Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria/Chapter 2

by Millicent Garrett Fawcett

CHAPTER II.

Childhood and Education.

The previous chapter dwelt upon some serious drawbacks to the Queen's happiness as a child. But if she was unfortunate in living in an atmosphere too highly charged with contention, her childhood was in another respect remarkably fortunate. Very few heirs to the throne have been brought up from infancy with an education carefully designed as a preparation for their future exalted station, combined with almost all the simplicity and domesticity of private life. But this unusual combination was secured for the Queen by the circumstances of her childhood. At the time of her birth the chances were decidedly against her succession. Even down to the last few months of his life, William IV. continued to speak of her as "Heiress Presumptive," not as "Heiress Apparent" to the throne. He never probably completely relinquished the hope of having a child of his own to succeed him. In 1835 there had been rumors, which seemed well authenticated, that Queen Adelaide was about to give birth to a child. The absence of absolute certainty in the Princess Victoria's prospects of the succession, the reluctance of her uncles and of Parliament to establish her and her mother with an income suitable to their rank and her future position, all worked together, in combination with the good sense of her mother, to secure for the little Princess a childhood free from much of the pomp, formality, and flattery from which an heir to the throne seldom even partially escapes.

While she was thus protected from many of the advantages associated with her rank, its advantages were not neglected. The Duchess of Kent gathered about her at Kensington Palace a great many of the representatives of the foremost minds of the day in literature, science, and in social reform. Nearly all the memoirs of distinguished men and women of that period contain some mention of their gracious reception at Kensington Palace by the Duchess, and the interest they had felt in seeing the little Princess. Among those who were received in this way may be mentioned Sir Walter Scott, Wilberforce, and Mrs. Somerville.

The Duchess of Kent made the suitable education of her child the one absorbing object of her life; and she seems to have realized that education does not consist in merely learning facts of acquiring accomplishments, but should also aim at forming the character and disciplining the whole nature, so that it may acquire conscientiousness and the strength which comes from self-government. Keeping this end ever in view, and aided, no doubt, by a responsiveness in the child's own nature, the little Princess was trained in those habits of strict personal integrity which are the only unfailing safeguard for truthfulness and fundamental honesty in regard to money and other possessions. All observers who have been brought into personal relationship with the Queen speak of her as possessing one of the most transparently truthful natures they have ever known. The Right Hon. John Bright, with his Quaker-bred traditions as to literal exactitude in word and deed, said that this was the trait in her character of which he carried away the most vivid impression. An anecdote is given in "The Life of Bishop Wilberforce," illustrative of the Queen's truthfulness as a child. Dr. Davys, Bishop of Peterborough, formerly preceptor to Princess Victoria, told Dr. Wilberforce that when he was teaching her, one day the little Princess was very anxious that the lesson should be over, and was rather troublesome. The Duchess of Kent came in and asked how she had behaved. Baroness Lehzen, the governess, replied that once she had been rather naughty. The Princess touched her and said, "No, Lehzen, twice; don't you remember?"

The financial side of truthfulness is honesty; and here again the Queen has instituted a new order of things in English royalty. We are so accustomed to the sway of a Sovereign who regards it as dishonest to owe more than she is ready and willing to pay, that we have forgotten that this was very far from being the case with her predecessors. Even the highly respectable Prince Leopold could not live within his income of £50,000 a year, and was £83,000 in debt when became King of the Belgians in 1831.

Great attention was given to exactitude with regard to money in the Queen's early training. There are many stories of the little Princess visiting shops and relinquishing some desired purchase because she had not money enough to pay for it. One of these anecdotes is preserved at Tunbridge Wells, and tells how the Princess Victoria, not having money enough to buy some greatly desired toy, so far went beyond her accustomed self-control as to ask the shopkeeper to reserve it for her till she had received a fresh instalment of her allowance for pocket-money, and that the child came on her donkey as early as seven o'clock in the morning to claim possession of the object she had set her heart on, the very instant she had the money to pay for it. Perhaps these lessons had their source from the frugal German Court of Coburg; but whatever their origin, they have stood the Queen in good stead, and have enabled her to set a perpetual good example to her subjects of the blessedness of obedience to the injunction, "owe no man anything." It must not be forgotten, too, that she was not, throughout her girlhood, without an object lesson in the disagreeable consequences of extravagance. Her father had died in debt, and unless his creditors differed from the race of creditors in general, they did not fail during the seventeen years which elapsed between the Duke's death and his daughter's accession to remind his widow of the fact. One of the first acts of the young Queen on ascending the throne was to pay her father's debts, contracted before she was born.

The scrupulousness with regard to money which was enjoined on her as a child has been one of the Queen's many claims to the loyalty of her people. Miss Martineau, in her "Thirty Years' Peace" (written about 1845), speaking of this aspect of Her Majesty's education and character, has said, "Such things are no trifles. The energy and conscientiousness brought out by such training are blessings to a whole people; and a multitude of her more elderly subjects, to this day, feel a sort of delighted surprise as every year goes by without any irritation on any hand about regal extravagance—without any whispered stories of loans to the Sovereign—without any mournful tales of ruined tradesmen and exasperated creditors."

A trifling circumstance may here be mentioned illustrative of the Queen's economy in personal expenditure. A Paris dressmaker, of world-wide fame, recently (1893) brought an action against a rival who was trading under the same name. In the course of evidence given at the trial the celebrated modiste stated that he had made dresses for every Royal lady in Europe except Her Majesty the Queen of England. Indeed, every one who has seen the Queen, either in public or private, will agree that she is not indebted either to the dressmaker or milliner for the regal dignity which undoubtedly marks her bearing.

Of the Queen's personal appearance as a child and young woman we have many contemporary records. Some of these speak in enthusiastic terms of her extreme loveliness as a child. One lady writes of a recent visit to the widowed Duchess: "The child is so noble and magnificent a creature that one cannot help feeling an inward conviction that she is to be Queen some day or other." Other writers speak of her lovely complexion, fair hair, and large expressive eyes. Greville is less complimentary; but he was writing of a later period. Speaking of a child's ball given at Court for the little Queen of Portugal in 1829, he says "It was pretty enough, and I saw for the first time … our little Victoria. … Our little Princess is a short, plain-looking child, and not near so good-looking as the Portuguese." It was when this ball was first talked of that Lady Maria Conyngham gave dire offence to George IV. by saying, "Do give it, sir; it will be so nice to see the two little Queens dancing together." There is no necessary inconsistency in these different accounts of Princess Victoria's appearance. It is possible that a lovely infant may have become a plain child at ten years old. Of her appearance as she approached womanhood, Mr. N. P. Willis, an American, writing in 1835, describing his visit to Ascot, says: "In one of the intervals I walked under the King's stand, and saw Her Majesty the Queen (Adelaide) and the young Princess Victoria very distinctly. They were leaning over the railing, listening to a ballad-singer, and seeming to be as much interested and amused as any simple country folk would be. … The Princess is much better looking than any picture of her in the shops, and for the heir to such a crown as that of England, quite unnecessarily pretty and interesting."

Carlyle, in a private letter to his brother (April, 1838), gave a vivid picture of the girl-Queen as he saw her then:—

"Going through the Green Park yesterday, I saw her little Majesty taking her … departure for Windsor. I had seen her another day at Hyde Park Corner coming in from the daily ride. She is decidedly a pretty-looking little creature: health, clearness, graceful timidity, looking out from her young face, 'frail cockle on the black bottomless deluges.' One could not help some interest in her, situated as mortal seldom was."

Writing of a later period, Baroness Bunsen, describing the scene in the House of Lords at the opening of Parliament in 1842, says:—

"The opening of Parliament was the thing from which I expected most, and I was not disappointed. The throngs in the streets, in the windows, in every place people could stand upon, all looking so pleased; the splendid Horse Guards, the Grenadiers of the Guard … the Yeomen of the Body-Guard. Then in the House of Lords, the Peers in their robes, the beautifully dressed ladies with many very beautiful faces; lastly, the procession of the Queen's entry, and herself, looking worthy and fit to be the converging point of so many rays of grandeur. It is self-evident that she is not tall, but were she ever so tall, she could not have more grace and dignity. … The composure with which she filled the throne while awaiting the Commons I much admired; it was a test—no fidget, no apathy. Then her voice and enunciation cannot be more perfect. In short, it cannot be said that she did well, but that she was the Queen—she was and felt herself to be the descendant of her ancestors."

These last words exactly describe Her Majesty's bearing in age as well as in youth; and it is this, her intellectual grasp of the situation she fills as the highest officer of the State and the wearer of the crown of the Plantagenets, Tudors, and Stuarts, that renders her dignity so entirely independent of mere trappings and finery. It has been remarked that on the occasion of her public appearances, the Queen may have been the worst-dressed lady present, and have had by her side or in the immediate background a galaxy of fair women dressed with all the art that Paris or London could command, and yet she has looked every inch the Queen, and they have looked milliner's advertisements. She has over and over again proved that the saying, "Fine feathers make fine birds," is not universally true.

In those portions of the Queen's Journals which have been published, evidence is not wanting of that pride of race which, if we have interpreted it aright, is the true source of Her Majesty's dignity of bearing. On one of her journeys through the Highlands, General Ponsonby reminded her that the great-great-grandfathers of the men who were showing her every possible mark of loyalty and affection, had lost their heads for trying to dethrone the Queen's great-great-grandfather. "Yes," adds the Queen, "and I feel a sort of reverence in going over these scenes in this most beautiful country which I am proud to call my own, where there was such devoted loyalty to the family of my ancestors; for Stuart blood is in my veins, and I am now their representative, and the people are as devoted and loyal to me as they were to that unhappy race."

Returning to the subject of the influence of the Queen's early education and character, the remarkable degree to which her natural conscientiousness was developed is noticeable in a great variety of directions. Her extreme punctuality is an instance in point. She never wastes the time of others by keeping them waiting for her. Punctuality has been described as "the courtesy of kings," and it is a courtesy in which the Queen is unfailing. Her care for her servants and household is another manifestation of her conscientiousness. Her "Leaves from the Journal of our Life in the Highlands," and the subsequent book, "More Leaves," are full of little touches illustrative of the Queen's care for those dependent upon her, and her readiness to acknowledge the value of their services. Sir Arthur Helps, writing the introduction to the first of these volumes, draws attention to this feature of the Queen's character. He says: "Perhaps there is no person in these realms who takes a more deep and abiding interest in the welfare of the household committed to his charge than our gracious Queen does in hers, or who feels more keenly what are the reciprocal duties of masters and servants."

In one of the Queen's letters to Dean Stanley, on the occasion of the death of a valued servant of his, she says "I am one of those who think the loss of a faithful servant the loss of a friend, and one who can never be replaced." In 1858, on their first journey to Prussia, to visit the Princess Royal after her marriage, the Queen and Prince heard of the sudden death of a valuable servant of the latter, who had been with him since his childhood. The Queen wrote in her Journal "I turn sick now in writing it. … He died suddenly on Saturday at Merges of angina pectoris. I burst into tears. All day long the tears would rush every moment to my eyes, and this dreadful reality came to throw a gloom over the long-wished-for day of meeting with our dear child. … I cannot think of my dear husband without Cart! He seemed part of himself. We were so thankful for and proud of this good, faithful old servant. … A sad breakfast we had indeed."^[1]

The Duchess of Kent made the education of the Princess her one end and aim during the minority of the latter. She was hardly ever out of her mother's sight, sleeping in her mother's room, having her supper, at a little table, by the side of her mother at dinner. She was instructed in the usual educational subjects, besides, what was then unusual for a girl, Latin, Greek, and mathematics. From an early age she spoke French and German with fluency; the latter indeed was almost another mother tongue. All her life she has shown delight in languages, and her subjects, especially those in Asia, were very interested to hear that, even in old age, she had begun to make systematic study of Hindustani. From an early age she acquired considerable proficiency in drawing and music, and developed in youth a pleasant mezzo-soprano voice. One of Mendelssohn's letters to his family describes his visit to the Queen and Prince Consort at Buckingham Palace in 1842. She offered to sing one of his songs, and he handed her the album to choose one. "And which," writes Mendelssohn, "did she choose? 'Schöner und schöner schmäckt sich'!" The exclamation mark is due to the fact that this song was not by Mendelssohn at all, but by his sister Fanny. Germany in the forties would have been scandalized by a woman's name on the titlepage even of a song, so that Mendelssohn's album of songs was enriched by those which had been composed by his sister. The letter continues: "She [the Queen] sang it quite charmingly, in strict time and tune, and with very good execution. Only … where it goes down to D and comes up again chromatically she sang D sharp each time. … With the exception of this little mistake, it was really charming, and the last long G I never heard better, or purer, or more natural from any amateur. Then I was obliged to confess that Fanny had written the song (which I found very hard, but pride must have a fall), and begged her to sing one of my own also.

In the Queen's early childhood the knowledge that she was the probable heir to the throne was carefully kept from her. In Lockhart's "Life of Scott" the following entry is given from Scott's Journal, May 19th, 1828: "Dined with the Duchess of Kent. I was very kindly received by Prince Leopold, and presented to the Princess Victoria, the Heir Apparent to the crown, as things now stand. … This little lady is educating with much care, and watched so closely that no busy maid has a moment to whisper, 'You are heir of England.' I suspect if we could dissect the little heart we should find some pigeon or other bird of the heir had carried the matter." The Queen has given her own authority for saying that this very natural surmise was mistaken, and has allowed the publication of the following letter from Her Majesty's governess, Baroness Lehzen, which contains one of the most interesting anecdotes of the Queen's childhood.

The Regency Bill, which made the Duchess of Kent Regent in the event of the death of William IV. with out direct heirs while the Princess was still a minor, was passing through Parliament in 1830, and the occasion suggested to the governess that the time had come when her little charge should be made aware of her prospect of succeeding to the throne. Baroness Lehzen wrote in a letter to the Queen, dated 2nd December, 1867:—

"I then said to the Duchess of Kent that now, for the first time, your Majesty ought to know your place in the succession. Her Royal Highness agreed with me, and I put the genealogical table into the historical book. When Mr. Davys [the Queen's instructor, afterwards Bishop of Peterborough] was gone, the Princess Victoria opened the book again as usual, and, seeing the additional paper, said, 'I never saw that before.' 'It was not thought necessary you should. Princess,' I answered. 'I see I am nearer the throne than I thought.' 'So it is, madam,' I said. After some moments the Princess answered, 'Now, many a child would boast; but they don't know the difficulty. There is much splendor, but there is more responsibility.' The Princess, having lifted up the forefinger of her right hand while she spoke, gave me that little hand, saying, 'I will be good. I understand why you urged me so much to learn, even Latin. My aunts Augusta and Mary never did, but you told me that Latin is the foundation of English grammar and of all the elegant expressions, and I learned it as you wished it; but I understand all better now.' And the Princess gave me her hand, repeating, 'I will be good.'"

This anecdote gives the key-note to the Queen's character. Her childish resolve, I will be good, has been the secret of her strength throughout her reign. She has never shrunk from anything which has presented itself to her in the light of a duty. When she became Queen she did not go through her business in a perfunctory way, giving her signature without question to whatever documents were placed before her. She required all the State business explained to her to such a degree that Lord Melbourne, her first Prime Minister, said laughingly that he would rather manage ten kings than one queen. On one occasion, in the early years of her reign, the Minister urged her to sign some document on the grounds of "expediency." She looked up quietly, and said, "I have been taught to judge between what is right and what is wrong, but 'expediency' is a word I neither wish to hear nor to understand." Another word which she objected to was "trouble." Mrs. Jameson relates that one of the Ministers told her that he once carried the Queen some papers to sign, and said something about managing so as to give Her Majesty "less trouble." She looked up from her papers, and said, "Pray never let me hear those words again; never mention the word 'trouble.' Only tell me how the thing is to be done and done rightly, and I will do it if I can." This has been her principle throughout her reign: to do her work as well as she knew how to do it, without sparing herself either trouble or responsibility.

It is not only the larger questions of State policy that she follows now, after more than fifty years of sovereignty, with all the knowledge which long experience gives, but she bestows close attention to the details of organization in the different departments of the Government. If any change is proposed of which she does not see the bearing or the necessity, she requires to have the reasons which prompted it laid before her, and would withhold her sanction unless her judgment were convinced. She is a constant and indefatigable worker, and those in attendance upon her have frequently expressed their surprise at her continuing at her work late into the night, and yet being almost unfailingly at her post again in the early morning. The child raising her little hand, and saying, "I will be good," has been in this and in many other ways the mother to the woman. The solemn words of the Coronation Service have not been profaned by her as so many monarchs have profaned them. The Archbishop, delivering the Sword of State into the Sovereign's hand at the Coronation, says: "Receive this kingly sword, brought now from the altar of God, and delivered to you by the hands of us, the servants and bishops of God, though unworthy. With this sword do justice, stop the growth of iniquity, protect the holy Church of God, help and defend widows and orphans, restore the things that are gone to decay, maintain the things that are restored, punish and reform what is amiss, and confirm what is in good order; that doing these things you may be glorious in all virtue, and so faithfully serve our Lord Jesus Christ in this life that you may reign forever with Him in the life which is to come." All through the Queen's reign these words have been turned into actions; they have inspired her to do her duty faithfully and courageously and with unfailing self-sacrifice of her own inclinations and wishes. By so living she has revived the feeling of personal affection and loyalty to the throne on the part of her subjects which her immediate predecessors had done much to destroy. When we reflect upon the contrast which the pure-minded, pure-hearted girl presented to them we shall be able to understand something of the keen emotion of joyful loyalty which was evoked at her accession. But this will be the subject of the next chapter.

Victoria Aug: 10th 1835.

Victoria Aug: 10^th 1835.

1. Life of the Prince Consort, vi. 280, 281.