Queen Victoria (2 page)

Queen Charlotte, the wife of George III, and the grandmother of our Sovereign, was a devoted wife and mother, and strict in her ideas of duty. Though her features were irregular, her face was attractive from the brightness of her eyes, and the piquancy and animation of her expression. One inestimable boon she helped to confer on the British nation. At a period when laxity of morals was almost universally prevalent, she not only set a noble example of domestic virtue, but resolutely discountenanced vice in others. It was in no small degree owing to her influence that the Court of George III became the purest in Europe.

Of the Kings of England, the Queen’s ancestors, it would be superfluous to give any history or account in the limited pages of this volume.

It was on the 6th of November, 1817, that the whole country heard with dismay of the tragic death of the Princess Charlotte of Wales, wife of Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, and of her newborn infant. With that event the hope of a direct heir to the Regent, afterwards George IV, disappeared, and the succession to the throne was left among his younger brothers. Of these the eldest, Frederick, Duke of York, had been married more than sixteen years, and had no children. William, Duke of Clarence, the next in seniority, who succeeded his brother as King William IV, was married on the 11th of July, 1818. His first child by his wife, Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen, was born in 1819, two months before the Princess Victoria, and died on the day of her birth. One other child was born at the close of the next year, but, at the age of three months, she also died. Next to the Duke of Clarence came the Duke of Kent, the father of our Queen.

Edward Augustus, the fourth son of George III and Queen Charlotte, was born on the 2nd of November, 1767, at Buckingham House. In the same house, at the time of the Prince’s birth, Edward, Duke of York, brother of the King, was lying in state preparatory to his funeral the day following. From’ his deceased uncle, the infant prince, who was christened on the 30th of the same month, received his first name. His early years were passed under the care and tuition of John Fisher, afterwards Canon of Windsor, and Bishop, successively, of Exeter and Salisbury. The influence of this exemplary Christian and distinguished scholar was apparent in the piety, and love of truth, which were marked features in the character of his pupil, whose fortitude and equanimity were severely tried in after life by injustice and misfortune. Destined for the career of a soldier, he was sent, at the age of eighteen, to Luneberg, in Hanover, to study for his profession under a military governor. An annuity of £6,000 had been provided for his maintenance, but his tutor, who thought of nothing except drill and avarice, treated his charge with extreme severity and parsimony. Not content with restricting his pocket-money to a weekly pittance, he intercepted the Prince’s letters to his parents, and misrepresented his conduct by describing him as recklessly extravagant. As the Prince afterwards said: “Much of the estrangement between my royal parent and myself, much of the sorrow of my after life, may be ascribed to that most uncalled-for sojourn in the Electorate.” There is no doubt that the ill-judged and severe treatment of his governor was the primary cause of the serious financial embarrassments which troubled the Prince throughout the whole of his life.

In May, 1786, the Prince was made a Colonel in the Army, and, shortly after, a Knight of the Garter. In the year following he was removed to Geneva. Thence, in June, 1790, he returned to England, without permission from the King, hoping that, in a personal interview with his father, he might so state his grievances as to obtain some immediate relief from the burdens which pressed upon him. The King, however, was implacable; he refused to see his son, ordered him to leave in a few days for Gibraltar, and only admitted him to his presence for a few minutes before his departure. But the Prince’s visit was not entirely fruitless: at last he was free from his harsh governor, and his exile was alleviated by his appointment to the Colonelcy of the 7th Royal Fusiliers, then forming part of the garrison. On his conduct in this position many unfavourable criticisms have been passed. The strict ideas of military duty which had been instilled into him in Germany made him a stern disciplinarian, at a time when the utmost laxity prevailed among the garrison of the Rock. To the Prince’s credit it should be added that he demanded from his subordinates no more than he practised himself. As in the discharge of public duties he set an example of care and diligence, so in private life he was a pattern of regularity and temperance. The opinion entertained of him by his own regiment may be learned from its privately-printed records, where it is said: “At that time the discipline of the Army was greatly relaxed. The military code, it is true, allowed brutal severity to be used in correcting the private soldiers, but brutal severity has never been the means of raising and maintaining a brave and efficient army, unless it was only resorted to in the last extremity by men who performed their duty with rigid exactness, and were in all respects a pattern for those whom they commanded. So much, however, could not then be said of all ranks in the British Army. Great slackness existed, and when the young Duke of Kent attempted to exact a proper and honourable performance of his duty from each of his subordinates, his measures were received with great and ill-concealed disgust.” “His notions of discipline,” says the Prince’s biographer, “rendered him unpopular with the men. Representations relative to the dissatisfaction prevalent in the Fusiliers were made at home, and the result was that His Royal Highness was ordered to embark with his Regiment for America.” His enemies, and the Prince had many on the Rock, not all of the lowest order, were striving to create discord between him and his Fusiliers. But gradually the advantages of strictness in discipline were recognised, and before the regiment left Gibraltar the merits of the Colonel were appreciated, not only by the 7th, but by the rest of the garrison.

During 1792 and 1793 the Duke remained at Quebec in command of his regiment. In October of the latter year he was promoted to the rank of Major-General, and in December, at his own request, he received an appointment under Sir Charles Grey, who was then engaged in the reduction of the French West India Islands. The Prince took part in the capture of Martinique and Santa Lucia, for which service he was mentioned in despatches, and received the thanks of Parliament. After the successful termination of the expedition he rejoined his regiment in Canada; but, in 1798, he was obliged to leave the country on account of ill-health.

In 1799 His Royal Highness was created Duke of Kent and Strathern, and Earl of Dublin. In the same year he was gazetted Commander-in-Chief of the Forces in North America; but, owing to the state of his health, he was able to remain there little more than a year. In 1802 he was again despatched to Gibraltar, on this occasion as Governor, with express instructions from the Commander-in-Chief, his brother, the Duke of York, to restore the discipline of that demoralised garrison. The means which the Duke of Kent considered it necessary to take, at great pecuniary loss to himself, for the accomplishment of this purpose, caused a mutiny among the troops, which was at last quelled, and discipline restored. The Duke, however, was recalled, and after his departure the garrison relapsed into its former condition. In 1805 the Duke was made a Field-Marshal. He was at this time living in comparative retirement near Ealing, taking, however, an active interest in movements of piety and philanthropy. But in 1815 he was compelled, by the state of his affairs, and the difficulty which he experienced in obtaining any assistance towards the relief of his embarrassments, to leave England, in order that, on the Continent, he might live in the simplest possible manner. It was while he was abroad that he first saw the widowed Princess of Leiningen, whom he afterwards married.

The Princess Victoria Mary Louisa, who thus became Duchess of Kent, was born at Coburg on the 17th August, 1786. She was the fourth daughter of Francis Frederick Antony, Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfield, and his wife, Augusta, daughter of Henry, Count of Reuss-Ebersdorf. When seventeen years of age, she had married Ernest Charles, Hereditary Prince of Leiningen, her senior by more than twenty years, and a widower, whose first wife, the Princess Sophie Henriette, had also been of the same house of Reuss-Ebersdorf. After eleven years of married life, she was left a widow, with two children - a son. Prince Charles, who succeeded his father in 1814, and a daughter,

Princess Feodore, the beloved half-sister and companion of the girlhood of Queen Victoria. The Princess of Leiningen cordially returned the affection with which she had inspired the Duke of Kent, and when it was known that sanction had been given to the Duke’s marriage with the sister of Prince Leopold, the intelligence was received everywhere with the greatest satisfaction. It was a union which had been most ardently desired by the Princess Charlotte, who was deeply attached to her uncle. But, owing to the delays which were occasioned by the position of the Princess of Leiningen as guardian of her two fatherless children, the Princess Charlotte’s sudden death occurred before the alliance was concluded. The House of Commons voted a grant of £6,000 a year, and on the 29th of May, 1818, the marriage of the Duke of Kent and the Princess of Leiningen was celebrated at Coburg. The ceremony was repeated on the 11th of June, at Kew, and at the same time and place the Duke of Clarence was married to the Princess Adelaide of Saxe-Meiningen.

For the first few months of their married life, the Duke and Duchess of Kent resided at Amorbach, one of the seats of the Prince of Leiningen. Early in the following spring, when the birth of their child was expected, both the Duke and Duchess were desirous that the infant should first see the light on English soil, and made their way to Kensington. There, on the 24th of May, 1819, the Princess, the future Queen and Empress, was born at a quarter-past four in the morning. Though the Duchess quickly recovered her health, yet, towards the close of the year, she was advised to try a climate somewhat milder than that of Kensington, as the winter had set in with such unusual severity that thick ice was everywhere to be seen as early as November. A move was therefore made to Devonshire, where Woolbrook Cottage, at Sidmouth, was taken as a winter residence. Here the Duke passed the short remainder of his life, overshadowed to some extent by the clouds of financial trouble which had always so terribly oppressed him, but brightened by the affection and companionship of his wife, and of his child, to whom he was devotedly attached. His end was very sudden; he had walked out through the snow with Colonel Conroy, but on his return neglected to change his wet clothes. This imprudence, following on a cold which he had caught at Salisbury when visiting the Cathedral, brought on inflammation of the lungs. The fever ran high, and, according to the barbaric custom of the age, he was repeatedly bled. He never regained strength, and died on the 23rd of January, 1820. During his illness, he was nursed indefatigably by the Duchess, who never left him; indeed, for five nights and days she had never undressed. The only consolation she had besides her infant daughter was the presence of her loved brother, Prince Leopold, who, on hearing of the dangerous condition of the Duke, hastened at once to her side. The Duke’s sister, Princess Augusta, writes to an old friend immediately after the Duke’s death: “Think, my dearest Lady Harcourt, that yesterday five weeks he was here on his way to Sidmouth; so happy with his excellent, good wife, and his lovely child; and within so short a time was perfectly
well
-
ill
- and
no
more
!… God knows what is for the best, and I hope I bow with submission to this very severe trial; but when I think of his poor, miserable wife, and his innocent, fatherless child, it really breaks my heart. She has conducted herself like an angel, and I am thankful dearest Leopold was with her… She quite adored poor Edward, and they were truly blessed in each other; but what an irreparable loss he must be to her!”

The Duke of Kent was also a loss to the whole nation. Not a favourite with his own family, he was the most popular of his brothers outside the Royal circle. His opinions were enlightened, and though considered heterodox at the time, they now represent the views of most cultivated men. In his private life he was remarkable for his generosity to all from whom he had received attention or service. Warmly interested in the management of almost every charitable institution of his time, he never failed to forward their interests by presiding at their meetings if time would permit him to do so. The practical interest he took in education is proved by the fact that he was the first commander of a regiment to establish a regimental school. Perhaps the best eulogy passed upon him was that of Lord Brougham, who said, in the House of Lords, on the question of a grant to him on his marriage, that he “would venture to say that no man had set a brighter example of public virtue, no man had more beneficially exerted himself in his high station to benefit every institution with which the best interests of the country, and the protection and education of the poor were connected, than his Royal Highness the Duke of Kent.”

The Duke was buried in the royal vault at Windsor, under the Tomb-house, now the Albert Memorial Chapel. A handsome tomb of alabaster, with a recumbent effigy, has also been erected by the Queen to her father’s memory in the south aisle of the nave of St. George’s Chapel.

A week had not elapsed since the death of the Duke, before his father, George III, also passed away. The Princess Augusta again writes from Windsor Castle on the 4th of February: “In all my own sorrow I cannot yet bear to think of that good, excellent woman, the Duchess of Kent, and all her trials; they are really most grievous. She is the most pious, good, resigned creature it is possible to describe. She has written to me once; and I received the letter from her and one from Adelaide,
written
together
from Kensington. Dearest William is so good-hearted, that he has desired Adelaide to go to Kensington every day, as she is a comfort to the poor widow, and her sweet, gentle mind is of great use to the Duchess of Kent. It is a great delight to me to think they can read the same
prayers
, and
talk
the
same
mother
tongue
together, it makes them such real friends and comforts to each other…”