Daughters of Genius/Chapter 3
III.
The Nineteenth Century has justly been called the Era of Woman. Whatever regard was formerly paid to her for moral merit or physical beauty, her mental powers were almost universally slighted and her higher education neglected. Now in every civilized country women of talent and genius, in both public and private station, are promoting the moral and material welfare and progress of the age. It is highly appropriate, therefore, that for half of this century, and for more than half, we trust, the sceptre of the mightiest empire of the world should be wielded by a woman who is an honor to her sex, and who for personal merit deserves a place in this list of royal women.
Alexandrina Victoria, Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, was born in Kensington Palace on the 24th day of May, 1819. When she was but eight months old, her father, Edward, Duke of Kent, fourth son of the pious, stubborn and unfortunate George III., died suddenly. He had been deep in debt, and thus his widow, a stranger in a strange land, and regarded with disfavor by her relations by marriage, had, even while living in a palace, to undertake the melancholy struggle of keeping up appearances. Fortunately she was a woman of sense and cheerful disposition, and had the invaluable assistance of her brother, Prince Leopold, whose wife, the Princess Charlotte, once the hope and joy of the English people, had died a few months after her marriage. Now he acted nobly a brother's part to his widowed sister, and Victoria long afterward declared that her visits to her uncle's residence; Claremont, were the happiest days of her childhood. With the exception of these visits, she lived a secluded and rather dull life. She was taught regular habits, strict economy and due regard for the laws of health. Gifted with a sweet voice, she became a charming singer. She danced well, rode well, and excelled in archery. Her mother trained her carefully with a view to what was from her birth her probable destination. Victoria was the first princess of the blood, yet not until she was twelve years old was she informed of her position as beyond that of her cousins. Her governess then pointed out her place in the genealogical table, and the little princess exclaimed, "Now many a child would boast, but they don't know the difficulty. There is much splendor, but there is much responsibility." Then giving her hand to her governess, she said, "I will be good. I understand now why you urged me so much to learn even Latin." And so yielding to no vain dreams, she sought wisdom and knowledge for the task of ruling a great people.
When she was eighteen years old that responsibility came. Her uncle, William IV., died on June 20th, 1837, at the age of sixty-five. Before sunrise on that morning, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Marquis of Conyngham were pounding and ringing at the gates of Kensington Palace for admission to the Queen. She had to be aroused from sleep, but, knowing the importance of their visit, she came down at once in a loose white night-gown and shawl, with her hair falling on her shoulders, her feet in slippers, tears in her eyes, but perfectly collected and dignified. When she heard their message, she said simply to the Primate, "I beg your Grace to pray for me," which the good man willingly did. Arrangements were then made for her reception of the council at eleven o'clock. Here, with calmness and gentle dignity, she received the homage of the 
QUEEN VICTORIA.
peers of England, including even her own uncles. We are assured by an eye-witness that, as these old men knelt before her, swearing allegiance and kissing her hand, she blushed up to the eyes. When she retired the statesmen declared themselves charmed with her appearance and behavior, and their feeling was soon shared by all ranks of the people. The splendid ceremonies of the coronation took place in Westminster Abbey on June 28th, 1838. A month later she was called to perform a public duty, which was also attended with great parade. She went in state to dissolve Parliament. Among the Americans attracted to the splendid spectacle was Charles Sumner. He wrote to a friend: "I was astonished and delighted. Her voice is sweet and finely modulated, and she pronounced every word distinctly, and with a just regard to its meaning. I think I never heard anything better read in my life than her speech, and I could but respond to Lord Fitz-William's remark to me when the ceremony was over, 'How beautifully she performs! '"
Amid the round of gayeties which naturally marked the first year of the youthful Queen's reign, her actions still bore testimony to her mother's fruitful training. The good daughter won golden opinions from all with whom she came in contact. Her reverence for her father's memory led her to pay the remainder of his debts. She said to Lord Melbourne, then Prime Minister, "I want to pay all that remain of my father's debts. I must do it. I consider it a sacred duty." Her wish was complied with, and she sent also to the largest creditors valuable pieces of plate as tokens of gratitude for their favor to her father.
It was long since England had had a queen regnant. Victoria did not desire, like her famous predecessor, Queen Elizabeth, to bear the splendid burden of royalty alone. A year before her accession her cousin, Prince Albert of SaxeCoburg Gotha, had visited her. From his infancy, for he was a few months younger than Victoria, it was the earnest wish of their fond mothers that these two should be united in marriage. When they met, after brief acquaintance of each other's tastes and disposition, they showed mutual pleasure, and when their kind uncle, Leopold, now King of Belgium, suggested to the princess the idea of their union, she gladly accepted the proposal. But reflection on her public duty afterward led her to postpone a decisive arrangement till she should be of age. The engagement, if such it was, seemed to be broken off; the coronation did not hasten its renewal. In later life she wrote, "A worse school for a young girl—one more detrimental to all natural feelings and affections—cannot well be imagined than the position of a Queen at eighteen, without experience and without a husband to guide and support her. This the Queen can state from painful experience, and she thanks God that none of her own dear daughters are exposed to such danger."
In October, 1839, Prince Albert and his brother came to see their royal cousin. A week later, in spite of high resolves and royal duty and maidenly modesty, Love found his way into the palace and broke down the barriers which were keeping apart hearts destined to be one. The Queen has since told the story herself with touching simplicity. They were married on the 10th of February, 1840, a day which began with clouds and rain, but, after the ceremony, changed to what the loyal English people call the "Queen's weather."
All the world knows their married life to have been a happy one. The Queen has given us a full sketch of a day of that time: "They breakfasted at nine, and took a walk every morning soon afterward; then came the usual amount of business (far less heavy, however, than now), besides which they drew and etched a great deal together, which was a source of great amusement, having the plates bit in the house. Luncheon followed at the usual hour of two o'clock. Lord Melbourne came to the Queen in the afternoon, and between five and six the Prince generally drove her out in a pony-phaeton. If the Prince did not drive the Queen, he rode, in which case she took a drive with her mother or the ladies. The Prince also read aloud most days to the Queen. The dinner was at eight o'clock, and always with company. . . . The hours were never late, and it was very seldom that the party had not broken up at eleven o'clock."
Under the example and influence of the royal pair, life at the English Court, which had long been filled with scandal and strife, became marked by purity and virtue. Prince Albert's pleasures were all domestic; his taste was for a quiet and unostentatious life.
Peace and quiet reigned in the Court, and the removal of all disturbing influences there enabled the statesmen of the day to give all the more attention to the actual needs of millions of people. Evils which had originated with the great wars against Napoleon pressed with crushing weight on the laboring classes. Agricultural distress had developed into famine, and the laws enacted in 1815 prohibited the importation of grain for its relief. Turbulence and riots followed, and the evils grew worse. What could the Queen do to alleviate the misery of her subjects? By the advice of her ministers, she checked the gayeties of the court; she even submitted to a reduction of her income. At the baptism of the Prince of Wales, in January, 1842, it was prescribed that the dresses worn by members of the court should be of Scotch manufacture, in order to set a fashion and stimulate home production. But these remedies were trifling. A mightier power than Queen or Court must be invoked. Richard Cobden, seeing the magnitude of the evil, and discerning its cause, appealed to the people to abolish the duties on grain. The agitation was carried on by Cobden, Bright and others for seven long years, and at last the walls of the English Jericho fell down. Sir Robert Peel, who had become Prime Minister in 1841, pledged to maintain the Corn Laws, gave way before the pressure of opinion, and in 1846 joined with the majority in repealing them. The laws which at former times in the world's history were made and repealed at a sovereign's pleasure are now made and repealed in obedience to the wish of the people. The events of the reign of Queen Victoria furnish a prominent proof of the new order of things.
Yet while the governing power of the Queen is greatly diminished since the days of Queen Elizabeth, there still remains to the sovereign a powerful personal influence on the destinies of nations. In 1848 a wave of revolution swept over Europe, kings were driven from their thrones, and republics were organized in various countries. That in France lasted longest, but was overthrown three years later by the ambition and treachery of its President. When Louis Napoleon had established a firm government and sought the friendship and alliance of England, the Queen gave the usurper a welcome to the brotherhood of sovereigns. In 1854 Prince Albert visited the Emperor, and in the next year visits were interchanged between the sovereigns. Victoria and Albert, lovers of peace, desired to establish amicable relations between the two great nations, so long hostile, and in great measure they succeeded, as the subsequent history of Europe has shown. When the French Emperor, after a brilliant but not prosperous career, was driven from his throne, he found refuge in England. There his widow still lives in seclusion, mourning her son, who fell in a distant land, fighting in English uniform for England's cause.
Though Prince Albert by his natural disposition and sense of duty had admirably filled the station he was called to occupy, it was not till 1857 that he received by act of Parliament the title of Prince Consort. By the Queen's prerogative he had heretofore had the precedence which was his due. The granting of the new title was a national tribute to his admirable character. It was not long after that the Princess Royal, who bore her mother's name, left her mother's side, when she was married to the Crown Prince of Prussia. The first permanent breach in the royal family circle was the death of the Duchess of Kent, in March, 1861. This mournful event was followed too soon by what has been the great sorrow of the Queen's life, the death of her husband. His health had been declining for some time; yet he continued to attend to his public duties. Americans should know that his last important act had reference to this country. It was to modify the tone of the demand of the English Government on the United States for the liberation of the Confederate envoys, who had in violation of international law been seized on the British mail steamer "Trent" by Captain Wilkes of the American Navy. The Prince's milder words enabled our Government to withdraw honorably from this false step, and thus undoubtedly prevented a declaration of war between the two great nations. Then, exhausted, Albert lay down to die. On the 14th of December, 1861, after twenty-one years of singularly happy married life, he passed away. His virtues are summed up in the title Albert the Good.
On the morrow after her bereavement, the Queen is said to have exclaimed: "There is no one to call me 'Victoria' now." She retired from public view, though the people really desired to be partners in her affliction. For many years she refrained from taking part in royal ceremonials, yet she still discharged faithfully her obligations to her family and her country.
Many years after, when some parliamentary fault-finders ventured to criticise her long seclusion from public affairs, Lord Beaconsfield bore public testimony to her fidelity to the interests of the nation:
"There is not a dispatch received from abroad, or sent from this country abroad, which is not submitted to the Queen. The whole of the internal administration of this country greatly depends upon the sign-manual of our sovereign, and it may be said that her signature has never been placed to any public document of which she did not know the purpose, and of which she did not approve. . . . At this moment there is probably no person living who has such complete control over the political condition of England as the sovereign herself."
In the course of her long reign there have been many political changes. When she came to the throne the Whigs had control of Parliament and seemed likely long to continue in power. When, in August, 1841, the Whig ministry resigned, Sir Robert Peel became Premier, and at his first interview the Queen rather awkwardly remarked that she was sorry to part with Lord Melbourne. But she afterwards became used to these changes, and left the people to decide in their own way whom they wished to send as her chief constitutional advisers. In her later days, two men stood forth pre-eminent by force of genius, each in turn deputed to submit to her his party's plans for the country's welfare and glory—one of unmistakable Jewish descent, the other of Lowland Scotch—yet each in his own way devoted to what he believed the interests of England. Strange, perhaps, to say, she gave her personal preference to the former, though she treated both with the stately courtesy which their respective places demanded. In his youth Disraeli had been one of the foremost of the Young England party, whose rallying cry had been "Our young Queen and our old Constitution." To his fervid protestations of loyalty may have been due that friendship which she ever cherished for him, while Gladstone's more measured utterances, though really heartfelt, did not so readily kindle her sympathy.
To Disraeli's Oriental tastes and sympathies Queen Victoria owes the addition to her title, made in 1876, "Empress of India." It was bestowed after the Prince of Wales had returned from a brilliant tour in that magnificent and populous portion of Her Majesty's possessions. Though received without enthusiasm by sober-minded Englishmen, it still bears testimony to the fact that the destinies of millions of men of widely different race, language and religion, are intimately connected with the life of a fair daughter of the West.
At the commencement of her reign Scotland was practically almost as remote as India is now. In the autumn of 1842 the Queen and Prince Albert made their first visit to Edinburgh, going in a royal yacht towed by a steamship, because the railroad communications between London and Edinburgh were not yet complete. It was not until 1855 that the Queen took possession of the new Balmoral Castle, which she built in the Highlands, and with which her name is so closely associated. Here, to a certain extent, she laid aside the cares of state and the burdensome duties of royalty. Sometimes she ventured to travel in a kind of disguise, being then addressed as Lady Churchill. She says in her journal: "We were always in the habit of conversing with the Highlanders with whom we came so much in contact in the Highlands. The Prince highly appreciated the good breeding, simplicity and intelligence which makes it so pleasant, and even instructive, to talk to them." Since the Prince's death the Queen has shown even greater fondness for the seclusion of the Highlands and the society of the simple people. Another favorite residence of the Queen has been Osborne, on the Isle of Wight.
Queen Victoria always gave close attention to the education of her children, repeating in their case with greater advantages, yet with some drawbacks, the systematic training which she had herself undergone, and whose benefits she had learned to prize. To the royal children a Swiss cottage at Osborne was given in entire charge. There the princes dug in the garden, while the princesses performed the duties of the kitchen. As they grew older the girls studied natural history and made large collections of birds and insects. The boys learned something of fortifications under the direction of their father. Prince Albert, both by precept and example, endeavored to make his sons feel the responsibilities belonging to their station. Perhaps he felt that in these days of increasing democratic tendencies only a wise king can maintain his place.
After the death of Prince Albert, the Queen felt it desirable to place in enduring form tributes to his memory. She also asked the assistance of others in placing on record the memorials of his life. First were published in 1862 his "Speeches and Addresses," then in 1867 "The Early Years of H. R. H. the Prince Consort," compiled by Lieutenant-General C. Grey, and in 1875 "The Life of H. R. H. the Prince Consort," by Theodore Martin, on whom the Queen conferred the honor of knighthood.
Her close and constant connection with these literary labors led her also to venture modestly into the field of authorship. Her first book was "Our Life in the Highlands," which records her memories of the happy days spent with him who was the light of her life. Fifteen years later she sent forth "More Leaves from the Journal of a Life in the Highlands," showing how she had learned lessons of resignation and faith from the simple mountaineers, and was cheered by romantic excursions in Nature's wilds. Such admission of the public to the quiet joys and sorrows of the domestic life of the Queen of course disarms criticism, as it treats the reader as a privileged guest. We see in them, as in all that is recorded of her life and acts, a noble woman, who has in one of the most difficult stations in life grandly, yet quietly, discharged her duty as daughter, wife, mother and queen. The inspiration of her whole life is perfect faith in God and devotion to duty.