter he was a good judge,
having moved, as he himself explained to his niece many years later, in
the best society of Europe, being in fact "what is called in French de
la fleur des pois." There was continual friction, but every scene
ended in the same way. Standing before him like a rebellious boy in
petticoats, her body pushed forward, her hands behind her back, with
flaming cheeks and sparkling eyes, she would declare at last that she
was ready to do whatever he wanted. "If you wish it, I will do it," she
would say. "I want nothing for myself," he invariably answered; "When
I press something on you, it is from a conviction that it is for your
interest and for your good."

Among the members of the household at Claremont, near Esher, where the
royal pair were established, was a young German physician, Christian
Friedrich Stockmar. He was the son of a minor magistrate in Coburg, and,
after taking part as a medical officer in the war, he had settled down
as a doctor in his native town. Here he had met Prince Leopold, who had
been struck by his ability, and, on his marriage, brought him to England
as his personal physician. A curious fate awaited this young man;
many were the gifts which the future held in store for him--many and
various--influence, power, mystery, unhappiness, a broken heart. At
Claremont his position was a very humble one; but the Princess took
a fancy to him, called him "Stocky," and romped with him along the
corridors. Dyspeptic by constitution, melancholic by temperament, he
could yet be lively on occasion, and was known as a wit in Coburg. He
was virtuous, too, and served the royal menage with approbation. "My
master," he wrote in his diary, "is the best of all husbands in all the
five quarters of the globe; and his wife bears him an amount of love,
the greatness of which can only be compared with the English national
debt." Before long he gave proof of another quality--a quality which was
to colour the whole of his life-cautious sagacity. When, in the spring
of 1817, it was known that the Princess was expecting a child, the post
of one of her physicians-in-ordinary was offered to him, and he had
the good sense to refuse it. He perceived that his colleagues would be
jealous of him, that his advice would probably not be taken, but that,
if anything were to go wrong, it would be certainly the foreign doctor
who would be blamed. Very soon, indeed, he came to the opinion that the
low diet and constant bleedings, to which the unfortunate Princess was
subjected, were an error; he drew the Prince aside, and begged him to
communicate this opinion to the English doctors; but it was useless. The
fashionable lowering treatment was continued for months. On November 5,
at nine o'clock in the evening, after a labour of over fifty hours, the
Princess was delivered of a dead boy. At midnight her exhausted strength
gave way. When, at last, Stockmar consented to see her; he went in, and
found her obviously dying, while the doctors were plying her with wine.
She seized his hand and pressed it. "They have made me tipsy," she said.
After a little he left her, and was already in the next room when he
heard her call out in her loud voice: "Stocky! Stocky!" As he ran back
the death-rattle was in her throat. She tossed herself violently from
side to side; then suddenly drew up her legs, and it was over.

The Prince, after hours of watching, had left the room for a few
moments' rest; and Stockmar had now to tell him that his wife was dead.
At first he could not be made to realise what had happened. On their way
to her room he sank down on a chair while Stockmar knelt beside him: it
was all a dream; it was impossible. At last, by the bed, he, too, knelt
down and kissed the cold hands. Then rising and exclaiming, "Now I am
quite desolate. Promise me never to leave me," he threw himself into
Stockmar's arms.

II

The tragedy at Claremont was of a most upsetting kind. The royal
kaleidoscope had suddenly shifted, and nobody could tell how the new
pattern would arrange itself. The succession to the throne, which had
seemed so satisfactorily settled, now became a matter of urgent doubt.

George III was still living, an aged lunatic, at Windsor, completely
impervious to the impressions of the outer world. Of his seven sons, the
youngest was of more than middle age, and none had legitimate offspring.
The outlook, therefore, was ambiguous. It seemed highly improbable that
the Prince Regent, who had lately been obliged to abandon his stays, and
presented a preposterous figure of debauched obesity, could ever again,
even on the supposition that he divorced his wife and re-married, become
the father of a family. Besides the Duke of Kent, who must be noticed
separately, the other brothers, in order of seniority, were the Dukes of
York, Clarence, Cumberland, Sussex, and Cambridge; their situations and
prospects require a brief description. The Duke of York, whose escapades
in times past with Mrs. Clarke and the army had brought him into
trouble, now divided his life between London and a large, extravagantly
ordered and extremely uncomfortable country house where he occupied
himself with racing, whist, and improper stories. He was remarkable
among the princes for one reason: he was the only one of them--so we
are informed by a highly competent observer--who had the feelings of a
gentleman. He had been long married to the Princess Royal of Prussia,
a lady who rarely went to bed and was perpetually surrounded by vast
numbers of dogs, parrots, and monkeys. They had no children. The Duke
of Clarence had lived for many years in complete obscurity with Mrs.
Jordan, the actress, in Bushey Park. By her he had had a large family
of sons and daughters, and had appeared, in effect to be married to her,
when he suddenly separated from her and offered to marry Miss Wykeham, a
crazy woman of large fortune, who, however, would have nothing to say to
him. Shortly afterwards Mrs. Jordan died in distressed circumstances
in Paris. The Duke of Cumberland was probably the most unpopular man in
England. Hideously ugly, with a distorted eye, he was bad-tempered
and vindictive in private, a violent reactionary in politics, and was
subsequently suspected of murdering his valet and of having carried
on an amorous intrigue of an extremely scandalous kind. He had lately
married a German Princess, but there were as yet no children by the
marriage. The Duke of Sussex had mildly literary tastes and collected
books. He had married Lady Augusta Murray, by whom he had two children,
but the marriage, under the Royal Marriages Act, was declared void. On
Lady Augusta's death, he married Lady Cecilia Buggin; she changed her
name to Underwood, but this marriage also was void. Of the Duke of
Cambridge, the youngest of the brothers, not very much was known. He
lived in Hanover, wore a blonde wig, chattered and fidgeted a great
deal, and was unmarried.

Besides his seven sons, George III had five surviving daughters. Of
these, two--the Queen of Wurtemberg and the Duchess of Gloucester--were
married and childless. The three unmarried princesses--Augusta,
Elizabeth, and Sophia--were all over forty.

III

The fourth son of George III was Edward, Duke of Kent. He was now fifty
years of age--a tall, stout, vigorous man, highly-coloured, with bushy
eyebrows, a bald top to his head, and what hair he had carefully dyed a
glossy black. His dress was extremely neat, and in his whole appearance
there was a rigidity which did not belie his character. He had spent
his early life in the army--at Gibraltar, in Canada, in the West
Indies--and, under the influence of military training, had become at
first a disciplinarian and at last a martinet. In 1802, having been sent
to Gibraltar to restore order in a mutinous garrison, he was recalled
for undue severity, and his active career had come to an end. Since then
he had spent his life regulating his domestic arrangements with great
exactitude, busying himself with the affairs of his numerous dependents,
designing clocks, and struggling to restore order to his finances, for,
in spite of his being, as someone said who knew him well "regle comme du
papier a musique," and in spite of an income of L24,000 a year, he
was hopelessly in debt. He had quarrelled with most of his brothers,
particularly with the Prince Regent, and it was only natural that he
should have joined the political Opposition and become a pillar of the
Whigs.

What his political opinions may actually have been is open to doubt; it
has often been asserted that he was a Liberal, or even a Radical; and,
if we are to believe Robert Owen, he was a necessitarian Socialist. His
relations with Owen--the shrewd, gullible, high-minded, wrong-headed,
illustrious and preposterous father of Socialism and Co-operation--were
curious and characteristic. He talked of visiting the Mills at New
Lanark, he did, in fact, preside at one of Owen's public meetings;
he corresponded with him on confidential terms, and he even (so Owen
assures us) returned, after his death, from "the sphere of spirits" to
give encouragement to the Owenites on earth. "In an especial manner,"
says Owen, "I have to name the very anxious feelings of the spirit of
his Royal Highness the Late Duke of Kent (who early informed me
that there were no titles in the spititual spheres into which he had
entered), to benefit, not a class, a sect, a party, or any particular
country, but the whole of the human race, through futurity." "His whole
spirit-proceeding with me has been most beautiful," Owen adds, "making
his own appointments; and never in one instance has this spirit not
been punctual to the minute he had named." But Owen was of a sanguine
temperament. He also numbered among his proselytes President Jefferson,
Prince Metternich, and Napoleon; so that some uncertainty must still
linger over the Duke of Kent's views. But there is no uncertainty about
another circumstance: his Royal Highness borrowed from Robert Owen, on
various occasions, various sums of money which were never repaid and
amounted in all to several hundred pounds.

After the death of the Princess Charlotte it was clearly important, for
more than one reason, that the Duke of Kent should marry. From the point
of view of the nation, the lack of heirs in the reigning family seemed
to make the step almost obligatory; it was also likely to be highly
expedient from the point of view of the Duke. To marry as a public
duty, for the sake of the royal succession, would surely deserve some
recognition from a grateful country. When the Duke of York had married
he had received a settlement of L25,000 a year. Why should not the Duke
of Kent look forward to an equal sum? But the situation was not quite
simple. There was the Duke of Clarence to be considered; he was the
elder brother, and, if HE married, would clearly have the prior claim.
On the other hand, if the Duke of Kent married, it was important
to remember that he would be making a serious sacrifice: a lady was
involved.

The Duke, reflecting upon all these matters with careful attention,
happened, about a month after his niece's death, to visit Brussels, and
learnt that Mr. Creevey was staying in the town. Mr. Creevey was a close
friend of the leading Whigs and an inveterate gossip; and it occurred
to the Duke that there could be no better channel through which to
communicate his views upon the situation to political circles at home.
Apparently it did not occur to him that Mr. Creevey was malicious and
might keep a diary. He therefore sent for him on some trivial pretext,
and a remarkable conversation ensued.

After referring to the death of the Princess, to the improbability of
the Regent's seeking a divorce, to the childlessness of the Duke of
York, and to the possibility of the Duke of Clarence marrying, the Duke
adverted to his own position. "Should the Duke of Clarence not marry,"
he said, "the next prince in succession is myself, and although I trust
I shall be at all times ready to obey any call my country may make upon
me, God only knows the sacrifice it will be to make, whenever I shall
think it my duty to become a married man. It is now seven and twenty
years that Madame St. Laurent and I have lived together: we are of
the same age, and have been in all climates, and in all difficulties
together, and you may well imagine, Mr. Creevey, the pang it will
occasion me to part with her. I put it to your own feelings--in the
event of any separation between you and Mrs. Creevey... As for Madame
St. Laurent herself, I protest I don't know what is to become of her if
a marriage is to be forced upon me; her feelings are already so agitated
upon the subject." The Duke went on to describe how, one morning, a day
or two after the Princess Charlotte's death, a paragraph had appeared in
the Morning Chronicle, alluding to the possibility of his marriage. He
had received the newspaper at breakfast together with his letters, and
"I did as is my constant practice, I threw the newspaper across the
table to Madame St. Laurent, and began to open and read my letters. I
had not done so but a very short time, when my attention was called to
an extraordinary noise and a strong convulsive movement in Madame St.
Laurent's throat. For a short time I entertained serious apprehensions
for her safety; and when, upon her recovery, I enquired into the
occasion of this attack, she pointed to the article in the Morning
Chronicle."

The Duke then returned to the subject of the Duke of Clarence. "My
brother the Duke of Clarence is the elder brother, and has certainly the
right to marry if he chooses, and I would not interfere with him on any
account. If he wishes to be king--to be married and have children, poor
man--God help him! Let him do so. For myself--I am a man of no ambition,
and wish only to remain as I am... Easter, you know, falls very early
this year--the 22nd of March. If the Duke of Clarence does not take any
step before that time, I must find some pretext to reconcile Madame St.
Laurent to my going to England for a short time. When once there, it
will be easy for me to consult with my friends as to the proper steps to
be taken. Should the Duke of Clarence do nothing before that time as to
marrying it will become my duty, no doubt, to take some measures upon
the subject myself." Two names, the Duke said, had been mentioned in
this connection--those of the Princess of Baden and the Princess of
Saxe-Coburg. The latter, he thought, would perhaps be the better of the
two, from the circumstance of Prince Leopold being so popular with the
nation; but before any other steps were taken, he hoped and expected to
see justice done to Madame St. Laurent. "She is," he explained, "of very
good family, and has never been an actress, and I am the first and only
person who ever lived with her. Her disinterestedness, too, has been
equal to her fidelity. When she first came to me it was upon L100 a
year. That sum was afterwards raised to L400 and finally to L1000; but
when my debts made it necessary for me to sacrifice a great part of my
income, Madame St. Laurent insisted upon again returning to her income
of L400 a year. If Madame St. Laurent is to return to live amongst her
friends, it must be in such a state of independence as to command their
respect. I shall not require very much, but a certain number of servants
and a carriage are essentials." As to his own settlement, the Duke
observed that he would expect the Duke of York's marriage to be
considered the precedent. "That," he said, "was a marriage for the
succession, and L25,000 for income was settled, in addition to all his
other income, purely on that account. I shall be contented with the same
arrangement, without making any demands grounded on the difference of
the value of money in 1792 and at present. As for the payment of my
debts," the Duke concluded, "I don't call them great. The nation, on
the contrary, is greatly my debtor." Here a clock struck, and seemed
to remind the Duke that he had an appointment; he rose, and Mr. Creevey
left him.

Who could keep such a communication secret? Certainly not Mr. Creevey.
He hurried off to tell the Duke of Wellington, who was very much amused,
and he wrote a long account of it to Lord Sefton, who received the
letter "very apropos," while a surgeon was sounding his bladder to
ascertain whether he had a stone. "I never saw a fellow more astonished
than he was," wrote Lord Sefton in his reply, "at seeing me laugh as
soon as the operation was over. Nothing could be more first-rate than
the royal Edward's ingenuousness. One does not know which to admire
most--the delicacy of his attachment to Madame St. Laurent, the
refinement of his sentiments towards the Duke of Clarence, or his own
perfect disinterestedness in pecuniary matters."

As it turned out, both the brothers decided to marry. The Duke of Kent,
selecting the Princess of Saxe-Coburg in preference to the Princess
of Baden, was united to her on May 29, 1818. On June 11, the Duke of
Clarence followed suit with a daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Meiningen.
But they were disappointed in their financial expectations; for though
the Government brought forward proposals to increase their allowances,
together with that of the Duke of Cumberland, the motions were defeated
in the House of Commons. At this the Duke of Wellington was not
surprised. "By God!" he said, "there is a great deal to be said
about that. They are the damnedest millstones about the necks of
any Government that can be imagined. They have insulted--PERSONALLY
insulted--two-thirds of the gentlemen of England, and how can it be
wondered at that they take their revenge upon them in the House of
Commons? It is their only opportunity, and I think, by God! they are
quite right to use it." Eventually, however, Parliament increased the
Duke of Kent's annuity by L6000. The subsequent history of Madame St.
Laurent has not transpired.

IV

The new Duchess of Kent, Victoria Mary Louisa, was a daughter of
Francis, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, and a sister of Prince Leopold.
The family was an ancient one, being a branch of the great House of
Wettin, which since the eleventh century had ruled over the March of
Meissen on the Elbe. In the fifteenth century the whole possessions of
the House had been divided between the Albertine and Ernestine branches:
from the former descended the electors and kings of Saxony; the latter,
ruling over Thuringia, became further subdivided into five branches,
of which the duchy of Saxe-Coburg was one. This principality was very
small, containing about 60,000 inhabitants, but it enjoyed independent
and sovereign rights. During the disturbed years which followed the
French Revolution, its affairs became terribly involved. The Duke was
extravagant, and kept open house for the swarms of refugees, who fled
eastward over Germany as the French power advanced. Among these was the
Prince of Leiningen, an elderly beau, whose domains on the Moselle
had been seized by the French, but who was granted in compensation
the territory of Amorbach in Lower Franconia. In 1803 he married the
Princess Victoria, at that time seventeen years of age. Three years
later Duke Francis died a ruined man. The Napoleonic harrow passed over
Saxe-Coburg. The duchy was seized by the French, and the ducal family
were reduced to beggary, almost to starvation. At the same time the
little principality of Amorbach was devastated by the French, Russian,
and Austrian armies, marching and counter-marching across it. For years
there was hardly a cow in the country, nor enough grass to feed a
flock of geese. Such was the desperate plight of the family which, a
generation later, was to have gained a foothold in half the reigning
Houses of Europe. The Napoleonic harrow had indeed done its work, the
seed was planted; and the crop would have surprised Napoleon. Prince
Leopold, thrown upon his own resources at fifteen, made a career for
himself and married the heiress of England. The Princess of Leiningen,
struggling at Amorbach with poverty, military requisitions, and a
futile husband, developed an independence of character and a tenacity of
purpose which were to prove useful in very different circumstances. In
1814, her husband died, leaving her with two children and the regency
of the principality. After her brother's marriage with the Princess
Charlotte, it was proposed that she should marry the Duke of Kent; but
she declined, on the ground that the guardianship of her children and
the management of her domains made other ties undesirable. The Princess
Charlotte's death, however, altered the case; and when the Duke of Kent
renewed his offer, she accepted it. She was thirty-two years old--short,
stout, with brown eyes and hair, and rosy cheeks, cheerful and voluble,
and gorgeously attired in rustling silks and bright velvets.

She was certainly fortunate in her contented disposition; for she was
fated, all through her life, to have much to put up with. Her second
marriage, with its dubious prospects, seemed at first to be chiefly a
source of difficulties and discomforts. The Duke, declaring that he was
still too poor to live in England, moved about with uneasy precision
through Belgium and Germany, attending parades and inspecting barracks
in a neat military cap, while the English notabilities looked askance,
and the Duke of Wellington dubbed him the Corporal. "God damme!" he
exclaimed to Mr. Creevey, "d'ye know what his sisters call him? By God!
they call him Joseph Surface!" At Valenciennes, where there was a
review and a great dinner, the Duchess arrived with an old and
ugly lady-in-waiting, and the Duke of Wellington found himself in a
difficulty. "Who the devil is to take out the maid of honour?" he kept
asking; but at last he thought of a solution. "Damme, Freemantle, find
out the mayor and let him do it." So the Mayor of Valenciennes was
brought up for the purpose, and--so we learn from Mr. Creevey--"a
capital figure he was." A few days later, at Brussels, Mr. Creevey
himself had an unfortunate experience. A military school was to be
inspected--before breakfast. The company assembled; everything was
highly satisfactory; but the Duke of Kent continued for so long
examining every detail and asking meticulous question after meticulous
question, that Mr. Creevey at last could bear it no longer, and
whispered to his neighbour that he was damned hungry. The Duke of
Wellington heard him, and was delighted. "I recommend you," he said,
"whenever you start with the royal family in a morning, and particularly
with THE CORPORAL, always to breakfast first." He and his staff, it
turned out, had taken that precaution, and the great man amused himself,
while the stream of royal inquiries poured on, by pointing at Mr.
Creevey from time to time with the remark, "Voila le monsieur qui n'a
pas dejeune!"

Settled down at last at Amorbach, the time hung heavily on the Duke's
hands. The establishment was small, the country was impoverished; even
clock-making grew tedious at last. He brooded--for in spite of his piety
the Duke was not without a vein of superstition--over the prophecy of
a gipsy at Gibraltar who told him that he was to have many losses and
crosses, that he was to die in happiness, and that his only child was
to be a great queen. Before long it became clear that a child was to be
expected: the Duke decided that it should be born in England. Funds were
lacking for the journey, but his determination was not to be set aside.
Come what might, he declared, his child must be English-born. A carriage
was hired, and the Duke himself mounted the box. Inside were the
Duchess, her daughter Feodora, a girl of fourteen, with maids, nurses,
lap-dogs, and canaries. Off they drove--through Germany, through
France: bad roads, cheap inns, were nothing to the rigorous Duke and the
equable, abundant Duchess. The Channel was crossed, London was reached
in safety. The authorities provided a set of rooms in Kensington Palace;
and there, on May 24, 1819, a female infant was born.



CHAPTER II. CHILDHOOD

I

The child who, in these not very impressive circumstances, appeared
in the world, received but scant attention. There was small reason to
foresee her destiny. The Duchess of Clarence, two months before,
had given birth to a daughter, this infant, indeed, had died almost
immediately; but it seemed highly probable that the Duchess would
again become a mother; and so it actually fell out. More than this,
the Duchess of Kent was young, and the Duke was strong; there was every
likelihood that before long a brother would follow, to snatch her faint
chance of the succession from the little princess.

Nevertheless, the Duke had other views: there were prophecies... At any
rate, he would christen the child Elizabeth, a name of happy augury. In
this, however, he reckoned without the Regent, who, seeing a chance
of annoying his brother, suddenly announced that he himself would be
present at the baptism, and signified at the same time that one of the
godfathers was to be the Emperor Alexander of Russia. And so when the
ceremony took place, and the Archbishop of Canterbury asked by what name
he was to baptise the child, the Regent replied "Alexandria." At
this the Duke ventured to suggest that another name might be added.
"Certainly," said the Regent; "Georgina?" "Or Elizabeth?" said the Duke.
There was a pause, during which the Archbishop, with the baby in his
lawn sleeves, looked with some uneasiness from one Prince to the other.
"Very well, then," said the Regent at last, "call her after her mother.
But Alexandrina must come first." Thus, to the disgust of her father,
the child was christened Alexandrina Victoria.

The Duke had other subjects of disgust. The meagre grant of the Commons
had by no means put an end to his financial distresses. It was to be
feared that his services were not appreciated by the nation. His debts
continued to grow. For many years he had lived upon L7000 a year;
but now his expenses were exactly doubled; he could make no further
reductions; as it was, there was not a single servant in his meagre
grant establishment who was idle for a moment from morning to night. He
poured out his griefs in a long letter to Robert Owen, whose sympathy
had the great merit of being practical. "I now candidly state," he
wrote, "that, after viewing the subject in every possible way, I am
satisfied that, to continue to live in England, even in the quiet way
in which we are going on, WITHOUT SPLENDOUR, and WITHOUT SHOW, NOTHING
SHORT OF DOUBLING THE SEVEN THOUSAND POUNDS WILL DO, REDUCTION BEING
IMPOSSIBLE." It was clear that he would be obliged to sell his house for
L51,300, if that failed, he would go and live on the Continent. "If my
services are useful to my country, it surely becomes THOSE WHO HAVE THE
POWER to support me in substantiating those just claims I have for the
very extensive losses and privations I have experienced, during the very
long period of my professional servitude in the Colonies; and if this
is not attainable, IT IS A CLEAR PROOF TO ME THAT THEY ARE THEY ARE NOT
APPRECIATED; and under that impression I shall not scruple, in DUE time,
to resume my retirement abroad, when the Duchess and myself shall have
fulfilled our duties in establishing the ENGLISH birth of my child, and
giving it material nutriment on the soil of Old England; and which we
shall certainly repeat, if Providence destines, to give us any further
increase of family."

In the meantime, he decided to spend the winter at Sidmouth, "in order,"
he told Owen, "that the Duchess may have the benefit of tepid
sea bathing, and our infant that of sea air, on the fine coast of
Devonshire, during the months of the year that are so odious in London."
In December the move was made. With the new year, the Duke remembered
another prophecy. In 1820, a fortune-teller had told him, two members
of the Royal Family would die. Who would they be? He speculated on
the various possibilities: The King, it was plain, could not live much
longer; and the Duchess of York had been attacked by a mortal disease.
Probably it would be the King and the Duchess of York; or perhaps the
King and the Duke of York; or the King and the Regent. He himself was
one of the healthiest men in England. "My brothers," he declared, "are
not so strong as I am; I have lived a regular life. I shall outlive them
all. The crown will come to me and my children." He went out for a
walk, and got his feet wet. On coming home, he neglected to change his
stockings. He caught cold, inflammation of the lungs set in, and on
January 22 he was a dying man. By a curious chance, young Dr. Stockmar
was staying in the house at the time; two years before, he had stood
by the death-bed of the Princess Charlotte; and now he was watching
the Duke of Kent in his agony. On Stockmar's advice, a will was hastily
prepared. The Duke's earthly possessions were of a negative character;
but it was important that the guardianship of the unwitting child,
whose fortunes were now so strangely changing, should be assured to
the Duchess. The Duke was just able to understand the document, and to
append his signature. Having inquired whether his writing was perfectly
clear, he became unconscious, and breathed his last on the following
morning! Six days later came the fulfilment of the second half of the
gipsy's prophecy. The long, unhappy, and inglorious life of George the
Third of England was ended.

II

Such was the confusion of affairs at Sidmouth, that the Duchess found
herself without the means of returning to London. Prince Leopold hurried
down, and himself conducted his sister and her family, by slow and
bitter stages, to Kensington. The widowed lady, in her voluminous
blacks, needed all her equanimity to support her. Her prospects were
more dubious than ever. She had L6000 a year of her own; but her
husband's debts loomed before her like a mountain. Soon she learnt that
the Duchess of Clarence was once more expecting a child. What had she to
look forward to in England? Why should she remain in a foreign country,
among strangers, whose language she could not speak, whose customs she
could not understand? Surely it would be best to return to Amorbach,
and there, among her own people, bring up her daughters in economical
obscurity. But she was an inveterate optimist; she had spent her life
in struggles, and would not be daunted now; and besides, she adored her
baby. "C'est mon bonheur, mes delices, mon existence," she declared;
the darling should be brought up as an English princess, whatever lot
awaited her. Prince Leopold came forward nobly with an offer of an
additional L3000 a year; and the Duchess remained at Kensington.

The child herself was extremely fat, and bore a remarkable resemblance
to her grandfather. "C'est l'image du feu Roi!" exclaimed the Duchess.
"C'est le Roi Georges en jupons," echoed the surrounding ladies, as the
little creature waddled with difficulty from one to the other.

Before long, the world began to be slightly interested in the nursery at
Kensington. When, early in 1821, the Duchess of Clarence's second child,
the Princess Elizabeth, died within three months of its birth, the
interest increased. Great forces and fierce antagonisms seemed to be
moving, obscurely, about the royal cradle. It was a time of faction
and anger, of violent repression and profound discontent. A powerful
movement, which had for long been checked by adverse circumstances, was
now spreading throughout the country. New passions, new desires, were
abroad; or rather old passions and old desires, reincarnated with a new
potency: love of freedom, hatred of injustice, hope for the future
of man. The mighty still sat proudly in their seats, dispensing their
ancient tyranny; but a storm was gathering out of the darkness, and
already there was lightning in the sky. But the vastest forces must
needs operate through frail human instruments; and it seemed for many
years as if the great cause of English liberalism hung upon the life of
the little girl at Kensington. She alone stood between the country and
her terrible uncle, the Duke of Cumberland, the hideous embodiment of
reaction. Inevitably, the Duchess of Kent threw in her lot with her
husband's party; Whig leaders, Radical agitators, rallied round her; she
was intimate with the bold Lord Durham, she was on friendly terms with
the redoubtable O'Connell himself. She received Wilberforce-though, to
be sure, she did not ask him to sit down. She declared in public that
she put her faith in "the liberties of the People." It was certain that
the young Princess would be brought up in the way that she should go;
yet there, close behind the throne, waiting, sinister, was the Duke of
Cumberland. Brougham, looking forward into the future in his scurrilous
fashion, hinted at dreadful possibilities. "I never prayed so heartily
for a Prince before," he wrote, on hearing that George IV had been
attacked by illness. "If he had gone, all the troubles of these villains
(the Tory Ministers) went with him, and they had Fred. I (the Duke of
York) their own man for his life. He (Fred. I) won't live long either;
that Prince of Blackguards, 'Brother William,' is as bad a life, so
we come in the course of nature to be ASSASSINATED by King Ernest I or
Regent Ernest (the Duke of Cumberland)." Such thoughts were not peculiar
to Brougham; in the seething state of public feeling, they constantly
leapt to the surface; and, even so late as the year previous to her
accession, the Radical newspapers were full of suggestions that the
Princess Victoria was in danger from the machinations of her wicked
uncle.

But no echo of these conflicts and forebodings reached the little
Drina--for so she was called in the family circle--as she played with
her dolls, or scampered down the passages, or rode on the donkey her
uncle York had given her along the avenues of Kensington Gardens
The fair-haired, blue-eyed child was idolised by her nurses, and her
mother's ladies, and her sister Feodora; and for a few years there was
danger, in spite of her mother's strictness, of her being spoilt. From
time to time, she would fly into a violent passion, stamp her little
foot, and set everyone at defiance; whatever they might say, she would
not learn her letters--no, she WOULD NOT; afterwards, she was very
sorry, and burst into tears; but her letters remained unlearnt. When
she was five years old, however, a change came, with the appearance
of Fraulein Lehzen. This lady, who was the daughter of a Hanoverian
clergyman, and had previously been the Princess Feodora's governess,
soon succeeded in instilling a new spirit into her charge. At first,
indeed, she was appalled by the little Princess's outbursts of temper;
never in her life, she declared, had she seen such a passionate
and naughty child. Then she observed something else; the child was
extraordinarily truthful; whatever punishment might follow, she never
told a lie. Firm, very firm, the new governess yet had the sense to see
that all the firmness in the world would be useless, unless she could
win her way into little Drina's heart. She did so, and there were no
more difficulties. Drina learnt her letters like an angel; and she
learnt other things as well. The Baroness de Spath taught her how
to make little board boxes and decorate them with tinsel and painted
flowers; her mother taught her religion. Sitting in the pew every Sunday
morning, the child of six was seen listening in rapt attention to the
clergyman's endless sermon, for she was to be examined upon it in
the afternoon. The Duchess was determined that her daughter, from the
earliest possible moment, should be prepared for her high station in a
way that would commend itself to the most respectable; her good,
plain, thrifty German mind recoiled with horror and amazement from the
shameless junketings at Carlton House; Drina should never be allowed to
forget for a moment the virtues of simplicity, regularity, propriety,
and devotion. The little girl, however, was really in small need of such
lessons, for she was naturally simple and orderly, she was pious without
difficulty, and her sense of propriety was keen. She understood very
well the niceties of her own position. When, a child of six, Lady Jane
Ellice was taken by her grandmother to Kensington Palace, she was put
to play with the Princess Victoria, who was the same age as herself. The
young visitor, ignorant of etiquette, began to make free with the toys
on the floor, in a way which was a little too familiar; but "You must
not touch those," she was quickly told, "they are mine; and I may
call you Jane, but you must not call me Victoria." The Princess's most
constant playmate was Victoire, the daughter of Sir John Conroy, the
Duchess's major-domo. The two girls were very fond of one another; they
would walk hand in hand together in Kensington Gardens. But little Drina
was perfectly aware for which of them it was that they were followed, at
a respectful distance, by a gigantic scarlet flunkey.

Warm-hearted, responsive, she loved her dear Lehzen, and she loved her
dear Feodora, and her dear Victoire, and her dear Madame de Spath.
And her dear Mamma, of course, she loved her too; it was her duty; and
yet--she could not tell why it was--she was always happier when she was
staying with her Uncle Leopold at Claremont. There old Mrs. Louis, who,
years ago, had waited on her Cousin Charlotte, petted her to her heart's
content; and her uncle himself was wonderfully kind to her, talking to
her seriously and gently, almost as if she were a grown-up person. She
and Feodora invariably wept when the too-short visit was over, and they
were obliged to return to the dutiful monotony, and the affectionate
supervision of Kensington. But sometimes when her mother had to stay at
home, she was allowed to go out driving all alone with her dear Feodora
and her dear Lehzen, and she could talk and look as she liked, and it
was very delightful.

The visits to Claremont were frequent enough; but one day, on a special
occasion, she paid one of a rarer and more exciting kind. When she was
seven years old, she and her mother and sister were asked by the King
to go down to Windsor. George IV, who had transferred his fraternal
ill-temper to his sister-in-law and her family, had at last grown tired
of sulking, and decided to be agreeable. The old rip, bewigged and
gouty, ornate and enormous, with his jewelled mistress by his side and
his flaunting court about him, received the tiny creature who was one
day to hold in those same halls a very different state. "Give me your
little paw," he said; and two ages touched. Next morning, driving in his
phaeton with the Duchess of Gloucester, he met the Duchess of Kent and
her child in the Park. "Pop her in," were his orders, which, to the
terror of the mother and the delight of the daughter, were immediately
obeyed. Off they dashed to Virginia Water, where there was a great
barge, full of lords and ladies fishing, and another barge with a band;
and the King ogled Feodora, and praised her manners, and then turned to
his own small niece. "What is your favourite tune? The band shall play
it." "God save the King, sir," was the instant answer. The Princess's
reply has been praised as an early example of a tact which was
afterwards famous. But she was a very truthful child, and perhaps it was
her genuine opinion.

III

In 1827 the Duke of York, who had found some consolation for the loss of
his wife in the sympathy of the Duchess of Rutland, died, leaving behind
him the unfinished immensity of Stafford House and L200,000 worth of
debts. Three years later George IV also disappeared, and the Duke of
Clarence reigned in his stead. The new Queen, it was now clear, would
in all probability never again be a mother; the Princess Victoria,
therefore, was recognised by Parliament as heir-presumptive; and the
Duchess of Kent, whose annuity had been doubled five years previously,
was now given an additional L10,000 for the maintenance of the Princess,
and was appointed regent, in case of the death of the King before the
majority of her daughter. At the same time a great convulsion took
place in the constitution of the State. The power of the Tories, who had
dominated England for more than forty years, suddenly began to crumble.
In the tremendous struggle that followed, it seemed for a moment as if
the tradition of generations might be snapped, as if the blind tenacity
of the reactionaries and the determined fury of their enemies could have
no other issue than revolution. But the forces of compromise triumphed:
the Reform Bill was passed. The centre of gravity in the constitution
was shifted towards the middle classes; the Whigs came into power; and
the complexion of the Government assumed a Liberal tinge. One of the
results of this new state of affairs was a change in the position of
the Duchess of Kent and her daughter. From being the protegees of an
opposition clique, they became assets of the official majority of the
nation. The Princess Victoria was henceforward the living symbol of the
victory of the middle classes.

The Duke of Cumberland, on the other hand, suffered a corresponding
eclipse: his claws had been pared by the Reform Act. He grew
insignificant and almost harmless, though his ugliness remained; he was
the wicked uncle still--but only of a story.

The Duchess's own liberalism was not very profound. She followed
naturally in the footsteps of her husband, repeating with conviction the
catchwords of her husband's clever friends and the generalisations
of her clever brother Leopold. She herself had no pretensions to
cleverness; she did not understand very much about the Poor Law and the
Slave Trade and Political Economy; but she hoped that she did her
duty; and she hoped--she ardently hoped--that the same might be said of
Victoria. Her educational conceptions were those of Dr. Arnold, whose
views were just then beginning to permeate society. Dr. Arnold's object
was, first and foremost, to make his pupils "in the highest and truest
sense of the words, Christian gentlemen," intellectual refinements might
follow. The Duchess felt convinced that it was her supreme duty in life
to make quite sure that her daughter should grow up into a Christian
queen. To this task she bent all her energies; and, as the child
developed, she flattered herself that her efforts were not unsuccessful.
When the Princess was eleven, she desired the Bishops of London and
Lincoln to submit her daughter to an examination, and report upon the
progress that had been made. "I feel the time to be now come," the
Duchess explained, in a letter obviously drawn up by her own hand, "that
what has been done should be put to some test, that if anything has been
done in error of judgment it may be corrected, and that the plan for the
future should be open to consideration and revision... I attend almost
always myself every lesson, or a part; and as the lady about the
Princess is a competent person, she 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. 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 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."
"The general bent of Her character," added the Duchess, "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." The Bishops attended at the Palace,
and the result of their examination was all that could be wished. "In
answering a great variety of questions proposed to her," they reported,
"the Princess displayed an accurate knowledge of the most important
features of Scripture History, and 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." They did not believe that
the Duchess's plan of education was susceptible of any improvement; and
the Archbishop of Canterbury, who was also consulted, came to the same
gratifying conclusion.

One important step, however, remained to be taken. So far, as the
Duchess explained to the Bishops, the Princess had been kept in
ignorance of the station that she was likely to fill. "She is aware of
its duties, 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 to be 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." In the
following year it was decided that she should be enlightened on
this point. The well--known scene followed: the history lesson, the
genealogical table of the Kings of England slipped beforehand by the
governess into the book, the Princess's surprise, her inquiries, her
final realisation of the facts. When the child at last understood, she
was silent for a moment, and then she spoke: "I will be good," she
said. The words were something more than a conventional protestation,
something more than the expression of a superimposed desire; they
were, in their limitation and their intensity, their egotism and their
humility, an instinctive summary of the dominating qualities of a life.
"I cried much on learning it," her Majesty noted long afterwards. No
doubt, while the others were present, even her dear Lehzen, the little
girl kept up her self-command; and then crept away somewhere to ease her
heart of an inward, unfamiliar agitation, with a handkerchief, out of
her mother's sight.

But her mother's sight was by no means an easy thing to escape. Morning
and evening, day and night, there was no relaxation of the maternal
vigilance. The child grew into the girl, the girl into the young woman;
but still she slept in her mother's bedroom; still she had no place
allowed her where she might sit or work by herself. An extraordinary
watchfulness surrounded her every step: up to the day of her accession,
she never went downstairs without someone beside her holding her hand.
Plainness and regularity ruled the household. The hours, the days, the
years passed slowly and methodically by. The dolls--the innumerable
dolls, each one so neatly dressed, each one with its name so
punctiliously entered in the catalogue--were laid aside, and a little
music and a little dancing took their place. Taglioni came, to give
grace and dignity to the figure, and Lablache, to train the piping
treble upon his own rich bass. The Dean of Chester, the official
preceptor, continued his endless instruction in Scripture history, while
the Duchess of Northumberland, the official governess, presided over
every lesson with becoming solemnity. Without doubt, the Princess's main
achievement during her school-days was linguistic. German was naturally
the first language with which she was familiar; but English and French
quickly followed; and she became virtually trilingual, though her
mastery of English grammar remained incomplete. At the same time, she
acquired a working knowledge of Italian and some smattering of Latin.
Nevertheless, she did not read very much. It was not an occupation that
she cared for; partly, perhaps, because the books that were given her
were all either sermons, which were very dull, or poetry, which was
incomprehensible. Novels were strictly forbidden. Lord Durham persuaded
her mother to get her some of Miss Martineau's tales, illustrating the
truths of Political Economy, and they delighted her; but it is to be
feared that it was the unaccustomed pleasure of the story that filled
her mind, and that she never really mastered the theory of exchanges or
the nature of rent.

It was her misfortune that the mental atmosphere which surrounded her
during these years of adolescence was almost entirely feminine. No
father, no brother, was there to break in upon the gentle monotony of
the daily round with impetuosity, with rudeness, with careless laughter
and wafts of freedom from the outside world. The Princess was never
called by a voice that was loud and growling; never felt, as a matter
of course, a hard rough cheek on her own soft one; never climbed a wall
with a boy. The visits to Claremont--delicious little escapes into male
society--came to an end when she was eleven years old and Prince Leopold
left England to be King of the Belgians. She loved him still; he was
still "il mio secondo padre or, rather, solo padre, for he is indeed
like my real father, as I have none;" but his fatherliness now came to
her dimly and indirectly, through the cold channel of correspondence.
Henceforward female duty, female elegance, female enthusiasm, hemmed
her completely in; and her spirit, amid the enclosing folds, was hardly
reached by those two great influences, without which no growing life can
truly prosper--humour and imagination. The Baroness Lehzen--for she had
been raised to that rank in the Hanoverian nobility by George IV before
he died--was the real centre of the Princess's world. When Feodora
married, when Uncle Leopold went to Belgium, the Baroness was left
without a competitor. The Princess gave her mother her dutiful regards;
but Lehzen had her heart. The voluble, shrewd daughter of the pastor
in Hanover, lavishing her devotion on her royal charge, had reaped her
reward in an unbounded confidence and a passionate adoration. The girl
would have gone through fire for her "PRECIOUS Lehzen," the "best and
truest friend," she declared, that she had had since her birth. Her
journal, begun when she was thirteen, where she registered day by day
the small succession of her doings and her sentiments, bears on every
page of it the traces of the Baroness and her circumambient influence.
The young creature that one sees there, self-depicted in ingenuous
clarity, with her sincerity, her simplicity, her quick affections and
pious resolutions, might almost have been the daughter of a German
pastor herself. Her enjoyments, her admirations, her engouements were
of the kind that clothed themselves naturally in underlinings and
exclamation marks. "It was a DELIGHTFUL ride. We cantered a good deal.
SWEET LITTLE ROSY WENT BEAUTIFULLY!! We came home at a 1/4 past 1... At
20 minutes to 7 we went out to the Opera... Rubini came on and sang a
song out of 'Anna Boulena' QUITE BEAUTIFULLY. We came home at 1/2
past 11." In her comments on her readings, the mind of the Baroness is
clearly revealed. One day, by some mistake, she was allowed to take up
a volume of memoirs by Fanny Kemble. "It is certainly very pertly and
oddly written. One would imagine by the style that the authoress must be
very pert, and not 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 really is, 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.
I stayed up till 20 minutes past 9." Madame de Sevigne's letters, which
the Baroness read aloud, met with more approval. "How truly elegant and
natural her style is! It is so full of naivete, cleverness, and grace."
But her highest admiration was reserved for the Bishop of Chester's
'Exposition of the Gospel of St. Matthew.' "It 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. It is not one
of those learned books in which you have to cavil at almost every
paragraph. Lehzen gave it me on the Sunday that I took the Sacrament." A
few weeks previously she had been confirmed, and she described the event
as follows: "I felt that my confirmation was one of the most solemn and
important events and acts in my life; and that I trusted that it might
have a salutary effect on my mind. I felt deeply repentant for all what
I had done which was wrong and trusted in God Almighty to strengthen my
heart and mind; and to forsake all that is bad and follow all that is
virtuous and right. I went with the firm determination to become a true
Christian, to try and comfort my dear Mamma in all her griefs, trials,
and anxieties, and to become a dutiful and affectionate daughter to her.
Also to be obedient to DEAR Lehzen, who has done so much for me. I was
dressed in a white lace dress, with a white crepe bonnet with a wreath
of white roses round it. I went in the chariot with my dear Mamma and
the others followed in another carriage." One seems to hold in one's
hand a small smooth crystal pebble, without a flaw and without a
scintillation, and so transparent that one can see through it at a
glance.

Yet perhaps, after all, to the discerning eye, the purity would not be
absolute. The careful searcher might detect, in the virgin soil, the
first faint traces of an unexpected vein. In that conventual existence
visits were exciting events; and, as the Duchess had many relatives,
they were not infrequent; aunts and uncles would often appear from
Germany, and cousins too. When the Princess was fourteen she was
delighted by the arrival of a couple of boys from Wurtemberg, the
Princes Alexander and Ernst, sons of her mother's sister and the
reigning duke. "They are both EXTREMELY TALL," she noted, "Alexander
is VERY HANDSOME, and Ernst has a VERY KIND EXPRESSION. They are both
extremely AMIABLE." And their departure filled her with corresponding
regrets. "We saw them get into the barge, and watched them sailing away
for some time on the beach. They were so amiable and so pleasant to
have in the house; they were ALWAYS SATISFIED, ALWAYS GOOD-HUMOURED;
Alexander took such care of me in getting out of the boat, and rode next
to me; so did Ernst." Two years later, two other cousins arrived, the
Princes Ferdinand and Augustus. "Dear Ferdinand," the Princess wrote,
"has elicited universal admiration from all parties... He is so very
unaffected, and has such a very distinguished appearance and carriage.
They are both very dear and charming young men. Augustus is very
amiable, too, and, when known, shows much good sense." On another
occasion, "Dear Ferdinand came and sat near me and talked so dearly and
sensibly. I do SO love him. Dear Augustus sat near me and talked with
me, and he is also a dear good young man, and is very handsome." She
could not quite decide which was the handsomer of the two. "On the
whole," she concluded, "I think Ferdinand handsomer than Augustus, his
eyes are so beautiful, and he has such a lively clever expression; BOTH
have such a sweet expression; Ferdinand has something QUITE BEAUTIFUL in
his expression when he speaks and smiles, and he is SO good." However,
it was perhaps best to say that they were "both very handsome and VERY
DEAR." But shortly afterwards two more cousins arrived, who threw all
the rest into the shade. These were the Princes Ernest and Albert, sons
of her mother's eldest brother, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg. This time
the Princess was more particular in her observations. "Ernest," she
remarked, "is as tall as Ferdinand and Augustus; he has dark hair, and
fine dark eyes and eyebrows, but the nose and mouth are not good; he has
a most kind, honest, and intelligent expression in his countenance,
and has a very good figure. Albert, who is just as tall as Ernest but
stouter, is extremely handsome; his hair is about the same colour as
mine; his eyes are large and blue, and he has a beautiful nose and a
very sweet mouth with fine teeth; but the charm of his countenance
is his expression, which is most delightful; c'est a la fois full of
goodness and sweetness, and very clever and intelligent." "Both my
cousins," she added, "are so kind and good; they are much more formes
and men of the world than Augustus; they speak English very well, and I
speak it with them. Ernest will be 18 years old on the 21st of June, and
Albert 17 on the 26th of August. Dear Uncle Ernest made me the present
of a most delightful Lory, which is so tame that it remains on your
hand and you may put your finger into its beak, or do anything with
it, without its ever attempting to bite. It is larger than Mamma's grey
parrot." A little later, "I sat between my dear cousins on the sofa and
we looked at drawings. They both draw very well, particularly Albert,
and are both exceedingly fond of music; they play very nicely on the
piano. The more I see them the more I am delighted with them, and the
more I love them... It is delightful to be with them; they are so fond
of being occupied too; they are quite an example for any young person."
When, after a stay of three weeks, the time came for the young men
and their father to return to Germany, the moment of parting was a
melancholy one. "It was our last HAPPY HAPPY breakfast, with this dear
Uncle and those DEAREST beloved cousins, whom I DO love so VERY VERY
dearly; MUCH MORE DEARLY than any other cousins in the WORLD. Dearly as
I love Ferdinand, and also good Augustus, I love Ernest and Albert MORE
than them, oh yes, MUCH MORE... They have both learnt a good deal, and
are very clever, naturally clever, particularly Albert, who is the most
reflecting of the two, and they like very much talking about serious
and instructive things and yet are so VERY VERY merry and gay and happy,
like young people ought to be; Albert always used to have some fun and
some clever witty answer at breakfast and everywhere; he used to play
and fondle Dash so funnily too... Dearest Albert was playing on the
piano when I came down. At 11 dear Uncle, my DEAREST BELOVED cousins,
and Charles, left us, accompanied by Count Kolowrat. I embraced both my
dearest cousins most warmly, as also my dear Uncle. I cried bitterly,
very bitterly." The Princes shared her ecstasies and her italics
between them; but it is clear enough where her secret preference
lay. "Particularly Albert!" She was just seventeen; and deep was the
impression left upon that budding organism by the young man's charm
and goodness and accomplishments, and his large blue eyes and beautiful
nose, and his sweet mouth and fine teeth.

IV

King William could not away with his sister-in-law, and the Duchess
fully returned his antipathy. Without considerable tact and considerable
forbearance their relative positions were well calculated to cause
ill-feeling; and there was very little tact in the composition of the
Duchess, and no forbearance at all in that of his Majesty. A bursting,
bubbling old gentleman, with quarterdeck gestures, round rolling eyes,
and a head like a pineapple, his sudden elevation to the throne after
fifty-six years of utter insignificance had almost sent him crazy. His
natural exuberance completely got the best of him; he rushed about doing
preposterous things in an extraordinary manner, spreading amusement
and terror in every direction, and talking all the time. His tongue
was decidedly Hanoverian, with its repetitions, its catchwords--"That's
quite another thing! That's quite another thing!"--its rattling
indomitability, its loud indiscreetness. His speeches, made repeatedly
at the most inopportune junctures, and filled pell-mell with all the
fancies and furies that happened at the moment to be whisking about
in his head, were the consternation of Ministers. He was one part
blackguard, people said, and three parts buffoon; but those who knew
him better could not help liking him--he meant well; and he was really
good-humoured and kind-hearted, if you took him the right way. If you
took him the wrong way, however, you must look out for squalls, as the
Duchess of Kent discovered.

She had no notion of how to deal with him--could not understand him in
the least. Occupied with her own position, her own responsibilities, her
duty, and her daughter, she had no attention to spare for the peppery
susceptibilities of a foolish, disreputable old man. She was the mother
of the heiress of England; and it was for him to recognise the fact--to
put her at once upon a proper footing--to give her the precedence of a
dowager Princess of Wales, with a large annuity from the privy purse.
It did not occur to her that such pretensions might be galling to a king
who had no legitimate child of his own, and who yet had not altogether
abandoned the hope of having one. She pressed on, with bulky vigour,
along the course she had laid out. Sir John Conroy, an Irishman with
no judgment and a great deal of self-importance, was her intimate
counsellor, and egged her on. It was advisable that Victoria should
become acquainted with the various districts of England, and through
several summers a succession of tours--in the West, in the Midlands, in
Wales--were arranged for her. The intention of the plan was excellent,
but its execution was unfortunate. The journeys, advertised in
the Press, attracting enthusiastic crowds, and involving official
receptions, took on the air of royal progresses. Addresses were
presented by loyal citizens, the delighted Duchess, swelling in sweeping
feathers and almost obliterating the diminutive Princess, read aloud,
in her German accent, gracious replies prepared beforehand by Sir
John, who, bustling and ridiculous, seemed to be mingling the roles
of major-domo and Prime Minister. Naturally the King fumed over his
newspaper at Windsor. "That woman is a nuisance!" he exclaimed. Poor
Queen Adelaide, amiable though disappointed, did her best to smooth
things down, changed the subject, and wrote affectionate letters to
Victoria; but it was useless. News arrived that the Duchess of Kent,
sailing in the Solent, had insisted that whenever her yacht appeared it
should be received by royal salutes from all the men-of-war and all the
forts. The King declared that these continual poppings must cease; the
Premier and the First Lord of the Admiralty were consulted; and they
wrote privately to the Duchess, begging her to waive her rights. But
she would not hear of it; Sir John Conroy was adamant. "As her Royal
Highness's CONFIDENTIAL ADVISER," he said, "I cannot recommend her
to give way on this point." Eventually the King, in a great state of
excitement, issued a special Order in Council, prohibiting the firing
of royal salutes to any ships except those which carried the reigning
sovereign or his consort on board.

When King William quarrelled with his Whig Ministers the situation grew
still more embittered, for now the Duchess, in addition to her other
shortcomings, was the political partisan of his enemies. In 1836 he
made an attempt to prepare the ground for a match between the Princess
Victoria and one of the sons of the Prince of Orange, and at the same
time did his best to prevent the visit of the young Coburg princes to
Kensington. He failed in both these objects; and the only result of
his efforts was to raise the anger of the King of the Belgians, who,
forgetting for a moment his royal reserve, addressed an indignant letter
on the subject to his niece. "I am really ASTONISHED," he wrote, "at
the conduct of your old Uncle the King; this invitation of the Prince
of Orange and his sons, this forcing him on others, is very
extraordinary... Not later than yesterday I got a half-official
communication from England, insinuating that it would be HIGHLY
desirable that the visit of YOUR relatives SHOULD NOT TAKE PLACE
THIS YEAR--qu'en dites-vous? The relations of the Queen and the King,
therefore, to the God-knows-what degree, are to come in shoals and rule
the land, when YOUR RELATIONS are to be FORBIDDEN the country, and
that when, as you know, the whole of your relations have ever been very
dutiful and kind to the King. Really and truly I never heard or saw
anything like it, and I hope it will a LITTLE ROUSE YOUR SPIRIT;
now that slavery is even abolished in the British Colonies, I do not
comprehend WHY YOUR LOT ALONE SHOULD BE TO BE KEPT A WHITE LITTLE SLAVEY
IN ENGLAND, for the pleasure of the Court, who never bought you, as I am
not aware of their ever having gone to any expense on that head, or
the King's ever having SPENT A SIXPENCE FOR YOUR EXISTENCE... Oh,
consistency and political or OTHER HONESTY, where must one look for
you!"

Shortly afterwards King Leopold came to England himself, and his
reception was as cold at Windsor as it was warm at Kensington. "To hear
dear Uncle speak on any subject," the Princess wrote 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. Uncle tells me that Belgium is quite a pattern for its
organisation, its industry, and prosperity; the finances are in the
greatest perfection. Uncle is so beloved and revered by his Belgian
subjects, that it must be a great compensation for all his extreme
trouble." But her other uncle by no means shared her sentiments. He
could not, he said, put up with a water-drinker; and King Leopold would
touch no wine. "What's that you're drinking, sir?" he asked him one day
at dinner. "Water, sir." "God damn it, sir!" was the rejoinder. "Why
don't you drink wine? I never allow anybody to drink water at my table."

It was clear that before very long there would be a great explosion; and
in the hot days of August it came. The Duchess and the Princess had
gone down to stay at Windsor for the King's birthday party, and the King
himself, who was in London for the day to prorogue Parliament, paid a
visit at Kensington Palace in their absence. There he found that the
Duchess had just appropriated, against his express orders, a suite of
seventeen apartments for her own use. He was extremely angry, and, when
he returned to Windsor, after greeting the Princess with affection, he
publicly rebuked the Duchess for what she had done. But this was little
to what followed. On the next day was the birthday banquet; there were
a hundred guests; the Duchess of Kent sat on the King's right hand, and
the Princess Victoria opposite. At the end of the dinner, in reply
to the toast of the King's health, he rose, and, in a long, loud,
passionate speech, poured out the vials of his wrath upon the Duchess.
She had, he declared, insulted him--grossly and continually; she had
kept the Princess away from him in the most improper manner; she was
surrounded by evil advisers, and was incompetent to act with propriety
in the high station which she filled; but he would bear it no longer; he
would have her to know he was King; he was determined that his authority
should be respected; henceforward the Princess should attend at every
Court function with the utmost regularity; and he hoped to God that his
life might be spared for six months longer, so that the calamity of a
regency might be avoided, and the functions of the Crown pass directly
to the heiress-presumptive instead of into the hands of the "person now
near him," upon whose conduct and capacity no reliance whatever could
be placed. The flood of vituperation rushed on for what seemed an
interminable period, while the Queen blushed scarlet, the Princess burst
into tears, and the hundred guests sat aghast. The Duchess said not a
word until the tirade was over and the company had retired; then in
a tornado of rage and mortification, she called for her carriage and
announced her immediate return to Kensington. It was only with the
utmost difficulty that some show of a reconciliation was patched up, and
the outraged lady was prevailed upon to put off her departure till the
morrow.

Her troubles, however, were not over when she had shaken the dust
of Windsor from her feet. In her own household she was pursued by
bitterness and vexation of spirit. The apartments at Kensington were
seething with subdued disaffection, with jealousies and animosities
virulently intensified by long years of propinquity and spite.

There was a deadly feud between Sir John Conroy and Baroness Lehzen.
But that was not all. The Duchess had grown too fond of her Major-Domo.
There were familiarities, and one day the Princess Victoria discovered
the fact. She confided what she had seen to the Baroness, and to the
Baroness's beloved ally, Madame de Spath. Unfortunately, Madame de Spath
could not hold her tongue, and was actually foolish enough to reprove
the Duchess; whereupon she was instantly dismissed. It was not so easy
to get rid of the Baroness. That lady, prudent and reserved, maintained
an irreproachable demeanour. Her position was strongly entrenched; she
had managed to secure the support of the King; and Sir John found that
he could do nothing against her. But henceforward the household was
divided into two camps.(*) The Duchess supported Sir John with all the
abundance of her authority; but the Baroness, too, had an adherent who
could not be neglected. The Princess Victoria said nothing, but she had
been much attached to Madame de Spath, and she adored her Lehzen. The
Duchess knew only too well that in this horrid embroilment her daughter
was against her. Chagrin, annoyance, moral reprobation, tossed her
to and fro. She did her best to console herself with Sir John's
affectionate loquacity, or with the sharp remarks of Lady Flora
Hastings, one of her maids of honour, who had no love for the Baroness.
The subject lent itself to satire; for the pastor's daughter, with all
her airs of stiff superiority, had habits which betrayed her origin. Her
passion for caraway seeds, for instance, was uncontrollable. Little bags
of them came over to her from Hanover, and she sprinkled them on her
bread and butter, her cabbage, and even her roast beef. Lady Flora could
not resist a caustic observation; it was repeated to the Baroness, who
pursed her lips in fury, and so the mischief grew.

     (*) Greville, IV, 21; and August 15, 1839 (unpublished).
     "The cause of the Queen's alienation from the Duchess and
     hatred of Conroy, the Duke (of Wellington) said, was
     unquestionably owing to her having witnessed some
     familiarities between them. What she had seen she repeated
     to Baroness Spaeth, and Spaeth not only did not hold her
     tongue, but (he thinks) remonstrated with the Duchess
     herself on the subject. The consequence was that they got
     rid of Spaeth, and they would have got rid of Lehzen, too,
     if they had been able, but Lehzen, who knew very well what
     was going on, was prudent enough not to commit herself, and
     who was, besides, powerfully protected by George IV and
     William IV, so that they did not dare to attempt to expel
     her."

V

The King had prayed that he might live till his niece was of age; and
a few days before her eighteenth birthday--the date of her legal
majority--a sudden attack of illness very nearly carried him off. He
recovered, however, and the Princess was able to go through her
birthday festivities--a state ball and a drawing-room--with unperturbed
enjoyment. "Count Zichy," she noted in her diary, "is very good-looking
in uniform, but not in plain clothes. Count Waldstein looks remarkably
well in his pretty Hungarian uniform." With the latter young gentleman
she wished to dance, but there was an insurmountable difficulty. "He
could not dance quadrilles, and, as in my station I unfortunately cannot
valse and gallop, I could not dance with him." Her birthday present
from the King was of a pleasing nature, but it led to a painful domestic
scene. In spite of the anger of her Belgian uncle, she had remained upon
good terms with her English one. He had always been very kind to her,
and the fact that he had quarrelled with her mother did not appear to
be a reason for disliking him. He was, she said, "odd, very odd and
singular," but "his intentions were often ill interpreted." He now wrote
her a letter, offering her an allowance of L10,000 a year, which he
proposed should be at her own disposal, and independent of her mother.
Lord Conyngham, the Lord Chamberlain, was instructed to deliver the
letter into the Princess's own hands. When he arrived at Kensington, he
was ushered into the presence of the Duchess and the Princess, and, when
he produced the letter, the Duchess put out her hand to take it. Lord
Conyngham begged her Royal Highness's pardon, and repeated the King's
commands. Thereupon the Duchess drew back, and the Princess took the
letter. She immediately wrote to her uncle, accepting his kind proposal.
The Duchess was much displeased; L4000 a year, she said, would be quite
enough for Victoria; as for the remaining L6000, it would be only proper
that she should have that herself.

King William had thrown off his illness, and returned to his normal
life. Once more the royal circle at Windsor--their Majesties, the elder
Princesses, and some unfortunate Ambassadress or Minister's wife--might
be seen ranged for hours round a mahogany table, while the Queen netted
a purse, and the King slept, occasionally waking from his slumbers to
observe "Exactly so, ma'am, exactly so!" But this recovery was of short
duration. The old man suddenly collapsed; with no specific symptoms
besides an extreme weakness, he yet showed no power of rallying; and it
was clear to everyone that his death was now close at hand.

All eyes, all thoughts, turned towards the Princess Victoria; but she
still remained, shut away in the seclusion of Kensington, a small,
unknown figure, lost in the large shadow of her mother's domination. The
preceding year had in fact been an important one in her development. The
soft tendrils of her mind had for the first time begun to stretch out
towards unchildish things. In this King Leopold encouraged her. After
his return to Brussels, he had resumed his correspondance in a more
serious strain; he discussed the details of foreign politics; he laid
down the duties of kingship; he pointed out the iniquitous foolishness
of the newspaper press. On the latter subject, indeed, he wrote with
some asperity. "If all the editors," he said, "of the papers in the
countries where the liberty of the press exists were to be assembled, we
should have a crew to which you would NOT confide a dog that you would
value, still less your honour and reputation." On the functions of a
monarch, his views were unexceptionable. "The business of the highest
in a State," he wrote, "is certainly, in my opinion, to act with great
impartiality and a spirit of justice for the good of all." At the
same time the Princess's tastes were opening out. Though she was still
passionately devoted to riding and dancing, she now began to have a
genuine love of music as well, and to drink in the roulades and arias
of the Italian opera with high enthusiasm. She even enjoyed reading
poetry--at any rate, the poetry of Sir Walter Scott.

When King Leopold learnt that King William's death was approaching, he
wrote several long letters of excellent advice to his niece. "In every
letter I shall write to you," he said, "I mean to repeat to you, as a
FUNDAMENTAL RULE, TO BE FIRM, AND COURAGEOUS, AND HONEST, AS YOU HAVE
BEEN TILL NOW." For the rest, in the crisis that was approaching, she
was not to be alarmed, but to trust in her "good natural sense and the
TRUTH" of her character; she was to do nothing in a hurry; to hurt
no one's amour-propre, and to continue her confidence in the Whig
administration! Not content with letters, however, King Leopold
determined that the Princess should not lack personal guidance, and sent
over to her aid the trusted friend whom, twenty years before, he had
taken to his heart by the death-bed at Claremont. Thus, once again, as
if in accordance with some preordained destiny, the figure of Stockmar
is discernible--inevitably present at a momentous hour.

On June 18, the King was visibly sinking. The Archbishop of Canterbury
was by his side, with all the comforts of the church. Nor did the holy
words fall upon a rebellious spirit; for many years his Majesty had
been a devout believer. "When I was a young man," he once explained at
a public banquet, "as well as I can remember, I believed in nothing but
pleasure and folly--nothing at all. But when I went to sea, got into
a gale, and saw the wonders of the mighty deep, then I believed; and I
have been a sincere Christian ever since." It was the anniversary of the
Battle of Waterloo, and the dying man remembered it. He should be glad
to live, he said, over that day; he would never see another sunset. "I
hope your Majesty may live to see many," said Dr. Chambers. "Oh! that's
quite another thing, that's quite another thing," was the answer. One
other sunset he did live to see; and he died in the early hours of the
following morning. It was on June 20, 1837.

When all was over, the Archbishop and the Lord Chamberlain ordered a
carriage, and drove post-haste from Windsor to Kensington. They arrived
at the Palace at five o'clock, and it was only with considerable
difficulty that they gained admittance. At six the Duchess woke up
her daughter, and told her that the Archbishop of Canterbury and Lord
Conyngham were there, and wished to see her. She got out of bed, put on
her dressing-gown, and went, alone, into the room where the messengers
were standing. Lord Conyngham fell on his knees, and officially
announced the death of the King; the Archbishop added some personal
details. Looking at the bending, murmuring dignitaries before her, she
knew that she was Queen of England. "Since it has pleased Providence,"
she wrote that day in her journal, "to place me in this station, I shall
do my utmost to fulfil my duty towards my country; I am very young, and
perhaps in many, though not in all things, inexperienced, but I am sure,
that very few have more real good will and more real desire to do what
is fit and right than I have." But there was scant time for resolutions
and reflections. At once, affairs were thick upon her. Stockmar came to
breakfast, and gave some good advice. She wrote a letter to her uncle
Leopold, and a hurried note to her sister Feodora. A letter came from
the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, announcing his approaching arrival.
He came at nine, in full court dress, and kissed her hand. She saw him
alone, and repeated to him the lesson which, no doubt, the faithful
Stockmar had taught her at breakfast. "It has long been my intention to
retain your Lordship and the rest of the present Ministry at the head
of affairs;" whereupon Lord Melbourne again kissed her hand and shortly
after left her. She then wrote a letter of condolence to Queen Adelaide.
At eleven, Lord Melbourne came again; and at half-past eleven she went
downstairs into the red saloon to hold her first Council. The great
assembly of lords and notables, bishops, generals, and Ministers of
State, saw the doors thrown open and a very short, very slim girl in
deep plain mourning come into the room alone and move forward to her
seat with extraordinary dignity and grace; they saw a countenance, not
beautiful, but prepossessing--fair hair, blue prominent eyes, a small
curved nose, an open mouth revealing the upper teeth, a tiny chin,
a clear complexion, and, over all, the strangely mingled signs of
innocence, of gravity, of youth, and of composure; they heard a high
unwavering voice reading aloud with perfect clarity; and then, the
ceremony was over, they saw the small figure rise and, with the same
consummate grace, the same amazing dignity, pass out from among them, as
she had come in, alone.



CHAPTER III. LORD MELBOURNE

I

The new queen was almost entirely unknown to her subjects. In her public
appearances her mother had invariably dominated the scene. Her private
life had been that of a novice in a convent: hardly a human being from
the outside world had ever spoken to her; and no human being at all,
except her mother and the Baroness Lehzen, had ever been alone with
her in a room. Thus it was not only the public at large that was in
ignorance of everything concerning her; the inner circles of statesmen
and officials and high-born ladies were equally in the dark. When she
suddenly emerged from this deep obscurity, the impression that she
created was immediate and profound. Her bearing at her first Council
filled the whole gathering with astonishment and admiration; the Duke of
Wellington, Sir Robert Peel, even the savage Croker, even the cold and
caustic Greville--all were completely carried away. Everything that was
reported of her subsequent proceedings seemed to be of no less happy
augury. Her perceptions were quick, her decisions were sensible, her
language was discreet; she performed her royal duties with extraordinary
facility. Among the outside public there was a great wave of enthusiasm.
Sentiment and romance were coming into fashion; and the spectacle of
the little girl-queen, innocent, modest, with fair hair and pink cheeks,
driving through her capital, filled the hearts of the beholders with
raptures of affectionate loyalty. What, above all, struck everybody
with overwhelming force was the contrast between Queen Victoria and
her uncles. The nasty old men, debauched and selfish, pig-headed and
ridiculous, with their perpetual burden of debts, confusions, and
disreputabilities--they had vanished like the snows of winter, and here
at last, crowned and radiant, was the spring. Lord John Russell, in an
elaborate oration, gave voice to the general sentiment. He hoped that
Victoria might prove an Elizabeth without her tyranny, an Anne without
her weakness. He asked England to pray that the illustrious Princess who
had just ascended the throne with the purest intentions and the justest
desires might see slavery abolished, crime diminished, and education
improved. He trusted that her people would henceforward derive their
strength, their conduct, and their loyalty from enlightened religious
and moral principles, and that, so fortified, the reign of Victoria
might prove celebrated to posterity and to all the nations of the earth.

Very soon, however, there were signs that the future might turn out to
be not quite so simple and roseate as a delighted public dreamed. The
"illustrious Princess" might perhaps, after all, have something within
her which squared ill with the easy vision of a well-conducted heroine
in an edifying story-book. The purest intentions and the justest
desires? No doubt; but was that all? To those who watched closely, for
instance, there might be something ominous in the curious contour
of that little mouth. When, after her first Council, she crossed the
ante-room and found her mother waiting for her, she said, "And now,
Mamma, am I really and truly Queen?" "You see, my dear, that it is so."
"Then, dear Mamma, I hope you will grant me the first request I make
to you, as Queen. Let me be by myself for an hour." For an hour she
remained in solitude. Then she reappeared, and gave a significant order:
her bed was to be moved out of her mother's room. It was the doom of the
Duchess of Kent. The long years of waiting were over at last; the moment
of a lifetime had come; her daughter was Queen of England; and that very
moment brought her own annihilation. She found herself, absolutely and
irretrievably, shut off from every vestige of influence, of confidence,
of power. She was surrounded, indeed, by all the outward signs of
respect and consideration; but that only made the inward truth of her
position the more intolerable. Through the mingled formalities of Court
etiquette and filial duty, she could never penetrate to Victoria. She
was unable to conceal her disappointment and her rage. "Il n'y a plus
d'avenir pour moi," she exclaimed to Madame de Lieven; "je ne suis plus
rien." For eighteen years, she said, this child had been the sole object
of her existence, of her thoughts, her hopes, and now--no! she would
not be comforted, she had lost everything, she was to the last degree
unhappy. Sailing, so gallantly and so pertinaciously, through the
buffeting storms of life, the stately vessel, with sails still swelling
and pennons flying, had put into harbour at last; to find there
nothing--a land of bleak desolation.

Within a month of the accession, the realities of the new situation
assumed a visible shape. The whole royal household moved from Kensington
to Buckingham Palace, and, in the new abode, the Duchess of Kent was
given a suite of apartments entirely separate from the Queen's. By
Victoria herself the change was welcomed, though, at the moment of
departure, she could afford to be sentimental. "Though I rejoice to go
into B. P. for many reasons," she wrote in her diary, "it is not
without feelings of regret that I shall bid adieu for ever to this my
birthplace, where I have been born and bred, and to which I am really
attached!" Her memory lingered for a moment over visions of the past:
her sister's wedding, pleasant balls and delicious concerts and there
were other recollections. "I have gone through painful and disagreeable
scenes here, 'tis true," she concluded, "but still I am fond of the poor
old palace."

At the same time she took another decided step. She had determined that
she would see no more of Sir John Conroy. She rewarded his past services
with liberality: he was given a baronetcy and a pension of L3000 a
year; he remained a member of the Duchess's household, but his personal
intercourse with the Queen came to an abrupt conclusion.

II

It was clear that these interior changes--whatever else they might
betoken--marked the triumph of one person--the Baroness Lehzen. The
pastor's daughter observed the ruin of her enemies. Discreet and
victorious, she remained in possession of the field. More closely than
ever did she cleave to the side of her mistress, her pupil, and her
friend; and in the recesses of the palace her mysterious figure was at
once invisible and omnipresent. When the Queen's Ministers came in
at one door, the Baroness went out by another; when they retired, she
immediately returned. Nobody knew--nobody ever will know--the precise
extent and the precise nature of her influence. She herself declared
that she never discussed public affairs with the Queen, that she was
concerned with private matters only--with private letters and the
details of private life. Certainly her hand is everywhere discernible in
Victoria's early correspondence. The Journal is written in the style of
a child; the Letters are not so simple; they are the work of a
child, rearranged--with the minimum of alteration, no doubt, and yet
perceptibly--by a governess. And the governess was no fool: narrow,
jealous, provincial, she might be; but she was an acute and vigorous
woman, who had gained by a peculiar insight, a peculiar ascendancy. That
ascendancy she meant to keep. No doubt it was true that technically she
took no part in public business; but the distinction between what is
public and what is private is always a subtle one; and in the case of
a reigning sovereign--as the next few years were to show--it is often
imaginary. Considering all things--the characters of the persons, and
the character of the times--it was something more than a mere matter
of private interest that the bedroom of Baroness Lehzen at Buckingham
Palace should have been next door to the bedroom of the Queen.

But the influence wielded by the Baroness, supreme as it seemed within
its own sphere, was not unlimited; there were other forces at work.
For one thing, the faithful Stockmar had taken up his residence in the
palace. During the twenty years which had elapsed since the death of the
Princess Charlotte, his experiences had been varied and remarkable. The
unknown counsellor of a disappointed princeling had gradually risen to a
position of European importance. His devotion to his master had been not
only whole--hearted but cautious and wise. It was Stockmar's advice
that had kept Prince Leopold in England during the critical years which
followed his wife's death, and had thus secured to him the essential
requisite of a point d'appui in the country of his adoption. It was
Stockmar's discretion which had smoothed over the embarrassments
surrounding the Prince's acceptance and rejection of the Greek crown.
It was Stockmar who had induced the Prince to become the constitutional
Sovereign of Belgium. Above all, it was Stockmar's tact, honesty, and
diplomatic skill which, through a long series of arduous and complicated
negotiations, had led to the guarantee of Belgian neutrality by the
Great Powers. His labours had been rewarded by a German barony and by
the complete confidence of King Leopold. Nor was it only in Brussels
that he was treated with respect and listened to with attention.
The statesmen who governed England--Lord Grey, Sir Robert Peel, Lord
Palmerston, Lord Melbourne--had learnt to put a high value upon his
probity and his intelligence. "He is one of the cleverest fellows I
ever saw," said Lord Melbourne, "the most discreet man, the most
well-judging, and most cool man." And Lord Palmerston cited Baron
Stockmar as the only absolutely disinterested man he had come across in
life, At last he was able to retire to Coburg, and to enjoy for a few
years the society of the wife and children whom his labours in the
service of his master had hitherto only allowed him to visit at long
intervals for a month or two at a time. But in 1836 he had been again
entrusted with an important negotiation, which he had brought to
a successful conclusion in the marriage of Prince Ferdinand of
Saxe-Coburg, a nephew of King Leopold's, with Queen Maria II of
Portugal. The House of Coburg was beginning to spread over Europe; and
the establishment of the Baron at Buckingham Palace in 1837 was to be
the prelude of another and a more momentous advance.

King Leopold and his counsellor provide in their careers an example
of the curious diversity of human ambitions. The desires of man are
wonderfully various; but no less various are the means by which those
desires may reach satisfaction: and so the work of the world gets done.
The correct mind of Leopold craved for the whole apparatus of royalty.
Mere power would have held no attractions for him; he must be an actual
king--the crowned head of a people. It was not enough to do; it was
essential also to be recognised; anything else would not be fitting.
The greatness that he dreamt of was surrounded by every appropriate
circumstance. To be a Majesty, to be a cousin of Sovereigns, to marry a
Bourbon for diplomatic ends, to correspond with the Queen of England,
to be very stiff and very punctual, to found a dynasty, to bore
ambassadresses into fits, to live, on the highest pinnacle, an exemplary
life devoted to the public service--such were his objects, and such,
in fact, were his achievements. The "Marquis Peu-a-peu," as George IV
called him, had what he wanted. But this would never have been the case
if it had not happened that the ambition of Stockmar took a form exactly
complementary to his own. The sovereignty that the Baron sought for
was by no means obvious. The satisfaction of his essential being lay
in obscurity, in invisibility--in passing, unobserved, through a hidden
entrance, into the very central chamber of power, and in sitting there,
quietly, pulling the subtle strings that set the wheels of the
whole world in motion. A very few people, in very high places, and
exceptionally well-informed, knew that Baron Stockmar was a most
important person: that was enough. The fortunes of the master and the
servant, intimately interacting, rose together. The Baron's secret skill
had given Leopold his unexceptionable kingdom; and Leopold, in his turn,
as time went on, was able to furnish the Baron with more and more keys
to more and more back doors.

Stockmar took up his abode in the Palace partly as the emissary of King
Leopold, but more particularly as the friend and adviser of a queen who
was almost a child, and who, no doubt, would be much in need of advice
and friendship. For it would be a mistake to suppose that either of
these two men was actuated by a vulgar selfishness. The King, indeed,
was very well aware on which side his bread was buttered; during an
adventurous and chequered life he had acquired a shrewd knowledge of
the world's workings; and he was ready enough to use that knowledge
to strengthen his position and to spread his influence. But then, the
firmer his position and the wider his influence, the better for Europe;
of that he was quite certain. And besides, he was a constitutional
monarch; and it would be highly indecorous in a constitutional monarch
to have any aims that were low or personal.

As for Stockmar, the disinterestedness which Palmerston had noted was
undoubtedly a basic element in his character. The ordinary schemer is
always an optimist; and Stockmar, racked by dyspepsia and haunted by
gloomy forebodings, was a constitutionally melancholy man. A schemer, no
doubt, he was; but he schemed distrustfully, splenetically, to do good.
To do good! What nobler end could a man scheme for? Yet it is perilous
to scheme at all.

With Lehzen to supervise every detail of her conduct, with Stockmar in
the next room, so full of wisdom and experience of affairs, with her
Uncle Leopold's letters, too, pouring out so constantly their stream of
encouragements, general reflections, and highly valuable tips, Victoria,
even had she been without other guidance, would have stood in no lack of
private counsellor. But other guidance she had; for all these influences
paled before a new star, of the first magnitude, which, rising suddenly
upon her horizon, immediately dominated her life.

III

William Lamb, Viscount Melbourne, was fifty-eight years of age, and
had been for the last three years Prime Minister of England. In every
outward respect he was one of the most fortunate of mankind. He had
been born into the midst of riches, brilliance, and power. His mother,
fascinating and intelligent, had been a great Whig hostess, and he had
been bred up as a member of that radiant society which, during the
last quarter of the eighteenth century, concentrated within itself
the ultimate perfections of a hundred years of triumphant aristocracy.
Nature had given him beauty and brains; the unexpected death of an
elder brother brought him wealth, a peerage, and the possibility of
high advancement. Within that charmed circle, whatever one's personal
disabilities, it was difficult to fail; and to him, with all his
advantages, success was well-nigh unavoidable. With little effort, he
attained political eminence. On the triumph of the Whigs he became one
of the leading members of the Government; and when Lord Grey retired
from the premiership he quietly stepped into the vacant place. Nor was
it only in the visible signs of fortune that Fate had been kind to him.
Bound to succeed, and to succeed easily, he was gifted with so fine
a nature that his success became him. His mind, at once supple and
copious, his temperament, at once calm and sensitive, enabled him not
merely to work, but to live with perfect facility and with the grace of
strength. In society he was a notable talker, a captivating companion,
a charming man. If one looked deeper, one saw at once that he was not
ordinary, that the piquancies of his conversation and his manner--his
free-and-easy vaguenesses, his abrupt questions, his lollings and
loungings, his innumerable oaths--were something more than an amusing
ornament, were the outward manifestation of an individuality that was
fundamental.

The precise nature of this individuality was very difficult to gauge: it
was dubious, complex, perhaps self--contradictory. Certainly there was
an ironical discordance between the inner history of the man and his
apparent fortunes. He owed all he had to his birth, and his birth was
shameful; it was known well enough that his mother had passionately
loved Lord Egremont, and that Lord Melbourne was not his father. His
marriage, which had seemed to be the crown of his youthful ardours,
was a long, miserable, desperate failure: the incredible Lady Caroline,
"With pleasures too refined to please, With too much spirit to be
e'er at ease, With too much quickness to be ever taught, With too much
thinking to have common thought," was very nearly the destruction of
his life. When at last he emerged from the anguish and confusion of her
folly, her extravagance, her rage, her despair, and her devotion, he was
left alone with endless memories of intermingled farce and tragedy, and
an only son, who was an imbecile. But there was something else that he
owed to Lady Caroline. While she whirled with Byron in a hectic frenzy
of love and fashion, he had stayed at home in an indulgence bordering
on cynicism, and occupied his solitude with reading. It was thus that he
had acquired those habits of study, that love of learning, and that wide
and accurate knowledge of ancient and modern literature, which formed so
unexpected a part of his mental equipment. His passion for reading never
deserted him; even when he was Prime Minister he found time to
master every new important book. With an incongruousness that was
characteristic, his favourite study was theology. An accomplished
classical scholar, he was deeply read in the Fathers of the Church;
heavy volumes of commentary and exegesis he examined with scrupulous
diligence; and at any odd moment he might be found turning over the
pages of the Bible. To the ladies whom he most liked, he would lend some
learned work on the Revelation, crammed with marginal notes in his own
hand, or Dr. Lardner's "Observations upon the Jewish Errors with respect
to the Conversion of Mary Magdalene." The more pious among them had high
hopes that these studies would lead him into the right way; but of this
there were no symptoms in his after-dinner conversations.

The paradox of his political career was no less curious. By temperament
an aristocrat, by conviction a conservative, he came to power as the
leader of the popular party, the party of change. He had profoundly
disliked the Reform Bill, which he had only accepted at last as
a necessary evil; and the Reform Bill lay at the root of the very
existence, of the very meaning, of his government. He was far too
sceptical to believe in progress of any kind. Things were best as they
were or rather, they were least bad. "You'd better try to do no good,"
was one of his dictums, "and then you'll get into no scrapes." Education
at best was futile; education of the poor was positively dangerous. The
factory children? "Oh, if you'd only have the goodness to leave them
alone!" Free Trade was a delusion; the ballot was nonsense; and there
was no such thing as a democracy.

Nevertheless, he was not a reactionary; he was simply an opportunist.
The whole duty of government, he said, was "to prevent crime and to
preserve contracts." All one could really hope to do was to carry on. He
himself carried on in a remarkable manner--with perpetual compromises,
with fluctuations and contradictions, with every kind of weakness, and
yet with shrewdness, with gentleness, even with conscientiousness, and
a light and airy mastery of men and of events. He conducted the
transactions of business with extraordinary nonchalance. Important
persons, ushered up for some grave interview, found him in a
towselled bed, littered with books and papers, or vaguely shaving in a
dressing-room; but, when they went downstairs again, they would realise
that somehow or other they had been pumped. When he had to receive a
deputation, he could hardly ever do so with becoming gravity. The worthy
delegates of the tallow-chandlers, or the Society for the Abolition of
Capital Punishment, were distressed and mortified when, in the midst of
their speeches, the Prime Minister became absorbed in blowing a feather,
or suddenly cracked an unseemly joke. How could they have guessed that
he had spent the night before diligently getting up the details of their
case? He hated patronage and the making of appointments--a feeling rare
in Ministers. "As for the Bishops," he burst out, "I positively believe
they die to vex me." But when at last the appointment was made, it
was made with keen discrimination. His colleagues observed another
symptom--was it of his irresponsibility or his wisdom? He went to sleep
in the Cabinet.

Probably, if he had been born a little earlier, he would have been a
simpler and a happier man. As it was, he was a child of the eighteenth
century whose lot was cast in a new, difficult, unsympathetic age.
He was an autumn rose. With all his gracious amenity, his humour, his
happy-go-lucky ways, a deep disquietude possessed him. A sentimental
cynic, a sceptical believer, he was restless and melancholy at heart.
Above all, he could never harden himself; those sensitive petals
shivered in every wind. Whatever else he might be, one thing was
certain: Lord Melbourne was always human, supremely human--too human,
perhaps.

And now, with old age upon him, his life took a sudden, new,
extraordinary turn. He became, in the twinkling of an eye, the intimate
adviser and the daily companion of a young girl who had stepped all at
once from a nursery to a throne. His relations with women had been, like
everything else about him, ambiguous. Nobody had ever been able quite
to gauge the shifting, emotional complexities of his married life; Lady
Caroline vanished; but his peculiar susceptibilities remained. Female
society of some kind or other was necessary to him, and he did not
stint himself; a great part of every day was invariably spent in it. The
feminine element in him made it easy, made it natural and inevitable for
him to be the friend of a great many women; but the masculine element
in him was strong as well. In such circumstances it is also easy, it is
even natural, perhaps it is even inevitable, to be something more than
a friend. There were rumours and combustions. Lord Melbourne was twice a
co-respondent in a divorce action; but on each occasion he won his suit.
The lovely Lady Brandon, the unhappy and brilliant Mrs. Norton... the
law exonerated them both. Beyond that hung an impenetrable veil. But
at any rate it was clear that, with such a record, the Prime Minister's
position in Buckingham Palace must be a highly delicate one. However,
he was used to delicacies, and he met the situation with consummate
success. His behaviour was from the first moment impeccable. His manner
towards the young Queen mingled, with perfect facility, the watchfulness
and the respect of a statesman and a courtier with the tender solicitude
of a parent. He was at once reverential and affectionate, at once the
servant and the guide. At the same time the habits of his life underwent
a surprising change. His comfortable, unpunctual days became subject to
the unaltering routine of a palace; no longer did he sprawl on sofas;
not a single "damn" escaped his lips. The man of the world who had been
the friend of Byron and the regent, the talker whose paradoxes had held
Holland House enthralled, the cynic whose ribaldries had enlivened so
many deep potations, the lover whose soft words had captivated such
beauty and such passion and such wit, might now be seen, evening after
evening, talking with infinite politeness to a schoolgirl, bolt upright,
amid the silence and the rigidity of Court etiquette.

IV

On her side, Victoria was instantaneously fascinated by Lord Melbourne.
The good report of Stockmar had no doubt prepared the way; Lehzen was
wisely propitiated; and the first highly favourable impression was never
afterwards belied. She found him perfect; and perfect in her sight he
remained. Her absolute and unconcealed adoration was very natural; what
innocent young creature could have resisted, in any circumstances, the
charm and the devotion of such a man? But, in her situation, there was
a special influence which gave a peculiar glow to all she felt. After
years of emptiness and dullness and suppression, she had come suddenly,
in the heyday of youth, into freedom and power. She was mistress
of herself, of great domains and palaces; she was Queen of England.
Responsibilities and difficulties she might have, no doubt, and in heavy
measure; but one feeling dominated and absorbed all others--the feeling
of joy. Everything pleased her. She was in high spirits from morning
till night. Mr. Creevey, grown old now, and very near his end, catching
a glimpse of her at Brighton, was much amused, in his sharp fashion, by
the ingenuous gaiety of "little Vic." "A more homely little being you
never beheld, when she is at her ease, and she is evidently dying to be
always more so. She laughs in real earnest, opening her mouth as wide as
it can go, showing not very pretty gums... She eats quite as heartily
as she laughs, I think I may say she gobbles... She blushes and laughs
every instant in so natural a way as to disarm anybody." But it was not
merely when she was laughing or gobbling that she enjoyed herself; the
performance of her official duties gave her intense satisfaction. "I
really have immensely to do," she wrote in her Journal a few days after
her accession; "I receive so many communications from my Ministers, but
I like it very much." And again, a week later, "I repeat what I said
before that I have so many communications from the Ministers, and from
me to them, and I get so many papers to sign every day, that I have
always a very great deal to do. I delight in this work." Through the
girl's immaturity the vigorous predestined tastes of the woman were
pushing themselves into existence with eager velocity, with delicious
force.

One detail of her happy situation deserves particular mention. Apart
from the splendour of her social position and the momentousness of her
political one, she was a person of great wealth. As soon as Parliament
met, an annuity of L385,000 was settled upon her. When the expenses of
her household had been discharged, she was left with L68,000 a year of
her own. She enjoyed besides the revenues of the Duchy of Lancaster,
which amounted annually to over L27,000. The first use to which she put
her money was characteristic: she paid off her father's debts. In
money matters, no less than in other matters, she was determined to be
correct. She had the instincts of a man of business; and she never could
have borne to be in a position that was financially unsound.

With youth and happiness gilding every hour, the days passed merrily
enough. And each day hinged upon Lord Melbourne. Her diary shows us,
with undiminished clarity, the life of the young sovereign during
the early months of her reign--a life satisfactorily regular, full
of delightful business, a life of simple pleasures, mostly
physical--riding, eating, dancing--a quick, easy, highly unsophisticated
life, sufficient unto itself. The light of the morning is upon it; and,
in the rosy radiance, the figure of "Lord M." emerges, glorified and
supreme. If she is the heroine of the story, he is the hero; but indeed
they are more than hero and heroine, for there are no other characters
at all. Lehzen, the Baron, Uncle Leopold, are unsubstantial shadows--the
incidental supers of the piece. Her paradise was peopled by two persons,
and surely that was enough. One sees them together still, a curious
couple, strangely united in those artless pages, under the magical
illumination of that dawn of eighty years ago: the polished high fine
gentleman with the whitening hair and whiskers and the thick dark
eyebrows and the mobile lips and the big expressive eyes; and beside him
the tiny Queen--fair, slim, elegant, active, in her plain girl's dress
and little tippet, looking up at him earnestly, adoringly, with eyes
blue and projecting, and half-open mouth. So they appear upon every page
of the Journal; upon every page Lord M. is present, Lord M. is speaking,
Lord M. is being amusing, instructive, delightful, and affectionate at
once, while Victoria drinks in the honied words, laughs till she shows
her gums, tries hard to remember, and runs off, as soon as she is left
alone, to put it all down. Their long conversations touched upon a
multitude of topics. Lord M. would criticise books, throw out a remark
or two on the British Constitution, make some passing reflections
on human life, and tell story after story of the great people of the
eighteenth century. Then there would be business a despatch perhaps
from Lord Durham in Canada, which Lord M. would read. But first he
must explain a little. "He said that I must know that Canada originally
belonged to the French, and was only ceded to the English in 1760, when
it was taken in an expedition under Wolfe: 'a very daring enterprise,'
he said. Canada was then entirely French, and the British only came
afterwards... Lord M. explained this very clearly (and much better
than I have done) and said a good deal more about it. He then read me
Durham's despatch, which is a very long one and took him more than 1/2
an hour to read. Lord M. read it beautifully with that fine soft voice
of his, and with so much expression, so that it is needless to say I
was much interested by it." And then the talk would take a more personal
turn. Lord M. would describe his boyhood, and she would learn that "he
wore his hair long, as all boys then did, till he was 17; (how handsome
he must have looked!)." Or she would find out about his queer tastes and
habits--how he never carried a watch, which seemed quite extraordinary.
"'I always ask the servant what o'clock it is, and then he tells me what
he likes,' said Lord M." Or, as the rooks wheeled about round the trees,
"in a manner which indicated rain," he would say that he could sit
looking at them for an hour, and "was quite surprised at my disliking
them. M. said, 'The rooks are my delight.'"

The day's routine, whether in London or at Windsor, was almost
invariable. The morning was devoted to business and Lord M. In the
afternoon the whole Court went out riding. The Queen, in her velvet
riding--habit and a top-hat with a veil draped about the brim, headed
the cavalcade; and Lord M. rode beside her. The lively troupe went fast
and far, to the extreme exhilaration of Her Majesty. Back in the Palace
again, there was still time for a little more fun before dinner--a game
of battledore and shuttlecock perhaps, or a romp along the galleries
with some children. Dinner came, and the ceremonial decidedly tightened.
The gentleman of highest rank sat on the right hand of the Queen; on her
left--it soon became an established rule--sat Lord Melbourne. After the
ladies had left the dining-room, the gentlemen were not permitted to
remain behind for very long; indeed, the short time allowed them for
their wine-drinking formed the subject--so it was rumoured--of one of
the very few disputes between the Queen and her Prime Minister;(*) but
her determination carried the day, and from that moment after-dinner
drunkenness began to go out of fashion. When the company was reassembled
in the drawing-room the etiquette was stiff. For a few moments the Queen
spoke in turn to each one of her guests; and during these short uneasy
colloquies the aridity of royalty was apt to become painfully evident.
One night Mr. Greville, the Clerk of the Privy Council, was present; his
turn soon came; the middle-aged, hard-faced viveur was addressed by his
young hostess. "Have you been riding to-day, Mr. Greville?" asked the
Queen. "No, Madam, I have not," replied Mr. Greville. "It was a fine
day," continued the Queen. "Yes, Madam, a very fine day," said Mr.
Greville. "It was rather cold, though," said the Queen. "It was rather
cold, Madam," said Mr. Greville. "Your sister, Lady Frances Egerton,
rides, I think, doesn't she?" said the Queen. "She does ride sometimes,
Madam," said Mr. Greville. There was a pause, after which Mr. Greville
ventured to take the lead, though he did not venture to change the
subject. "Has your Majesty been riding today?" asked Mr. Greville. "Oh
yes, a very long ride," answered the Queen with animation. "Has your
Majesty got a nice horse?" said Mr. Greville. "Oh, a very nice horse,"
said the Queen. It was over. Her Majesty gave a smile and an inclination
of the head, Mr. Greville a profound bow, and the next conversation
began with the next gentleman. When all the guests had been disposed
of, the Duchess of Kent sat down to her whist, while everybody else was
ranged about the round table. Lord Melbourne sat beside the Queen, and
talked pertinaciously--very often a propos to the contents of one of the
large albums of engravings with which the round table was covered--until
it was half-past eleven and time to go to bed.

     (*) The Duke of Bedford told Greville he was "sure there was
     a battle between her and Melbourne... He is sure there was
     one about the men's sitting after dinner, for he heard her
     say to him rather angrily, 'it is a horrid custom-' but when
     the ladies left the room (he dined there) directions were
     given that the men should remain five minutes longer."
     Greville Memoirs, February 26, 1840 (unpublished).

Occasionally, there were little diversions: the evening might be spent
at the opera or at the play. Next morning the royal critic was careful
to note down her impressions. "It was Shakespeare's tragedy of Hamlet,
and we came in at the beginning of it. Mr. Charles Kean (son of
old Kean) acted the part of Hamlet, and I must say beautifully.
His conception of this very difficult, and I may almost say
incomprehensible, character is admirable; his delivery of all the fine
long speeches quite beautiful; he is excessively graceful and all
his actions and attitudes are good, though not at all good-looking in
face... I came away just as Hamlet was over." Later on, she went to see
Macready in King Lear. The story was new to her; she knew nothing about
it, and at first she took very little interest in what was passing on
the stage; she preferred to chatter and laugh with the Lord Chamberlain.
But, as the play went on, her mood changed; her attention was fixed, and
then she laughed no more. Yet she was puzzled; it seemed a strange, a
horrible business. What did Lord M. think? Lord M. thought it was a
very fine play, but to be sure, "a rough, coarse play, written for
those times, with exaggerated characters." "I'm glad you've seen it," he
added. But, undoubtedly, the evenings which she enjoyed most were those
on which there was dancing. She was always ready enough to seize
any excuse--the arrival of cousins--a birthday--a gathering of young
people--to give the command for that. Then, when the band played, and
the figures of the dancers swayed to the music, and she felt her own
figure swaying too, with youthful spirits so close on every side--then
her happiness reached its height, her eyes sparkled, she must go on and
on into the small hours of the morning. For a moment Lord M. himself was
forgotten.

V

The months flew past. The summer was over: "the pleasantest summer I
EVER passed in MY LIFE, and I shall never forget this first summer of
my reign." With surprising rapidity, another summer was upon her. The
coronation came and went--a curious dream. The antique, intricate,
endless ceremonial worked itself out as best it could, like some machine
of gigantic complexity which was a little out of order. The small
central figure went through her gyrations. She sat; she walked; she
prayed; she carried about an orb that was almost too heavy to hold; the
Archbishop of Canterbury came and crushed a ring upon the wrong finger,
so that she was ready to cry out with the pain; old Lord Rolle tripped
up in his mantle and fell down the steps as he was doing homage; she
was taken into a side chapel, where the altar was covered with a
table-cloth, sandwiches, and bottles of wine; she perceived Lehzen in an
upper box and exchanged a smile with her as she sat, robed and crowned,
on the Confessor's throne. "I shall ever remember this day as the
PROUDEST of my life," she noted. But the pride was soon merged once more
in youth and simplicity. When she returned to Buckingham Palace at
last she was not tired; she ran up to her private rooms, doffed her
splendours, and gave her dog Dash its evening bath.

Life flowed on again with its accustomed smoothness--though, of course,
the smoothness was occasionally disturbed. For one thing, there was the
distressing behaviour of Uncle Leopold. The King of the Belgians had
not been able to resist attempting to make use of his family position
to further his diplomatic ends. But, indeed, why should there be any
question of resisting? Was not such a course of conduct, far from being
a temptation, simply "selon les regles?" What were royal marriages
for, if they did not enable sovereigns, in spite of the hindrances of
constitutions, to control foreign politics? For the highest purposes,
of course; that was understood. The Queen of England was his niece--more
than that--almost his daughter; his confidential agent was living, in
a position of intimate favour, at her court. Surely, in such
circumstances, it would be preposterous, it would be positively
incorrect, to lose the opportunity of bending to his wishes by means
of personal influence, behind the backs of the English Ministers, the
foreign policy of England.

He set about the task with becoming precautions. He continued in his
letters his admirable advice. Within a few days of her accession, he
recommended the young Queen to lay emphasis, on every possible occasion,
upon her English birth; to praise the English nation; "the Established
Church I also recommend strongly; you cannot, without PLEDGING yourself
to anything PARTICULAR, SAY TOO MUCH ON THE SUBJECT." And then "before
you decide on anything important I should be glad if you would consult
me; this would also have the advantage of giving you time;" nothing was
more injurious than to be hurried into wrong decisions unawares. His
niece replied at once with all the accustomed warmth of her affection;
but she wrote hurriedly--and, perhaps, a trifle vaguely too. "YOUR
advice is always of the GREATEST IMPORTANCE to me," she said.

Had he, possibly, gone too far? He could not be certain; perhaps
Victoria HAD been hurried. In any case, he would be careful; he would
draw back--"pour mieux sauter" he added to himself with a smile. In his
next letters he made no reference to his suggestion of consultations
with himself; he merely pointed out the wisdom, in general, of refusing
to decide upon important questions off-hand. So far, his advice was
taken; and it was noticed that the Queen, when applications were made to
her, rarely gave an immediate answer. Even with Lord Melbourne, it was
the same; when he asked for her opinion upon any subject, she would
reply that she would think it over, and tell him her conclusions next
day.

King Leopold's counsels continued. The Princess de Lieven, he said,
was a dangerous woman; there was reason to think that she would make
attempts to pry into what did not concern her, let Victoria beware. "A
rule which I cannot sufficiently recommend is NEVER TO PERMIT people
to speak on subjects concerning yourself or your affairs, without you
having yourself desired them to do so." Should such a thing occur,
"change the conversation, and make the individual feel that he has made
a mistake." This piece of advice was also taken; for it fell out as the
King had predicted. Madame de Lieven sought an audience, and appeared
to be verging towards confidential topics; whereupon the Queen, becoming
slightly embarrassed, talked of nothing but commonplaces. The individual
felt that she had made a mistake.

The King's next warning was remarkable. Letters, he pointed out, are
almost invariably read in the post. This was inconvenient, no doubt; but
the fact, once properly grasped, was not without its advantages. "I will
give you an example: we are still plagued by Prussia concerning those
fortresses; now to tell the Prussian Government many things, which we
SHOULD NOT LIKE to tell them officially, the Minister is going to write
a despatch to our man at Berlin, sending it BY POST; the Prussians ARE
SURE to read it, and to learn in this way what we wish them to hear.
Analogous circumstances might very probably occur in England. I tell you
the TRICK," wrote His Majesty, "that you should be able to guard against
it." Such were the subtleties of constitutional sovereignty.

It seemed that the time had come for another step. The King's next
letter was full of foreign politics--the situation in Spain and
Portugal, the character of Louis Philippe; and he received a favourable
answer. Victoria, it is true, began by saying that she had shown the
POLITICAL PART of his letter to Lord Melbourne; but she proceeded to a
discussion of foreign affairs. It appeared that she was not unwilling
to exchange observations on such matters with her uncle. So far so good.
But King Leopold was still cautious; though a crisis was impending
in his diplomacy, he still hung back; at last, however, he could keep
silence no longer. It was of the utmost importance to him that, in his
manoeuvrings with France and Holland, he should have, or at any rate
appear to have, English support. But the English Government appeared to
adopt a neutral attitude; it was too bad; not to be for him was to
be against him, could they not see that? Yet, perhaps, they were only
wavering, and a little pressure upon them from Victoria might still
save all. He determined to put the case before her, delicately yet
forcibly--just as he saw it himself. "All I want from your kind
Majesty," he wrote, "is, that you will OCCASIONALLY express to your
Ministers, and particularly to good Lord Melbourne, that, as far as it
is COMPATIBLE with the interests of your own dominions, you do NOT wish
that your Government should take the lead in such measures as might in a
short time bring on the DESTRUCTION of this country, as well as that of
your uncle and his family." The result of this appeal was unexpected;
there was dead silence for more than a week. When Victoria at last
wrote, she was prodigal of her affection. "It would, indeed, my dearest
Uncle, be VERY WRONG of you, if you thought my feelings of warm and
devoted attachment to you, and of great affection for you, could be
changed--nothing can ever change them"--but her references to foreign
politics, though they were lengthy and elaborate, were non-committal in
the extreme; they were almost cast in an official and diplomatic form.
Her Ministers, she said, entirely shared her views upon the subject; she
understood and sympathised with the difficulties of her beloved uncle's
position; and he might rest assured "that both Lord Melbourne and Lord
Palmerston are most anxious at all times for the prosperity and welfare
of Belgium." That was all. The King in his reply declared himself
delighted, and re-echoed the affectionate protestations of his niece.
"My dearest and most beloved Victoria," he said, "you have written me
a VERY DEAR and long letter, which has given me GREAT PLEASURE AND
SATISFACTION." He would not admit that he had had a rebuff.

A few months later the crisis came. King Leopold determined to make a
bold push, and to carry Victoria with him, this time, by a display of
royal vigour and avuncular authority. In an abrupt, an almost peremptory
letter, he laid his case, once more, before his niece. "You know from
experience," he wrote, "that I NEVER ASK ANYTHING OF YOU... But, as I
said before, if we are not careful we may see serious consequences which
may affect more or less everybody, and THIS ought to be the object
of our most anxious attention. I remain, my dear Victoria, your
affectionate uncle, Leopold R." The Queen immediately despatched this
letter to Lord Melbourne, who replied with a carefully thought-out form
of words, signifying nothing whatever, which, he suggested, she should
send to her uncle. She did so, copying out the elaborate formula, with a
liberal scattering of "dear Uncles" interspersed; and she concluded
her letter with a message of "affectionate love to Aunt Louise and the
children." Then at last King Leopold was obliged to recognise the facts.
His next letter contained no reference at all to politics. "I am glad,"
he wrote, "to find that you like Brighton better than last year. I think
Brighton very agreeable at this time of the year, till the east winds
set in. The pavilion, besides, is comfortable; that cannot be denied.
Before my marriage, it was there that I met the Regent. Charlotte
afterwards came with old Queen Charlotte. How distant all this already,
but still how present to one's memory." Like poor Madame de Lieven, His
Majesty felt that he had made a mistake.

Nevertheless, he could not quite give up all hope. Another opportunity
offered, and he made another effort--but there was not very much
conviction in it, and it was immediately crushed. "My dear Uncle," the
Queen wrote, "I have to thank you for your last letter which I received
on Sunday. Though you seem not to dislike my political sparks, I think
it is better not to increase them, as they might finally take fire,
particularly as I see with regret that upon this one subject we cannot
agree. I shall, therefore, limit myself to my expressions of very
sincere wishes for the welfare and prosperity of Belgium." After that,
it was clear that there was no more to be said. Henceforward there is
audible in the King's letters a curiously elegiac note. "My dearest
Victoria, your DELIGHTFUL little letter has just arrived and went
like AN ARROW TO MY HEART. Yes, my beloved Victoria! I DO LOVE YOU
TENDERLY... I love you FOR YOURSELF, and I love in you the dear child
whose welfare I tenderly watched." He had gone through much; yet, if
life had its disappointments, it had its satisfactions too. "I have
all the honours that can be given, and I am, politically speaking, very
solidly established." But there were other things besides politics,
there were romantic yearnings in his heart. "The only longing I still
have is for the Orient, where I perhaps shall once end my life, rising
in the west and setting in the east." As for his devotion to his
niece, that could never end. "I never press my services on you, nor my
councils, though I may say with some truth that from the extraordinary
fate which the higher powers had ordained for me, my experience, both
political and of private life, is great. I am ALWAYS READY to be useful
to you when and where and it may be, and I repeat it, ALL I WANT IN
RETURN IS SOME LITTLE SINCERE AFFECTION FROM YOU."

VI

The correspondence with King Leopold was significant of much that still
lay partly hidden in the character of Victoria. Her attitude towards
her uncle had never wavered for a moment. To all his advances she had
presented an absolutely unyielding front. The foreign policy of England
was not his province; it was hers and her Ministers'; his insinuations,
his entreaties, his struggles--all were quite useless; and he must
understand that this was so. The rigidity of her position was the more
striking owing to the respectfulness and the affection with which it was
accompanied. From start to finish the unmoved Queen remained the devoted
niece. Leopold himself must have envied such perfect correctitude; but
what may be admirable in an elderly statesman is alarming in a maiden
of nineteen. And privileged observers were not without their fears. The
strange mixture of ingenuous light-heartedness and fixed determination,
of frankness and reticence, of childishness and pride, seemed to augur
a future that was perplexed and full of dangers. As time passed the less
pleasant qualities in this curious composition revealed themselves more
often and more seriously. There were signs of an imperious, a peremptory
temper, an egotism that was strong and hard. It was noticed that the
palace etiquette, far from relaxing, grew ever more and more inflexible.
By some, this was attributed to Lehzen's influence; but, if that was
so, Lehzen had a willing pupil; for the slightest infringements of
the freezing rules of regularity and deference were invariably and
immediately visited by the sharp and haughty glances of the Queen. Yet
Her Majesty's eyes, crushing as they could be, were less crushing than
her mouth. The self-will depicted in those small projecting teeth and
that small receding chin was of a more dismaying kind than that which a
powerful jaw betokens; it was a self--will imperturbable, impenetrable,
unintelligent; a self-will dangerously akin to obstinacy. And the
obstinacy of monarchs is not as that of other men.

Within two years of her accession, the storm-clouds which, from the
first, had been dimly visible on the horizon, gathered and burst.
Victoria's relations with her mother had not improved. The Duchess
of Kent, still surrounded by all the galling appearances of filial
consideration, remained in Buckingham Palace a discarded figure,
powerless and inconsolable. Sir John Conroy, banished from the presence
of the Queen, still presided over the Duchess's household, and the
hostilities of Kensington continued unabated in the new surroundings.
Lady Flora Hastings still cracked her malicious jokes; the animosity of
the Baroness was still unappeased. One day, Lady Flora found the joke
was turned against her. Early in 1839, travelling in the suite of the
Duchess, she had returned from Scotland in the same carriage with Sir
John. A change in her figure became the subject of an unseemly jest;
tongues wagged; and the jest grew serious. It was whispered that Lady
Flora was with child. The state of her health seemed to confirm the
suspicion; she consulted Sir James Clark, the royal physician, and,
after the consultation, Sir James let his tongue wag, too. On this, the
scandal flared up sky-high. Everyone was talking; the Baroness was not
surprised; the Duchess rallied tumultuously to the support of her lady;
the Queen was informed. At last the extraordinary expedient of a medical
examination was resorted to, during which Sir James, according to Lady
Flora, behaved with brutal rudeness, while a second doctor was
extremely polite. Finally, both physicians signed a certificate entirely
exculpating the lady. But this was by no means the end of the business.
The Hastings family, socially a very powerful one, threw itself into
the fray with all the fury of outraged pride and injured innocence; Lord
Hastings insisted upon an audience of the Queen, wrote to the papers,
and demanded the dismissal of Sir James Clark. The Queen expressed her
regret to Lady Flora, but Sir James Clark was not dismissed. The tide
of opinion turned violently against the Queen and her advisers; high
society was disgusted by all this washing of dirty linen in Buckingham
Palace; the public at large was indignant at the ill-treatment of Lady
Flora. By the end of March, the popularity, so radiant and so abundant,
with which the young Sovereign had begun her reign, had entirely
disappeared.

There can be no doubt that a great lack of discretion had been shown by
the Court. Ill-natured tittle-tattle, which should have been instantly
nipped in the bud, had been allowed to assume disgraceful proportions;
and the Throne itself had become involved in the personal malignities
of the palace. A particularly awkward question had been raised by the
position of Sir James Clark. The Duke of Wellington, upon whom it was
customary to fall back, in cases of great difficulty in high places, had
been consulted upon this question, and he had given it as his opinion
that, as it would be impossible to remove Sir James without a public
enquiry, Sir James must certainly stay where he was. Probably the Duke
was right; but the fact that the peccant doctor continued in the
Queen's service made the Hastings family irreconcilable and produced an
unpleasant impression of unrepentant error upon the public mind. As for
Victoria, she was very young and quite inexperienced; and she can hardly
be blamed for having failed to control an extremely difficult situation.
That was clearly Lord Melbourne's task; he was a man of the world, and,
with vigilance and circumspection, he might have quietly put out the
ugly flames while they were still smouldering. He did not do so; he
was lazy and easy-going; the Baroness was persistent, and he let things
slide. But doubtless his position was not an easy one; passions ran
high in the palace; and Victoria was not only very young, she was very
headstrong, too. Did he possess the magic bridle which would curb
that fiery steed? He could not be certain. And then, suddenly, another
violent crisis revealed more unmistakably than ever the nature of the
mind with which he had to deal.

VII

The Queen had for long been haunted by a terror that the day might come
when she would be obliged to part with her Minister. Ever since the
passage of the Reform Bill, the power of the Whig Government had
steadily declined. The General Election of 1837 had left them with a
very small majority in the House of Commons; since then, they had been
in constant difflculties--abroad, at home, in Ireland; the Radical group
had grown hostile; it became highly doubtful how much longer they could
survive. The Queen watched the development of events in great anxiety.
She was a Whig by birth, by upbringing, by every association, public and
private; and, even if those ties had never existed, the mere fact that
Lord M. was the head of the Whigs would have amply sufficed to determine
her politics. The fall of the Whigs would mean a sad upset for Lord M.
But it would have a still more terrible consequence: Lord M. would have
to leave her; and the daily, the hourly, presence of Lord M. had become
an integral part of her life. Six months after her accession she had
noted in her diary "I shall be very sorry to lose him even for one
night;" and this feeling of personal dependence on her Minister steadily
increased. In these circumstances it was natural that she should have
become a Whig partisan. Of the wider significance of political questions
she knew nothing; all she saw was that her friends were in office and
about her, and that it would be dreadful if they ceased to be so. "I
cannot say," she wrote when a critical division was impending, "(though
I feel confident of our success) how low, how sad I feel, when I think
of the possibility of this excellent and truly kind man not remaining my
Minister! Yet I trust fervently that He who has so wonderfully protected
me through such manifold difficulties will not now desert me! I should
have liked to have expressed to Lord M. my anxiety, but the tears were
nearer than words throughout the time I saw him, and I felt I should
have choked, had I attempted to say anything." Lord Melbourne
realised clearly enough how undesirable was such a state of mind in
a constitutional sovereign who might be called upon at any moment to
receive as her Ministers the leaders of the opposite party; he did what
he could to cool her ardour; but in vain.

With considerable lack of foresight, too, he had himself helped to bring
about this unfortunate condition of affairs. From the moment of her
accession, he had surrounded the Queen with ladies of his own party; the
Mistress of the Robes and all the Ladies of the Bedchamber were Whigs.
In the ordinary course, the Queen never saw a Tory: eventually she took
pains never to see one in any circumstances. She disliked the whole
tribe; and she did not conceal the fact. She particularly disliked Sir
Robert Peel, who would almost certainly be the next Prime Minister.
His manners were detestable, and he wanted to turn out Lord M. His
supporters, without exception, were equally bad; and as for Sir James
Graham, she could not bear the sight of him; he was exactly like Sir
John Conroy.

The affair of Lady Flora intensified these party rumours still further.
The Hastings were Tories, and Lord Melbourne and the Court were attacked
by the Tory press in unmeasured language. The Queen's sectarian
zeal proportionately increased. But the dreaded hour was now fast
approaching. Early in May the Ministers were visibly tottering; on a
vital point of policy they could only secure a majority of five in the
House of Commons; they determined to resign. When Victoria heard the
news she burst into tears. Was it possible, then, that all was over? Was
she, indeed, about to see Lord M. for the last time? Lord M. came; and
it is a curious fact that, even in this crowning moment of misery and
agitation, the precise girl noted, to the minute, the exact time of the
arrival and the departure of her beloved Minister. The conversation was
touching and prolonged; but it could only end in one way--the Queen must
send for the Duke of Wellington. When, next morning, the Duke came, he
advised her Majesty to send for Sir Robert Peel. She was in "a state of
dreadful grief," but she swallowed down her tears, and braced herself,
with royal resolution, for the odious, odious interview.

Peel was by nature reserved, proud, and shy. His manners were not
perfect, and he knew it; he was easily embarrassed, and, at such
moments, he grew even more stiff and formal than before, while his
feet mechanically performed upon the carpet a dancing-master's measure.
Anxious as he now was to win the Queen's good graces, his very anxiety
to do so made the attainment of his object the more difficult. He
entirely failed to make any headway whatever with the haughty hostile
girl before him. She coldly noted that he appeared to be unhappy and
"put out," and, while he stood in painful fixity, with an occasional
uneasy pointing of the toe, her heart sank within her at the sight of
that manner, "Oh! how different, how dreadfully different, to the
frank, open, natural, and most kind warm manner of Lord Melbourne."
Nevertheless, the audience passed without disaster. Only at one point
had there been some slight hint of a disagreement. Peel had decided that
a change would be necessary in the composition of the royal Household:
the Queen must no longer be entirely surrounded by the wives and sisters
of his opponents; some, at any rate, of the Ladies of the Bedchamber
should be friendly to his Government. When this matter was touched
upon, the Queen had intimated that she wished her Household to remain
unchanged; to which Sir Robert had replied that the question could be
settled later, and shortly afterwards withdrew to arrange the details of
his Cabinet. While he was present, Victoria had remained, as she herself
said, "very much collected, civil and high, and betrayed no agitation;"
but as soon as she was alone she completely broke down. Then she pulled
herself together to write to Lord Melbourne an account of all that had
happened, and of her own wretchedness. "She feels," she said, "Lord
Melbourne will understand it, amongst enemies to those she most relied
on and most esteemed; but what is worst of all is the being deprived of
seeing Lord Melbourne as she used to do."

Lord Melbourne replied with a very wise letter. He attempted to calm the
Queen and to induce her to accept the new position gracefully; and he
had nothing but good words for the Tory leaders. As for the question of
the Ladies of the Household, the Queen, he said, should strongly urge
what she desired, as it was a matter which concerned her personally,
"but," he added, "if Sir Robert is unable to concede it, it will not do
to refuse and to put off the negotiation upon it." On this point there
can be little doubt that Lord Melbourne was right. The question was
a complicated and subtle one, and it had never arisen before; but
subsequent constitutional practice has determined that a Queen Regnant
must accede to the wishes of her Prime Minister as to the personnel of
the female part of her Household. Lord Melbourne's wisdom, however, was
wasted. The Queen would not be soothed, and still less would she take
advice. It was outrageous of the Tories to want to deprive her of her
Ladies, and that night she made up her mind that, whatever Sir Robert
might say, she would refuse to consent to the removal of a single one
of them. Accordingly, when, next morning, Peel appeared again, she was
ready for action. He began by detailing the Cabinet appointments, and
then he added "Now, ma'am, about the Ladies-" when the Queen sharply
interrupted him. "I cannot give up any of my Ladies," she said. "What,
ma'am!" said Sir Robert, "does your Majesty mean to retain them all?"
"All," said the Queen. Sir Robert's face worked strangely; he could not
conceal his agitation. "The Mistress of the Robes and the Ladies of
the Bedchamber?" he brought out at last. "All," replied once more her
Majesty. It was in vain that Peel pleaded and argued; in vain that
he spoke, growing every moment more pompous and uneasy, of the
constitution, and Queens Regnant, and the public interest; in vain that
he danced his pathetic minuet. She was adamant; but he, too, through all
his embarrassment, showed no sign of yielding; and when at last he left
her nothing had been decided--the whole formation of the Government was
hanging in the wind. A frenzy of excitement now seized upon Victoria.
Sir Robert, she believed in her fury, had tried to outwit her, to take
her friends from her, to impose his will upon her own; but that was
not all: she had suddenly perceived, while the poor man was moving so
uneasily before her, the one thing that she was desperately longing
for--a loop-hole of escape. She seized a pen and dashed off a note to
Lord Melbourne.

"Sir Robert has behaved very ill," she wrote, "he insisted on my giving
up my Ladies, to which I replied that I never would consent, and I never
saw a man so frightened... I was calm but very decided, and I think
you would have been pleased to see my composure and great firmness;
the Queen of England will not submit to such trickery. Keep yourself in
readiness, for you may soon be wanted." Hardly had she finished when the
Duke of Wellington was announced. "Well, Ma'am," he said as he entered,
"I am very sorry to find there is a difficulty." "Oh!" she instantly
replied, "he began it, not me." She felt that only one thing now was
needed: she must be firm. And firm she was. The venerable conqueror
of Napoleon was outfaced by the relentless equanimity of a girl in her
teens. He could not move the Queen one inch. At last, she even ventured
to rally him. "Is Sir Robert so weak," she asked, "that even the Ladies
must be of his opinion?" On which the Duke made a brief and humble
expostulation, bowed low, and departed.

Had she won? Time would show; and in the meantime she scribbled down
another letter. "Lord Melbourne must not think the Queen rash in her
conduct... The Queen felt this was an attempt to see whether she could
be led and managed like a child."(*) The Tories were not only wicked but
ridiculous. Peel, having, as she understood, expressed a wish to remove
only those members of the Household who were in Parliament, now objected
to her Ladies. "I should like to know," she exclaimed in triumphant
scorn, "if they mean to give the Ladies seats in Parliament?"

     (*) The exclamation "They wished to treat me like a girl,
     but I will show them that I am Queen of England!" often
     quoted as the Queen's, is apocryphal. It is merely part of
     Greville's summary of the two letters to Melbourne. It may
     be noted that the phrase "the Queen of England will not
     submit to such trickery" is omitted in "Girlhood," and in
     general there are numerous verbal discrepancies between the
     versions of the journal and the letters in the two books.

The end of the crisis was now fast approaching. Sir Robert returned, and
told her that if she insisted upon retaining all her Ladies he could
not form a Government. She replied that she would send him her final
decision in writing. Next morning the late Whig Cabinet met. Lord
Melbourne read to them the Queen's letters, and the group of elderly
politicians were overcome by an extraordinary wave of enthusiasm. They
knew very well that, to say the least, it was highly doubtful whether
the Queen had acted in strict accordance with the constitution; that in
doing what she had done she had brushed aside Lord Melbourne's advice;
that, in reality, there was no public reason whatever why they should
go back upon their decision to resign. But such considerations vanished
before the passionate urgency of Victoria. The intensity of her
determination swept them headlong down the stream of her desire. They
unanimously felt that "it was impossible to abandon such a Queen
and such a woman." Forgetting that they were no longer her Majesty's
Ministers, they took the unprecedented course of advising the Queen by
letter to put an end to her negotiation with Sir Robert Peel. She did
so; all was over; she had triumphed. That evening there was a ball at
the Palace. Everyone was present. "Peel and the Duke of Wellington came
by looking very much put out." She was perfectly happy; Lord M. was
Prime Minister once more, and he was by her side.

VIII

Happiness had returned with Lord M., but it was happiness in the midst
of agitation. The domestic imbroglio continued unabated, until at last
the Duke, rejected as a Minister, was called in once again in his old
capacity as moral physician to the family. Something was accomplished
when, at last, he induced Sir John Conroy to resign his place about the
Duchess of Kent and leave the Palace for ever; something more when he
persuaded the Queen to write an affectionate letter to her mother. The
way seemed open for a reconciliation, but the Duchess was stormy still.
She didn't believe that Victoria had written that letter; it was not
in her handwriting; and she sent for the Duke to tell him so. The Duke,
assuring her that the letter was genuine, begged her to forget the past.
But that was not so easy. "What am I to do if Lord Melbourne comes up to
me?" "Do, ma'am? Why, receive him with civility." Well, she would make
an effort... "But what am I to do if Victoria asks me to shake hands
with Lehzen?" "Do, ma'am? Why, take her in your arms and kiss her."
"What!" The Duchess bristled in every feather, and then she burst into
a hearty laugh. "No, ma'am, no," said the Duke, laughing too. "I don't
mean you are to take Lehzen in your arms and kiss her, but the
Queen." The Duke might perhaps have succeeded, had not all attempts at
conciliation been rendered hopeless by a tragical event. Lady Flora,
it was discovered, had been suffering from a terrible internal malady,
which now grew rapidly worse. There could be little doubt that she was
dying. The Queen's unpopularity reached an extraordinary height. More
than once she was publicly insulted. "Mrs. Melbourne," was shouted at
her when she appeared at her balcony; and, at Ascot, she was hissed
by the Duchess of Montrose and Lady Sarah Ingestre as she passed. Lady
Flora died. The whole scandal burst out again with redoubled vehemence;
while, in the Palace, the two parties were henceforth divided by an
impassable, a Stygian, gulf.

Nevertheless, Lord M. was back, and every trouble faded under the
enchantment of his presence and his conversation. He, on his side,
had gone through much; and his distresses were intensified by a
consciousness of his own shortcomings. He realised clearly enough that,
if he had intervened at the right moment, the Hastings scandal might
have been averted; and, in the bedchamber crisis, he knew that he had
allowed his judgment to be overruled and his conduct to be swayed by
private feelings and the impetuosity of Victoria. But he was not one
to suffer too acutely from the pangs of conscience. In spite of the
dullness and the formality of the Court, his relationship with the
Queen had come to be the dominating interest in his life; to have been
deprived of it would have been heartrending; that dread eventuality
had been--somehow--avoided; he was installed once more, in a kind of
triumph; let him enjoy the fleeting hours to the full! And so, cherished
by the favour of a sovereign and warmed by the adoration of a girl,
the autumn rose, in those autumn months of 1839, came to a wondrous
blooming. The petals expanded, beautifully, for the last time. For
the last time in this unlooked--for, this incongruous, this almost
incredible intercourse, the old epicure tasted the exquisiteness of
romance. To watch, to teach, to restrain, to encourage the royal
young creature beside him--that was much; to feel with such a constant
intimacy the impact of her quick affection, her radiant vitality--that
was more; most of all, perhaps, was it good to linger vaguely in
humorous contemplation, in idle apostrophe, to talk disconnectedly, to
make a little joke about an apple or a furbelow, to dream. The springs
of his sensibility, hidden deep within him, were overflowing. Often, as
he bent over her hand and kissed it, he found himself in tears.

Upon Victoria, with all her impermeability, it was inevitable that such
a companionship should have produced, eventually, an effect. She was no
longer the simple schoolgirl of two years since. The change was visible
even in her public demeanour. Her expression, once "ingenuous
and serene," now appeared to a shrewd observer to be "bold and
discontented." She had learnt something of the pleasures of power and
the pains of it; but that was not all. Lord Melbourne with his gentle
instruction had sought to lead her into the paths of wisdom and
moderation, but the whole unconscious movement of his character had
swayed her in a very different direction. The hard clear pebble,
subjected for so long and so constantly to that encircling and insidious
fluidity, had suffered a curious corrosion; it seemed to be actually
growing a little soft and a little clouded. Humanity and fallibility are
infectious things; was it possible that Lehzen's prim pupil had caught
them? That she was beginning to listen to siren voices? That the secret
impulses of self-expression, of self-indulgence even, were mastering
her life? For a moment the child of a new age looked back, and wavered
towards the eighteenth century. It was the most critical moment of her
career. Had those influences lasted, the development of her character,
the history of her life, would have been completely changed.

And why should they not last? She, for one, was very anxious that they
should. Let them last for ever! She was surrounded by Whigs, she was
free to do whatever she wanted, she had Lord M.; she could not believe
that she could ever be happier. Any change would be for the worse; and
the worst change of all... no, she would not hear of it; it would be
quite intolerable, it would upset everything, if she were to marry. And
yet everyone seemed to want her to--the general public, the Ministers,
her Saxe-Coburg relations--it was always the same story. Of course, she
knew very well that there were excellent reasons for it. For one thing,
if she remained childless, and were to die, her uncle Cumberland, who
was now the King of Hanover, would succeed to the Throne of England.
That, no doubt, would be a most unpleasant event; and she entirely
sympathised with everybody who wished to avoid it. But there was no
hurry; naturally, she would marry in the end--but not just yet--not for
three or four years. What was tiresome was that her uncle Leopold had
apparently determined, not only that she ought to marry, but that her
cousin Albert ought to be her husband. That was very like her uncle
Leopold, who wanted to have a finger in every pie; and it was true that
long ago, in far-off days, before her accession even, she had written to
him in a way which might well have encouraged him in such a notion. She
had told him then that Albert possessed "every quality that could be
desired to render her perfectly happy," and had begged her "dearest
uncle to take care of the health of one, now so dear to me, and to take
him under your special protection," adding, "I hope and trust all will
go on prosperously and well on this subject of so much importance to
me." But that had been years ago, when she was a mere child; perhaps,
indeed, to judge from the language, the letter had been dictated by
Lehzen; at any rate, her feelings, and all the circumstances, had now
entirely changed. Albert hardly interested her at all.

In later life the Queen declared that she had never for a moment dreamt
of marrying anyone but her cousin; her letters and diaries tell a very
different story. On August 26, 1837, she wrote in her journal: "To-day
is my dearest cousin Albert's 18th birthday, and I pray Heaven to pour
its choicest blessings on his beloved head!" In the subsequent years,
however, the date passes unnoticed. It had been arranged that Stockmar
should accompany the Prince to Italy, and the faithful Baron left her
side for that purpose. He wrote to her more than once with sympathetic
descriptions of his young companion; but her mind was by this time made
up. She liked and admired Albert very much, but she did not want to
marry him. "At present," she told Lord Melbourne in April, 1839, "my
feeling is quite against ever marrying." When her cousin's Italian tour
came to an end, she began to grow nervous; she knew that, according to a
long-standing engagement, his next journey would be to England. He would
probably arrive in the autumn, and by July her uneasiness was intense.
She determined to write to her uncle, in order to make her position
clear. It must be understood she said, that "there is no no engagement
between us." If she should like Albert, she could "make no final promise
this year, for, at the very earliest, any such event could not take
place till two or three years hence." She had, she said, "a great
repugnance" to change her present position; and, if she should not like
him, she was "very anxious that it should be understood that she would
not be guilty of any breach of promise, for she never gave any." To Lord
Melbourne she was more explicit. She told him that she "had no great
wish to see Albert, as the whole subject was an odious one;" she hated
to have to decide about it; and she repeated once again that seeing
Albert would be "a disagreeable thing." But there was no escaping the
horrid business; the visit must be made, and she must see him. The
summer slipped by and was over; it was the autumn already; on the
evening of October 10 Albert, accompanied by his brother Ernest, arrived
at Windsor.

Albert arrived; and the whole structure of her existence crumbled into
nothingness like a house of cards. He was beautiful--she gasped--she
knew no more. Then, in a flash, a thousand mysteries were revealed to
her; the past, the present, rushed upon her with a new significance; the
delusions of years were abolished, and an extraordinary, an irresistible
certitude leapt into being in the light of those blue eyes, the smile
of that lovely mouth. The succeeding hours passed in a rapture. She was
able to observe a few more details--the "exquisite nose," the "delicate
moustachios and slight but very slight whiskers," the "beautiful figure,
broad in the shoulders and a fine waist." She rode with him, danced with
him, talked with him, and it was all perfection. She had no shadow of
a doubt. He had come on a Thursday evening, and on the following Sunday
morning she told Lord Melbourne that she had "a good deal changed her
opinion as to marrying." Next morning, she told him that she had made
up her mind to marry Albert. The morning after that, she sent for her
cousin. She received him alone, and "after a few minutes I said to him
that I thought he must be aware why I wished them to come here--and
that it would make me too happy if he would consent to what I wished
(to marry me.)" Then "we embraced each other, and he was so kind, so
affectionate." She said that she was quite unworthy of him, while he
murmured that he would be very happy "Das Leben mit dir zu zubringen."
They parted, and she felt "the happiest of human beings," when Lord M.
came in. At first she beat about the bush, and talked of the weather,
and indifferent subjects. Somehow or other she felt a little nervous
with her old friend. At last, summoning up her courage, she said, "I
have got well through this with Albert." "Oh! you have," said Lord M.



CHAPTER IV. MARRIAGE

I

It was decidedly a family match. Prince Francis Charles Augustus Albert
Emmanuel of Saxe-Coburg--Gotha--for such was his full title--had been
born just three months after his cousin Victoria, and the same midwife
had assisted at the two births. The children's grandmother, the Dowager
Duchess of Coburg, had from the first looked forward to their marriage,
as they grew up, the Duke, the Duchess of Kent, and King Leopold came
equally to desire it. The Prince, ever since the time when, as a child
of three, his nurse had told him that some day "the little English May
flower" would be his wife, had never thought of marrying anyone else.
When eventually Baron Stockmar himself signified his assent, the affair
seemed as good as settled.

The Duke had one other child--Prince Ernest, Albert's senior by one
year, and heir to the principality. The Duchess was a sprightly and
beautiful woman, with fair hair and blue eyes; Albert was very like her
and was her declared favourite. But in his fifth year he was parted from
her for ever. The ducal court was not noted for the strictness of its
morals; the Duke was a man of gallantry, and it was rumoured that the
Duchess followed her husband's example. There were scandals: one of the
Court Chamberlains, a charming and cultivated man of Jewish extraction,
was talked of; at last there was a separation, followed by a divorce.
The Duchess retired to Paris, and died unhappily in 1831. Her memory was
always very dear to Albert.

He grew up a pretty, clever, and high-spirited boy. Usually
well-behaved, he was, however, sometimes violent. He had a will of
his own, and asserted it; his elder brother was less passionate, less
purposeful, and, in their wrangles, it was Albert who came out top. The
two boys, living for the most part in one or other of the Duke's country
houses, among pretty hills and woods and streams, had been at a very
early age--Albert was less than four--separated from their nurses and
put under a tutor, in whose charge they remained until they went to the
University. They were brought up in a simple and unostentatious manner,
for the Duke was poor and the duchy very small and very insignificant.
Before long it became evident that Albert was a model lad. Intelligent
and painstaking, he had been touched by the moral earnestness of his
generation; at the age of eleven he surprised his father by telling him
that he hoped to make himself "a good and useful man." And yet he was
not over-serious; though, perhaps, he had little humour, he was full
of fun--of practical jokes and mimicry. He was no milksop; he rode, and
shot, and fenced; above all did he delight in being out of doors, and
never was he happier than in his long rambles with his brother through
the wild country round his beloved Rosenau--stalking the deer, admiring
the scenery, and returning laden with specimens for his natural
history collection. He was, besides, passionately fond of music. In one
particular it was observed that he did not take after his father: owing
either to his peculiar upbringing or to a more fundamental idiosyncrasy
he had a marked distaste for the opposite sex. At the age of five, at a
children's dance, he screamed with disgust and anger when a little girl
was led up to him for a partner; and though, later on, he grew more
successful in disguising such feelings, the feelings remained.

The brothers were very popular in Coburg, and, when the time came for
them to be confirmed, the preliminary examination which, according to
ancient custom, was held in public in the "Giants' Hall" of the
Castle, was attended by an enthusiastic crowd of functionaries, clergy,
delegates from the villages of the duchy, and miscellaneous onlookers.
There were also present, besides the Duke and the Dowager Duchess, their
Serene Highnesses the Princes Alexander and Ernest of Wurtemberg,
Prince Leiningen, Princess Hohenlohe-Langenburg, and Princess
Hohenlohe-Schillingsfurst. Dr. Jacobi, the Court chaplain, presided at
an altar, simply but appropriately decorated, which had been placed at
the end of the hall; and the proceedings began by the choir singing the
first verse of the hymn, "Come, Holy Ghost." After some introductory
remarks, Dr. Jacobi began the examination. "The dignified and decorous
bearing of the Princes," we are told in a contemporary account,
"their strict attention to the questions, the frankness, decision, and
correctness of their answers, produced a deep impression on the numerous
assembly. Nothing was more striking in their answers than the evidence
they gave of deep feeling and of inward strength of conviction. The
questions put by the examiner were not such as to be met by a simple
'yes' or 'no.' They were carefully considered in order to give the
audience a clear insight into the views and feelings of,the young
princes. One of the most touching moments was when the examiner asked
the hereditary prince whether he intended steadfastly to hold to the
Evangelical Church, and the Prince answered not only 'Yes!' but added in
a clear and decided tone: 'I and my brother are firmly resolved ever
to remain faithful to the acknowledged truth.' The examination having
lasted an hour, Dr. Jacobi made some concluding observations, followed
by a short prayer; the second and third verses of the opening hymn were
sung; and the ceremony was over. The Princes, stepping down from the
altar, were embraced by the Duke and the Dowager Duchess; after which
the loyal inhabitants of Coburg dispersed, well satisfied with their
entertainment."

Albert's mental development now proceeded apace. In his seventeenth year
he began a careful study of German literature and German philosophy.
He set about, he told his tutor, "to follow the thoughts of the great
Klopstock into their depths--though in this, for the most part," he
modestly added, "I do not succeed." He wrote an essay on the "Mode
of Thought of the Germans, and a Sketch of the History of German
Civilisation," "making use," he said, "in its general outlines, of
the divisions which the treatment of the subject itself demands," and
concluding with "a retrospect of the shortcomings of our time, with an
appeal to every one to correct those shortcomings in his own case, and
thus set a good example to others." Placed for some months under the
care of King Leopold at Brussels, he came under the influence of Adolphe
Quetelet, a mathematical professor, who was particularly interested
in the application of the laws of probability to political and moral
phenomena; this line of inquiry attracted the Prince, and the friendship
thus begun continued till the end of his life. From Brussels he went to
the University of Bonn, where he was speedily distinguished both by his
intellectual and his social activities; his energies were absorbed
in metaphysics, law, political economy, music, fencing, and amateur
theatricals. Thirty years later his fellow--students recalled with
delight the fits of laughter into which they had been sent by Prince
Albert's mimicry. The verve with which his Serene Highness reproduced
the tones and gestures of one of the professors who used to point to
a picture of a row of houses in Venice with the remark, "That is the
Ponte-Realte," and of another who fell down in a race and was obliged to
look for his spectacles, was especially appreciated.

After a year at Bonn, the time had come for a foreign tour, and Baron
Stockmar arrived from England to accompany the Prince on an expedition
to Italy. The Baron had been already, two years previously, consulted
by King Leopold as to his views upon the proposed marriage of Albert
and Victoria. His reply had been remarkable. With a characteristic
foresight, a characteristic absence of optimism, a characteristic sense
of the moral elements in the situation, Stockmar had pointed out what
were, in his opinion, the conditions essential to make the marriage a
success. Albert, he wrote, "was a fine young fellow, well grown for his
age, with agreeable and valuable qualities; and it was probable that
in a few years he would turn out a strong handsome man, of a kindly,
simple, yet dignified demeanour. Thus, externally, he possesses
all that pleases the sex, and at all times and in all countries must
please." Supposing, therefore, that Victoria herself was in favour of
the marriage, the further question arose as to whether Albert's mental
qualities were such as to fit him for the position of husband of the
Queen of England. On this point, continued the Baron, one heard much to
his credit; the Prince was said to be discreet and intelligent; but
all such judgments were necessarily partial, and the Baron preferred to
reserve his opinion until he could come to a trustworthy conclusion from
personal observation. And then he added: "But all this is not enough.
The young man ought to have not merely great ability, but a right
ambition, and great force of will as well. To pursue for a lifetime a
political career so arduous demands more than energy and inclination--it
demands also that earnest frame of mind which is ready of its own accord
to sacrifice mere pleasure to real usefulness. If he is not satisfied
hereafter with the consciousness of having achieved one of the most
influential positions in Europe, how often will he feel tempted to
repent his adventure! If he does not from the very outset accept it as a
vocation of grave responsibility, on the efficient performance of
which his honour and happiness depend, there is small likelihood of his
succeeding."

Such were the views of Stockmar on the qualifications necessary for the
due fulfilment of that destiny which Albert's family had marked out for
him; and he hoped, during the tour in Italy, to come to some conclusion
as to how far the prince possessed them. Albert on his side was much
impressed by the Baron, whom he had previously seen but rarely; he
also became acquainted, for the first time in his life, with a young
Englishman, Lieutenant Francis Seymour, who had been engaged to
accompany him, whom he found sehr liebens-wurdig, and with whom he
struck up a warm friendship. He delighted in the galleries and scenery
of Florence, though with Rome he was less impressed. "But for some
beautiful palaces," he said, "it might just as well be any town in
Germany." In an interview with Pope Gregory XVI, he took the opportunity
of displaying his erudition. When the Pope observed that the Greeks
had taken their art from the Etruscans, Albert replied that, on the
contrary, in his opinion, they had borrowed from the Egyptians: his
Holiness politely acquiesced. Wherever he went he was eager to increase
his knowledge, and, at a ball in Florence, he was observed paying no
attention whatever to the ladies, and deep in conversation with the
learned Signor Capponi. "Voila un prince dont nous pouvons etre fiers,"
said the Grand Duke of Tuscany, who was standing by: "la belle danseuse
l'attend, le savant l'occupe."

On his return to Germany, Stockmar's observations, imparted to King
Leopold, were still critical. Albert, he said, was intelligent,
kind, and amiable; he was full of the best intentions and the noblest
resolutions, and his judgment was in many things beyond his years. But
great exertion was repugnant to him; he seemed to be too willing to
spare himself, and his good resolutions too often came to nothing. It
was particularly unfortunate that he took not the slightest interest
in politics, and never read a newspaper. In his manners, too, there was
still room for improvement. "He will always," said the Baron, "have more
success with men than with women, in whose society he shows too little
empressement, and is too indifferent and retiring." One other feature
of the case was noted by the keen eye of the old physician: the Prince's
constitution was not a strong one. Yet, on the whole, he was favourable
to the projected marriage. But by now the chief obstacle seemed to lie
in another quarter, Victoria was apparently determined to commit herself
to nothing. And so it happened that when Albert went to England he had
made up his mind to withdraw entirely from the affair. Nothing would
induce him, he confessed to a friend, to be kept vaguely waiting;
he would break it all off at once. His reception at Windsor threw an
entirely new light upon the situation. The wheel of fortune turned
with a sudden rapidity; and he found, in the arms of Victoria, the
irrevocable assurance of his overwhelming fate.

II

He was not in love with her. Affection, gratitude, the natural reactions
to the unqualified devotion of a lively young cousin who was also
a queen--such feelings possessed him, but the ardours of reciprocal
passion were not his. Though he found that he liked Victoria very much,
what immediately interested him in his curious position was less her
than himself. Dazzled and delighted, riding, dancing, singing, laughing,
amid the splendours of Windsor, he was aware of a new sensation--the
stirrings of ambition in his breast. His place would indeed be a high,
an enviable one! And then, on the instant, came another thought. The
teaching of religion, the admonitions of Stockmar, his own inmost
convictions, all spoke with the same utterance. He would not be there to
please himself, but for a very different purpose--to do good. He must be
"noble, manly, and princely in all things," he would have "to live and
to sacrifice himself for the benefit of his new country;" to "use his
powers and endeavours for a great object--that of promoting the welfare
of multitudes of his fellowmen." One serious thought led on to another.
The wealth and the bustle of the English Court might be delightful for
the moment, but, after all, it was Coburg that had his heart. "While
I shall be untiring," he wrote to his grandmother, "in my efforts and
labours for the country to which I shall in future belong, and where
I am called to so high a position, I shall never cease ein treuer
Deutscher, Coburger, Gothaner zu sein." And now he must part from Coburg
for ever! Sobered and sad, he sought relief in his brother Ernest's
company; the two young men would shut themselves up together, and,
sitting down at the pianoforte, would escape from the present and the
future in the sweet familiar gaiety of a Haydn duet.

They returned to Germany; and while Albert, for a few farewell months,
enjoyed, for the last time, the happiness of home, Victoria, for the
last time, resumed her old life in London and Windsor. She corresponded
daily with her future husband in a mingled flow of German and English;
but the accustomed routine reasserted itself; the business and the
pleasures of the day would brook no interruption; Lord M. was once
more constantly beside her; and the Tories were as intolerable as ever.
Indeed, they were more so. For now, in these final moments, the old feud
burst out with redoubled fury. The impetuous sovereign found, to her
chagrin, that there might be disadvantages in being the declared enemy
of one of the great parties in the State. On two occasions, the Tories
directly thwarted her in a matter on which she had set her heart. She
wished her husband's rank to be axed by statute, and their opposition
prevented it. She wished her husband to receive a settlement from the
nation of L50,000 a year; and, again owing to the Tories, he was only
allowed L30,000. It was too bad. When the question was discussed in
Parliament, it had been pointed out that the bulk of the population was
suffering from great poverty, and that L30,000 was the whole revenue of
Coburg; but her uncle Leopold had been given L50,000, and it would
be monstrous to give Albert less. Sir Robert Peel--it might have been
expected--had had the effrontery to speak and vote for the smaller sum.
She was very angry; and determined to revenge herself by omitting to
invite a single Tory to her wedding. She would make an exception in
favour of old Lord Liverpool, but even the Duke of Wellington she
refused to ask. When it was represented to her that it would amount to
a national scandal if the Duke were absent from her wedding, she was
angrier than ever. "What! That old rebel! I won't have him:" she
was reported to have said. Eventually she was induced to send him an
invitation; but she made no attempt to conceal the bitterness of her
feelings, and the Duke himself was only too well aware of all that had
passed.

Nor was it only against the Tories that her irritation rose. As the time
for her wedding approached, her temper grew steadily sharper and
more arbitrary. Queen Adelaide annoyed her. King Leopold, too, was
"ungracious" in his correspondence; "Dear Uncle," she told Albert, "is
given to believe that he must rule the roost everywhere. However," she
added with asperity, "that is not a necessity." Even Albert himself
was not impeccable. Engulfed in Coburgs, he failed to appreciate
the complexity of English affairs. There were difficulties about his
household. He had a notion that he ought not to be surrounded by
violent Whigs; very likely, but he would not understand that the only
alternatives to violent Whigs were violent Tories; and it would be
preposterous if his Lords and Gentlemen were to be found voting against
the Queen's. He wanted to appoint his own Private Secretary. But how
could he choose the right person? Lord M. was obviously best qualified
to make the appointment; and Lord M. had decided that the Prince should
take over his own Private Secretary--George Anson, a staunch Whig.
Albert protested, but it was useless; Victoria simply announced that
Anson was appointed, and instructed Lehzen to send the Prince an
explanation of the details of the case.

Then, again, he had written anxiously upon the necessity of maintaining
unspotted the moral purity of the Court. Lord M's pupil considered that
dear Albert was strait-laced, and, in a brisk Anglo-German missive, set
forth her own views. "I like Lady A. very much," she told him, "only she
is a little strict awl particular, and too severe towards others, which
is not right; for I think one ought always to be indulgent towards other
people, as I always think, if we had not been well taken care of, we
might also have gone astray. That is always my feeling. Yet it is always
right to show that one does not like to see what is obviously wrong; but
it is very dangerous to be too severe, and I am certain that as a rule
such people always greatly regret that in their youth they have not been
so careful as they ought to have been. I have explained this so badly
and written it so badly, that I fear you will hardly be able to make it
out."

On one other matter she was insistent. Since the affair of Lady Flora
Hastings, a sad fate had overtaken Sir James Clark. His flourishing
practice had quite collapsed; nobody would go to him any more. But the
Queen remained faithful. She would show the world how little she cared
for their disapproval, and she desired Albert to make "poor Clark" his
physician in ordinary. He did as he was told; but, as it turned out, the
appointment was not a happy one.

The wedding-day was fixed, and it was time for Albert to tear himself
away from his family and the scenes of his childhood. With an aching
heart, he had revisited his beloved haunts--the woods and the valleys
where he had spent so many happy hours shooting rabbits and collecting
botanical specimens; in deep depression, he had sat through the farewell
banquets in the Palace and listened to the Freischutz performed by
the State band. It was time to go. The streets were packed as he drove
through them; for a short space his eyes were gladdened by a sea of
friendly German faces, and his ears by a gathering volume of good
guttural sounds. He stopped to bid a last adieu to his grandmother.
It was a heartrending moment. "Albert! Albert!" she shrieked, and fell
fainting into the arms of her attendants as his carriage drove away. He
was whirled rapidly to his destiny. At Calais a steamboat awaited him,
and, together with his father and his brother, he stepped, dejected, on
board. A little later, he was more dejected still. The crossing was a
very rough one; the Duke went hurriedly below; while the two Princes,
we are told, lay on either side of the cabin staircase "in an almost
helpless state." At Dover a large crowd was collected on the pier, and
"it was by no common effort that Prince Albert, who had continued to
suffer up to the last moment, got up to bow to the people." His sense
of duty triumphed. It was a curious omen: his whole life in England was
foreshadowed as he landed on English ground.

Meanwhile Victoria, in growing agitation, was a prey to temper and to
nerves. She grew feverish, and at last Sir James Clark pronounced
that she was going to have the measles. But, once again, Sir James's
diagnosis was incorrect. It was not the measles that were attacking
her, but a very different malady; she was suddenly prostrated by alarm,
regret, and doubt. For two years she had been her own mistress--the two
happiest years, by far, of her life. And now it was all to end! She was
to come under an alien domination--she would have to promise that she
would honour and obey... someone, who might, after all, thwart her,
oppose her--and how dreadful that would be! Why had she embarked on this
hazardous experiment? Why had she not been contented with Lord M.? No
doubt, she loved Albert; but she loved power too. At any rate, one thing
was certain: she might be Albert's wife, but she would always be Queen
of England. He reappeared, in an exquisite uniform, and her hesitations
melted in his presence like mist before the sun. On February 10, 1840,
the marriage took place. The wedded pair drove down to Windsor; but
they were not, of course, entirely alone. They were accompanied by their
suites, and, in particular, by two persons--the Baron Stockmar and the
Baroness Lehzen.

III

Albert had foreseen that his married life would not be all plain
sailing; but he had by no means realised the gravity and the
complication of the difficulties which he would have to face.
Politically, he was a cipher. Lord Melbourne was not only Prime
Minister, he was in effect the Private Secretary of the Queen, and thus
controlled the whole of the political existence of the sovereign. A
queen's husband was an entity unknown to the British Constitution. In
State affairs there seemed to be no place for him; nor was Victoria
herself at all unwilling that this should be so. "The English," she had
told the Prince when, during their engagement, a proposal had been made
to give him a peerage, "are very jealous of any foreigner interfering in
the government of this country, and have already in some of the papers
expressed a hope that you would not interfere. Now, though I know you
never would, still, if you were a Peer, they would all say, the Prince
meant to play a political part. I know you never would!" In reality, she
was not quite so certain; but she wished Albert to understand her views.
He would, she hoped, make a perfect husband; but, as for governing the
country, he would see that she and Lord M. between them could manage
that very well, without his help.

But it was not only in politics that the Prince discovered that the part
cut out for him was a negligible one. Even as a husband, he found, his
functions were to be of an extremely limited kind. Over the whole of
Victoria's private life the Baroness reigned supreme; and she had not
the slightest intention of allowing that supremacy to be diminished by
one iota. Since the accession, her power had greatly increased. Besides
the undefined and enormous influence which she exercised through her
management of the Queen's private correspondence, she was now the
superintendent of the royal establishment and controlled the important
office of Privy Purse. Albert very soon perceived that he was not master
in his own house. Every detail of his own and his wife's existence was
supervised by a third person: nothing could be done until the consent
of Lehzen had first been obtained. And Victoria, who adored Lehzen with
unabated intensity, saw nothing in all this that was wrong.

Nor was the Prince happier in his social surroundings. A shy young
foreigner, awkward in ladies' company, unexpansive and self-opinionated,
it was improbable that, in any circumstances, he would have been a
society success. His appearance, too, was against him. Though in the
eyes of Victoria he was the mirror of manly beauty, her subjects, whose
eyes were of a less Teutonic cast, did not agree with her. To them--and
particularly to the high-born ladies and gentlemen who naturally saw him
most--what was immediately and distressingly striking in Albert's face
and figure and whole demeanour was his un-English look. His features
were regular, no doubt, but there was something smooth and smug about
them; he was tall, but he was clumsily put together, and he walked with
a slight slouch. Really, they thought, this youth was more like
some kind of foreign tenor than anything else. These were serious
disadvantages; but the line of conduct which the Prince adopted from
the first moment of his arrival was far from calculated to dispel
them. Owing partly to a natural awkwardness, partly to a fear of undue
familiarity, and partly to a desire to be absolutely correct, his
manners were infused with an extraordinary stiffness and formality.
Whenever he appeared in company, he seemed to be surrounded by a thick
hedge of prickly etiquette. He never went out into ordinary society; he
never walked in the streets of London; he was invariably accompanied by
an equerry when he rode or drove. He wanted to be irreproachable and, if
that involved friendlessness, it could not be helped. Besides, he had no
very high opinion of the English. So far as he could see, they cared for
nothing but fox-hunting and Sunday observances; they oscillated between
an undue frivolity and an undue gloom; if you spoke to them of friendly
joyousness they stared; and they did not understand either the Laws of
Thought or the wit of a German University. Since it was clear that with
such people he could have very little in common, there was no reason
whatever for relaxing in their favour the rules of etiquette. In strict
privacy, he could be natural and charming; Seymour and Anson were
devoted to him, and he returned their affection; but they were
subordinates--the receivers of his confidences and the agents of his
will. From the support and the solace of true companionship he was
utterly cut off.

A friend, indeed, he had--or rather, a mentor. The Baron, established
once more in the royal residence, was determined to work with as
wholehearted a detachment for the Prince's benefit as, more than twenty
years before, he had worked for his uncle's. The situations then and
now, similar in many respects, were yet full of differences. Perhaps in
either case the difficulties to be encountered were equally great; but
the present problem was the more complex and the more interesting. The
young doctor who, unknown and insignificant, had nothing at the back of
him but his own wits and the friendship of an unimportant Prince, had
been replaced by the accomplished confidant of kings and ministers, ripe
in years, in reputation, and in the wisdom of a vast experience. It
was possible for him to treat Albert with something of the affectionate
authority of a father; but, on the other hand, Albert was no Leopold.
As the Baron was very well aware, he had none of his uncle's rigidity of
ambition, none of his overweening impulse to be personally great. He was
virtuous and well-intentioned; he was clever and well-informed; but he
took no interest in politics, and there were no signs that he possessed
any commanding force of character. Left to himself, he would almost
certainly have subsided into a high-minded nonentity, an aimless
dilettante busy over culture, a palace appendage without influence or
power. But he was not left to himself: Stockmar saw to that. For ever
at his pupil's elbow, the hidden Baron pushed him forward, with tireless
pressure, along the path which had been trod by Leopold so many years
ago. But, this time, the goal at the end of it was something more than
the mediocre royalty that Leopold had reached. The prize which Stockmar,
with all the energy of disinterested devotion, had determined should be
Albert's was a tremendous prize indeed.

The beginning of the undertaking proved to be the most arduous part
of it. Albert was easily dispirited: what was the use of struggling to
perform in a role which bored him and which, it was quite clear, nobody
but the dear good Baron had any desire that he should take up? It was
simpler, and it saved a great deal of trouble, to let things slide.
But Stockmar would not have it. Incessantly, he harped upon two
strings--Albert's sense of duty and his personal pride. Had the Prince
forgotten the noble aims to which his life was to be devoted? And was he
going to allow himself, his wife, his family, his whole existence, to be
governed by Baroness Lehzen? The latter consideration was a potent one.
Albert had never been accustomed to giving way; and now, more than ever
before, it would be humiliating to do so. Not only was he constantly
exasperated by the position of the Baroness in the royal household;
there was another and a still more serious cause of complaint. He was,
he knew very well, his wife's intellectual superior, and yet he found,
to his intense annoyance, that there were parts of her mind over which
he exercised no influence. When, urged on by the Baron, he attempted
to discuss politics with Victoria, she eluded the subject, drifted into
generalities, and then began to talk of something else. She was treating
him as she had once treated their uncle Leopold. When at last he
protested, she replied that her conduct was merely the result of
indolence; that when she was with him she could not bear to bother her
head with anything so dull as politics. The excuse was worse than the
fault: was he the wife and she the husband? It almost seemed so. But the
Baron declared that the root of the mischief was Lehzen: that it was she
who encouraged the Queen to have secrets; who did worse--undermined
the natural ingenuousness of Victoria, and induced her to give,
unconsciously no doubt, false reasons to explain away her conduct.

Minor disagreements made matters worse. The royal couple differed in
their tastes. Albert, brought up in a regime of Spartan simplicity and
early hours, found the great Court functions intolerably wearisome,
and was invariably observed to be nodding on the sofa at half-past ten;
while the Queen's favourite form of enjoyment was to dance through the
night, and then, going out into the portico of the Palace, watch the sun
rise behind St. Paul's and the towers of Westminster. She loved London
and he detested it. It was only in Windsor that he felt he could really
breathe; but Windsor too had its terrors: though during the day there
he could paint and walk and play on the piano, after dinner black tedium
descended like a pall. He would have liked to summon distinguished
scientific and literary men to his presence, and after ascertaining
their views upon various points of art and learning, to set forth his
own; but unfortunately Victoria "had no fancy to encourage such people;"
knowing that she was unequal to taking a part in their conversation,
she insisted that the evening routine should remain unaltered; the
regulation interchange of platitudes with official persons was followed
as usual by the round table and the books of engravings, while the
Prince, with one of his attendants, played game after game of double
chess.

It was only natural that in so peculiar a situation, in which the
elements of power, passion, and pride were so strangely apportioned,
there should have been occasionally something more than mere
irritation--a struggle of angry wills. Victoria, no more than Albert,
was in the habit of playing second fiddle. Her arbitrary temper flashed
out. Her vitality, her obstinacy, her overweening sense of her own
position, might well have beaten down before them his superiorities and
his rights. But she fought at a disadvantage; she was, in very truth, no
longer her own mistress; a profound preoccupation dominated her, seizing
upon her inmost purposes for its own extraordinary ends. She was madly
in love. The details of those curious battles are unknown to us; but
Prince Ernest, who remained in England with his brother for some
months, noted them with a friendly and startled eye. One story, indeed,
survives, ill-authenticated and perhaps mythical, yet summing up, as
such stories often do, the central facts of the case. When, in wrath,
the Prince one day had locked himself into his room, Victoria, no less
furious, knocked on the door to be admitted. "Who is there?" he asked.
"The Queen of England" was the answer. He did not move, and again there
was a hail of knocks. The question and the answer were repeated many
times; but at last there was a pause, and then a gentler knocking. "Who
is there?" came once more the relentless question. But this time the
reply was different. "Your wife, Albert." And the door was immediately
opened.

Very gradually the Prince's position changed. He began to find the study
of politics less uninteresting than he had supposed; he read Blackstone,
and took lessons in English Law; he was occasionally present when the
Queen interviewed her Ministers; and at Lord Melbourne's suggestion he
was shown all the despatches relating to Foreign Affairs. Sometimes
he would commit his views to paper, and read them aloud to the Prime
Minister, who, infinitely kind and courteous, listened with attention,
but seldom made any reply. An important step was taken when, before
the birth of the Princess Royal, the Prince, without any opposition
in Parliament, was appointed Regent in case of the death of the Queen.
Stockmar, owing to whose intervention with the Tories this happy result
had been brought about, now felt himself at liberty to take a holiday
with his family in Coburg; but his solicitude, poured out in innumerable
letters, still watched over his pupil from afar. "Dear Prince," he
wrote, "I am satisfied with the news you have sent me. Mistakes,
misunderstandings, obstructions, which come in vexatious opposition
to one's views, are always to be taken for just what they are--namely,
natural phenomena of life, which represent one of its sides, and
that the shady one. In overcoming them with dignity, your mind has to
exercise, to train, to enlighten itself; and your character to gain
force, endurance, and the necessary hardness." The Prince had done well
so far; but he must continue in the right path; above all, he was "never
to relax." "Never to relax in putting your magnanimity to the proof;
never to relax in logical separation of what is great and essential from
what is trivial and of no moment; never to relax in keeping yourself
up to a high standard--in the determination, daily renewed, to be
consistent, patient, courageous." It was a hard programme perhaps, for a
young man of twenty-one; and yet there was something in it which touched
the very depths of Albert's soul. He sighed, but he listened--listened
as to the voice of a spiritual director inspired with divine truth. "The
stars which are needful to you now," the voice continued, "and perhaps
for some time to come, are Love, Honesty, Truth. All those whose minds
are warped, or who are destitute of true feeling, will BE APT TO MISTAKE
YOU, and to persuade themselves and the world that you are not the man
you are--or, at least, may become... Do you, therefore, be on the alert
be times, with your eyes open in every direction... I wish for my Prince
a great, noble, warm, and true heart, such as shall serve as the richest
and surest basis for the noblest views of human nature, and the firmest
resolve to give them development."

Before long, the decisive moment came. There was a General Election, and
it became certain that the Tories, at last, must come into power. The
Queen disliked them as much as ever; but, with a large majority in the
House of Commons, they would now be in a position to insist upon their
wishes being attended to. Lord Melbourne himself was the first to
realise the importance of carrying out the inevitable transition with as
little friction as possible; and with his consent, the Prince, following
up the rapprochement which had begun over the Regency Act, opened,
through Anson, a negotiation with Sir Robert Peel. In a series of secret
interviews, a complete understanding was reached upon the difficult
and complex question of the Bedchamber. It was agreed that the
constitutional point should not be raised, but that on the formation of
the Tory Government, the principal Whig ladies should retire, and their
places be filled by others appointed by Sir Robert. Thus, in effect,
though not in form, the Crown abandoned the claims of 1839, and they
have never been subsequently put forward. The transaction was a turning
point in the Prince's career. He had conducted an important negotiation
with skill and tact; he had been brought into close and friendly
relations with the new Prime Minister; it was obvious that a great
political future lay before him. Victoria was much impressed and deeply
grateful. "My dearest Angel," she told King Leopold, "is indeed a great
comfort to me. He takes the greatest interest in what goes on, feeling
with and for me, and yet abstaining as he ought from biasing me either
way, though we talk much on the subject, and his judgment is, as you
say, good and mild." She was in need of all the comfort and assistance
he could give her. Lord M. was going, and she could hardly bring herself
to speak to Peel. Yes; she would discuss everything with Albert now!

Stockmar, who had returned to England, watched the departure of Lord
Melbourne with satisfaction. If all went well, the Prince should now
wield a supreme political influence over Victoria. But would all go
well?? An unexpected development put the Baron into a serious fright.
When the dreadful moment finally came, and the Queen, in anguish, bade
adieu to her beloved Minister, it was settled between them that, though
it would be inadvisable to meet very often, they could continue to
correspond. Never were the inconsistencies of Lord Melbourne's character
shown more clearly than in what followed. So long as he was in office,
his attitude towards Peel had been irreproachable; he had done all he
could to facilitate the change of government, he had even, through more
than one channel, transmitted privately t

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