CHAPTER I
PRINCESS VICTORIA’S RELATIVES
“We are going presently to write our names for the Duchess of Kent, who has produced a daughter.”--_The Hon. Mrs. Calvert._ 1819.
The Duchess of Kent was not a very popular woman with the Guelph family. George IV. hated her, and made her less welcome than he had made her husband, his brother, to whom he intimated early in 1819 that he would no longer be received at Court; William IV. did not like her when he was the Duke of Clarence, but his wife was so sorry for her sister-in-law’s misfortunes that she showed her much kindness and affection until, holding the position of Queen herself, she was obliged to resent the hauteur with which she was treated. The Fitzclarences, who surrounded William IV., had little reason to admire her, and the Tory Ministers found themselves treated by her with only spasmodic politeness. The people in general cared nothing one way or another until the Duchess displayed marked Whig tendencies, and then the Tory Press made a custom of criticising all that she did, and displaying a wonderfully intimate knowledge of her affairs, private and public.
For nearly a quarter of a century the life of the Duchess in England was one of stress; indeed, one might repeat of her the oft-repeated words, she “was ever a fighter,” for she seemed always at variance with the reigning monarch. She owed the very rare appearance of herself and her daughter in the Court of George IV. to the kind heart of Lady Conyngham, the King’s mistress, who thereby earned Victoria’s affectionate regard, in spite of her position. Of this lady, by the way, who was coarse, fair, dull, and by no means fascinating, and who succeeded Lady Hertford in the King’s household, some wit said that in taking her George had exchanged St. James for St. Giles.
By the time of William IV. the Duchess had become not simply a passive resister but an active agitator, and many scenes of anger took place between her and the King. Both George and William often renewed the threat of taking her child from her that the young Princess might be placed in the hands of someone more complacent to the Royal will. George would really have done this, but that the Duke of Wellington, who was his adviser, always temporised and put off the execution of the threat. When the Duchess became mother to the Queen of England, though things changed they were no better; but the details of the relationship between these two prominent people needs more than a paragraph in explanation.
Yet we have much for which to thank the Duchess of Kent, in that she brought up her daughter in business habits, in purity of thought, and in all those virtues which make a good woman. Domestically she was a kind tyrant, necessarily an injudicious one, for tyranny is always injudicious. In following the life of the young Princess one wonders how much the mother, imposing a very restrictive rule upon the child, knew of that child’s character. Obedient, dutiful, submissive, troubled openly only by occasional fits of rebellion and self-will, did Victoria in her early days ever foreshadow the revulsion against the maternal authority which seized upon her later? One would imagine not, or the Duchess would have become wiser in her treatment. As the girl grew towards womanhood, did she ever betray the growth of resistance, did she show that beneath all the quiet of the exterior lay an autocratic character which was only biding its opportunity?--and did her mother have any suspicion of what might happen between the years 1837 and 1841, which were to be the most anguished of her life, when she would be forced to realise that her too scrupulous care had brought her, not power and honour, but a determined and sustained indifference?
When this girl of eighteen was proclaimed Queen of England no one knew whether to be glad or sorry. She was said to be shy, young for her age, and entirely subservient to her mother; indeed, as a person she was practically non-existent. It was the Duchess who counted, and absurd reports had been circulated in the papers as to the Camerilla at Kensington Palace, which aimed at securing Ministerial power on the death of King William. As Victoria went to her Proclamation at St. James’s Palace there was much curiosity shown, and but little cheering done on the way. In the courtyard of the Palace stood a great, observant crowd, silent until given the signal to cheer, and then its voice was led by the roar of Daniel O’Connell, the Liberator, for he considered that the chances, with a Radical faction at Kensington, were now in his favour.
As for the Ministers, they knew no more of the fair Alexandrina Victoria than anyone else, and a contemporary tells us that none of her acquaintances--friends she had scarcely any--none of her attendants at Kensington, had any idea of what lay beneath the quiet, placid exterior, or could prophesy as to what she was capable of doing. Even the Duchess of Northumberland, who had directed her studies for some years, was no better informed; for never during those years had she seen the child alone; there had always been a third person present, either the Duchess or the Baroness Lehzen. Thus while some people regretted the death of a King who, in spite of his peculiarities, was a good man and a great improvement on those who had gone before him, the universal emotion concerning his successor was neither joy nor sorrow, but that of a vivid curiosity.
Victoria was like an enchanted princess, around whom had been drawn a magic circle which rendered her invisible to all eyes. But she could see beyond its range, could watch the forces which made up the world she was about to enter, and learn more of her subjects than they had learned of her. From time to time, while imprisoned in her circle, disturbances from outside had affected her; she had felt some things keenly and despairingly, but with an imperturbable face she had let them pass by; she had been in hot rebellion often, but no one but herself, and perhaps her half-sister, Féodore of Leiningen, knew of it; she had longed for friends and companionship, and had engrossed herself in her studies, those futile studies thought the right thing for the girls of that day. Of these hidden things she did not speak, and she did not cry over them, for in her mother’s house there had been no spot in which she could shed tears unseen.
From the day of her birth to her accession she had scarcely ever been alone for ten minutes at a time! And doting biographers purr over this and say, “What an excellent mother!” Here is a quotation in slipshod style from one such: “The exemplary mother had not allowed her daughter to be scarcely ten minutes together either by night or day out of her sight, except in her infant years during her daily airing and on the very rare occasions of her Royal Highness dining away from home.”
The biographers and gossipers about Victoria agree in speaking of the unremitting surveillance which was exercised over the young Princess. She was imprisoned in a close atmosphere of love and tuition, and was never free to write a letter, to see a friend, or to think her own thoughts without the presence of her mother or the Baroness. It is very probable that for a long time she was unconscious that there was anything unusual in this, but it must have grown terribly burdensome to her, so much so that her first request as a Queen to her mother concerned this very point. She received the oaths of allegiance the day after King William died, and when this trying and tumultuous ceremony was over she sought her mother, allowing her overwrought nerves to find relief in tears, or, in the language of the day, “she flung herself upon her mother’s bosom to weep.” Being soothed into calmness, she said:
“I can scarcely believe that I am Queen of England, but I suppose it is really true.”
On being reassured, she continued:
“In time I shall become accustomed to my change of station; meanwhile, since it is really so, and you see in your little daughter the Sovereign of this great country, will you grant her the first request she has had occasion in her regal capacity to put to you? I wish, my dear mamma, _to be left alone for two hours_.”
The early writer who gives this incident sees no youthful tragedy in it, but goes off into pæans of praise for the careful and diligent mother. But it is scarcely to be marvelled at that the Queen in later days wrote of “her sad and unhappy childhood.” Nor can we wonder that from the day of her first regal request to her mother she availed herself of the luxury of one or two quiet hours in each twenty-four to herself in her own room, with a locked door between herself and all the world. For years she clung to this privilege, which every ordinary girl would regard as a right.
A letter written by Princess Féodore in 1843 to Queen Victoria shows how unremitting was the surveillance upon and how deep was the loneliness of the girl up to the time of her accession. Victoria had written from Claremont, and her half-sister answered:--“Claremont is a dear quiet place; to me also the recollection of the few pleasant days spent during my youth. I always left Claremont with tears for Kensington Palace. When I look back upon those years, which ought to have been the happiest in my life, from fourteen to twenty, I cannot help pitying myself. Not to have enjoyed the pleasures of youth is nothing, but to have been deprived of all intercourse, and not one cheerful thought in that dismal existence of ours, was very hard. My only happy time was going out driving with you and Lehzen; then I could speak and look as I liked. I escaped some years of imprisonment, which you, my poor darling sister, had to endure, after I was married. But God Almighty has changed both our destinies most mercifully, and has made us _so_ happy in our homes--which is the only real happiness in this life; and those years of trial were, I am sure, very useful to us both, though certainly not pleasant. Thank God, they are over!”
What would any mother of to-day feel if one of her children, when grown up, could write to another in this way of their childhood? It was a tragedy both for mother and children, only the mother perhaps never realised it, and she did not feel the results of it until the children had escaped her thraldom. “Poor little Victory!” as Carlyle called her, looking back upon this, it is possible to forgive her for her subsequent hardness to her mother, for she could not help it; the hardness had been forced upon her by example and practice in her childish days.
But to understand the life of our late Queen in its youth it is necessary to know its surroundings and background, and for this purpose an account of the Royal family which then existed seems desirable.
* * * * *
King William IV. had, when comparatively young, married a pretty and delightful actress, who was known as Mrs. Jordan. He was a man of clean domestic life, and he persisted in regarding this lady as his lawful wife, and the children she bore to him--nine in all--as his lawful children. When Princess Charlotte died, however, he sacrificed himself--and his wife--upon the altar of expediency, and married Amelia Adelaide Louise Therese Caroline Wilhelmina of Saxe-Meiningen. She was twenty-six, plain, thin, sedate, reserved, and had been brought up in all the useless branches of “polite and useful learning,” thought the correct thing for a lady of her position. She had no leaning towards gaiety, frivolity, or dress, and hated immorality and irreligion. She was, in fact, an “excellent selection,” but she was also one of those people who are invariably described in negatives. Another woman might have had just the same appearance and thoroughly good character, and by adding to it a pleasant manner have been a favourite with everyone. But Adelaide’s manner was bad, and she was generally disliked. William, however, found a good wife in her--though there are some sly allusions to his being hen-pecked--and little Victoria could always depend on kindly affection from Queen Adelaide.
The Duchess of Clarence gave birth to two daughters, both of whom died in infancy, and she seems to have shown no jealousy of the little girl who would take the place which should have belonged to her own child had it lived. She was also always kind to her husband’s exacting and loud-mannered children, the Fitzclarences, receiving them all as constant visitors at Windsor or St. James’s, and making pets of their children. Thus at one time she had Lady Augusta Kennedy and four children staying at Windsor, while Lady Sophia Sydney and three children lived there; there was also a boy of Lady Falkland’s with her. These eight grandchildren of the King’s would play with the King and Queen in the corridor after lunch, and as a visitor to Adelaide once remarked, “It is so pretty to hear them lisp ‘dear Queeny,’ ‘dear King.’”
Yet the conduct of the Fitzclarences to Adelaide was abominable, and Lord Errol--the husband of the third daughter, Lady Elizabeth--who had been appointed Lord Marischal of Scotland, was heard one day speaking in such an unpardonable way of the Queen in a public coffee-house that he was interrupted by cries of “Shame!” from a gentleman present. Colonel Fox, who married Lady Mary, received the appointment of Surveyor General of the Ordnance, and was made Aide-de-Camp to the King. Of the four sons, Lord Munster held several military appointments, received an annual allowance from the Privy Purse, and was given a property by his father-in-law, Lord Egremont. Lord Frederick was a Colonel, and Equerry and Aide-de-Camp to his father. Lord Adolphus was a Captain in the Navy, Groom of the Robes, and Deputy-Ranger of Bushey Park; while Lord Augustus was Chaplain to the King, and held a valuable living at Mapledurham. This family was by no means popular, and was being constantly criticised by the newspapers. Said _Figaro in London_, in 1832:--“The brutal conduct of the Fitzclarences towards their poor weak old father has gained for them the name _unnatural_, instead of natural, children.”
It seems to have been agreed generally that the Fitzclarences felt that the time of their harvest must be short, and that therefore it behoved them to make as much hay as possible. They badgered William for honours and promotions, and the King did what he could; he was once heard complaining to one of his admirals of this persecution, adding, “I had at last to make him a Guelphic Knight” (a Hanoverian honour). “And serve him right, your Majesty,” replied the seaman, imagining that some disgrace was implied.
Once when George Fitzclarence demanded to be made a peer and to have a pension, and the King said he could not do it, all the sons struck work, or their pretence of work, thus in high life foreshadowing the doings of the workers of a later time. George actually resigned his office of Deputy-Adjutant-General, and wrote the King a furious letter. This was awkward, because so long as these gentlemen drew their money through sinecures the public was willing to accept them fairly good-temperedly, but as avowed pensioners the outcry against them would have been overwhelming. The matter seems to have been smoothed over by the young man being made Earl of Munster.
The Duke of Sussex had also an unrecognised family of two, Augustus and Ellen D’Este, who gave the King much trouble, and in revenge for their disappointment about places and honours published the Duke’s letters to their mother, which caused considerable scandal.
Of Princess Victoria’s uncles those who survived at her accession were the Duke of Cumberland, the Duke of Cambridge, and the Duke of Sussex. The Duke of Cambridge was Viceroy of Hanover during William’s reign, and had one son, something of a weakling in his youth.
It is necessary to refer at some length to the Duke of Cumberland, as he remained a thorn in the side of the Sovereign of England as long as he lived. He was a man of a violent temper and of a coarse, overbearing disposition, his great desire being to work his way to the Throne of England. He had hung about George IV., guarding his own interests, keeping away from his Royal brother any person whom he thought might weaken his own influence, and strengthening, as far as he could, the idea, which arose from what were considered the eccentricities of Clarence, that the latter was afflicted by periods of insanity.
Yet from contemporary sources there is evidence that King George had no love for Cumberland. Lord Ellenborough, in his “Political Diary,” notes in 1829, “The King, our master, is the weakest man in England. He hates the Duke of Cumberland. He wishes his death. He is relieved when he is away; but he is afraid of him, and crouches to him.” Again, when the Catholic Emancipation Bill was being fought, Cumberland insisted upon coming back to England for it. Attempts were made to stop him, but he either missed or passed the messengers. Of this Ellenborough writes, “The King is afraid of him, and God knows what mischief he may do. However, there is no possibility of forming an anti-Catholic Government, and that the King must feel.” Poor George! Thenceforth he had his Government at one ear and Cumberland at the other, drawing from the diarist the remark: “In fact, the excitement he is in may lead to insanity, and nothing but the removal of the Duke of Cumberland will restore him to peace.” In his last illness George IV. refused to see his brother.
When William ascended the Throne there was little for Prince Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, to do but to make the best of it. But beyond that, however, he made various attempts to be disagreeable. Thus Lord Ellenborough mentions that the Duke of Wellington intended to go down to Windsor on the morrow, as the Duke of Cumberland meditated making a raid on the late King’s papers. Cumberland was probably remembering the example of his eldest brother, who, many years earlier, when George III. was ill, took it upon himself to examine his father’s private papers, and thus brought about a right royal row.
During George IV.’s reign, Cumberland had kept his horses in the Queen’s disused stables, which, when Adelaide was translated to the kingly palace, were needed for her use. So King William requested his brother to remove his horses to make room for the Queen’s; to which the Duke answered politely that “he would be damned if they should go.” However, on being told that unless he moved them the King’s grooms had orders to turn them out the next day, he sulkily succumbed. He had, in fact, hoped to retain in the new reign all the privileges he had secured during the former, and could not take his disappointment manfully; thus he had arrogated to himself the sole dignity of Gold Stick, an honour that had always been divided among the three Colonels of the Guards; and when William restored things to their former position it entailed opposition on the part of Cumberland, who countermanded the King’s orders about the Guards at his Coronation, which, of course, was followed by further humiliation for the Duke.
But Cumberland’s chief exploit was his leadership of the Orange Lodges, which aimed at protecting Protestantism from all Popery. As the Duke’s ambition grew, he began to see in this organisation the help it might be to him, and he taught various lessons to the emissaries who were sent over the country to form new Lodges. One of the cries towards the end of George’s reign was that the members should “rally round the Throne,” and then it was asserted that the Duke of Clarence was insane, and that the Duke of Wellington was aiming at the Crown. This was spoken of at first vaguely as “a wild design in embryo,” and “a wild ambition” by Lieutenant-Colonel Fairburn, Cumberland’s accredited agent. This gentleman was afraid of naming names, and classed the Iron Duke among the “grovelling worms who dare to vie with the omnipotence of Heaven.” In another letter he said:
“One moreover of whom it might ill become me to speak but in terms of reverence, has nevertheless been weak enough to ape the coarseness of a Cromwell, thus recalling the recollection to what would have been far better left in oblivion, his seizure of the diadem with his placing it upon his brow, was a precocious sort of self inauguration.” This alluded to the widespread opposition to the raising of Wellington to the Peerage.
Several newspapers became infected by the Orangemen, members of whose organisation were to be found in the Army, the Church, and among the rank and file of the Members of Parliament. A daily journal in 1830 declared first that George the Fourth was not as ill as he was said to be, and was amusing himself by writing the bulletins about his health, secondly that the next in succession (the Duke of Clarence) would be incapable of reigning “for reasons which occasioned his removal from the office of Lord High Admiral,” and that a military chief of most unbounded ambition would disapprove of a maritime Government, thirdly that the second heir-presumptive, was “not alone a female but a minor,” and that therefore a bold effort should be made to frustrate any attempt “at a vicarious form of government.”
However, in spite of Cumberland’s ambition, and of the public recognition of that ambition, William the Fourth came to the throne, but his brother did not for at least twelve or thirteen years more give up all hope of reigning in England. He still fostered the Orange Lodges, and when it was seen that William would be obliged to assent to the Reform Bill, the Orange speakers sounded their audiences as to whether, if William were deposed, they would support Cumberland in an attempt to become his successor.
This scheme not coming off, the Duke went on building up his power until Joseph Hume brought the whole thing before Parliament in 1836, when the startling disclosures then made caused the suppression of the Orange Lodges. It was asserted that the Duke of Cumberland, as Grand Master of the whole association, was a dangerous man. The Lodges all regarded him as their political leader; he was called the Supreme Head of the Grand Orange Lodge of Great Britain and Ireland; it was laid down that his pleasure was law, and that the Orangemen were bound to obey his summons and do his will for whatever purpose he desired. There were 15,000 Lodges in Ireland, with a membership of 200,000 arm-bearing men; and 1,500 Lodges in England, besides some in the Colonies. Thus the Duke had the unquestioning obedience of 300,000 men--40,000 in London alone. Meetings were called in Ireland of ten, twenty, and even thirty thousand men. From all this Joseph Hume not unwisely inferred that it was time to consider whether the Duke of Cumberland was King or subject.
The whole matter made a tremendous public impression, and there were rumours that the Princess Victoria was in danger of her life from these secret enemies. At a public dinner in Nottingham the chairman, a Mr. Wakefield, said that the hope of the English people “was founded on the way in which the illustrious Princess was educated, which gave them every reason to believe that her attachment to this country was such that her reign--provided she lived--would be a blessing at large. The toast he would propose was--The Princess Victoria, and may the machinations against her suffer the same fate as the Orange conspiracy.”
One of the newspapers of the day endeavoured to comfort her for any fears she might have had by the following lines:--
“Oh, fear not, fair lily, our country’s just pride, The hypocrite’s schemes or the traitor’s foul band; The firm knights of Britain will range by thy side And proclaim thee hereafter the Queen of our land.
By virtues illustrious, the gem of our isle-- Around thee will range in the time of alarm, Those friends whose attachment no fiend shall beguile, For the isle that has reared thee shall shield thee from harm.”
Other papers were much more emphatic, not so much in expressing a desire to save the Princess from harm as in an attempt to accuse Cumberland of evil intentions. _The Satirist_, for instance, published a cartoon showing Cumberland smothering someone in bed, with Queen Adelaide looking on from the doorway. On the bed hangings is embroidered a crown above a large “V,” and beneath the picture are the following lines:
“Can such man live to crush the nation’s choice, Which after years of blood would now rejoice? Will a fond people yield their mighty throne To that base heartless prince, whom all disown? Blest day, when their loud voices shall decree This land from such a monster shall be free.”
Elsewhere the Duke is represented in the company of the Bishop of Salisbury, Sir Charles Wetherell, and Billy Holmes,[1] among whom the following scrap of conversation passes:
“_Cum._ A brother’s brat between me and the Crown!
_Bish._ Yet there are means!
_Holmes._ Poison, for instance.
_Weth._ Or a razor.
_Cum._ (_with a fiendish laugh_). Ay, a razor, if nothing better serve.”
With such open condemnation as this from any paper, even though it were one which from its very name existed to draw attention to irregularities and unpopular people, there was nothing for the Duke to do but to dissociate himself from all suspicious connections. Whether he was a most horribly libelled man or whether he had been intriguing as affirmed, it is a matter of history that in March, 1836, he in the name of the Orange Lodges signified his submission to the Royal will that those Lodges should be dissolved.
Like all the Guelphs, the Duke was curiously outspoken. For instance, he would take into his confidence someone near his person and tell how he longed to be King, adding that he was much more fit to be King than his brother, who might be a good sailor, but who was kingly neither in looks nor manners.
The writer of a delightful book of gossip, published some years ago, entitled “Tales of my Father,” gives a very definite form to this absorbing ambition. The Duke and William IV. were dining alone together at Windsor, the Queen being ill, and the suite dining in an adjoining room. The sound of loud voices reached those without, for both brothers had drunk too much; then the Duke ordered the doors to be opened and proposed “The King’s Health. God save the King!” at which the suite dutifully entered and drank. Then the Duke asked permission to propose another toast.
“Name it, your Grace,” answered the King.
“The King’s heir, and God bless _him_!” proudly responded the Duke.
These audacious words were followed by a dead silence, the two brothers staring at each other, after which William rose, held his glass high, and cried, “The King’s heir! God bless _her_!” Then throwing the glass over his shoulder, he turned to his brother and exclaimed, “My crown came with a lass, and my crown will go to a lass.”
The Duke did not drink the toast, but left the room abruptly, scarcely bowing to his brother as he passed.
The verses and allusions quoted speak plainly to the extraordinary dislike which was felt for the Duke; he was suspected of horrible crimes, and though publicly pronounced innocent, was still suspected. The allusion in the verses to blood and a razor referred to an alleged attempt made upon the Duke’s life in 1810 by one of his valets. In the summer of that year Cumberland was found in his apartments in St. James’ Palace wounded in six different places, and the valet was found in his bed with his throat cut. The decision upon this was that for some unknown reason the servant had attacked his master and had then gone back to his room and cut his throat in bed. The evidence was just shaky enough to leave doubt, for there were peculiar features, blood being found all about the man’s room, even in the wash basin, but the judge’s decision was, of course, a foregone conclusion. Popular opinion decided, however, that the Duke had met with his injuries while his man fought for his life, but naturally any hardy editor who allowed such an idea to be published received punishment.
In 1829 Cumberland’s reputation suffered a worse shock in the revelations made by a certain Captain Garth, who found a box of letters hidden in the house of his putative father, General Garth. These letters threw an amazing light on his own birth, showing that he was the son of the Duke of Cumberland and of Princess Sophia. Captain Garth appointed a Mr. Westmacott, while the Duke or George IV. appointed Sir Herbert Taylor, the King’s private secretary, to arrange matters, and in spite of the fact that the Duke and the Royal Family denied everything, an agreement was come to by which Garth was to receive £2,400 a year as annuity, and a sum of £8,000 down to pay his debts, on condition that he should forget the box and its contents. The matter was almost forgotten when Garth filed a bill in Chancery to prevent Westmacott from disposing of the box, because he had only received £3,000 on account and had been refused the rest. So the sordid affair was once again dragged through the columns of every paper. Sir Herbert Taylor explained that the failure to keep the arrangement was caused by the fact that Garth had told the secrets in the box to other people, and had kept copies of the letters. All the dailies and weeklies had their varying articles upon this, and then--publicly--the matter died out. Garth was probably squared. Whether his tale was true or false it had this justification, that General Garth was believed--according to the “Annual Register”--to have had a son by a lady of very illustrious birth, and it was further said that George III. had induced the General to accept the paternity of the boy. Earl Grey notes, however, in a letter to Princess Lieven, that “the renewed attack on the subject of Garth looks like a renewed apprehension of the effects of Cumberland’s influence on the King.”
Quite apart from this charge, Cumberland was unscrupulous in his amours, and one is constantly coming across references to this vice; thus Lord Ellenborough notes, in 1830: “The suicide of ---- on account of his wife’s seduction by the Duke of Cumberland, will drive the Duke of Cumberland out of the field.”
Cumberland had one legitimate son, Prince George, who is described as a beautiful boy, tall, slim, upright, with fair hair and fresh complexion, his eyes always partly shut, for, poor lad, he was blind. He knew little of his cousin Victoria, though he often wished to know her better, but the Duchess was from the first afraid of any matrimonial entanglement with her husband’s family, and would not let the young people meet oftener than she could help.
The Duke of Sussex was very different from his brother, being a kindly, amiable man, and the most popular of the Princes. He was a lover of books and of philosophy; but Creevy said of him that “he never says anything that makes you think him foolish, yet there is a nothingness in him which is to the last degree fatiguing.” He married Lady Augusta Murray, daughter of the fourth Earl of Dunmore, in 1793, the marriage being dissolved in the following year as contrary to the Royal Marriage Act--a fact which did not trouble the Duke much until his inclination led him to break with Lady Augusta. Their son Augustus was born in 1794, and their daughter in 1801. Long before Augusta’s death in 1830 the Duke of Sussex had taken as a second partner in life Lady Cecilia, daughter of the Earl of Arran, and widow of an attorney knight of the unromantic name of Buggin. It seems a pity that Lady Augusta, who was of Royal blood, should have had to give place to one owning such a name! However, Lady Cecilia took her mother’s name of Underwood, and was known by it until, in 1840, the Duke went through the long-delayed form of marriage with her, and Queen Victoria created her Duchess of Inverness.
The Princess Victoria had a real affection for her uncles, King William and the Duke of Sussex, but Cumberland she always abhorred, probably not for his immorality--they were all immoral--but on account of the hatred he felt for her and her mother, and for the brutality of his nature, which made him subject to paroxysms of passion, during which everyone, even his wife, feared him.
It is curious to realise that Queen Victoria, who laid such stress upon the purity of her Court, and who did much to revolutionise society in this regard, was surrounded by people who openly defied the laws, written and unwritten. In later life she would not allow near her Throne a woman against whom there had been a breath of scandal, but in the early days of her reign she was surrounded by men who were smirched and dishonoured by loose living. To her, indeed, there was one law for men and another for women, and in spite of the terrible lesson she received in 1839--to be dealt with in a later chapter--she held to that attitude throughout her life.
One other person who, besides her mother, dominated the Princess’s daily existence was her uncle, Prince Leopold, her mother’s brother. As the husband of Princess Charlotte he drew an income of £50,000 from this country, and had been given Claremont as a dwelling. These he retained after the death of his wife in 1816, living partly in London and partly at Claremont. He led a quieter, more sedate life than did the Guelphs, was precise in his ways, prided himself highly on his fine manners, and was cordially detested by the English Princes and Peers. The fact that he did not drink angered both George IV. and William IV., while his affectation of superiority annoyed his associates, and his reputation for meanness brought him sneers from everyone.
George IV. showed him almost from the first what a gulf in manners there was between them, and did not trouble about the fact that he himself was the one that lacked them. At a Levée which he held in 1821 he deliberately turned his back upon his son-in-law. The Prince did his best to carry off the matter in a dignified way; he is said not to have altered a muscle of his face, but to have approached the Duke of York, saying to him in a loud tone, “The King has thought proper to take _his_ line, and I shall take _mine_.” He then left the assembly.
Some hints of Leopold’s character may be given in his own words--words which betray at once his pedantry and his absolute lack of humour. In a letter to the young Queen, in which he tried to explain the character of Princess Charlotte, he said: “The most difficult task I had was to change her manners; she had something too brusque and too rash in her movements, which made the Regent quite unhappy, and which sometimes was occasioned by a struggle between shyness and the necessity of exerting herself. I had, I may say so without seeming to boast, the manners of the best society of Europe, having early moved in it, and been what is called in French _de la fleur des pois_. A good judge I therefore was, but Charlotte found it rather hard to be so scrutinised, and grumbled occasionally how I could so often find fault with her.”
Leopold could not understand a joke; chaffing or quizzing always raised his displeasure; and indeed he seems somewhat to have merited, by his manner alone, some of the severe criticisms lavished upon him. How much of the feeling against him was prompted by insular prejudice, how much was jealousy, and how much personal dislike, it is difficult to say, but there was probably something of all three to account for it.
As far as the Royal Dukes’ feelings went, there was some justification for jealousy. Leopold, a foreign Prince, was being allowed from the Civil List an annual £50,000, having been for only about a year the husband of the Heir-Apparent. The Royal Dukes of England were receiving only £18,000 and £24,000 each, and they were the sons and brothers of Kings of England. However, the sharp-tongued Creevy, who could not have been personally affected, spoke of him always as Humbug Leopold, and one of the Fitzclarences said in 1824 that the Duchess of Clarence was the best and most charming woman in the world, that Prince Leopold was a damned humbug, and that he (Fitzclarence) disliked the Duchess of Kent.
But whatever the popular opinion concerning him, Leopold, when his sister became a widow, was a shield between her and the world. The Duke of Kent was taken ill in Sidmouth, and two days before he died Prince Leopold went thither to do what he could for his sister. One cannot help wondering how it was that the Duke struggled on so long with the burden of worries that he had to bear. After his marriage he lived in Germany until the prospect of an heir brought him and his wife to England. His income was then little or nothing, for he had been obliged to make an assignment of his property to his creditors, to work off debts contracted partly when, as a young man, he had been allowed by his tutor, Baron Wangenheim, the princely income of thirty shillings a week as pocket-money, the remainder of £6,000 a year being used by the Baron, who was astute enough to intercept the Prince’s letters home. The Duchess of Kent had a jointure of £6,000 a year, and upon this they lived. From his youth to his death the Duke was worried by the lack of money and by creditors, through no extravagance of his own, as well as by the enmity of his brother, the Regent.
When the Duke of Kent died, Leopold was the only friend the Duchess had in England, and he went through the affairs of his late brother-in-law, finding to his consternation that there was not enough money left even to carry the family back to London, or to pay for the necessary winding up of affairs at Sidmouth. George IV. would give no help of any sort; he hated the Duchess, as he did most of his brothers’ wives, and his one idea was to cause her to take her child back to Germany and relieve him and the country entirely of any obligation towards them. However, the Duchess and her brother came to the conclusion that they should resist this desire with all their strength, and to make things easier Leopold added to his sister’s six thousand a year an annual amount of £3,000. For decency’s sake the King had to give them a roof over their heads, and he assigned to the Duchess some rooms in Kensington Palace. I have come across fatuous biographies of Queen Victoria in which Leopold has been extolled for his liberality to his sister, as a noble brother, &c., but when the position is regarded in a detached way the absurdity and injustice of the whole arrangement is patent. The alien Leopold was drawing, as has already been said, £50,000 a year from the English Exchequer, having no obligations upon him of any sort, no Royal position to keep up, while his sister, the wife of the King’s brother, and mother of the probable Queen of England, had less than an eighth of that amount, was allowed nothing more from the Government, and was expected to be very grateful to Leopold in that he handed over to her a little of the money that he received. Six years later a sum of six thousand was annually allowed the Duchess by the Government for the education of her daughter, and in 1831, when the Princess Victoria was needing yet more in the way of instruction, training, and social necessities, another £10,000 brought her income up to £22,000 a year, more than her poor husband had ever owned.
Until 1831 Leopold lived at Claremont, cultivated its gardens to the utmost, and provoked much criticism for the business-like way in which he sent the produce up to London. Claremont became also a country-house residence for the Duchess of Kent and her little daughter, Victoria looking back upon the comparative freedom she enjoyed there as helping to make those visits the happiest events of her early life. Then came the demand for a King for Greece, and Leopold had the chance of securing the position, George, however, remarking that if he did go to Greece he should leave his income behind him. There is no doubt that an affluent, objectless life in England had its charms, and that a man might pay too dearly for wearing the crown of a small unsettled kingdom surrounded by enemies. So Leopold vacillated, always leaning with each swing a little nearer the crown, yet wishing to retain the money. The newspapers of the day were full of the money part of the transaction. First, would the country buy of him the land he had purchased here, valued at fifty thousand or thereabouts? would England guarantee him a loan of £1,500,000? would England give him for seven years an annual £70,000 instead of £50,000? From month to month negotiations dragged on, until at last it was announced that Leopold had got the promise of all he desired, and by that time George IV. was very ill. So the Prince, with new ideas in his mind, waited for nearly two months more before even then making his decision, raising many a laugh and many a scoffing hint in society as to his real reason. “Ingoldsby” Barham crystallised some of the sayings in his verses upon “The Mad Dog,” as follows:--
“The Dog hath bitten--Oh, woe is me-- A Market Gardener of high degree; Imperial Peas No longer please, An Imperial Crown he burneth to seize! Early Cucumbers, Windsor Beans, Cabbages, Cauliflowers, Broccoli, Greens, Girkins to pickle, Apples to munch, Radishes fine, five farthings a bunch, Carrots red and Turnips white, Parsnips yellow no more delight, He spurneth Lettuces, Onions, Leeks, He would be Sovereign King of the Greeks. No more in a row A goodly show. His Highness’s carts to market go! Yet still I heard Sam Rogers hint, He hath no distaste for _celery_ or _mint_. A different whim Now seizeth him, And Greece for his part may sink or swim. For they cry that he Would Regent be, And Rule fair England from sea to sea. Oh, never was mortal man so mad,-- Alack! alack, for the Gardener lad.”
When it was certain that George IV. could not recover, Leopold declined the honour of being King of Greece, upon which Barham wrote the following verse:--
“A King for Greece!--a King for Greece! Wanted a Sovereign Prince for Greece! For the recreant Knight Hath broken his plight, Some say from policy, some from fright, Some say in hope to rule for his niece, He hath refused to be King over Greece.”
Thomas Creevy wrote concerning this decision in one of his letters, “I suppose Mrs. Kent thinks her daughter’s reign is coming on apace, and that her brother may be of use to her as _versus_ Cumberland.”
In 1831 Leopold became King of the Belgians, and then, attention having been so thoroughly drawn to his pension, a determined demand was made that it should cease when he left England. Matters were not settled quite so simply. Leopold retained Claremont, stipulated that his debts of £83,000 should be paid for him, and that he should return four-fifths of the annuity. When the Duke of Kent had died crushed with debt, not so much more than this sober gentleman owed, that debt was left to hang round the necks of his widow and child. The Duke of Kent was popular, Leopold was not; yet the former was neglected and the latter was honoured. Really there seems little advantage in being popular!
When Leopold announced with some solemnity that he was called to reign over four million noble Belgians, Coleridge, referring to that country’s discontented state, remarked that it would have been more appropriate if he had said that he was called to rein in four million restive asses.