The Public Life of Queen Victoria.

by John McGilchrist.

CHAPTER I.

ANCESTRY.

Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony, the Protector of Luther--Staunch Protestantism of the Queen's Saxon Forefathers--House of Saxe-Coburg--A Saxon Desperado of the Middle Ages--A Fighting Hero of the Eighteenth Century--The Queen's Grandmother a Woman of Extraordinary Excellence--Great Alliances in the Marriages of her Uncles and Aunts.

Queen Victoria is, through her mother, descended--and her children are descended by the double line of both their parents--from the great, good, and glorious Frederick the Wise, Elector of Saxony early in the sixteenth century, who was one of the first to embrace the principles of Luther's Reformation, and whose name still stands out so n.o.bly and brightly as the staunch and courageous protector of the great Reformer. The Ernestine branch of this great Saxon house, from which the Queen and the Prince Consort both derived their descent, have ever, though at great cost and injury to themselves at many periods of their history, remained true to the principles thus early adopted by their common ancestor; and they have ever considered it as the brightest glory of their race, that they can proudly point to this unquestionable fact. When one of the most distinguished members--if, indeed, he was not the most ill.u.s.trious scion--of this family, the Queen's maternal uncle, Leopold, King of the Belgians, made a journey into Scotland, to allay the pangs of the bereavement which he had suffered in the untimely death of his young wife, the Princess Charlotte, he paid a visit of a few days' duration to Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford. While there, an aged and reverend Scottish divine was presented to the Prince. The clergyman, in the course of the interview, made complimentary reference to this fact in the descent of the Prince. Prince Leopold, in reply, stated that this was the first notice which had been taken of the circ.u.mstance in his presence since the day of his first arrival in England, and that he felt more honoured by it than by any other tribute which had been paid to him and his family.

[Sidenote: "A GLIMPSE OF SAXON HISTORY."]

The curious in such matters, those for whom the minute particularity of authenticated genealogical detail possesses a charm, with which the compiler of these pages acknowledges that he is himself affected, but which it would be unfair to such of his readers as do not share this taste to minister to at excessive length--such we refer to the Reverend Edward Tauerschmidt's "Brief Historical Account of the Dukedom and Ducal House of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha." There they will find the full pedigree, with no link wanting, which connects Her Majesty, and equally her first cousin and spouse, by the links of twenty-five generations, with the Saxon Earl Theodoric, or Dideric, of the House of Bucizi, who is recorded to have died in the year of our Lord 982. We content ourselves with proceeding at a leap to the reign of Frederick the Benignant, Elector of Saxony, who was thirteenth in descent from Earl Theodoric, and died in 1464. In a most fascinating article which was contributed by Mr. Carlyle to the January number of the _Westminster Review_ for the year 1855, ent.i.tled, "A Glimpse of Saxon History," a most romantic incident of this Elector's reign is narrated with the writer's customary graphic power. This potentate had a "fighting captain" in his employ, by name Kunz von Kaufungen. Fighting for his master, he was captured, and being a warrior of importance, was amerced in the heavy ransom of a sum equal to 2,000 English pounds. This he paid, but expected to be indemnified by Frederick. This expectation, for some reason, was not fulfilled. Kunz, exasperated, swore to be avenged. On the 7th of July, 1455, Kunz entered the town of Altenburg, at the head of a party of thirty men. Having bribed one of the servants to treachery, they obtained admission into the Electoral castle, from which they carried off Frederick's two sons, the Princes Ernest and Albert. The Electress soon discovered her loss, and the desperadoes had not proceeded far on their several ways (they had divided into two bands, each having one of the children), ere they were hotly pursued. Kunz himself headed that moiety of his force who bore with them Ernest, the elder boy and the more valuable hostage. The pursuers caused alarms to be rung from the village spires, and amongst others of the peasantry who were aroused, was a rough charcoal-burner, who, encountering the party of Kunz, "belaboured him with the poking-pole" which he used in his vocation, and to such effect that he vanquished the abductor, rescued the boy, and had the happiness of restoring him to the arms of his agonised mother. When asked, wonderingly and admiringly, how he dared to attack so formidable a foe, he replied to his fair and grateful querist, "Madam, I _drilled_ him soundly with my poking-pole." From that day he was known by no other name than the Driller--_der Triller_. Kunz was consigned to the block, while the Driller, and deliverer, was offered any reward he chose to name. This true man--a mediaeval "Miller of the Dee"--asked no other recompense than "only liberty to cut, of scrags and waste wood, what will suffice for my charring purposes." This was at once granted, along with the freehold of a snug farm, and an annual and ample allowance of corn from the barns of the Electors. All was secured to him and his posterity by formal deed, and his descendants to this day enjoy the privileges so valiantly earned by their ancestor four centuries ago. From the two princes so rescued, descended respectively the Ernestine and the Albertine branches of the Saxon house.

The Queen is--as her husband was--twelfth in descent from the little Prince Ernest, who became the progenitor of the former line.

[Sidenote: THE QUEEN'S SAXON ANCESTORS.]

The parent stock had boasted among other meritorious or distinguished representatives the names of Conrad the Great, Otho the Rich, Henry the Ill.u.s.trious, three Fredericks, dubbed respectively the Serious, the Warlike, and the Benignant; whilst, as disparaging sets-off, either demerit or misfortune was indicated, in the instance of other Electors, by these sobriquets--the Oppressed, the Degenerate, the Severe, and, strangest of all, Frederick-with-the-Wounded-Cheek. This habit of designating the successive Electors by their moral or other peculiarities, or by the incidents or accidents of their careers, was continued but for a few generations of the Ernestine branch of the bifurcated line. It contained a Magnanimous Frederick, and a Fiery Ernest, after whose death, in 1675, this pleasing plan of picturesque designation no longer meets the eye of the student.

The chivalrous protection which Frederick the Magnanimous--or the Wise, as he is sometimes also denominated--spread as a buckler over Luther and the Lutherans cost him his birthright. The bigoted Charles V. diverted, in 1547, the Electoral dignity from the Ernestine to the Albertine branch, and the fortunes of the house cannot be said to have been fully restored until the Treaty of Tilsit, in 1807, ratified as its main provisions were by that of Vienna, seven years later.

Coming down to more recent times, and to the Queen's more immediate ancestry, we find the old spirit which these brave Saxon princes represented in the stirring mediaeval and Reforming days, abundantly maintained in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, and notably so on the field of battle, in the great wars with which the names of Frederick the Great, Maria Theresa, Suwarow, and Napoleon are a.s.sociated.

Francis Josias was twenty-second of the line, and the Queen's great-great-grandfather. His great-grandson, the late King Leopold, says of him, that he was "much looked up to." He was a tall and powerful man, but disfigured by having lost an eye at tennis, a game then very popular on the Continent. One of his grandsons, a Prince Frederick Josias, served with distinction in the Seven Years' War, in one of the battles of which he was shot through the hand. He was subsequently employed in high positions by the Empress Maria Theresa, and made a great name for himself against the Turks. Suwarow and he extricated the Emperor Joseph, the son of the Empress, from utter failure, and conquered the Princ.i.p.alities. He afterwards fought against Dumouriez in the Netherlands, and gained the battle of Neerwinden, in 1793, near Tirlemont; "one of the greatest battles of modern history," says his nephew, King Leopold, a most competent authority on the subject. He says that, but for the inaction of the Dutch contingent, and the insane attempt of the Duke of York to conquer Dunkirk, the allies, after this victory, which cleared the Netherlands of the French, might as easily have marched upon Paris as the forces of Wellington and Blucher did after Waterloo.

The Queen's grandfather, suffering early in life from exceedingly bad health, was cast in a much less energetic mould, but his character was eminently benevolent and loveable, and he had a knowledge and love of the fine arts, which Prince Albert, in the highest degree of all his descendants, inherited. The Queen's grandmother, who was of the Reuss-Ebersdorff family, was equally warm-hearted, possessed a powerful mind, and "loved her grandchildren most tenderly." We shall have much to say of her in subsequent pages.

[Sidenote: THE HOUSE OF SAXE-COBURG.]

Of the Queen's aunts, one, after declining many eligible offers in her own princely rank, married Count Mensdorff-Pouilly, a French emigrant of the Revolution, who entered the Austrian service, and became the father of the well-known Austrian statesman, Count Arthur Mensdorff, who was the bosom friend of Prince Albert from his earliest infancy until his untimely death. A second married the reigning Duke of Wurtemburg, and occupied for many years a very influential position in Russia, her husband being brother of the Empress Catherine (the second of that name), and maternal uncle of the Emperors Alexander and Nicholas. The third daughter of the house herself became a Russian Grand d.u.c.h.ess; she was wedded at the age of fifteen to the Grand Duke Constantine. The marriage was an inharmonious one, and in 1802 the young pair agreed to separate. Both husband and wife were acquitted of all blame; Leopold, the brother of the latter, attributes the sad event to "the shocking hypocrisy of the Empress-mother," in the absence of which "things might have gone on." The Queen's mother, who was christened Victoire (or Victoria) Marie Louise, was the youngest of the four sisters. Besides Duke Ernest, the father of Prince Albert, the Queen had two other maternal uncles. One was Frederick George, who married a great heiress, the Hungarian Princess of Kohary. His son became the consort of Donna Maria II. of Portugal; his grandson, the present King of Portugal, is the Queen's first cousin once removed, and the second cousin of her children. Her other uncle was the late King of the Belgians, whose career is a portion of the history of our grandfathers', our fathers', and our own times, and is so intimately a.s.sociated with the life and fortunes of Her Majesty as to merit separate treatment in a succeeding chapter, and elsewhere incidentally in the course of our narrative.

CHAPTER II.

THE GREATEST OF THE MODERN COBURGS.

Romantic Career of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, the Queen's Uncle--his Continuous, Kind, and Fatherly Care of his Orphaned Niece--The Duchy of Coburg held by Napoleon--Sufferings of the Ducal Family--A Temptation resisted--The Tide turned--Leopold's Popularity in England--Betrothal and Marriage to the Princess Charlotte of Wales.

[Sidenote: PRINCE LEOPOLD OF SAXE-COBURG.]

Born in the year 1790, Prince Leopold was a soldier and in the saddle when he was fifteen years of age. In 1805, that war broke out between Napoleon and Austria, in which the power of the Kaiser was so near being destroyed.

The health of the Duke Francis, Leopold's father, was fast failing him, and the tremendous sorrows and sufferings inflicted by the victorious French upon Germany, hastened the rapidity of his descent to the grave.

Ernest, the eldest son, and Leopold hurriedly left Coburg to join the Russian army in Moravia. Their only other brother was already in an Austrian regiment of Hussars. Ere Leopold could flesh his sword, Austerlitz had been fought and lost, and Austria was thoroughly crippled.

He returned to Coburg to witness his father's death. The French were in possession of the town and Duchy, and when they learned that the new Duke was with their Prussian foe, they appointed a military intendant, a M.

Vilain--in nature as well as in name, so Leopold afterwards recorded. The Ducal family were reduced to such straits, that they depended for their very sustenance upon the clandestine benefactions of the Governmental subordinates, surlily winked at by their French masters. The d.u.c.h.ess set off on a journey to Warsaw to endeavour to propitiate Napoleon; but she was permitted to proceed no farther than Berlin, as Napoleon hated such visits. She returned baffled to Coburg, which remained "une possession Francaise." The Peace of Tilsit, among its other provisions, "reintegrated" Coburg; but, through the greed and treachery of Prussia, the stipulated arrangements were never fulfilled. On the ratification of the Peace, Duke Ernest came to Coburg for the first time to a.s.sume his Ducal power and dignity.

As a matter of policy, Leopold, with other German Princes, now visited Napoleon at Paris, where he was courteously received. On his return from Paris, early in 1808, he nearly died of scarlet fever. After a very tardy and painful recovery, he went, at the end of the year, to the Congress of Erfurth, to which he had been summoned by the Czar Alexander. He tried there to secure to his brother his undiminished territorial possessions, and succeeded in making such a favourable impression upon Napoleon that he would have done so, but for the impolitic excessiveness of his brother's claims, and the apathetic manner in which the Czar supported them. The war with Russia came on, in which he eagerly desired to serve against the French; but Napoleon caused it to be known that if he did so his brother would be held responsible; so he had to abide in inglorious and detested ease. Napoleon made him tempting offers to enter his service, and would have been more incensed at his persistent refusal than he was, but for the friendly intercession of Josephine and Queen Hortense, her daughter, who were both very friendly to the young Prince.

Meanwhile he turned his eminent talents for diplomacy to good account. He persuaded Bavaria to return to his brother portions of Coburg territory which that state unjustly held, and removed the galling pain of the Bavarian flag floating over villages within four English miles of the town of Coburg itself.

[Sidenote: THE PRINCESS CHARLOTTE.]

In 1812 Napoleon's frightful war with Russia broke out. Napoleon summoned the subject and enfeebled German Princes to Dresden. Duke Ernest was compelled to go, and Leopold also was cited to the gathering, but he went to Vienna, and then to Italy, to keep out of the way. It would have been now most dangerous to decline the French service, and he was determined at all costs not to enter it. "Germany," said he, "was, at the beginning of 1812, in the lowest and most humiliating position; Austria and Prussia sunk to be auxiliaries; everybody frightened and submissive, except Spain, supported by England." But Napoleon's reverses in Russia soon followed, and they electrified all Germany into new courage. The Duke of Coburg posted off to Berlin to endeavour to stimulate the perplexed, vacillating, and timorous Prussian King into manly and decided action. The other brother, Ferdinand, went to Vienna on a similar errand. Leopold hied him to Munich to stir up the Crown Prince of Bavaria, afterwards King Louis.

They were all moderately successful, and Leopold hastened to Kalisch, in Poland, being the first German Prince to join the Army of Liberation. He was equally honoured and gratified by being appointed a Major-General by the Czar. He was present at the hard-fought but indecisive battles of Lutzen and Bautzen. There followed an armistice, and a conference at Prague, with a view to a definite settlement. This the Prince attended. He was the only person admitted to the presence of the Emperor of Austria, and spent much of his time with the plenipotentiaries Metternich, Humboldt, Ansted, Gentz, and others. The negotiations broke off, and hostilities were resumed. At the decided defeat which the French general Vandamme sustained, shortly before the crowning victory of Leipsic, Leopold commanded all the allied cavalry, and distinguished himself the more that he was the only general in the field who knew the country. He was present, and in high command, at Leipsic, where Germany was finally freed. After the fight, the Grand Duke Constantine accompanied him to Coburg, visiting the relatives of the wife from whom he was now separated, and who lived and died in retirement in Switzerland. Amongst others they visited the future d.u.c.h.ess of Kent, then Princess of Leiningen, her first husband being still alive. Shortly afterwards Constantine and Leopold rejoined the army in Switzerland, where Leopold tried hard, but ineffectually, to effect a reconciliation between his sister and her husband. Leopold subsequently entered Paris at the head of the cavalry; his eldest brother procured the evacuation of Mayence by its French garrison. The three brothers all met in Paris, from which Leopold proceeded, in the suite of the Czar, to the great triumphant gathering of the Allied Sovereigns in London. Now for the first time he met his future bride, the Princess Charlotte, only child of the Prince Regent, and heir to the throne. His splendid continental career already propitiated her, as it did all the British people, in his favour. The project of a matrimonial union between the gallant young general and the still more youthful princess was warmly taken up by the leading men in power, including Wellington, his brothers, and Castlereagh. The Prince Regent alone was opposed to the project. He was irritated by his daughter's repugnance to the Prince of Orange, who was destined by him to be his son-in-law, and by her recent flight from Carlton House to the residence of her mother. Leopold, however, decidedly succeeded in winning the affections of the lady herself, and the nation was delighted at the project. The Dukes of York and Kent, too, warmly encouraged his suit. On his return home he found that his youngest sister had been unexpectedly left a widow, and he arranged the guardianship and pecuniary affairs of the future mother of England's Queen. At the Congress of Vienna, whither he went to plead the cause of his brother, his amazing sagacity and tact induced the negotiators to make a very satisfactory arrangement of frontier. This he settled, to the great chagrin of Humboldt, the Prussian envoy, who, with the Prussian Court and people generally, seems to have been extremely spiteful towards the little princ.i.p.ality, their near neighbour.

[Sidenote: A ROYAL MARRIAGE.]

Leopold was not at Waterloo--fought so near the capital of his future kingdom. He was posted in Alsace in command of an army of observation, which, of course, was never needed for action. Leopold went alone to Paris, with the leave of the Czar, still animated by the purpose of advancing his brother's pretensions; Prussia having failed to carry out the rectifications of frontier enacted at Vienna the year before. He succeeded in this object, and hopes of the highest nature were engendered about an affair still nearer to his heart. Wellington and Castlereagh treated him with marked and significant deference. And through the kind intervention of the good-hearted and simple-minded Duke of Kent, he received from his ladye-love some pleasant tokens of continued affection and renewed pledges of staunch fidelity. He was strongly recommended to repair to England and renew and prosecute his wooing in person; but he very astutely declined, thinking it unwise to "brave" the Prince Regent.

He went, instead, to Vienna, to act as groomsman at the wedding of his brother Ferdinand with the great Hungarian heiress whose love he had won; and from thence to Berlin, persistently to enforce his brother's twice recognised and sanctioned rights. At Berlin he received a welcome invitation to England from the Regent, and a most satisfactory letter of "explanation" from Lord Castlereagh. He arrived in London in February, 1816. Castlereagh at once took him to Brighton, where the Regent was. He received his daughter's wooer most graciously. The old queen and her three daughters posted after Leopold from London, and in a family council the marriage was definitely agreed on. The young couple were married in May, amid the joyful acclamations of the whole nation.

CHAPTER III.

PARENTAGE AND BIRTH OF QUEEN VICTORIA.

How the Princess Victoria came to be Heiress Presumptive to the Throne--Death of the Princess Charlotte--Marriages of the Royal Dukes--Of the Duke of Kent--Birth of the Princess Alexandrina Victoria--Prediction of George IV.--Death of the Duke of Kent--His Character--His Liberal Opinions--Public Condolence with the Widow and Orphan--Early Life of the d.u.c.h.ess of Kent.

[Sidenote: MARRIAGE OF THE DUKE OF KENT.]

On the 6th of November, 1817, the hopes of the nation, which had so fondly rested upon the happy union between the Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold, were fatally blasted by Her Royal Highness's death, shortly after her delivery of a still-born child. Never in our history was a blow felt more deeply and personally by all the nation, than this bereavement. The death of the Princess Charlotte severely and most painfully disappointed the nation in its general expectation with regard to the much desired succession to the throne in the person of herself and her heirs. The Duke of c.u.mberland, who was hated by all, was the only married younger son of the king, and there was a general desire that the other royal princes, especially the popular and estimable Dukes of Kent and Suss.e.x, should seek out suitable partners. The Duke of Kent rightly felt that the House of Brunswick was dear to the English people, that the nation had a very strong desire that the question of succession should be placed beyond doubt, and that, considering the uncertainty of the chances of life, and of leaving offspring, it was clearly his duty to marry. Indeed, he had already, ere the untimely death of his niece, offered his hand and heart to the widowed Princess of Leiningen. The Princess Charlotte tenderly loved her uncle Kent, who had done so much to promote the attainment of the wishes of her own heart, and she did all she could to promote the marriage of her uncle with the sister of her husband. But the position of the Princess of Leiningen as guardian of her two children occasioned delays; and no unimportant matter was the fact that if she re-married, she would sacrifice a jointure of nearly 5,000 a year, while the Duke of Kent was punished by the Court for his free and outspoken Liberal opinions by being restricted to a very meagre pecuniary allowance from the Tory Parliament. At last, however, all minor difficulties were smoothed over.

On the 13th of May, a message was brought down to Parliament, announcing that "the Prince Regent had given his consent to a marriage between the Duke of Kent and Her Serene Highness Mary Louisa Victoria, daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, widow of Enrich Charles, Prince of Leiningen, and sister of Prince Leopold." Of all the royal marriages, this was the one which the heart of the country went most thoroughly along with. The Duke of Kent never disguised--indeed, he openly proclaimed--his attachment to the principles of the popular party; and the fact of the close relationship of his intended wife to Prince Leopold was another strong recommendation. The marriage was celebrated, first according to the Lutheran rites in Germany, on the 29th May, 1818, and, on the 13th of July following, by the Archbishop of Canterbury; the Prince Regent, on the latter occasion, giving away the bride. In the same summer, the Dukes of Clarence and Cambridge had married. The Duke of Suss.e.x, whose affections and sympathies were otherwise engaged, declined to contract a foreign alliance; but he took the liveliest interest in the marriage of his favourite brother Kent, as he also did in the future welfare and prosperity of his niece.

[Sidenote: CHRISTENING OF THE PRINCESS VICTORIA.]

After the English marriage, the young couple sojourned for a brief period at Claremont, the residence which had been selected by the Princess Charlotte, and which Prince Leopold continued to occupy. They then, guided chiefly by motives of economy, for their means were very small, travelled on the Continent, from which they returned for the accouchement of the d.u.c.h.ess. Both prospective parents were desirous that their child should be "born a Briton." They arrived at Dover on the 23rd of April, 1819, and on the 24th of May the Princess Alexandrina Victoria was born at Kensington Palace. She was born in the presence of the Dukes of Suss.e.x and Wellington, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Marquis of Lansdowne, Earl Bathurst, Mr. Canning, Mr. Vansittart, and the Bishop of London. The Duke of Kent wept for joy, and the fact that his infant was a daughter did not in the least degree diminish his delight. The d.u.c.h.ess rapidly recovered, and the beauty and symmetry of the infant Princess were spoken of with admiration by all who had an opportunity of observing her. Shortly after this happy event, the Duke of Kent attended a drawing-room, from which, and similar Court ceremonies, the estrangement between himself and the Regent had for some time kept him away. His brother was most affable, and invited him to dine the next day, when he predicted that his little niece would be Queen some time. This certainly seemed improbable shortly afterwards, for Clarence, who was nearer in succession than Kent, became the father of two daughters by his wife, Adelaide. But they both died young, thereby opening the succession to the child of the Duke of Kent, and verifying the Regent's prophecy. The child was christened with great privacy, on the 24th of June, in the Palace of Kensington. The royal gold font was fetched from the Tower, and fitted up in the grand saloon of the palace. Under the direction of the Lord Chamberlain, the draperies were removed from the Chapel Royal, St. James's. The Archbishop of Canterbury, a.s.sisted by the Bishop of London, administered the holy office; the Prince Regent, the members of the Royal Family, and other ill.u.s.trious visitors were present. The sponsors were the Prince Regent, the Czar Alexander (represented by the Duke of York as proxy), the Queen Dowager of Wurtemberg (represented by the Princess Augusta), and the d.u.c.h.ess Dowager of Coburg (represented by the d.u.c.h.ess of Gloucester). A brilliant evening party filled the saloons of the happy parents.

The Duke and d.u.c.h.ess still made Claremont their chief home. But the winter of 1819-20 set in with unusual severity, and they went to Sidmouth, in the hope of escaping its trying severity. From Sidmouth the Duke made an excursion to visit Salisbury Cathedral, where he caught a slight cold. On his return to Sidmouth it became alarming, and the d.u.c.h.ess sent off in haste to her brother, who was visiting at Lord Craven's. Soon after his arrival, the Duke breathed his last. While his cold still slightly affected him, he had gone for a long walk, on the 13th of January, with Captain Conroy, and had his boots soaked through with wet. He neglected to change his boots and stockings until he dressed for dinner, being attracted by the smiles of his infant princess, with whom he sat for some time playing. Before night he had a sensation of cold and hoa.r.s.eness, but the doctors were not alarmed, and merely prescribed mild medicaments and a good night's rest. But the symptoms of fever rapidly increased, and, in spite of much blood-letting, he died ten days from the date of the recurrence of his cold. He met his death with pious resignation. The d.u.c.h.ess was most indefatigable in her attentions, and personally performed all the offices of the sick-bed. For five successive nights she never took off her clothes, and she struggled to prevent his seeing the agony of her apprehensions, never leaving the bed-side but to give vent to her bursting sorrow. The presence of her brother was a great comfort to her, both before and after the moment of death. It was fortunate, indeed, that Leopold was in this country, "as the poor Duke had left his family deprived of all means of existence." So did Leopold himself testify many years afterwards.

[Sidenote: THE DUKE OF KENT.]

The Duke of Kent, although unpopular in his youth on account of his strictness as a military disciplinarian, became in later days much beloved. His stature was tall, and his appearance n.o.ble and manly. His manner was engaging, and his conversation animated. He possessed an exact memory, varied information, a quick and masculine intellect. In many of his tastes and habits he closely resembled his father. He was an early riser, and a close economist of time; temperate in eating; though fond of society, indifferent to wine; a kind master, punctual correspondent, and exact man of business; a steady friend, and an affectionate brother. He was peculiarly exempt in his youth from those extravagances and vices with which the names of some of his brothers were so painfully a.s.sociated. He was in his early life, which he spent in active and laborious military service, a pattern of prudence, economy, and industrious habits. He incurred no unnecessary expenses, and made few debts, although his annual allowance was only 1,000 for some years after he had attained his majority. He delighted in books, education, charity, and the promotion of all useful arts, and was a model son, husband, and father. He was a staunch and uncompromising advocate of those liberal opinions which it is so well known that his daughter inherits, which she displayed so unreservedly early in her reign, but the prominent expression of which prudence and const.i.tutional restraints convinced her that it was advisable to keep in the background, as her mind grew and ripened. The Duke of Kent's political views will be gathered from the following extract from a speech at a banquet, in which he replied to the toast of the junior members of the Royal Family:--"I am a friend of civil and religious liberty, all the world over. I am an enemy to all religious tests. I am a supporter of a general system of education. All men are my brethren; and I hold that power is only delegated for the benefit of the people. These are the principles of myself and of my beloved brother, the Duke of Suss.e.x.

They are not popular principles just now; that is, they do not conduct to place or office. _All_ the members of the Royal Family do not hold the same principles. For this I do not blame them; but we claim for ourselves the right of thinking and acting as we think best, and we proclaim ourselves, with our friend Mr. Tierney, 'members of His Majesty's loyal Opposition.'" These words give a precise and definite idea of the character of this clear-headed, good-hearted, shrewd, practical, and unpretending man.

Prince Leopold accompanied his widowed sister and the little orphan from Sidmouth to Kensington Palace. The weather was most severe, and the journey a trying one. The Houses of Parliament remembered, with respectful solicitude, the widowed and isolated state of the d.u.c.h.ess. Both Houses voted addresses of condolence. That from the Commons was presented by Lords Morpeth and Clive. She appeared in person, though unable to suppress her grief, with the infant Victoria in her arms, to receive the deputation. She presented the babe to the deputed Members, and pointed to her as the treasure to whose preservation and improvement she was resolved to dedicate her best energies and fondest love. The interview was exceedingly touching. A true woman, the d.u.c.h.ess could not conceal the intensity of her widowed grief; but that did not overshadow her maternal affection, and she recognised and spoke courageously of her duties, her responsibilities, and her high resolves. Public feeling and national anxiety accompanied her into her domestic privacy, and all cla.s.ses of society took the deepest interest in all her movements.

[Sidenote: THE d.u.c.h.eSS OF KENT.]

The Queen, indeed, owes much to her mother, who lived long enough to see her daughter's grandchildren. The d.u.c.h.ess of Kent had been brought up under the immediate care and superintendence of her ill.u.s.trious mother, whose character we have already described. She had shared the youthful lessons of her brother Leopold--a source, doubtless of great intellectual profit. In 1802, when she was but sixteen, much against her own wish, and only in compliance with the entreaties of her beloved father--who wished to see his only surviving daughter married, in such troublesome times, ere the end of his precarious and sickly life came--she became the wife of the Prince of Leiningen, a man eight-and-twenty years her senior. The union was most inappropriate and unwise. Her husband was repugnant in person and manners. He failed either to secure her confidence or contribute to her happiness. Yet she fulfilled her duties as a wife and mother in so exemplary a manner, from her marriage to her husband's death, in 1814, that the breath of slander never sullied her fair fame. Indeed, by the purity of her life, the manner in which she discharged her maternal duties, and the graceful suavity of her manners, she did much to enn.o.ble the character of the House of Leiningen, which her husband had done much to lower. Her marriage with the Duke of Kent was one of unmistakable affection, and was a very happy one. Their tastes were similar; but her meekness and tact had a beneficial influence in mitigating a certain stern and abrupt brusqueness which he partly inherited from his father, and partly derived from the camps and garrison towns in which his youth was spent. The simplicity and tender unaffectedness of her manners--a peculiarity distinctive of the highest cla.s.s of well-bred German women--and her fascinating combination of gentleness with gaiety, not only won and bound, by daily increasing ties, the affections of her husband, but of all those who had the good fortune to become personally acquainted with her admirable life and disposition.