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

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In those years the King and Queen of the Belgians were such frequent
visitors of her Majesty, who may be said to have been his adopted child,
that a whole floor of Buckingham Palace which was set apart for their use
is still known as "the Belgian Floor." The portraits of both are in the
Palace, and so is his likeness when he was many years younger, and one of
the handsomest men in Europe. The last is hanging beside a full-length
portrait of his first wife, Princess Charlotte, with her fair face and
striking figure. In the summer of 1841 the Queen was farther and longer
separated from her mother than she had ever been previously. The Duchess
of Kent, secure in her daughter's prosperity and happiness, went to her
native Germany, for the first time since she had come to England
twenty-two years before. She was warmly received wherever she went. She
visited, among other places, Amorbach, the seat of her son, the Prince of
Leiningen, in Bavaria, where the Duchess had resided with the Duke of Kent
in the first years of their married life. "It is like a dream that I am
writing to you from this place," she addressed her daughter. "He (the
Prince of Leiningen) has made many alterations in the house. Your father
began them just before we left in March, 1819."

A threatened change of Ministry and a general election were pending; but
amidst the political anxieties which already occupied much of the Queen
and Prince Albert's thoughts, it was a bright summer, full of many
interests and special sources of pleasure.

Mademoiselle Rachel, the great French actress, arrived in England. She had
already established her empire in Paris by her marvellous revival of
Racine's and Corneille's masterpieces. She was now to exercise the same
fascination over an alien people, to whom her speech was a foreign tongue.
She made her first appearance in the part of Hermione in Racine's
_Andromaque_ at the Italian Opera-house. Few who witnessed the
spectacle ever forgot the slight figure, the pale, dark, Jewish face, the
deep melody of the voice, the restrained passion, the concentrated rage,
especially the pitiless irony, with which she gave the poet's meaning.

The Queen and the Prince shared the general enthusiasm. For that matter
there was a little jealousy awakened lest there might be too much generous
_abandon_ in the royal approval of the great player. Perhaps this
feeling arose in the minds of those who, dating from Puritan days, had a
conscientious objection to all plays and players, and waxed hotter as
time, alas! proved how, in contrast to the honourable reputation of the
English Queen of Tragedy, Sarah Siddons, the character and life of the
gifted French actress were miserably beneath her genius. There was a
little vexed talk, which probably had small enough foundation, of the
admission of Rachel into the highest society; of the Duchess of Kent's
condescending to give her shawl to the shivering foreigner; of a bracelet
with the simple inscription, "From Victoria to Rachel," as if there could
be a common meeting-ground between the two, though the one was a queen in
art and the other a queen in history. But if there was any imprudence, it
might well have been excused as a fault of noble sympathy with art and
cordial acknowledgement of it, which leant to virtue's side, a fault which
had hitherto been not too common in England. The same year a Kemble, the
last of the family who redeemed for a time the fallen fortunes of Covent
Garden Theatre, Adelaide, the beautiful and accomplished younger daughter
of Charles Kemble, brother to John Kemble and Sarah Siddons, came out as
an operatic-singer in the part of "Norma." She was welcomed as her sweet
voice, fine acting, and the traditions of her family deserved. She was
invited to sing at the palace. From girlhood the Queen had been familiar
with the Kembles in their connection with the English stage. The last time
she visited the Academy as Princess Victoria, just before the death of
King William, Leslie mentions, she asked that Charles Kemble might be
presented to her, when the gentleman had the opportunity of making his
"best genteel-comedy bow." Now it was on the younger generation of the
Kembles that the Queen bestowed her gracious countenance. These were
halcyon days for society as well as for the stage, when, in Mrs.
Oliphant's words, "the Queen was in the foreground of the national life,
affecting it always for good, and setting an example of purity and virtue.
The theatres to which she went, and which both she and her husband
enjoyed, were purified by her presence, evils which had been the growth of
years disappearing before the face of the young Queen...."

On the 13th of June the Queen revisited Oxford in company with her
husband, in time for Commemoration. Her Majesty and the Prince stayed at
Nuneham, the seat of the Archbishop of York, and drove in to the
University city. The Prince was present at a banquet in St. John's and
attended divine service at New Inn Hall.

On the 21st of June the Queen and Prince Albert were at Woolwich, for the
launch of the good ship _Trafalgar_. Nothing so gay had been seen at
the mouth of the river since King William and Queen Adelaide came down to
Greenwich to keep the anniversary of the battle of Trafalgar. The water
was covered with vessels, including every sort of craft that had been seen
"since the building of Noah's Ark." The shore was equally crowded with an
immense multitude of human beings finding standing-ground in the most
unlikely places. The Queen drove down to the Dockyard in a
travelling-carriage and four. She was received with a royal salute and
glad bursts of cheering.

It is hardly necessary to say that the young Queen was exceedingly popular
with the blue-jackets. In the course of a visit to Portsmouth she had gone
over one of her ships. She was shown through the men's quarters, the
sailors being under orders to remain perfectly quiet and abstain from
cheering. Her Majesty tasted the men's coffee and pronounced it good. She
asked if they got nothing stronger. A glass of grog was brought to her.
She put it to her lips, and Jack could contain himself no longer; a burst
of enthusiastic huzzas made the ribs of the ship ring.

At Woolwich a discharge of artillery announced the moment when the great
vessel slipped from her stays, and "floated gallantly down the river" till
she was brought up and swung round with her stern to London.

The King and Queen of the Belgians paid their second visit this year, the
Queen remaining six weeks, detained latterly by the illness of her son in
England. The long visit confirmed the tender friendship between the two
queens. "During this stay, which had been such a happiness for me, we
became most intimate," Queen Victoria wrote in her Journal, and she
grudged the necessity of having to set out with Prince Albert on a royal
progress before the departure of her cherished guest. "To lose four days
of her stay, of which, I repeat, every hour is precious, is dreadful," her
Majesty told King Leopold.

The short summer progress was otherwise very enjoyable. The Queen and
Prince Albert visited the Duke of Bedford at the Russells' stately seat of
Woburn Abbey, with its park twelve miles in extent. From Woburn the royal
couple went to Panshanger, Earl Cowper's, and Brocket Hall, Lord
Melbourne's, returning by Hatfield, the Marquis of Salisbury's. At Brocket
the Queen was entertained by her Prime Minister. At Hatfield there were
many memories of another Queen and her minister, since the ancient
country-house had been a palace of Queen Elizabeth's, passing, in her
successor's reign, by an exchange of mansions, from the hands of James I
into those of the son and representative of Lord Burleigh, little crooked,
long-headed Robert Cecil, first Earl of Salisbury. In Hatfield Park there
is an oak still standing which bears the name of "Queen Elizabeth's Oak."
It is said Princess Elizabeth was sitting in its shade when the news was
brought to her of the death of her sister, Queen Mary, and her own
accession to the throne of England.

The only difficulty--a pleasant one after all--which was experienced in
these progresses, proceeded from the exuberant loyalty of the people. At
straw-plaiting Dunstable a volunteer company of farmers joined the regular
escort and nearly choked the travellers with the dust the worthy yeomen
raised. On leaving Woburn Abbey the same dubious compliment was paid. In
the Queen's merry words, "a crowd of good, loyal people rode with us part
of the way. They so pressed and pushed that it was as if we were hunting."

The recent election had returned a majority of Conservative members, and
soon after the reassembling of Parliament in August a vote of
non-confidence in Lord Melbourne's Ministry was carried. The same evening
the Prime Minister went to Windsor to announce his resignation. He acted
with his natural fairness and generosity, giving due honour to his
adversaries, and congratulating the Queen on the great advantage she
possessed in the presence and counsel of the Prince, thus softening to her
the trial of the first change of Ministers in her reign. He only regretted
the pain to himself of leaving her. "For four years I have seen you every
day; but it is so different from what it would have been in 1839. The
Prince understands everything so well, and has a clever, able head." The
Queen was much affected in taking leave of a "faithful and attached
friend," as well as Minister, while her words were, that his praise of the
Prince gave her "great pleasure" and made her "very proud."

In anticipation of the change of Ministry it had been arranged, with Sir
Robert Peel's concurrence, that the principal Whig ladies in the Queen's
household--the Duchess of Sutherland, the Duchess of Bedford, and Lady
Normanby--should voluntarily retire from office, and that this should be
the practice in any future change of Ministry, so that the question of
Ministerial interference in the withdrawal or the appointment of the
ladies of the Queen's household might be set at rest. [Footnote: The
retirement from office is now limited to the Mistress of the Robes.]

On the 3rd of September the new Ministers kissed hands on their
appointment at a Cabinet Council held at Claremont. Lord Campbell gives
some particulars. "I have just seen here several of our friends returned
from Claremont. Both parties met there at once. They were shown into
separate rooms. The Queen sat in her closet, no one being present but
Prince Albert. The _exaunters_ were called in one by one and gave up
the seals or wands of their offices and retired. The new men by mistake
went to Claremont all in their Court costume, whereas the Queen at Windsor
and Claremont receives her Ministers in their usual morning dress.
Nonnanby says taking leave of the Queen was very affecting."

Whatever momentary awkwardness may have attended the substitution of Sir
Robert Peel as Prime Minister, it did not at all interfere--thanks to the
candid, liberal nature of all concerned--with the friendly goodwill which
it is so desirable should exist between sovereign and minister. We read in
the "Life of the Prince Consort," "Lord Melbourne told Baron Stockmar, who
had just returned from Coburg, that Sir Robert Peel had behaved most
handsomely, and that the conduct of the Prince had throughout been most
moderate and judicious."

Sir Robert had experienced considerable embarrassment at the recollection
of his share in the debates on the Royal Annuity Bill, but the Prince did
not show an equally retentive memory. His seeming forgetfulness of the
past and cordiality in the present did more than reassure, it deeply
touched and completely won a man who was himself capable of magnanimous
self-renunciation.

Sir Robert Peel had the pleasure, in his early days in office, of
suggesting to the Prince the Royal Commission to promote and encourage the
fine arts in the United Kingdom, with reference to the rebuilding of the
two Houses of Parliament. Sir Robert proposed that Prince Albert should be
placed at the head of the Commission. This was not only a movement after
the Prince's own heart, on which he spared no thought and labour for years
to come, it was an act in which Prince and Minister--both of them lovers
of art--could co-operate with the greatest satisfaction.

CHAPTER XII.
BIRTH OF THE PRINCE OF WALES.--THE AFGHAN DISASTERS.--VISIT OF THE KING OF
PRUSSIA.--"THE QUEEN'S PLANTAGENET BALL."

On the 9th of November, 1841, the happiness of the Queen and Prince was
increased by the birth of the Prince of Wales. The event took place on the
morning of the Lord Mayor's Day, as the citizens of London rejoiced to
learn by the booming of the Tower guns. In addition to the usual calls of
the nobility and gentry, the Lord Mayor and his train went in great state
to offer their congratulations and make their inquiries for the
Queen-mother and child.

The sole shadow on the rejoicing was the dangerous illness of the
Queen-dowager. She had an affection of the chest which rendered her a
confirmed invalid for years. At this time the complaint took an aggravated
form, and her weakness became so great that it was feared death was
approaching. But she rallied--a recovery due in a great measure, it was
believed, to her serene nature and patient resignation. She regained her
strength in a degree and survived for years.

The public took a keen interest in all that concerned the heir to the
crown, though times were less free and easy than they had been--all the
world no longer trooped to the Queen's House as they had done to taste the
caudle compounded when royal Charlotte's babies were born. There was at
least the cradle with the nodding Prince of Wales feathers to gossip
about. The patent creating the Duke of Cornwall Prince of Wales and Earl
of Chester was issued on the 8th of December, when the child was a month
old. It was a quaint enough document, inasmuch as the Queen declared in it
that she ennobled and invested her son with the Principality and earldom
by girting him with a sword, by putting a coronet on his head and a gold
ring on his finger, and also by delivering a gold rod into his hand, that
he might preside there, and direct and defend these parts. The Royal
Nursery had now two small occupants, and their wise management, still more
than that of the household, engaged the serious consideration of the Queen
and the Prince's old friend, Baron Stockmar, and engrossed much of the
attention of the youthful parents. They took great delight in the bright
little girl, whom her mother named "Pussy," and the charming baby who was
so near her in age.

"To think," wrote the Queen in her Journal this Christmas, "that we have
two children now, and one who enjoys the sight already" (referring to the
Christmas-tree); "it is like a dream."

"This is the dear Christmas Eve on which I have so often listened with
impatience to your step which was to usher us into the gift-room," the
Prince reminded his father. "To-day I have two children of my own to make
gifts to, who, they know not why, are full of happy wonder at the German
Christmas-tree and its radiant candles."

On this occasion the New Year was danced into "in good old English
fashion. In the middle of the dance, as the clock finished striking
twelve, a flourish of trumpets was blown, in accordance with a German
custom." The past year had been good also, and fertile in blessings on
that roof-tree, though in the world without there were the chafings and
mutterings of more than one impending crisis. The corn-laws, with the
embargo they laid on free trade, weighed heavily on the minds both of
statesmen and people. In Scotland Church and State were struggling keenly
once more, though, bloodlessly this time, as they had struggled to the
death in past centuries, for mastery where what each considered its rights
were in question.

Among the blows dealt by death in 1841, there had been heavy losses to art
in the passing away of Chantrey and Wilkie.

In January, 1842, events happened in Afghanistan which brought bitter
grief to many an English home, and threw their shadow over the palace
itself in the next few months. The fatal policy of English interference
with the fiery tribes of Northern India in support of an unpopular ruler
had ended in the murder of Sir Alexander Burns and Sir William Macnaghten,
and the evacuation of Cabul by the English. This was not all. The march
through the terrible mountain defiles in the depth of winter, under the
continual assaults of an unscrupulous and cruel enemy, meant simply
destruction. The ladies of the party, with Lady Sale, a heroic woman, at
their head, the husbands of the ladies who were with the camp, and finally
General Elphinstone, who had been the first in command at Cabul, but who
was an old and infirm man, had to be surrendered as hostages. They were
committed to the tender mercies of Akbar Khan, the son of the exiled Dost
Mahomed, the moving spirit of the insurrection against the native puppet
maintained by English authority, and the murderer, with his own hand, of
Sir William Macnaghten, whose widow was among the prisoners. The surrender
of hostages was partly a matter of necessity, in order to secure for the
most helpless of the party the dubious protection of Akbar Khan, partly a
desperate measure to prevent what would otherwise have been
inevitable--the perishing of the women and children in the dreadful
hardships of the retreat. The captives were carried first to Peshawur and
afterwards to a succession of hill-forts in the direction of the Caucasus,
while their countrymen at home, long before they had become familiar with
the tragedy of the Indian Rebellion, burned with indignation and thrilled
with horror at the possible fate of those victims of a treacherous,
vindictive Afghan chief. In the meantime the awful march went on, amidst
the rigours of winter, in wild snowy passes, by savage precipices, while
the most unsparing guerilla warfare was kept up by the furious natives at
every point of vantage. Alas! for the miserable end which we all know,
some of us recalling it, through the mists of years, still fresh with the
wonder, wrath, and sorrow which the news aroused here. Out of a company of
sixteen thousand that left Cabul, hundreds were slain or died of
exhaustion every day, three thousand fell in an ambush, and after a
night's exposure to such frost as was never experienced in England. At
last, on the 13th of January, 1842, one haggard man, Dr. Brydon, rode up,
reeling in his saddle, to the gates of Jellalabad. The fortress was still
in the keeping of Sir Robert Sale, who had steadfastly refused to retire.
It is said his wife wrote to him from her prison, urging him to hold out,
because she preferred her own and her daughter's death to his dishonour.

But the Afghan disasters were not fully known in England for months to
come. In the interval, the christening of the Prince of Wales was
celebrated with much splendour in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, on the
25th of January. The King of Prussia came over to England to officiate in
person as one of the Prince's godfathers. The others were the child's two
grand-uncles, the Duke of Cambridge and Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg,
uncle of the Queen and of Prince Albert, and father of the King Consort of
Portugal and the Duchesse de Nemours. The godmothers were the Duchess of
Kent, proxy for the Duchess of Saxe-Coburg, Prince Albert's stepmother;
the Duchess of Cambridge, proxy for the child's great-grandmother, the
Duchess of Saxe-Gotha; and the Princess Augusta of Cambridge, proxy for
the Princess Sophia of England.

The ambassadors and foreign ministers, the Cabinet ministers with their
wives in full dress, the Knights of the Garter in their mantles and
collars, the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, the Bishops of London,
Winchester, Oxford, and Norwich assembled in the Waterloo Gallery; the
officers and the ladies of the Household awaited the Queen in the
corridor. At noon, certain officers of the Household attended the King of
Prussia, who was joined by the other sponsors at the head of the grand
staircase, to the chapel.

The Queen's procession included the Duke of Wellington, bearing the Sword
of State between the Lord Chamberlain, the Earl De la Warr, and the Lord
Steward, the Earl of Liverpool, the three walking before her Majesty and
Prince Albert, who were supported by their lords-in-waiting, and followed
by the Duke of Sussex, Prince George of Cambridge, Prince Edward of
Saxe-Weimar, Prince Augustus and Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, sons of
Prince Ferdinand and cousins of the Queen and Prince Albert.

When the sponsors had taken their places, and the other company were
seated near the altar, the Lord Chamberlain, accompanied by the Groom of
the Stall to Prince Albert, proceeded to the Chapter-house, and conducted
in the infant Prince of Wales, attended by the lord and groom in waiting.
The Duchess of Buccleugh, the Mistress of the Robes, took the infant from
the nurse, and put him in the Archbishop's arms. The child was named
"Albert" for his father, and "Edward" for his maternal grandfather, the
Duke of Kent. The baby, on the authority of _The Times_, "behaved
with princely decorum." After the ceremony, he was reconducted to the
Chapter-house by the Lord Chamberlain. By Prince Albert's desire "The
Hallelujah Chorus," which has never been given in England without the
audience rising simultaneously, was played at the close of the service.

The Queen afterwards held a Chapter of the Order of the Garter, at which
the King of Prussia, "as a lineal descendant of George I.," was elected a
Knight Companion, the Queen buckling the garter round his knee. There was
luncheon in the White Breakfast-room, and in the evening there was a
banquet in St. George's Hall. The table reached from one end of the hall
to the other, and was covered with gold plate. Lady Bloomfield, who was
present, describes an immense gold vessel--more like a bath than anything
else, capable of containing thirty dozens of wine. It was filled with
mulled claret, to the amazement of the Prussians. Four toasts were
drunk--that to his Royal Highness the Prince of Wales taking precedence;
toasts to his Majesty the King of Prussia, the Queen and Prince Albert
followed. A grand musical performance in the Waterloo Gallery wound up the
festivities of the day.

The presence of the King of Prussia added additional dignity to the
proceedings. He was a great ally whose visit on the occasion was a
becoming compliment. Besides, his personal character was then regarded as
full of promise, and excited much interest. His attainments and
accomplishments, which were really remarkable, won lively admiration. His
warm regard for a man like Baron Bunsen seemed to afford the best augury
for the liberality of his sentiments. As yet the danger of
impracticability, discouragement, confusion, and paralysis of all that had
been hoped for, was but faintly indicated in the dreaminess and
fancifulness of his nature.

Lady Bloomfield describes the King as of middle size, rather fat, with an
excellent countenance and little hair. The Queen met him on the grand
staircase, kissed him twice, and made him two low curtseys. Her Majesty
says in her Journal: "He was in common morning costume, and complained
much of appearing so before me.... He is entertaining, agreeable, and
witty, tells a thing so pleasantly, and is full of amusing anecdotes."

Madame Bunsen, who was privileged to see a good deal of the gay doings
during the King of Prussia's visit, has handed down her experience. "28th
January, 1842, came by railway to Windsor, and found that in the York
Tower a comfortable set of rooms were awaiting us. The upper housemaid
gave us tea, and bread and butter--very refreshing; when dressed we went
together to the corridor, soon met Lord De la Warr, the Duchess of
Buccleugh, and Lord and Lady Westmoreland--the former showed us where to
go--that is, to walk through the corridor (a fairy scene--lights,
pictures, moving figures of courtiers unknown), the apartments which we
passed through one after another till we reached the magnificent ball-room
where the guests were assembled to await the Queen's appearance. Among
these guests stood our King himself, punctual to quarter-past seven
o'clock; soon came Prince Albert, to whom Lord De la Warr named me, when
he spoke to me of Rome. We had not been there long before two gentlemen
walking in by the same door by which we had entered, and then turning and
making profound bows towards the open door, showed that the Queen was
coming. She approached me directly and said, with a gracious smile, 'I am
very much pleased to see you,' then passed on, and after speaking a few
moments to the King took his arm and moved on, 'God save the Queen' having
begun to sound from the Waterloo Gallery, where the Queen has always dined
since the King has been with her. Lord Haddington led me to dinner, and
one of the King's suite sat on the other side. The scene was one of fairy
tales, of undescribed magnificence, the proportions of the hall, the mass
of light in suspension, the gold plate, and the table glittering with a
thousand lights in branches of a proper height not to meet the eye. The
King's health was drunk, then the Queen's, and then the Queen went out,
followed by all her ladies. During the half-hour or less that elapsed
before Prince Albert and the King followed the Queen, she did not sit, but
went round to speak to the different ladies. She asked after my children,
and gave me an opportunity of thanking her for the gracious permission to
behold her Majesty so soon after my arrival. The Duchess of Kent also
spoke to me, and I was very glad of the notice of Lady Lyttelton, who is
very charming. As soon as the King came the Queen went into the ball-room
and made the King dance a quadrille with her, which he did with all
suitable grace and dignity, though he has long ceased to dance. At
half-past eleven, after the Queen had retired, I set out on my travels to
my bed-chamber. I might have looked and wandered about some miles before I
had found my door of exit, but was helped by an old gentleman, I believe
Lord Albemarle."

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