Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen Volume I Part 12

The Prince would return "at a great pace" from his morning rides, which took him into all the districts of London where improvements were going on, and "would always come through the Queen's dressing-room, where she generally was at that time, with that bright loving smile with which he ever greeted her, telling her where he had been, what new buildings he had seen, what studios he had visited."

Her Majesty objected to the English custom of gentlemen remaining in the dining-room after the ladies had left the table. But, by the advice of Lord Melbourne, in which the Prince concurred, no direct change was made in what was almost a national inst.i.tution. The hour when the whole party broke up, however, was seldom later than eleven.

The story got into circulation that the Queen's habit was to stand conversing with the ladies till the gentlemen joined them, and that knowing her practice, the dining-room was soon left empty. Lord Campbell gives his experience of this portion of a royal dinner some years after the Queen's marriage. "The Queen and the ladies withdrawing, Prince Albert came over to her side of the table, and we remained behind about a quarter of an hour, but we rose within the hour from the time of our sitting down.

A snuff-box was twice carried round and offered to all the gentlemen.

Prince Albert, to my surprise, took a pinch."

The Prince, who was an exceedingly temperate man at table, rather grudged the time spent in eating and drinking, just as he disliked riding for mere exercise, without any other object. Yet he was a bold and skilled rider, and could, without any privilege of rank, come in first in the hunting-field. It amused the Queen and her husband to find that this accomplishment, more than any other, was likely to make him popular among English gentlemen. But though he liked hunting as a recreation, he did not understand how it or any other sport could be made the business of a man's life.

By the month of July, the prospect of an heir to the throne rendered it advisable that provision should be made for the Queen's possible death, or lengthened disqualification for reigning. The Regency Bill was brought forward with more caution and better success than had attended on the Prince's Annuity Bill. In accordance with the prudent counsels of Baron Stockmar, the Opposition as well as the Ministry were taken into account and consulted. The consequence was that the Duke of Wellington, the mouthpiece of the Tories on the former occasion, was altogether propitious in the name of himself and his party, and it was agreed that the Prince was the proper person to appoint as Regent in case of any unhappy contingency. The Bill was pa.s.sed unanimously and without objection in both Houses, except for a speech made by the Duke of Suss.e.x in the House of Lords.

This conclusion was gratifying in all respects, not the least so in its testimony to the respect which the Prince's conduct had already called forth. "Three months ago they would not have done it for him," Lord Melbourne told the Queen. "It is entirely his own character." It was also a pleasant proof of the goodwill of the Tories, whom the Prince had done everything in his power to conciliate, employing his influence to impress upon the young Queen the const.i.tutional att.i.tude of impartiality and neutrality towards all political parties.

There was a corresponding withdrawal of the absurd opposition to Prince Albert's taking his place by the Queen's side on all State occasions. "Let the Queen put the Prince where she likes and settle it herself, that is the best way," said the Duke of Wellington cordially. A lively example of the great Duke's want of toleration for the traditions of Court etiquette is given in a note to the "Life of the Prince Consort." The late Lord Albemarle, when Master of the Horse, was very sensitive about his right in that capacity to sit in the sovereign's coach on State occasions. "The Queen," said the Duke, when appealed to for his opinion, "can make Lord Albemarle sit at the top of the coach, under the coach, behind the coach, or wherever else her Majesty pleases."

On the 11th of August the Queen prorogued Parliament, accompanied by her husband for the first time. The following day the Court left for Windsor.

The Prince was very fond of the country, and gladly went to it. The Queen, in her early womanhood, had been, as she said, "too happy to go to London, and wretched to leave it." But from the time of her marriage she shared her husband's tastes, and could have been "content and happy never to go to town." How her Majesty has retained the love of nature, which is a refuge of sorrow as well as a crown of happiness, we all know.

In the mornings at Windsor there were shooting in the season, and a wider field for landscape gardening for the Prince before he took to farming. In the evening there were occasional great dinners and little dances as in London. The young couple dispensed royal hospitality to a succession of friendly visitors, who came to see with their own eyes the bright palace home. The King and the Queen of the Belgians rejoiced in the fruits of his work. The Princess of Hohenlohe, herself a happy wife and mother, arrived with her children to witness her sister's felicity. Queen Adelaide did not shrink from revisiting Windsor, and seeing a beloved niece fill well King William and his consort's place.

Prince Albert's birthday was celebrated in England for the first time; there were illuminations in London; down at Windsor the day was kept, for the most part, in the simple family fashion, which is the best. The Prince was awakened by a musical reveille; a German chorale, chosen with loving, ungrudging care, as the first thing which was to greet him, was most certain, on that day of all others, to carry him back in spirit to his native country.

The family circle breakfasted by themselves in a favourite cottage in the park. Princess Feodora's children were in masquerade as Coburg peasants, doubtless hailing the Coburg Prince with an appropriate greeting. In the afternoon, in the fine weather, the Prince drove out the Queen; in the evening, "there was rather a larger dinner than usual."

On the 11th of September the Prince was formally sworn a member of her Majesty's Privy Council. And so conscientiously anxious was he to discharge worthily every duty which could be required of him, that, in the greater leisure of Windsor, he not only read "Hallam's Const.i.tutional History" with the Queen, he began to read English law with a barrister.

In the meantime, an old historical figure, Princess Augusta of England, who had appeared at the Queen's marriage, lay terribly ill at Clarence House. She died on the 22nd of September, having survived her sister, Princess Elizabeth, the Landgravine of Hesse Homburg, only eight months.

Princess Augusta carried away with her many memories of the Court of George III. By a coincidence, the lady who may almost be called the Princess's biographer, at least whose animated sketches and affectionate praises of her "dear Princess Augusta" were destined to give the world of England its princ.i.p.al knowledge of an amiable princess, died at a great age the same year. Madame D'Arblay, as Miss Burney, the distinguished novelist, had been appointed in 1786, in a somewhat whimsical acknowledgement of her talents and services to the reading world, one of the keepers of Queen Charlotte's wardrobe. In this office she resided at Court for five years, and she has left in her diary the most graphic account which we have of the English royal life of the day. "Evelina" and "Cecilia" were old stories even in 1840; it was more than fifty years since Madame D'Arblay had taken royal service, and now her best-beloved young patroness had pa.s.sed away an aged woman, only a few months later than the gifted and vivacious little keeper of the robes, whose duties, to be sure, had included reading habitually to the Queen when she was dressing, and sometimes to the Court circle. Princess Augusta's funeral went from her house of Frogmore at seven o'clock in the evening of the 2nd of October, one of the last of the night funerals of a past generation, and she was buried with the customary honours in St. George's Chapel, Windsor. Frogmore became from that time the country residence of the d.u.c.h.ess of Kent.

In November the Court returned to Buckingham Palace for the Queen's accouchement. Baron Stockmar, at the Prince's earnest entreaty, came to England for the event, though he remained then as always in the background. On the 21st of November the Princess Royal was born, the good news being announced to London by the firing of the Tower guns. The Cabinet Ministers and Officers of State were in attendance in an adjoining room, and the new-born child, wrapped in flannel, was carried by the nurse, escorted by Sir James Clark, into the presence of those who were to attest her birth, and laid for a moment on a table before them. Both mother and child were well, and although a momentary disappointment was felt at the s.e.x of the infant, it did not detract from the general rejoicing at the Queen's safety with a living successor to the throne. It was said at the time, kindly gossips dwelling on the utterance with the utmost pleasure, that on the Prince expressing a fear that the people might be disappointed, the Queen rea.s.sured him in the most cheerful spirit, "Never mind, the next shall be a boy," and that she hoped she might have as many children as her grandmother, Queen Charlotte.

A fresh instance of a diseased appet.i.te for notoriety, grafted on vagrant youthful curiosity and restless love of mischief, astonished and scandalised the English world. On the day after the birth of the Princess Royal a rascally boy named Jones was discovered concealed under a sofa in a room next to the Queen's. The offender was leniently dealt with in consideration of his immature years, but again and again, at intervals of a few months, the flibbertigibbet turned up in the most unlooked-for quarters, impudently a.s.serting, on being questioned, that he had entered "the same way as before," and that he could, any time he pleased, find his way into the palace. It was supposed that he climbed over the wall on Const.i.tution Hill and crept through one of the windows. But he could hardly have done so if it had not been for the confused palace management, for which n.o.body was responsible, with its inevitable disorder, that had not yet been overcome. The boy had to be committed to the House of Correction as a rogue and vagabond for three months. Afterwards he served on board one of her Majesty's ships, where his taste for creating a sensation seems to have died a natural death.

In the Queen's weakness the young husband and father was continually developing new traits of manly tenderness. "His care and devotion were quite beyond expression." He declined to go anywhere, that he might be always at hand to do anything in his power for her comfort "He was content to sit by her in a darkened room, to read to her and write for her." "No one but himself ever lifted her from her bed to her sofa, and he always helped to wheel her on her bed or sofa into the next room. For this purpose he would come instantly when sent for from any part of the house."

"His care for her was like that of a mother, nor could there be a kinder, wiser, more judicious nurse." Happy Queen!

The Queen made an excellent recovery, and the Court was back at Windsor holding Christmas and New Year relieved from all care and full of thankfulness. The peace and goodwill of the season, with the interchange of kindly gifts, were celebrated with pleasant picturesque German, in addition to old English customs. We have all heard wonderful tales of the baron of beef, the boar's head, the peac.o.c.k with spread tail, the plum soup for which there is only one recipe, and that a royal one. There were fir-trees in the Queen's and the Prince's rooms and in humbler chambers.

There was a great gathering of the household in a special corridor, where the Queen's presents were bestowed.

A new year dawned with bright promise on an expectant world. This last year had been so good in one sense that it could hardly be surpa.s.sed. What had it not done for the family life! It had given a good and loving wife to a good and loving husband, and a little child, with undreamt-of possibilities in its slumbering eyes and helpless hands. The public horizon was tolerably clear. The Welsh riots had been quelled and other acts of insubordination in the manufacturing districts put down--not without the use of force--but there was room for trust that such mad tumults would not be repeated. Father Matthews was reforming Ireland.

There were far-away wars both with China and Afghanistan, certainly, but the wars were far away in more respects than one, distant enough to have their origin in the English protection of the opium trade, and interference--now with a peaceful, timidly conservative race--and again with fiercely jealous and warlike tribes, slurred over and forgotten, and only the successes of the national arms dwelt upon with pride and exultation.

Across "the silver streak" of the Channel there were more remarkable events, marked by a curious inconsistency, than the suitable marriage of the Duc de Nemours. Prince Louis Napoleon Buonaparte landed on the French coast with a handful of men prepared to invade the country, and was immediately overpowered and arrested. He was tried and condemned to imprisonment in the fortress of Ham, from which he escaped in due time, having earned for himself during long years the sobriquet of "the madman of Boulogne." The very same year Prince de Joinville, Louis Philippe's sailor son, was commissioned to bring the ashes of Napoleon from St.

Helena to France. The coffin was conveyed in the Prince's frigate, _La Belle Poule_, to Cherbourg, whence a steamboat sailed with the solemn freight up the Seine to Paris. The funeral formed a splendid pageant, attended by the royal family, the ministers, and a great concourse of spectators. The dust of _le pet.i.t caporal_ was deposited in a magnificent tomb in the Hotel des Invalides, before the eyes of a few survivors of his Old Guard.

Spain and Portugal were still the theatres of civil wars--now smouldering, now leaping up with brief fury. In Spain the Queen Regent, Christina, was driven from the kingdom, and had to take refuge in France for a time. In Portugal, in the middle of a political crisis, Maria da Gloria gave birth to a daughter, which died soon after its birth, while for days her own life was despaired of.

CHAPTER XI THE FIRST CHRISTENING.--THE SEASON OF 1841.

The Queen was able to open Parliament in person at the end of January.

The first christening in the royal household had been fixed to take place on the 10th of February, the first anniversary of the Queen's wedding-day, which was thus a double gala in 1841. The day before the Prince again had a dangerous accident. He was skating in the presence of the Queen and one of her ladies on the lake in the gardens of Buckingham Palace when the ice gave way a few yards from the bank, where the water was so deep that the skater had to swim for two or three minutes before he could extricate himself. The Queen had the presence of mind to lend him instant a.s.sistance, while her lady was "more occupied in screaming for help," so that the worst consequences of the plunge were a bad cold.

The christening took place at six in the evening in Buckingham Palace. The ceremony was performed by the Archbishop of Canterbury, a.s.sisted by the Archbishop of York, the Bishop of London, the Bishop of Norwich, and the Dean of Carlisle. The sponsors were the Duke of Saxe-Coburg Gotha, represented by the Duke of Wellington, King Leopold, the Queen-dowager, the d.u.c.h.ess of Gloucester, the d.u.c.h.ess of Kent, and the Duke of Suss.e.x, the most of whom had been present at the baptism of her Majesty, and were able to compare royal child and royal mother in similar circ.u.mstances.

The Duke of Cambridge and his son, Prince George, with Prince Edward of Saxe-Weimar, were among the company. The infant was named "Victoria Adelaide Mary Louisa."

The _Annual Register_ for the year has an elaborate description of the new silver-gilt font used on the occasion. It was in the shape of a water-lily supporting a sh.e.l.l, the rim of which was decorated with smaller water-lilies. The base bore, between the arms of the Queen and Prince Albert, the arms of the Princess Royal, surmounted by her Royal Highness's coronet. The water had been brought from the river Jordan.

A simple description of the event was given by Prince Albert in a letter to his grandmother, the Dowager-d.u.c.h.ess of Gotha. "The christening went off very well; your little great-granddaughter behaved with great propriety and like a Christian. She was awake, but did not cry at all, and seemed to crow with immense satisfaction at the lights and brilliant uniforms, for she is very intelligent and observing. The ceremony took place at half-past six P.M. After it there was a dinner, and then we had some instrumental music. The health of the little one was drunk with great enthusiasm."

The lively noticing powers of the Princess Royal when she was between two and three months of age is in amusing contradiction to a report which we remember as current at the time. It was mentioned in order to be denied by Leslie, who was commissioned to paint the royal christening, and worked at the picture so diligently in the long days of the following summer that he was often occupied with the work from nine in the morning till seven or eight in the evening. He wrote in his "Recollections": "In 1841 I painted a second picture for the Queen, the christening of the Princess Royal. I was admitted to see the ceremony, and made a slight sketch of the royal personages as they stood round the font in the room. I made a study from the little Princess a few days afterwards. She was then three months old, and a finer child of that age I never saw. It is a curious proof of the readiness with which people believe whatever they hear to the disadvantage of those placed high in rank above them, that at the time at which I made the sketch it was said everywhere but in the palace and by those who belonged to the royal household, that the Princess was born blind, and by many it was even believed that she was born without feet. The sketch was shown at a party at Mr. Moon's, the evening after I made it, and the ladies all said, 'What a pity so fine a child should be entirely blind!'

It was in vain I told them that her eyes were beautifully clear and bright, and that she took notice of everything about her. I was told that, though her eyes looked bright, and though she might appear to turn them to every object, it was _certain_ she was blind."

What Leslie attributes to a species of envy, we think may be more justly regarded as having its foundation in the love of sensationalism to which human nature is p.r.o.ne--sensationalism which appears to become all the racier when it finds its food in high quarters. The particular direction the tendency took was influenced by the blindness of George III. and of his grandson, the Crown Prince of Hanover, which seemed to lend a plausibility to the absurd rumour.

Baron Stockmar states that the Princess Royal was a delicate child, causing considerable apprehension for her successful rearing during the first year of her life. It was only by judicious care that she developed a splendid const.i.tution. Charles Leslie goes on to say: "The most agreeable part of my task in painting the christening of the Princess Royal was in studying the fine head of the wisest and best of living Kings, Leopold, a man whom the people he reigns over scarcely seem to deserve. Nothing could be more agreeable than his manner, and that of his amiable Queen, who was in the room all the time he sat. He speaks English very well, and she also spoke it. After I had painted for some time, she said, "May I look?" and suggesting some alterations, she said, "You must excuse me, I speak honest; but if I am wrong, don't mind me."

In those years the King and Queen of the Belgians were such frequent visitors of her Majesty, who may be said to have been his adopted child, that a whole floor of Buckingham Palace which was set apart for their use is still known as "the Belgian Floor." The portraits of both are in the Palace, and so is his likeness when he was many years younger, and one of the handsomest men in Europe. The last is hanging beside a full-length portrait of his first wife, Princess Charlotte, with her fair face and striking figure. In the summer of 1841 the Queen was farther and longer separated from her mother than she had ever been previously. The d.u.c.h.ess of Kent, secure in her daughter's prosperity and happiness, went to her native Germany, for the first time since she had come to England twenty-two years before. She was warmly received wherever she went. She visited, among other places, Amorbach, the seat of her son, the Prince of Leiningen, in Bavaria, where the d.u.c.h.ess had resided with the Duke of Kent in the first years of their married life. "It is like a dream that I am writing to you from this place," she addressed her daughter. "He (the Prince of Leiningen) has made many alterations in the house. Your father began them just before we left in March, 1819."

A threatened change of Ministry and a general election were pending; but amidst the political anxieties which already occupied much of the Queen and Prince Albert's thoughts, it was a bright summer, full of many interests and special sources of pleasure.

Mademoiselle Rachel, the great French actress, arrived in England. She had already established her empire in Paris by her marvellous revival of Racine's and Corneille's masterpieces. She was now to exercise the same fascination over an alien people, to whom her speech was a foreign tongue.

She made her first appearance in the part of Hermione in Racine's _Andromaque_ at the Italian Opera-house. Few who witnessed the spectacle ever forgot the slight figure, the pale, dark, Jewish face, the deep melody of the voice, the restrained pa.s.sion, the concentrated rage, especially the pitiless irony, with which she gave the poet's meaning.

The Queen and the Prince shared the general enthusiasm. For that matter there was a little jealousy awakened lest there might be too much generous _abandon_ in the royal approval of the great player. Perhaps this feeling arose in the minds of those who, dating from Puritan days, had a conscientious objection to all plays and players, and waxed hotter as time, alas! proved how, in contrast to the honourable reputation of the English Queen of Tragedy, Sarah Siddons, the character and life of the gifted French actress were miserably beneath her genius. There was a little vexed talk, which probably had small enough foundation, of the admission of Rachel into the highest society; of the d.u.c.h.ess of Kent's condescending to give her shawl to the shivering foreigner; of a bracelet with the simple inscription, "From Victoria to Rachel," as if there could be a common meeting-ground between the two, though the one was a queen in art and the other a queen in history. But if there was any imprudence, it might well have been excused as a fault of n.o.ble sympathy with art and cordial acknowledgement of it, which leant to virtue's side, a fault which had hitherto been not too common in England. The same year a Kemble, the last of the family who redeemed for a time the fallen fortunes of Covent Garden Theatre, Adelaide, the beautiful and accomplished younger daughter of Charles Kemble, brother to John Kemble and Sarah Siddons, came out as an operatic-singer in the part of "Norma." She was welcomed as her sweet voice, fine acting, and the traditions of her family deserved. She was invited to sing at the palace. From girlhood the Queen had been familiar with the Kembles in their connection with the English stage. The last time she visited the Academy as Princess Victoria, just before the death of King William, Leslie mentions, she asked that Charles Kemble might be presented to her, when the gentleman had the opportunity of making his "best genteel-comedy bow." Now it was on the younger generation of the Kembles that the Queen bestowed her gracious countenance. These were halcyon days for society as well as for the stage, when, in Mrs.

Oliphant's words, "the Queen was in the foreground of the national life, affecting it always for good, and setting an example of purity and virtue.

The theatres to which she went, and which both she and her husband enjoyed, were purified by her presence, evils which had been the growth of years disappearing before the face of the young Queen...."

On the 13th of June the Queen revisited Oxford in company with her husband, in time for Commemoration. Her Majesty and the Prince stayed at Nuneham, the seat of the Archbishop of York, and drove in to the University city. The Prince was present at a banquet in St. John's and attended divine service at New Inn Hall.

On the 21st of June the Queen and Prince Albert were at Woolwich, for the launch of the good ship _Trafalgar_. Nothing so gay had been seen at the mouth of the river since King William and Queen Adelaide came down to Greenwich to keep the anniversary of the battle of Trafalgar. The water was covered with vessels, including every sort of craft that had been seen "since the building of Noah's Ark." The sh.o.r.e was equally crowded with an immense mult.i.tude of human beings finding standing-ground in the most unlikely places. The Queen drove down to the Dockyard in a travelling-carriage and four. She was received with a royal salute and glad bursts of cheering.

It is hardly necessary to say that the young Queen was exceedingly popular with the blue-jackets. In the course of a visit to Portsmouth she had gone over one of her ships. She was shown through the men's quarters, the sailors being under orders to remain perfectly quiet and abstain from cheering. Her Majesty tasted the men's coffee and p.r.o.nounced it good. She asked if they got nothing stronger. A gla.s.s of grog was brought to her.

She put it to her lips, and Jack could contain himself no longer; a burst of enthusiastic huzzas made the ribs of the ship ring.

At Woolwich a discharge of artillery announced the moment when the great vessel slipped from her stays, and "floated gallantly down the river" till she was brought up and swung round with her stern to London.

The King and Queen of the Belgians paid their second visit this year, the Queen remaining six weeks, detained latterly by the illness of her son in England. The long visit confirmed the tender friendship between the two queens. "During this stay, which had been such a happiness for me, we became most intimate," Queen Victoria wrote in her Journal, and she grudged the necessity of having to set out with Prince Albert on a royal progress before the departure of her cherished guest. "To lose four days of her stay, of which, I repeat, every hour is precious, is dreadful," her Majesty told King Leopold.

The short summer progress was otherwise very enjoyable. The Queen and Prince Albert visited the Duke of Bedford at the Russells' stately seat of Woburn Abbey, with its park twelve miles in extent. From Woburn the royal couple went to Panshanger, Earl Cowper's, and Brocket Hall, Lord Melbourne's, returning by Hatfield, the Marquis of Salisbury's. At Brocket the Queen was entertained by her Prime Minister. At Hatfield there were many memories of another Queen and her minister, since the ancient country-house had been a palace of Queen Elizabeth's, pa.s.sing, in her successor's reign, by an exchange of mansions, from the hands of James I into those of the son and representative of Lord Burleigh, little crooked, long-headed Robert Cecil, first Earl of Salisbury. In Hatfield Park there is an oak still standing which bears the name of "Queen Elizabeth's Oak."

It is said Princess Elizabeth was sitting in its shade when the news was brought to her of the death of her sister, Queen Mary, and her own accession to the throne of England.

The only difficulty--a pleasant one after all--which was experienced in these progresses, proceeded from the exuberant loyalty of the people. At straw-plaiting Dunstable a volunteer company of farmers joined the regular escort and nearly choked the travellers with the dust the worthy yeomen raised. On leaving Woburn Abbey the same dubious compliment was paid. In the Queen's merry words, "a crowd of good, loyal people rode with us part of the way. They so pressed and pushed that it was as if we were hunting."

The recent election had returned a majority of Conservative members, and soon after the rea.s.sembling of Parliament in August a vote of non-confidence in Lord Melbourne's Ministry was carried. The same evening the Prime Minister went to Windsor to announce his resignation. He acted with his natural fairness and generosity, giving due honour to his adversaries, and congratulating the Queen on the great advantage she possessed in the presence and counsel of the Prince, thus softening to her the trial of the first change of Ministers in her reign. He only regretted the pain to himself of leaving her. "For four years I have seen you every day; but it is so different from what it would have been in 1839. The Prince understands everything so well, and has a clever, able head." The Queen was much affected in taking leave of a "faithful and attached friend," as well as Minister, while her words were, that his praise of the Prince gave her "great pleasure" and made her "very proud."