Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood by Grace Greenwood

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QUEEN VICTORIA.
HER GIRLHOOD AND WOMANHOOD.

BY GRACE GREENWOOD

A DEDICATORY LETTER

TO CAMILLA TOULMIN (MRS. NEWTON CROSLAND), LINTON LODGE, BLACKHEATH PARK:

Permit me, my dear friend, to inscribe to you this very imperfect Life of
your beloved Queen, in remembrance of that dear old time when the world
was brighter and more beautiful than it is now (or so it seemeth to me)
and things in general were pleasanter;--when better books were written,
especially biographies, and there were fewer of them;--when the "gentle
reader" and the "indulgent critic" were extant;--when Realism had not
shouldered his way into Art;--when there were great actors and actresses
of the fine old school, like Macready and the elder Booth--Helen Faucit
and Charlotte Cushman; and real orators, like Daniel O'Connell and Daniel
Webster;--when there was more poetry and more romance in life than now;--
when it took less silk to make a gown, but when a bonnet was a bonnet;--
when there was less east-wind and fog, more moonlight to the month, and
more sunlight to the acre;--when the scent of the blossoming hawthorn was
sweeter in the morning, and the song of the nightingale more melodious in
the twilight;--when, in short, you and I, and the glorious Victorian era,
were young.

GRACE GREENWOOD.

PREFACE.

I send this book out to the world with many misgivings, feeling that it
is not what I would like it to be--not what I could have made it with
more time. I have found it especially difficult to procure facts and
incidents of the early life of the Queen--just that period which I felt
was of most interest to my younger readers. So much was I delayed that
for the actual arrangement and culling of my material, and the writing of
the volume, I have had less than three months, and during that time many
interruptions in my work--the most discouraging caused by a serious
trouble of the eyes.

I am aware that the book is written in a free and easy style, partly
natural, and partly formed by many years of journalistic work--a style
new for the grave business of biographical writing, and which may be
startling in a royal biography,--to my English readers, at least. I aimed
to make a pleasant, simple fireside story of the life and reign of Queen
Victoria--and I hope I have not altogether failed. Unluckily, I had no
friend near the throne to furnish me with reliable, unpublished personal
anecdotes of Her Majesty.

I have made use of the labor of several English authors; first, of that
of the Queen herself, in the books entitled, "Leaves from the Journal of
Our Life in the Highlands," and "The Early Years of His Royal Highness
the Prince-Consort"; next, of that of Sir Theodore Martin, K.C.B., in his
"Life of the Prince-Consort." For this last appropriation I have Sir
Theodore Martin's gracious permission. I am much indebted to Hon. Justin
McCarthy, in his "History of Our Own Times." I have also been aided by
various compilations, and by Lord Ronald Gower's "Reminiscences."

I have long felt that the wonderful story of the life of the Queen of
England--of her example as a daughter, wife and mother, and as the
honored head of English society could but have, if told simply, yet
sympathetically, a happy and ennobling influence on the hearts and minds
of my young countrywomen. I have done my work, if lightly, with entire
respect, though always as an American and a republican. I could not do
otherwise; for, though it has made me in love with a few royal people, it
has not made me in love with royalty. I cannot but think that, so far
from its being a condition of itself ennobling to human character, those
born into it have often to fight to maintain a native nobility,--as Queen
Victoria has fought, as Prince Albert fought,--for I find the "blameless
Prince" saying: "To my mind the exaltation of royalty is only possible
through the personal character of the sovereign."

It suits England, however, "excellent well," in its restricted
constitutional form; she has all the venerable, splendid accessories--and
I hope "Albert the Good" may have founded a long race of good kings; but
it would not do for us;--a race cradled in revolution, and nurtured on
irreverence and unbelief, as regards the divine right of kings and the
law of primogeniture. To us it seems, though a primitive, an unnatural
institution. We find no analogies for it, even in the wildest venture of
the New World. It is true the buffalo herd has its kingly commander, who
goes plunging along ahead, like a flesh-and-blood locomotive; the drove
of wild horses has its chieftain, tossing his long mane, like a banner,
in advance of his fellows; even the migratory multitudes of wild-fowl,
darkening the autumn heavens, have their general and engineer,--but none
of these leaders was born, or hatched into his proud position. They are
undoubtedly chosen, elected, or elect themselves by superior will or
wisdom. Entomology does, indeed, furnish some analogies. The sagacious
bees, the valiant wasps, are monarchists,--but then, they have only
queens.

G. G.

LONDON, _October 20th_, 1883.

CONTENTS.

PART I.
CHILDHOOD AND GIRLHOOD

PART II.
WOMANHOOD AND QUEENHOOD

PART III.
WIFEHOOD AND MOTHERHOOD

PART IV.
WIDOWHOOD

ILLUSTRATIONS

1. THE PRINCESS VICTORIA.
2. QUEEN VICTORIA AT THE AGE OF 18.
3. THE DUCHESS OF KENT, MOTHER OF THE QUEEN.
4. THE QUEEN AT THE AGE OF 64.
5. PRINCE ALBERT, HUSBAND OF THE QUEEN.

PART I.

CHILDHOOD AND GIRLHOOD.

CHAPTER I.

Sketch of the Princess Charlotte--Her Love for her Mother--Anecdotes--Her
Happy Girlhood--Her Marriage with Prince Leopold--Her Beautiful Life at
Claremont--Baron Stockmar, the Coburg Mentor--Death of the Princess
Charlotte.

It seems to me that the life of Queen Victoria cannot well be told
without a prefacing sketch of her cousin, the Princess Charlotte, who,
had she lived, would have been her Queen, and who was in many respects
her prototype. It is certain, I think, that Charlotte Augusta of Wales,
that lovely miracle-flower of a loveless marriage, blooming into a noble
and gracious womanhood, amid the petty strifes and disgraceful intrigues
of a corrupt Court, by her virtues and graces, by her high spirit and
frank and fearless character, prepared the way in the loyal hearts of the
British people, for the fair young kinswoman, who, twenty-one years after
her own sad death, reigned in her stead.

Through all the bright life of the Princess Charlotte--from her beautiful
childhood to her no less beautiful maturity--the English people had
regarded her proudly and lovingly as their sovereign, who was to be; they
had patience with the melancholy madness of the poor old King, her
grandfather, and with the scandalous irregularities of the Prince Regent,
her father, in looking forward to happier and better things under a good
woman's reign; and after all those fair hopes had been coffined with her,
and buried in darkness and silence, their hearts naturally turned to the
royal little girl, who might possibly fill the place left so drearily
vacant. England had always been happy and prosperous under Queens, and a
Queen, please God, they would yet have.

The Princess Charlotte was the only child of the marriage of the Prince
Regent, afterwards George IV., with the Princess Caroline of Brunswick,
Her childhood was overshadowed by the hopeless estrangement of her
parents. She seems to have especially loved her mother, and by the
courage and independence she displayed in her championship of that good-
hearted but most eccentric and imprudent woman, endeared herself to the
English people, who equally admired her pluck and her filial piety--on
the maternal side. They took a fond delight in relating stories of
rebellion against her august papa, and even against her awful grandmamma,
Queen Charlotte. They told how once, when a mere slip of a girl, being
forbidden to pay her usual visit to her poor mother, she insisted on
going, and on the Queen undertaking to detain her by force, resisted,
struggling right valiantly, and after damaging and setting comically awry
the royal mob-cap, broke away, ran out of the palace, sprang into a
hackney-coach, and promising the driver a guinea, was soon at her
mother's house and in her mother's arms. There is another--a Court
version of this hackney-coach story--which states that it was not the
Queen, but the Prince Regent that the Princess ran away from--so that
there could have been no assault on a mob-cap. But the common people of
that day preferred the version I have given, as more piquant, especially
as old Queen Charlotte was known to be the most solemnly grand of
grandmammas, and a personage of such prodigious dignity that it was
popularly supposed that only Kings and Queens, with their crowns actually
on their heads, were permitted to sit in her presence.

As a young girl, the Princess Charlotte was by no means without faults of
temper and manner. She was at times self-willed, passionate, capricious,
and imperious, though ordinarily good-humored, kindly, and sympathetic. A
Court lady of the time, speaking of her, says: "She is very clever, but
at present has the manners of a hoyden school-girl. She talked all sorts
of nonsense to me, but can put on dignity when she chooses." This writer
also relates that the royal little lady loved to shock her attendants by
running to fetch for herself articles she required--her hat, a book, or a
chair--and that one summer, when she stayed at a country-house, she would
even run to open the gate to visitors, curtsying to them like a country
lassie. The Earl of Albemarle, who was her playmate in childhood, his
grandmother being her governess, relates that one time when they had the
Prince Regent to lunch, the chop came up spoiled, and it was found that
Her Royal Highness had descended into the kitchen, and, to the dismay of
the cook, insisted on broiling it. Albemarle adds that he, boy-like,
taunted her with her culinary failure, saying: "_You_ would make a
pretty Queen, wouldn't you?" At another time, some years later, she came
in her carriage to make a morning-call at his grandmother's, and seeing a
crowd gathered before the door, attracted by the royal liveries, she ran
out a back-way, came round, and mingled with the curious throng
unrecognized, and as eager to see the Princess as any of them.

Not being allowed the society of her mother, and that of her father not
being considered wholesome for her, the Princess was early advised and
urged to take a companion and counsellor in the shape of a husband. The
Prince of Orange, afterwards King of the Netherlands, was fixed upon as a
good _parti_ by her royal relatives, and he came courting to the English
Court. But the Princess did hot altogether fancy this aspirant, so, after
her independent fashion, she declined the alliance, and "the young man
went away sorrowing."

One of the ladies of the Princess used to tell how for a few minutes
after the Prince had called to make his sad _adieux_, she hoped that
Her Royal Highness had relented because she walked thoughtfully to the
window to see the last of him as he descended the palace steps and sprang
into his carriage, looking very grand in his red uniform, with a tuft of
green feathers in his hat. But when the Princess turned away with a gay
laugh, saying, "How like a radish he looks," she knew that all was over.
It is an odd little coincidence, that a later Prince of Orange,
afterwards King of the Netherlands, had the same bad luck as a suitor to
the Princess or Queen Victoria.

Charlotte's next lover, Leopold, of Saxe-Coburg, an amiable and able
Prince, was more fortunate. He won the light but constant heart of the
Princess, inspiring her not only with tender love, but with profound
respect. Her high spirit and imperious will were soon tamed to his firm
but gentle hand; she herself became more gentle and reasonable, content
to rule the kingdom of his heart at least, by her womanly charms, rather
than by the power of her regal name and lofty position. This royal love-
marriage took place in May, 1816, and soon after the Prince and Princess,
who had little taste for Court gaieties, went to live at Claremont, the
beautiful country residence now occupied by the young Duke of Albany, a
namesake of Prince Leopold. Here the young couple lived a life of much
domestic privacy and simplicity, practicing themselves in habits of
study, methodical application to business, and wise economy. They were
always together, spending happy hours in work and recreation, passing
from law and politics to music and sketching, from the study of the
British Constitution to horticulture. The Princess especially delighted
in gardening, in watering with her own hands her favorite plants.

This happy pair had an invaluable aid and ally in the learned Baron
Stockmar, early attached to Prince Leopold as private physician, a rare,
good man on whom they both leaned much, as afterwards did Victoria and
Albert and their children. Indeed the Baron seems to have been a
permanent pillar for princes to lean upon. From youth to old age he was
to two or three royal households the chief "guide, philosopher, and
friend"--a Coburg mentor, a Guelphic oracle.

So these royal lovers of Claremont lived tranquilly on, winning the love
and respect of all about them, and growing dearer and dearer to each
other till the end came, the sudden death of the young wife and mother,--
an event which, on a sad day in November, 1817, plunged the whole realm
into mourning. The grief of the people, even those farthest removed from
the Court, was real, intense, almost personal and passionate. It was a
double tragedy, for the child too was dead. The accounts of the last
moments of the Princess are exceedingly touching. When told that her baby
boy was not living, she said: "I am grieved, for myself, for the English
people, but O, above all, I feel it for my dear husband!" Taking an
opportunity when the Prince was away from her bedside, she asked if she
too must die. The physician did not directly reply, but said, "Pray be
calm."

"I know what _that_ means," she replied, then added, "Tell it to my
husband,--tell it with caution and tenderness, and be sure to say to him,
from me, that I am still the happiest wife in England."

It seems, according to the Queen, that it was Stockmar that took this
last message to the Prince, who lacked the fortitude to remain by the
bedside of his dying wife--that it was Stockmar who held her hand till it
grew pulseless and cold, till the light faded from her sweet blue eyes as
her great life and her great love passed forever from the earth. Yet it
seems that through a mystery of transmigration, that light and life and
love were destined soon to be reincarnated in a baby cousin, born in May,
1819, called at first "the little May-flower," and through her earliest
years watched and tended as a frail and delicate blossom of hope.

CHAPTER II.

Birth of the Princess Victoria--Character of her Father--Question of the
Succession to the Throne--Death of the Duke of Kent--Baptism of Victoria
--Removal to Woolbrook Glen--Her first Escape from Sudden Death--Picture
of Domestic Life--Anecdotes.

After the loss of his wife, Prince Leopold left for a time his sad home
of Claremont, and returned to the Continent, but came back some time in
1819, to visit a beloved sister, married since his own bereavement, and
become the mother of a little English girl, and for the second time a
widow. Lovingly, though with a pang at his heart, the Prince bent over
the cradle of this eight-months-old baby, who in her unconscious
orphanage smiled into his kindly face, and though he thought sorrowfully
of the little one whose eyes had never smiled into his, had never even
opened upon life, he vowed then and there to the child of his bereaved
sister, the devoted love, the help, sympathy, and guidance which never
failed her while he lived.

This baby girl was the daughter of the Duke of Kent and of the Princess
Victoire Marie Louise of Saxe-Coburg Saalfield, widow of Prince Charles
of Leiningen. Edward, Duke of Kent, was the fourth and altogether the
best son of George III. Making all allowance for the exaggeration of
loyal biographers, I should say he was an amiable, able, and upright man,
generous and charitable to a remarkable degree, for a royal Prince of
that time--perhaps too much so, for he kept himself poor and died poor.
He was not a favorite with his royal parents, who seem to have denied him
reasonable assistance, while lavishing large sums on his spendthrift
brother, the Prince of Wales. George was like the prodigal son of
Scripture, except that he never repented--Edward like the virtuous son,
except that he never complained.

On the death of the Princess Charlotte the Duke of York had become heir-
presumptive to the throne. He had no children, and the Duke of Clarence,
third son of George III., was therefore next in succession. He married in
the same year as his brother of Kent, and to him also a little daughter
was born, who, had she lived, would have finally succeeded to the throne
instead of Victoria. But the poor little Princess stayed but a little
while to flatter or disappoint royal hopes. She looked timidly out upon
life, with all its regal possibilities, and went away untempted. Still
the Duchess of Clarence (afterwards Queen Adelaide) might yet be the
happy mother of a Prince, or Princess Royal, and there were so many
probabilities against the accession of the Duke of Kent's baby to the
throne that people smiled when, holding her in his arms, the proud father
would say, in a spirit of prophecy, "Look at her well!--she will yet be
Queen of England."

One rainy afternoon the Duke stayed out late, walking in the grounds, and
came in with wet feet. He was urged to change his boots and stockings,
but his pretty baby, laughing and crowing on her mother's knee, was too
much for him; he took her in his arms and played with her till the fatal
chill struck him. He soon took to his bed, which he never left. He had
inflammation of the lungs, and a country doctor, which last took from him
one hundred and twenty ounces of blood. Then, as he grew no better, a
great London physician was called in, but he said it was too late to save
the illustrious patient; that if he had had charge of the case at first,
he would have "bled more freely." Such was the medical system of sixty
years ago.

The Duke of Kent's death brought his unconscious baby's feet a step--just
his grave's width--nearer the throne; but it was not till many years
later--till after the death of her kindly uncle of York, and her "fine
gentleman" uncle, George IV., and the accession of her rough sailor-
uncle, the Duke of Clarence, William IV., an old man, and legally
considered childless--that the Princess Victoria was confidently regarded
as the coming sovereign, and that the momentous truth was revealed to
her. She was twelve years old before any clear intimation had been
allowed to reach her of the exceptional grandeur of her destiny. Till
then she did not know that she was especially an object of national love
and hope, or especially great or fortunate. She knew that she was a
"Royal Highness," but she knew also, the wise child!--that since the
Guelphs came over to rule the English, Royal Highnesses had been more
plentiful than popular; she knew that she was obliged to wear, most of
the time, very plain cotton gowns and straw hats, and to learn a lot of
tiresome things, and that she was kept on short allowance of pin-money
and ponies.

The wise Duchess of Kent certainly guarded her with the most jealous care
from all premature realization of the splendid part she might have to
play in the world's history, as a hope too intoxicating, or a
responsibility too heavy, for the heart and mind of a sensitive child.

I wonder if her Serene Highness kept fond motherly records of the
babyhood and childhood of the Queen? If so, what a rich mine it would be
for a poor bewildered biographer like me, required to make my foundation
bricks with only a few golden bits of straw. I have searched the
chronicles of the writers of that time; I have questioned loyal old
people, but have found or gained little that is novel, or peculiarly
interesting.

Victoria was born in the sombre but picturesque old palace of Kensington,
on May 24, 1819, and on the 24th of the following June was baptized with
great pomp out of the splendid gold font, brought from the Tower, by the
Archbishop of Canterbury, assisted by the Bishop of London. Her sponsors
were the Prince Regent and the Emperor of Russia (the last represented by
the Duke of York), the Queen Dowager of Wuertemburg (represented by the
Princess Augusta) and the Duchess Dowager of Coburg (represented by the
Duchess Dowager of Gloucester), and her names were _Alexandrina
Victoria_, the first in honor of the Emperor Alexander of Russia. She
came awfully near being Alexandrina Georgiana, but the Prince Regent, at
the last moment, declared that the name of Georgiana should be second to
no other; then added, "Give her her mother's name--after that of the
Emperor." The Queen afterwards decided that her mother's name should be
second to no other. Yet as a child she was often called "little Drina."

The baby's first move from her stately birthplace was to a lovely country
residence called Woolbrook Glen, near Sidmouth. Here Victoria had the
first of those remarkable narrow escapes from sudden and violent death
which have almost seemed to prove that she bears a "charmed life." A boy
was shooting sparrows in vicinity of the house, and a charge from his
carelessly-handled gun pierced the window by which the nurse was sitting,
with the little Princess in her arms. It is stated that the shot passed
frightfully near the head of the child. But she was as happily
unconscious of the deadly peril she had been in as, a few months later,
she was of the sad loss she sustained in the death of her father, who was
laid away with the other Guelphs in the Windsor Royal Vault, never again
to throne his little "Queen" in his loyal, loving arms.

The Princess Victoria seems to have been always ready for play, dearly
loving a romp. One of the earliest mentions I find of her is in the
correspondence of Bishop Wilberforce. After stating that he had been
summoned to the presence of the Duchess of Kent, he says: "She received
me with her fine, animated child on the floor by her side busy with its
playthings, of which I soon became one."

This little domestic picture gives a glimpse of the tender intimacy, the
constant companionship of this noble mother with her child. It is stated
that, unlike most mothers in high life, the Duchess nursed this
illustrious child at her own breast, and so mingled her life with its
life that nothing thenceforth could divide them. The wee Princess passed
happily through the perils of infantile ailments. She cut her teeth as
easily as most children, with the help of her gold-mounted coral--and
very nice teeth they were, though a little too prominent according to the
early pictures. If the infant Prince Albert reminded his grandmamma of a
"weasel," his "pretty cousin" might have suggested to her a squirrel by
"a little something about the mouth."

An old newspaper writer gave a rather rapturous and pompous account of
the Princess Victoria when she was about three years old. He says:
"Passing through Kensington Gardens a few days since, I observed at some
distance a party consisting of several ladies, a young child, and two
men-servants, having in charge a donkey, gayly caparisoned with blue
ribbons, and accoutred for the use of the infant." He soon ascertained
that the party was the Duchess of Kent and her daughter, the Princess
Feodore of Leiningen, and the Princess Alexandrina Victoria. On his
approaching them the little one replied to his "respectful recognition"
with a pleasant "good-morning," and he noted that she was equally polite
to all who politely greeted her--truly one "to the manner born." This
writer adds: "Her Royal Highness is remarkably beautiful, and her gay and
animated countenance bespeaks perfect health and good temper. Her
complexion is excessively fair, her eyes large and expressive, and her
cheeks blooming. She bears a striking resemblance to her royal father."

A glimpse which Leigh Hunt gives of his little liege lady, as she
appeared to him for the first time in Kensington Gardens, is interesting,
as revealing the child's affectionate disposition. "She was coming up a
cross-path from the Bayswater Gate, with a little girl of her own age by
her side, whose hand she was holding as though she loved her." And why
not, Mr. Poet? Princesses, especially Princesses of the bread-and-butter
age, are as susceptible to joys of sympathy and companionship as any of
us--untitled poets and title-contemning Republicans.

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