The Early Court of Queen Victoria
9781465555311
213 pages
Library of Alexandria
Overview
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.
