The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Public Life of Queen Victoria, by John McGilchrist
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Title: The Public Life of Queen Victoria
Author: John McGilchrist
Release Date: May 3, 2012 [eBook #39603]
Language: English
Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
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THE
PUBLIC LIFE
OF
QUEEN VICTORIA.
BY
JOHN McGILCHRIST.
FELT AND DILLINGHAM,
455, BROOME STREET, NEW YORK.
CONTENTS.
PAGE 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 1 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 8 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 Duchess of Kent 14 CHAPTER IV. FIRST YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. Old Memories of Kensington Palace—Enlargements of the Structure by William III., Anne, Queen Caroline, and the Duke of Sussex—Maids of Honour—Rank and Beauty in the Gardens—Wilberforce and the Infant Princess—Victoria at Ramsgate—A Picture of Victoria when Five Years Old—Her Physical Training—Popularity as a Child—Her Youthful Charities—A Narrow Escape from Death—Early Development of Quick Intelligence—Anecdotes—Love of Nature—Proneness to Self-Will—But Counterbalanced by Candour—Waggishness—A Portrait of the Child-Princess by Leigh Hunt 23 CHAPTER V. EDUCATION OF THE PRINCESS VICTORIA. Additional Grant by Parliament for the Maintenance and Education of the Princess—Wise Lessons learned at her Mother’s Knee—A Visit to George IV. at Windsor—Assiduous Pursuit of Knowledge—Accession of William IV.—Victoria becomes next in Succession to the Crown—Regency Bill—Satisfaction of the Good Grandmother at Coburg—Her Death—Joy of Victoria at the Elevation of her Uncle to the Belgian Throne—Parliamentary Inquiry into the Progress of her Education—Satisfactory Report in Response—Presented at Court—Great Ball on her Twelfth Birthday at St. James’s Palace—Court Scandal and Baseless Rumours—The Duchess of Northumberland appointed Governess—The Princess and the Poet Southey 37 CHAPTER VI. THE PRINCESS IN HER TEENS. Visits paid to many parts of England—Love of Cathedrals and Church Music—Trip to North Wales and the Midland Counties—Visit to a Cotton Mill—To Oxford—Gala Day at Southampton—Interview with the Young Queen of Portugal—Confirmation of the Princess—Tour to the North—York Musical Festival—At Ramsgate with the King of the Belgians—A Noble Deed at Tunbridge Wells 47 CHAPTER VII. EARLY DAYS OF PRINCE ALBERT. Birth—Melancholy Story of
LIFE OF QUEEN VICTORIA.
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 nobly 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 illustrious 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 circumstance 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
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, entitled, “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 mediæval “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.
The parent stock had boasted among other meritorious or distinguished representatives the names of Conrad the Great, Otho the Rich, Henry the Illustrious, 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 mediæval 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 associated. 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 Principalities. 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.
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
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.
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 Duchess 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 Française.” 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 assume 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.
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 Duchess 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 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 Duchess 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 Cumberland, 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 Sussex, 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 Sussex, 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.