Books: Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1.

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"It would be difficult to describe the state of loyal excitement into
which the Metropolis has been thrown by this event," says the _Annual
Register_. "It seems as if only the dastardly deed had been wanted to
bring out the full love and devotion of the people to their young Queen,"
the happy wife and expectant mother, whose precious life might have been
cut short by the unlooked-for shot of an assassin. At the different
theatres and concerts that evening "God save the Queen" was sung with
passionate fervour. When the Queen and Prince Albert drove out the next
afternoon in the same phaeton, at the same hour, in Hyde Park, the
demonstration of the previous day was repeated with effusion. The crowd
was immense, the cheering was again vociferous. An improvised body-guard
of hundreds of gentlemen on horseback surrounded the couple. "The line of
carriages (calling at Buckingham Palace to make inquiries) extended a
considerable way down the Mall." The calls were incessant till the
procession from the Houses of Parliament arrived. Thousands of people
assembled to witness it. The Sheriffs of London came first in four
carriages. Then the Grenadier Guards with their band marched through the
gateway, on which the royal standard was hoisted, and took up their
position in the entrance court. The Cabinet Ministers and chief Officers
of the Household followed. The State carriage of the Speaker led the
hundred and nine carriages filled with Members of the House of Commons.
The Peers' carriages were upwards of eighty in number. The occupants,
beginning with the Barons, rose in rank till they reached the Royal Dukes,
and wound up with the Lord Chancellor. "Many of the Lords wore splendid
uniforms and decorations and various orders; the Duke of Wellington
especially was attired with much magnificence.... The terrace in front of
the house was crowded with distinguished persons in grand costume," as on
a gala-day. The Queen received the address of congratulation on her escape
seated on the throne. What a strange contrast between the scene and its
origin--the emphatically stately and dignified display, and the miserable
act which gave rise to it! What blended feelings cause and effect must
have produced in the principal performers--the inevitable pain and shame
for the base reason, the well-warranted pride and pleasure in the
honourable result!

The first time the Queen went to the opera afterwards she wrote in her
Journal that the moment she and the Prince entered the box "the whole
house rose and cheered and waved hats and handkerchiefs, and went on so
for some time. 'God save the Queen' was sung.... Albert was called for
separately and much cheered."

The trial of Oxford came on during the following month. The question of
bullets or no bullets in the pistols was transferred to the jury. Evidence
of symptoms of insanity and of confirmed insanity in the prisoner, his
father, and grandfather, was shown, and after some difficulty in dealing
with the first question the jury found the prisoner guilty, while he was
at the same time declared insane. Therefore Oxford, like every other
prisoner shielded by the irresponsibility of madness, was delivered up to
be dealt with according to her Majesty's pleasure, which signified his
imprisonment so long as the Crown should see fit.

The sole reason for the outrage on the Queen proved to be the morbid
egotism of an ill-conditioned, ignorant, half-crazy lad; showing that one
more danger exists for sovereigns--a peril born entirely of their high and
solitary rank with its fascination for envious, irritable, distempered
minds.

The following routine of the Queen's life at this time is given in the
"Early Years of the Prince Consort": "They breakfasted at nine, and took a
walk every morning soon afterwards."

In London, their walks were in Buckingham Palace gardens, fifty acres in
extent, part of which was once the pleasant "Mulberry Gardens" of James I.
The lake, not far from the palace, covers five acres. Looking across the
velvet sward away to the masses of shady trees, it is hard to realise that
one is still in London. The Prince had already enlivened these gardens
with different kinds of animals and aquatic birds, a modified version of
the _Thier-Garten_ so often found in connection with royal residences
in Germany.

The Queen mentions that, "in their morning walks in the gardens, it was a
great amusement to the Prince to watch and feed these birds. He taught
them to come when he whistled to them from a bridge connecting a small
island with the rest of the gardens.

"Then came the usual amount of business (far less heavy, however, then
than now), besides which they drew and etched a great deal together, which
was a source of great amusement, having the plates bit in the house.
Luncheon followed at the usual hour of two o'clock. Lord Melbourne, who
was generally staying in the house, came to the Queen in the afternoon,
and between five and six the Prince usually drove her out in a pony
phaeton. If the Prince did not drive the Queen he rode, in which case she
drove with the Duchess of Kent or the ladies. The Prince also read aloud
most days to the Queen. The dinner was at eight o'clock, and always with
the company. In the evening the Prince frequently played at double chess,
a game of which he was very fond, and which he played extremely well."

The Prince would return "at a great pace" from his morning rides, which
took him into all the districts of London where improvements were going
on, and "would always come through the Queen's dressing-room, where she
generally was at that time, with that bright loving smile with which he
ever greeted her, telling her where he had been, what new buildings he had
seen, what studios he had visited."

Her Majesty objected to the English custom of gentlemen remaining in the
dining-room after the ladies had left the table. But, by the advice of
Lord Melbourne, in which the Prince concurred, no direct change was made
in what was almost a national institution. The hour when the whole party
broke up, however, was seldom later than eleven.

The story got into circulation that the Queen's habit was to stand
conversing with the ladies till the gentlemen joined them, and that
knowing her practice, the dining-room was soon left empty. Lord Campbell
gives his experience of this portion of a royal dinner some years after
the Queen's marriage. "The Queen and the ladies withdrawing, Prince Albert
came over to her side of the table, and we remained behind about a quarter
of an hour, but we rose within the hour from the time of our sitting down.
A snuff-box was twice carried round and offered to all the gentlemen.
Prince Albert, to my surprise, took a pinch."

The Prince, who was an exceedingly temperate man at table, rather grudged
the time spent in eating and drinking, just as he disliked riding for mere
exercise, without any other object. Yet he was a bold and skilled rider,
and could, without any privilege of rank, come in first in the
hunting-field. It amused the Queen and her husband to find that this
accomplishment, more than any other, was likely to make him popular among
English gentlemen. But though he liked hunting as a recreation, he did not
understand how it or any other sport could be made the business of a man's
life.

By the month of July, the prospect of an heir to the throne rendered it
advisable that provision should be made for the Queen's possible death, or
lengthened disqualification for reigning. The Regency Bill was brought
forward with more caution and better success than had attended on the
Prince's Annuity Bill. In accordance with the prudent counsels of Baron
Stockmar, the Opposition as well as the Ministry were taken into account
and consulted. The consequence was that the Duke of Wellington, the
mouthpiece of the Tories on the former occasion, was altogether propitious
in the name of himself and his party, and it was agreed that the Prince
was the proper person to appoint as Regent in case of any unhappy
contingency. The Bill was passed unanimously and without objection in both
Houses, except for a speech made by the Duke of Sussex in the House of
Lords.

This conclusion was gratifying in all respects, not the least so in its
testimony to the respect which the Prince's conduct had already called
forth. "Three months ago they would not have done it for him," Lord
Melbourne told the Queen. "It is entirely his own character." It was also
a pleasant proof of the goodwill of the Tories, whom the Prince had done
everything in his power to conciliate, employing his influence to impress
upon the young Queen the constitutional attitude of impartiality and
neutrality towards all political parties.

There was a corresponding withdrawal of the absurd opposition to Prince
Albert's taking his place by the Queen's side on all State occasions. "Let
the Queen put the Prince where she likes and settle it herself, that is
the best way," said the Duke of Wellington cordially. A lively example of
the great Duke's want of toleration for the traditions of Court etiquette
is given in a note to the "Life of the Prince Consort." The late Lord
Albemarle, when Master of the Horse, was very sensitive about his right in
that capacity to sit in the sovereign's coach on State occasions. "The
Queen," said the Duke, when appealed to for his opinion, "can make Lord
Albemarle sit at the top of the coach, under the coach, behind the coach,
or wherever else her Majesty pleases."

On the 11th of August the Queen prorogued Parliament, accompanied by her
husband for the first time. The following day the Court left for Windsor.
The Prince was very fond of the country, and gladly went to it. The Queen,
in her early womanhood, had been, as she said, "too happy to go to London,
and wretched to leave it." But from the time of her marriage she shared
her husband's tastes, and could have been "content and happy never to go
to town." How her Majesty has retained the love of nature, which is a
refuge of sorrow as well as a crown of happiness, we all know.

In the mornings at Windsor there were shooting in the season, and a wider
field for landscape gardening for the Prince before he took to farming. In
the evening there were occasional great dinners and little dances as in
London. The young couple dispensed royal hospitality to a succession of
friendly visitors, who came to see with their own eyes the bright palace
home. The King and the Queen of the Belgians rejoiced in the fruits of his
work. The Princess of Hohenlohe, herself a happy wife and mother, arrived
with her children to witness her sister's felicity. Queen Adelaide did not
shrink from revisiting Windsor, and seeing a beloved niece fill well King
William and his consort's place.

Prince Albert's birthday was celebrated in England for the first time;
there were illuminations in London; down at Windsor the day was kept, for
the most part, in the simple family fashion, which is the best. The Prince
was awakened by a musical reveille; a German chorale, chosen with loving,
ungrudging care, as the first thing which was to greet him, was most
certain, on that day of all others, to carry him back in spirit to his
native country.

The family circle breakfasted by themselves in a favourite cottage in the
park. Princess Feodora's children were in masquerade as Coburg peasants,
doubtless hailing the Coburg Prince with an appropriate greeting. In the
afternoon, in the fine weather, the Prince drove out the Queen; in the
evening, "there was rather a larger dinner than usual."

On the 11th of September the Prince was formally sworn a member of her
Majesty's Privy Council. And so conscientiously anxious was he to
discharge worthily every duty which could be required of him, that, in the
greater leisure of Windsor, he not only read "Hallam's Constitutional
History" with the Queen, he began to read English law with a barrister.

In the meantime, an old historical figure, Princess Augusta of England,
who had appeared at the Queen's marriage, lay terribly ill at Clarence
House. She died on the 22nd of September, having survived her sister,
Princess Elizabeth, the Landgravine of Hesse Homburg, only eight months.
Princess Augusta carried away with her many memories of the Court of
George III. By a coincidence, the lady who may almost be called the
Princess's biographer, at least whose animated sketches and affectionate
praises of her "dear Princess Augusta" were destined to give the world of
England its principal knowledge of an amiable princess, died at a great
age the same year. Madame D'Arblay, as Miss Burney, the distinguished
novelist, had been appointed in 1786, in a somewhat whimsical
acknowledgement of her talents and services to the reading world, one of
the keepers of Queen Charlotte's wardrobe. In this office she resided at
Court for five years, and she has left in her diary the most graphic
account which we have of the English royal life of the day. "Evelina" and
"Cecilia" were old stories even in 1840; it was more than fifty years
since Madame D'Arblay had taken royal service, and now her best-beloved
young patroness had passed away an aged woman, only a few months later
than the gifted and vivacious little keeper of the robes, whose duties, to
be sure, had included reading habitually to the Queen when she was
dressing, and sometimes to the Court circle. Princess Augusta's funeral
went from her house of Frogmore at seven o'clock in the evening of the 2nd
of October, one of the last of the night funerals of a past generation,
and she was buried with the customary honours in St. George's Chapel,
Windsor. Frogmore became from that time the country residence of the
Duchess of Kent.

In November the Court returned to Buckingham Palace for the Queen's
accouchement. Baron Stockmar, at the Prince's earnest entreaty, came to
England for the event, though he remained then as always in the
background. On the 21st of November the Princess Royal was born, the good
news being announced to London by the firing of the Tower guns. The
Cabinet Ministers and Officers of State were in attendance in an adjoining
room, and the new-born child, wrapped in flannel, was carried by the
nurse, escorted by Sir James Clark, into the presence of those who were to
attest her birth, and laid for a moment on a table before them. Both
mother and child were well, and although a momentary disappointment was
felt at the sex of the infant, it did not detract from the general
rejoicing at the Queen's safety with a living successor to the throne. It
was said at the time, kindly gossips dwelling on the utterance with the
utmost pleasure, that on the Prince expressing a fear that the people
might be disappointed, the Queen reassured him in the most cheerful
spirit, "Never mind, the next shall be a boy," and that she hoped she
might have as many children as her grandmother, Queen Charlotte.

A fresh instance of a diseased appetite for notoriety, grafted on vagrant
youthful curiosity and restless love of mischief, astonished and
scandalised the English world. On the day after the birth of the Princess
Royal a rascally boy named Jones was discovered concealed under a sofa in
a room next to the Queen's. The offender was leniently dealt with in
consideration of his immature years, but again and again, at intervals of
a few months, the flibbertigibbet turned up in the most unlooked-for
quarters, impudently asserting, on being questioned, that he had entered
"the same way as before," and that he could, any time he pleased, find his
way into the palace. It was supposed that he climbed over the wall on
Constitution Hill and crept through one of the windows. But he could
hardly have done so if it had not been for the confused palace management,
for which nobody was responsible, with its inevitable disorder, that had
not yet been overcome. The boy had to be committed to the House of
Correction as a rogue and vagabond for three months. Afterwards he served
on board one of her Majesty's ships, where his taste for creating a
sensation seems to have died a natural death.

In the Queen's weakness the young husband and father was continually
developing new traits of manly tenderness. "His care and devotion were
quite beyond expression." He declined to go anywhere, that he might be
always at hand to do anything in his power for her comfort "He was content
to sit by her in a darkened room, to read to her and write for her." "No
one but himself ever lifted her from her bed to her sofa, and he always
helped to wheel her on her bed or sofa into the next room. For this
purpose he would come instantly when sent for from any part of the house."
"His care for her was like that of a mother, nor could there be a kinder,
wiser, more judicious nurse." Happy Queen!

The Queen made an excellent recovery, and the Court was back at Windsor
holding Christmas and New Year relieved from all care and full of
thankfulness. The peace and goodwill of the season, with the interchange
of kindly gifts, were celebrated with pleasant picturesque German, in
addition to old English customs. We have all heard wonderful tales of the
baron of beef, the boar's head, the peacock with spread tail, the plum
soup for which there is only one recipe, and that a royal one. There were
fir-trees in the Queen's and the Prince's rooms and in humbler chambers.
There was a great gathering of the household in a special corridor, where
the Queen's presents were bestowed.

A new year dawned with bright promise on an expectant world. This last
year had been so good in one sense that it could hardly be surpassed. What
had it not done for the family life! It had given a good and loving wife
to a good and loving husband, and a little child, with undreamt-of
possibilities in its slumbering eyes and helpless hands. The public
horizon was tolerably clear. The Welsh riots had been quelled and other
acts of insubordination in the manufacturing districts put down--not
without the use of force--but there was room for trust that such mad
tumults would not be repeated. Father Matthews was reforming Ireland.
There were far-away wars both with China and Afghanistan, certainly, but
the wars were far away in more respects than one, distant enough to have
their origin in the English protection of the opium trade, and
interference--now with a peaceful, timidly conservative race--and again
with fiercely jealous and warlike tribes, slurred over and forgotten, and
only the successes of the national arms dwelt upon with pride and
exultation.

Across "the silver streak" of the Channel there were more remarkable
events, marked by a curious inconsistency, than the suitable marriage of
the Duc de Nemours. Prince Louis Napoleon Buonaparte landed on the French
coast with a handful of men prepared to invade the country, and was
immediately overpowered and arrested. He was tried and condemned to
imprisonment in the fortress of Ham, from which he escaped in due time,
having earned for himself during long years the sobriquet of "the madman
of Boulogne." The very same year Prince de Joinville, Louis Philippe's
sailor son, was commissioned to bring the ashes of Napoleon from St.
Helena to France. The coffin was conveyed in the Prince's frigate, _La
Belle Poule_, to Cherbourg, whence a steamboat sailed with the solemn
freight up the Seine to Paris. The funeral formed a splendid pageant,
attended by the royal family, the ministers, and a great concourse of
spectators. The dust of _le petit caporal_ was deposited in a
magnificent tomb in the Hotel des Invalides, before the eyes of a few
survivors of his Old Guard.

Spain and Portugal were still the theatres of civil wars--now smouldering,
now leaping up with brief fury. In Spain the Queen Regent, Christina, was
driven from the kingdom, and had to take refuge in France for a time. In
Portugal, in the middle of a political crisis, Maria da Gloria gave birth
to a daughter, which died soon after its birth, while for days her own
life was despaired of.

CHAPTER XI
THE FIRST CHRISTENING.--THE SEASON OF 1841.

The Queen was able to open Parliament in person at the end of January.

The first christening in the royal household had been fixed to take place
on the 10th of February, the first anniversary of the Queen's wedding-day,
which was thus a double gala in 1841. The day before the Prince again had
a dangerous accident. He was skating in the presence of the Queen and one
of her ladies on the lake in the gardens of Buckingham Palace when the ice
gave way a few yards from the bank, where the water was so deep that the
skater had to swim for two or three minutes before he could extricate
himself. The Queen had the presence of mind to lend him instant
assistance, while her lady was "more occupied in screaming for help," so
that the worst consequences of the plunge were a bad cold.

The christening took place at six in the evening in Buckingham Palace. The
ceremony was performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by the
Archbishop of York, the Bishop of London, the Bishop of Norwich, and the
Dean of Carlisle. The sponsors were the Duke of Saxe-Coburg Gotha,
represented by the Duke of Wellington, King Leopold, the Queen-dowager,
the Duchess of Gloucester, the Duchess of Kent, and the Duke of Sussex,
the most of whom had been present at the baptism of her Majesty, and were
able to compare royal child and royal mother in similar circumstances.
The Duke of Cambridge and his son, Prince George, with Prince Edward of
Saxe-Weimar, were among the company. The infant was named "Victoria
Adelaide Mary Louisa."

The _Annual Register_ for the year has an elaborate description of
the new silver-gilt font used on the occasion. It was in the shape of a
water-lily supporting a shell, the rim of which was decorated with smaller
water-lilies. The base bore, between the arms of the Queen and Prince
Albert, the arms of the Princess Royal, surmounted by her Royal Highness's
coronet. The water had been brought from the river Jordan.

A simple description of the event was given by Prince Albert in a letter
to his grandmother, the Dowager-Duchess of Gotha. "The christening went
off very well; your little great-granddaughter behaved with great
propriety and like a Christian. She was awake, but did not cry at all,
and seemed to crow with immense satisfaction at the lights and brilliant
uniforms, for she is very intelligent and observing. The ceremony took
place at half-past six P.M. After it there was a dinner, and then we had
some instrumental music. The health of the little one was drunk with great
enthusiasm."

The lively noticing powers of the Princess Royal when she was between two
and three months of age is in amusing contradiction to a report which we
remember as current at the time. It was mentioned in order to be denied by
Leslie, who was commissioned to paint the royal christening, and worked at
the picture so diligently in the long days of the following summer that he
was often occupied with the work from nine in the morning till seven or
eight in the evening. He wrote in his "Recollections": "In 1841 I painted
a second picture for the Queen, the christening of the Princess Royal. I
was admitted to see the ceremony, and made a slight sketch of the royal
personages as they stood round the font in the room. I made a study from
the little Princess a few days afterwards. She was then three months old,
and a finer child of that age I never saw. It is a curious proof of the
readiness with which people believe whatever they hear to the disadvantage
of those placed high in rank above them, that at the time at which I made
the sketch it was said everywhere but in the palace and by those who
belonged to the royal household, that the Princess was born blind, and by
many it was even believed that she was born without feet. The sketch was
shown at a party at Mr. Moon's, the evening after I made it, and the
ladies all said, 'What a pity so fine a child should be entirely blind!'
It was in vain I told them that her eyes were beautifully clear and
bright, and that she took notice of everything about her. I was told that,
though her eyes looked bright, and though she might appear to turn them to
every object, it was _certain_ she was blind."

What Leslie attributes to a species of envy, we think may be more justly
regarded as having its foundation in the love of sensationalism to which
human nature is prone--sensationalism which appears to become all the
racier when it finds its food in high quarters. The particular direction
the tendency took was influenced by the blindness of George III. and of
his grandson, the Crown Prince of Hanover, which seemed to lend a
plausibility to the absurd rumour.

Baron Stockmar states that the Princess Royal was a delicate child,
causing considerable apprehension for her successful rearing during the
first year of her life. It was only by judicious care that she developed a
splendid constitution. Charles Leslie goes on to say: "The most agreeable
part of my task in painting the christening of the Princess Royal was in
studying the fine head of the wisest and best of living Kings, Leopold, a
man whom the people he reigns over scarcely seem to deserve. Nothing could
be more agreeable than his manner, and that of his amiable Queen, who was
in the room all the time he sat. He speaks English very well, and she also
spoke it. After I had painted for some time, she said, "May I look?" and
suggesting some alterations, she said, "You must excuse me, I speak
honest; but if I am wrong, don't mind me."

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