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

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The favourable impression had been made in spite of the perversity of
fortune and the vagaries of human hearts, which, amidst other casualties,
might have led the Princess to accord her preference to the elder brother,
Prince Ernest, who was also "a fine young fellow," though not so well
suited to become prince-consort to the Queen of England. But for once
destiny was propitious, and neither that nor any other mischance befell the
bright prospects of the principal actors in the scene. When the King of the
Belgians could no longer refrain from expressing his hopes, he had the most
satisfactory answer from his royal niece.

"I have only now to beg you, my dearest uncle," she wrote, "to take care of
the health of one now so dear to me, and to take him under your special
protection. I hope and trust that all will now go on prosperously and well
on this subject, now of so much importance to me."

At the same time, though an affectionate correspondence was started and
maintained for a year, no further communication passed which could tend to
enlighten the Prince as to the feelings he had excited. He went away to
complete his education, to study diligently, along with his brother, at
Brussels and Bonn; to feel in full the gladness of opening life and opening
powers of no ordinary description; to rejoice, as few young men have the
same warrant to rejoice, in the days of his unstained, noble youth.

On the King's birthday, the 21st August, the Duchess of Kent and Princess
Victoria were at Windsor Castle on a visit. In spite of some soreness over
the old grievance, the King proposed the Princess Victoria's health very
kindly at the dinner. After he had drunk the Princess Augusta's health he
said, "And now, having given the health of the oldest I will give that of
the youngest member of the royal family. I know the interest which the
public feel about her, and although I have not seen so much of her as I
could have wished, I take no less interest in her, and the more I do see of
her, both in public and private, the greater pleasure it will give me." The
whole thing was so civil and gracious that it could hardly be taken ill,
but, says Greville, "the young Princess sat opposite and hung her head with
not unnatural modesty at being thus talked of in so large a company."

In the September of that year the Duchess and the Princess went again to
Ramsgate, and stayed there till December. It was their last visit to the
quiet little resort within a short pilgrimage of Canterbury--the great
English shrine, not so much of Thomas a Becket, slain before the altar, as
of Edward the Black Prince, with his sword and gauntlets hung up for ever,
and the inscription round the effigy which does not speak of Cressy and
Poictiers, but of the vanity of human pride and ambition. It was the last
seaside holiday which the mother and daughter spent together untrammelled
by State obligations and momentous duties, with none to come between the
two who had been all in all with each other. In their absence a storm of
wind passed over London, and wrought great damage in Kensington Gardens.
About a hundred and thirty of the larger trees were destroyed. In the
forenoon of the 29th of November "a tremendous crash was heard in one of
the plantations near the Black Pond, between Kensington Palace and the
Mount Gate, and on several persons running to the spot twenty-five limes
were found tumbled to the earth by a single blast, their roots reaching
high into the air, with a great quantity of earth and turf adhering, while
deep chasms of several yards in diameter showed the force with which they
had been torn up.... On the Palace Green, Kensington, near the
forcing-garden, two large elms and a very fine sycamore were also laid
prostrate."

In the following summer (1837) the Princess came of age, as princesses do,
at eighteen, and it was meet that the day should be celebrated with, all
honour and gladness. But the rejoicings were damped by the manifestly
failing health of the aged King, then seventy-one years of age. He had been
attacked by hay fever--to which he had been liable every spring at an
earlier period of his life, but the complaint was more formidable in the
case of an old and infirm man, while he still struggled manfully to
transact business and discharge the duties of his position. At the Levee
and Drawing-room of the 21st May he sat while receiving the company. By
the 24th he was confined to his rooms, and the Queen did not leave him.

At six o'clock in the morning the Union Jack was hoisted on the summit of
the old church, Kensington, and on the flagstaff at Palace Green. In the
last instance the national ensign was surmounted by a white silk flag on
which was inscribed in sky-blue letters "Victoria." The little town adorned
itself to the best of its ability. "From the houses of the principal
inhabitants of the High Street were also displayed the Royal Standard,
Union Jack, and other flags and colours, some of them of extraordinary
dimensions." Soon after six o'clock the gates of Kensington Gardens were
thrown open for the admission of the public to be present at the serenade
which was to be performed at seven o'clock under the Palace windows, with
the double purpose of awaking the Princess in the most agreeable manner,
and of reminding her that at the same place and hour, eighteen years ago,
she had opened her eyes on the May world. The sleep of youth is light as
well as sound, and it may well be that the Princess, knowing all that was
in store for her on the happy day that could not be too long, the many
goodly tokens of her friends' love and gladness--not the least precious
those from Germany awaiting her acceptance--the innumerable congratulations
to be offered to her, was wide awake before the first violin or voice led
the choir.

The bells rang out merry peals, carriages dashed by full of fine company.
Kensington Square must have thought it was the old days of William and
Mary, and Anne, or of George II and Queen Caroline at the latest, come back
again. The last French dwellers in Edwardes Square must have talked volubly
of what their predecessors had told them of Paris before the flood, Paris
before the Orleanists, and the Bonapartists, and the Republic--Paris when
the high-walled, green-gardened hotels of the Faubourg St. Germain were
full of their ancient occupants; when Marie Antoinette was the daughter of
the Caesars at the Tuileries, and the _bergere_ Queen at le Petit
Trianon. Before the sun went down many a bumper was drunk in honour of
Kensington's own Princess, who should that day leave her girlhood all too
soon behind her.

But London as well as Kensington rejoiced, and the festivities were wound
up with a ball given at St. James's Palace by order of the poor King and
Queen, over whose heads the cloud of sorrow and parting was hanging
heavily. We are told that the ball opened with a quadrille, the Princess
being "led off" by Lord Fitzalan, eldest son of the Earl of Surrey and
grandson of the Duke of Norfolk, Premier Duke and Earl, Hereditary Earl
Marshal and Chief Butler of England. Her Royal Highness danced afterwards
with Prince Nicholas Esterhazy, son of the Austrian Ambassador. Prince
Nicholas made a brilliant figure in contemporary annals--not because of his
own merits, not because he married one of the fairest of England's noble
daughters, whose gracious English hospitalities were long remembered in
Vienna, but because of the lustre of the diamonds in his Court suit. He
was said to sparkle from head to heel. There was a legend that he could not
wear this splendid costume without a hundred pounds' worth of diamonds
dropping from him, whether he would or not, in minor gems, just as jewels
fell at every word from the mouth of the enchanted Princess. We have heard
of men and women behind whose steps flowers sprang into birth, but Prince
Nicholas left a more glittering, if a colder, harder track.

CHAPTER IV.
THE ACCESSION.

On the day after that on which Princess Victoria celebrated her majority.
Baron Stockmar arrived at Kensington. He came from the King of the Belgians
to assist King Leopold's niece in what was likely to be the great crisis of
her life. During Baron Stockmar's former stay in England he had been in the
character first of Physician in Ordinary to Prince Leopold, and afterwards
of Private Secretary and Comptroller of his household. In those offices he
had spent the greater part of his time in this country from 1816 to 1834.
He had accompanied his master on his ascending the Belgian throne, but had
returned to England in a few years in order to serve him better there.
Baron Stockmar was thus an old and early friend of the Princess's. In
addition he had a large acquaintance with the English political world, and
was therefore well qualified to advise her with the force of a
disinterested adviser in her difficult position. In the view of her
becoming Queen, although her three predecessors, including George III after
he became blind, had appointed and retained private secretaries, the office
was not popular in the eyes of the Government and country, and it was not
considered advisable that the future Queen should possess such a servant,
notwithstanding the weight of business--enormous in the matter of
signatures alone--which would fall on the Sovereign. Without any recognised
position, Stockmar was destined to share with the Prime Minister one
portion of the duties which ought to have devolved on a private secretary.
He was also to act as confidential adviser.

Baron Stockmar, [Footnote: "An active, decided, slender, rather little man,
with a compact head, brown hair streaked with grey, a bold, short nose,
firm yet full mouth, and what gave a peculiar air of animation to his face,
with two youthful, flashing brown eyes, full of roguish intelligence and
fiery provocation. With this exterior, the style of his demeanour and
conversation corresponded; bold, bright, pungent, eager, full of thought,
so that amid all the bubbling copiousness and easy vivacity of his talk, a
certain purpose was never lost sight of in his remarks and
illustrations."--_Friedrich Carl Meyer_.] who was at this time a man
of fifty, was no ordinary character. He was sagacious, warm-hearted,
honest, straightforward to bluntness, painstaking, just, benevolent to a
remarkable degree; the friend of princes, without forfeiting his
independence, he won and kept their perfect confidence to the end. He loved
them heartily in return, without seeking anything from them; on the
contrary, he showed himself reluctant to accept tokens of their favour.
While lavishing his services on others, and readily lending his help to
those who needed it, he would seem to have wanted comfort himself. An
affectionate family man, he consented to constantly recurring separation
from his wife and children in order to discharge the peculiar functions
which were entrusted to him. For he played in the background--contented,
nay, resolute to remain there--by the lawful exercise of influence alone,
no small part in the destinies of several of the reigning houses in Europe,
and through them, of their kingdoms. Like Carlyle, he suffered during his
whole life from dyspepsia; like Carlyle, too, he was a victim to
hypochondria, the result of his physical state. To these two last causes
may be attributed some whimsicalities and eccentricities which were readily
forgiven in the excellent Baron.

Baron Stockmar did not come too soon; in less than a month, on the 20th of
June, 1837, after an illness which he had borne, patiently and reverently,
King William died peacefully, his hand resting where it had lain for hours,
on the shoulder of his faithful Queen.

The death took place at Windsor, at a little after two o'clock in the
morning. Immediately afterwards the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr. Howley,
and the Lord Chamberlain, the Marquis of Conyngham, together with the Earl
of Albemarle, the Master of the Horse, and Sir Henry Halford, the late
King's physician, started from Windsor for Kensington. All through the rest
of the summer night these solemn and stately gentlemen drove, nodding with
fatigue, hailing the early dawn, speaking at intervals to pronounce
sentence on the past reign and utter prognostications, of the reign which
was to come. Shortly before five, when the birds were already in full
chorus in Kensington Gardens, the party stood at the main door, demanding
admission. This was another and ruder summons than the musical serenade
which had been planned to wile the gentle sleeper sweetly from her slumbers
and to hail her natal day not a month before. That had been a graceful,
sentimental recognition of a glad event; this was an unvarnished, well-nigh
stern arousal to the world of grave business and anxious care, following
the mournful announcement of a death--not a birth. From this day the
Queen's heavy responsibilities and stringent obligations were to begin.
That untimely, peremptory challenge sounded the first knell to the light
heart and careless freedom of youth.

Though it had been well known that the King lay on his death-bed, and
Kensington without, as well as Kensington within, must have been in a high
state of expectation, it does not appear that there were any watchers on
the alert to rush together at the roll of the three royal carriages.
Instead of the eager, respectful crowd, hurrying into the early-opened
gates of the park to secure good places for all that was to be seen and
heard on the day of the Princess's coming of age, Palace Green seems to
have been a solitude on this momentous June morning, and the individual the
most interested in the event, after the new-made Queen, instead of being
there to pay his homage first, as he had offered his congratulations on the
birthday a year before, was far away, quietly studying at the little
university town on the Rhine.

"They knocked, they rang, they thumped for a considerable time before they
could rouse the porter at the gate," says Miss Wynn, in the "Diary of a
Lady of Quality," of these importunate new-comers. "They were again kept
waiting in the courtyard, then turned into one of the lower rooms, where
they seemed forgotten by everybody. They rang the bell and desired that the
attendant of the Princess Victoria might be sent to inform Her Royal
Highness that they requested an audience on business of importance. After
another delay and another ringing to inquire the cause, the attendant was
summoned, who stated that the Princess was in such a sweet sleep that she
could not venture to disturb her. Then they said, 'We are come on business
of State to the QUEEN, and even her sleep must give way to that.' It did;
and, to prove that she did not keep them waiting, in a few minutes she came
into the room in a loose white nightgown and shawl, her nightcap thrown
off, and her hair falling upon her shoulders, her feet in slippers, tears
in her eyes, but perfectly collected and dignified."

In those days, when news did not travel very fast, and was not always
delivered with strict accuracy, a rumour got abroad that the Queen was
walking in the Palace Garden when the messengers came to tell her she had
succeeded to the Crown. A great deal was made of the poetic simplicity of
the surroundings of the interesting central figure--the girl in her tender
bloom among the lilies and roses, which she resembled. We can remember a
brilliant novel of the time which had a famous chapter beginning with an
impassioned apostrophe to the maiden who met her high destiny "in a palace,
in a garden." Another account asserted that the Queen saw the Archbishop of
Canterbury alone in her ante-room, and that her first request was for his
prayers.

The Marquis of Conyngham was the bearer to the Queen of a request from the
Queen-dowager that she might be permitted to remain at Windsor till after
the funeral. In reply, her Majesty wrote an affectionate letter of
condolence to her aunt, begging her to consult nothing but her own health
and convenience, and to stay at Windsor just as long as she pleased. The
writer was observed to address this as usual "To the Queen of England." A
bystander interposed, "Your Majesty, you are Queen of England." "Yes,"
answered the unelated, considerate girl-Queen, "but the widowed Queen is
not to be reminded of the fact first by me."

Their message delivered, the messengers returned to London, and the next
arrival was that of the Prime Minister, Lord Melbourne, who appeared at
nine o'clock, had an interview with the Queen, which lasted for half an
hour, when he also took his leave to issue summonses for a Privy Council,
to he held in the course of the next two hours at Kensington Palace, and
not at St. James's, as had been anticipated.

The little town of Kensington must now have been up and about, for,
perhaps, never had there been such a day in its annals, as far transcending
the birthday celebration as a great reality surpasses the brightest
promise; and Kensington might hug the day with all its might, for it was to
be nearly the last of its kingly, queenly experience. The temporary Court
was to pass away presently, never to come back. No more kings and queens
were likely to be born or to die at the quiet spot, soon to become a great
noisy suburb of great London. No later Sovereign would quit the red-brick
palace of Mary and Anne, and the First George, to reign at Buckingham or
Windsor; no other Council be held in the low-browed, white-pillared room to
dispute the interests of the unique Council which was to be held there this
day.

The first Council of any Sovereign must awaken many speculations, while the
bearing of the principal figure in the assumption of new powers and duties
is sure to be watched with critical curiosity; but in the case of Queen
Victoria the natural interest reached its utmost bounds. The public
imagination was impressed in the most lively manner by the strong contrast
between the tender youth and utter inexperience of the maiden Queen and the
weighty and serious functions she was about to assume--an anomaly best
indicated by the characteristic speech of Carlyle, that a girl at an age
when, in ordinary circumstances, she would hardly be trusted to choose a
bonnet for herself, was called upon to undertake responsibilities from
which an archangel might have shrunk. More than this, the retirement in
which the young Queen had grown up left her nature a hidden secret to those
well-trained, grey-bearded men in authority, who now came to bid her rule
over them. Thus, in addition to every other doubt to be solved, there was
the pressing question as to how a girl would behave under such a tremendous
test; for, although there had been queens-regnant, popular and unpopular
before, Mary and Elizabeth had been full-grown women, and Anne had attained
still more mature years, before the crown and sceptre were committed to the
safe keeping of each in turn. Above all, how would this royal girl, on
whose conduct so much depended, demean herself on this crucial occasion?
Surely if she were overcome by timidity and apprehension, if she were
goaded into some foolish demonstration of pride or levity, allowance must
be made, and a good deal forgiven, because of the cruel strain to which she
was subjected.

Shortly after eleven o'clock, the royal Dukes and a great number of Privy
Councillors, amongst whom were all the Cabinet Ministers and the great
officers of State and the Household, arrived at Kensington Palace, and were
ushered into the State apartments. A later arrival consisted of the Lord
Mayor, attended by the City Marshals in full uniform, on horseback, with
crape on their left arms; the Chamberlain, Sword-bearer, Comptroller, Town
Clerk, and Deputy Town Clerk, &c., accompanied by six aldermen. These City
magnates appeared at the Palace to pay their homage to her Majesty. The
Lord Mayor attended the Council.

We have various accounts--one from an eye-witness wont to be cool and
critical enough--of what passed. "The first thing to be done," writes
Greville, "was to teach her her lesson, which, for this purpose, Melbourne
had himself to learn. I gave him the Council papers and explained all that
was to be done, and he went and explained all this to her. He asked her if
she would enter the room accompanied by the great officers of State, but
she said she would come in alone. When the Lords were assembled, the Lord
President (Lord Lansdowne) informed them of the King's death, and
suggested, as they were so numerous, that a few of them should repair to
the presence of the Queen, and inform her of the event, and that their
lordships were assembled in consequence; and accordingly the two royal
Dukes (the Duke of Cumberland, by the death of William, King of Hanover,
and the Duke of Sussex--the Duke of Cambridge was absent in Hanover), the
two Archbishops, the Chancellor, and Melbourne went with him. The Queen
received them in the adjoining room alone."

It was the first time she had to act for herself. Until then she had been
well supported by her mother, and by the precedence which the Duchess of
Kent took as her Majesty's guardian. But the guardianship was over and the
reign begun. There could be no more sheltering from responsibility, or
becoming deference to, and reliance on, the wisdom of another and a much
older person. In one sense the stay was of necessity removed. The Duchess
of Kent, from this day "treated her daughter with respectful observance as
well as affection." The time was past for advice, instruction, or
suggestion, unless in private, and even then it would be charily and warily
given by the sensible, modest mother of a Queen. Well for her Majesty that
there was no more than truth in what one of the historians of the reign has
said, in just and temperate language, of her character: "She was well
brought up. Both as regards her intellect and her character her training
was excellent. She was taught to be self-reliant, brave, and systematical."

As soon as the deputation had returned, the proclamation was read; "Whereas
it has pleased Almighty God to call to His mercy our late Sovereign Lord,
King William the Fourth, of blessed and glorious memory, by whose decease
the imperial Crown of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland is
solely and rightfully come to the high and mighty Princess Alexandrina
Victoria, saving the rights of any issue of his late majesty, King William
the Fourth, which may be born of his late Majesty's consort; we, therefore,
the lords spiritual and temporal of this realm, being here assisted with
these of his late Majesty's Privy Council, with numbers of others,
principal gentlemen of quality, with the Lord Mayor, aldermen and citizens
of London, do now hereby, with one voice and consent of tongue and heart,
publish and proclaim that the high and mighty Princess Alexandrina Victoria
is now, by the death of our late Sovereign, of happy memory, become our
only lawful and rightful liege Lady, Victoria, by the grace of God Queen of
the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Defender of the Faith,
saving, as aforesaid: To whom, saving as aforesaid, we do acknowledge all
faith and constant obedience, with all hearty and humble affection,
beseeching God, by whom kings and queens do reign, to bless the royal
Princess Victoria with long and happy years to reign over us.

"Given at the Court of Kensington this 20th day of June, 1837. (Signed by
all the Lords of the Privy Council present). God Save the Queen."

"Then," resuming Mr. Greville's narrative, "the doors were thrown open,
and the Queen entered, accompanied by her two uncles, who advanced to meet
her. She bowed to the Lords, took her seat (an arm-chair improvised into a
throne, with a footstool), and then read her speech in a clear, distinct,
and audible voice, and without any appearance of fear or embarrassment:--

"'The severe and afflicting loss which the nation has sustained by the
death of his Majesty, my beloved uncle, has devolved upon me the duty of
administering the Government of this empire. This awful responsibility is
imposed upon me so suddenly, and at so early a period of my life, that I
should feel myself utterly oppressed by the burden were I not sustained by
the hope that Divine Providence, which has called me to this work, will
give me strength for the performance of it, and that I shall find in the
purity of my intentions, and in my zeal for the public welfare, that
support and those resources which usually belong to a more mature age and
to longer experience.

"'I place my firm reliance upon the wisdom of Parliament and upon the
loyalty and affection of my people. I esteem it also a peculiar advantage
that I succeed to a Sovereign whose constant regard for the rights and
liberties of his subjects, and whose desire to promote the amelioration of
the laws and institutions of the country, have rendered his name the object
of general attachment and veneration.

"'Educated in England, under the tender and enlightened care of a most
affectionate mother, I have learned from my infancy to respect and love
the Constitution of my native country.

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