Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria/Chapter 9

by Millicent Garrett Fawcett

Chapter IX.

The Nursery.

The courage of the Queen on the occasion of the attempt by Oxford upon her life was enhanced by the fact that it took place a few months before the birth of her first child. The Queen's natural courage was perhaps fostered on this and other occasions by her having so much to do and to think of besides her own personal concerns. During the months when she was awaiting the birth of her first child, she was up to the eyes in politics. In 1840 there was a premonitory rumbling of the storm in the East, which has so frequently broken the rest of Europe. France was fractious, and imagined herself slighted by England, and in the summer and autumn of 1840 it looked several times as if the two countries were on the brink of war. The Queen, writing to her uncle, the King of the Belgians, said: "I think our child ought to have, besides its other names, those of Turco-Egypto, as we think of nothing else." If it were true that home duties and political duties were incompatible, the Royal children would have had a sadly-neglected childhood; but it is a matter of experience that busy people are usually those who find time for everything, and the Queen and her husband were no exception to the rule. There is probably not a mother in England who has given more loving thought and care for her children's welfare than Her Majesty has done. The children and her love for and pride in them are constantly mentioned in the Queen's Journals. In the letters from Princess Alice to the Queen, published as a memorial of the former, she repeatedly refers to her happy childhood and her desire to pass on a similar training to her own little flock. Under the date of January 1st, 1865, Princess Alice writes to her mother: "All the morning I was telling Louis" (her husband) "how it used to be at home, and how we all assembled outside your dressing-room door to scream in chorus 'Prosit Neujahr,' and to give to you and papa our drawings, writings, &c., the busy occupation of previous weeks. … Dear papa bit his lip so as not to laugh."

The Princess Royal, now the Empress Frederick of Germany, was born at Buckingham Palace on November 21st, 1840. Prince Albert was then having a course of reading in English law with Mr. Selwyn; the tutor arrived on November 23d to continue his instructions. The Prince said: "I fear I cannot read any law to-day. … But you will like to see the little Princess." He took the lawyer into the nursery, and, taking the little hand of the infant in his own, said, "The next time we read it must be on the rights and duties of a Princess Royal." The Queen made an excellent recovery; then, as always, the Prince was her tender guardian and nurse. No one but himself ever lifted her from her bed to the sofa, and he always helped to wheel her on her bed or sofa to the next room. However occupied he was, "he ever came," writes the Queen, "with a sweet smile on his face." In short, his care of her was like that of a mother, nor could there by a kinder, wiser, or more judicious nurse.

At Christmas this year, Prince Albert naturalized the German custom of Christmas-trees in England; there is probably hardly a child in England who has not appreciated their introduction.

It may be imagined that Stockmar had plenty of good advice to give the young parents. One of his wise saws was, "A man's education begins with the first day of his life." He undertook in the early years of the Queen's marriage the organization of the nursery department. In one of his letters he says: "The nursery gives me more trouble than the government of a kingdom would do." The Princess Royal was always the child nearest his heart. He had an immensely high opinion of her abilities. "I hold her," he said, "to be exceptionally gifted, even to the point of genius."

Curiously enough, Melbourne was also consulted (1842) by the Queen and Prince upon the organization of the nursery, and the choice of a lady to preside over it.

The Princess showed almost from the day of her birth a very remarkable degree of intelligence. Numerous anecdotes are given of her cleverness and droll sayings as a little girl. The refrain of most of the stories about the Royal children is the Princess Royal's intelligence, and the merry, happy, affectionate disposition of the Prince of Wales. The little Princess was christened on the anniversary of her parents' marriage, February 10, 1841, and received the names of Victoria Adelaide Mary Louisa. Two days after this, the Prince had a narrow escape of a painful death, for, in skating on the lake in the gardens of Buckingham Palace, he broke through the ice into deep water. Fortunately the Queen, who was on the bank, did not lose her presence of mind, but did the right thing for affording the Prince the immediate assistance necessary.

The birth of the Prince of Wales followed very soon after that of the Princess Royal. On Lord Mayor's Day, November 9, 1841, the Queen gave birth to her eldest son. Greville notes with some impatience that the usual formalities were not observed upon this occasion. "From some crotchet of Prince Albert's," he writes, "they put off sending intelligence … till so late that several of the dignitaries whose duty it was to assist at the birth, arrived after the event had occurred, particularly the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord President of the Council." The Queen probably thought that this was one of the customs more honored in the breach than in the observance, and in this the majority of her subjects would agree with her. The Queen's Diary records that on November 21, 1841, the Princess Royal's first birthday, "Albert brought in dearest little Pussy (the Princess Royal) … and placed her on my bed, seating himself next her, and she was very dear and good. And as my precious invaluable Albert sat there, and our little love between us, I felt quite moved with happiness and gratitude to God." At Christmas time in this year the Queen's entry is: "To think that we have two children now, and one who enjoys the sight" (of the Christmas-trees) "already, is like a dream." And the Prince, writing to his father on the same occasion, says: "To-day I have two children of my own to give presents to, who, they know not why, are full of happy wonder at the German Christmas-tree and its radiant candles."

It has been already noted how and why Stockmar urged the selection of the King of Prussia as one of the godfathers of the Prince of Wales, and that the King of Hanover was furious at being passed over. He did not easily forget it when he considered himself slighted, and when the Queen, very magnanimously, invited him to be godfather to Princess Alice in 1843, he vindicated his dignity by arriving too late for the christening. He further endeavored to balance the account between his niece and himself by being rude to her husband. Greville says that one day at Buckingham Palace he proposed to Prince Albert to take a walk with him in the streets. It has already been mentioned why the Prince never went anywhere unattended, and the same reason rendered it undesirable that he should be unaccompanied except by the King of Hanover. He therefore excused himself, saying they would be inconvenienced by the crowd of people. The King replied, "Oh, never mind that. I was still more unpopular than you are now, and I used to walk about the streets with perfect impunity." This little pleasantry was pointed by the fact that a feeling of antagonism against Prince Albert was growing up in certain sections of the community, which a few years later reached quite serious dimensions.

It may be mentioned here that the Queen has all through her life shown herself remarkably free from feeling implacable resentment even against those whose conduct she has at various times most strongly condemned, or against whom she may have been prejudiced. This characteristic, which will be illustrated later by her relations with Lord Palmerston, Lord Beaconsfield, Louis Philippe, and others, was demonstrated now by her magnanimity to her uncle Ernest, King of Hanover. He had plotted against her; had made things uncomfortable for her mother and herself before her accession; had refused, what she particularly valued, to yield precedence to her husband; had, in a dog-in-the-manger spirit, declined, after he became King of Hanover, to give up apartments in St. James's Palace which were wanted for the Duchess of Kent; in short, had lost no opportunity of showing himself unfriendly and disagreeable; yet when her third child was born, Princess Alice, on April 25th, 1843, she invited this uncle, who was a personification of the wicked uncle of fairy tales, to be the new baby's godfather.

In 1844, very soon after the birth of a fourth child, Prince Alfred, now Duke of Coburg, the Queen and Prince paid a visit to Scotland, taking the Princess Royal with them. After this the Royal visits to various parts of the kingdom were rendered doubly interesting to the Queen's subjects by the presence of one or more of the blooming group of the rapidly growing family of children. The Prince wrote to his stepmother of this visit to Scotland: "Pussy's cheeks are on the point of bursting, they have grown so red and plump; she is learning Gaelic, but makes wild work with the names of the mountains."

The Dowager Lady Lyttelton was appointed governess to the Royal children. One of her letters to her own daughter, dated 1844, begins, "Dearest mine daughter, as the Prince of Wales would say." On the third visit to Scotland, in 1847, the two elder children accompanied their parents. The Queen says, in "Leaves from a Journal in the Highlands," "the children enjoy everything extremely, and bear the novelty and excitement wonderfully well." On this occasion the Royal party visited the Duke and Duchess of Argyll at Inverary, and the Queen writes, describing their reception, "Outside stood the Marquis of Lorne, just two years old, a dear, white, fat, fair little fellow with reddish hair, but very delicate features, like both his father and mother; he is such a merry, independent child." This was the Queen's first sight of her future son-in-law.

On Her Majesty's first visit to Ireland,^[1] in 1849, she took her four eldest children with her (many of us wish she had gone before and gone oftener). She received an intensely enthusiastic welcome. The sight of the Royal squadron entering the magnificent harbor at Kingstown, and the loyalty of the reception of the Queen on landing, made a deep impression. The Times said:—

"It was a sight never to be forgotten,—a sound to be recollected forever. Ladies threw aside the old formula of waving a white pocket-handkerchief, and cheered for their lives, while the men, pressing in so closely as to throng the very edges of the pavilion, waved whatever came first to hand,—hat, stick, wand, or coat,—and rent the air with shouts of joy which never ceased in energy till their Sovereign was out of sight. … The Royal children were objects of a universal attention and admiration. 'Oh, Queen, dear!' screamed a stout old lady, 'make one of them Prince Patrick, and all Ireland will die for you.'"

Almost every one has a sovereign remedy for Irish disaffection; but few are so easy of application as this. The Queen adopted the old lady's suggestion; the child born next after the Irish visit, on the Duke of Wellington's birthday, May 1st, 1850, was named Arthur after that great Irishman, and Patrick after Ireland's patron saint; the Irish associations of his name were kept up by his taking the title of Duke of Connaught when he reached man's estate.

Between the birth of her second and third sons, the Queen had had two more daughters, the Princesses Helena and Louise (now Princess Christian of Schleswig-Holstein and Marchioness of Lorne), born respectively on May 25th, 1846, and March 18th, 1848. The name selected for the elder of these two new daughters had a double significance. She was named Helena, not only after her godmother, the Duchess of Orleans, but also to remind English people of what they sometimes forget, that the Empress Helena, mother of Constantine, through whom the Roman Empire was brought over to Christianity, was a British princess, daughter of Coel, King of Camalodaum (now Colchester). Prior to the birth of Princess Louise, the Queen had gone through a time of very serious anxiety in regard to political affairs. The revolutionary movement of 1848 was at its height, and though England passed through it safely, yet no one could know at the time that it would do so, and especially that the Chartist movement would not develop in the direction of revolutionary violence. In the early months of this year the Queen had made ready all the rooms at Windsor to receive the fugitive Royal Family of France, who arrived one after another in so forlorn a condition that Her Majesty had to clothe as well as shelter them. The Prince's step-grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Gotha, who had been almost a mother to him in his childhood, died just at this time. On every side there appeared trouble and misfortune in both public and private affairs. The Prince wrote on February 29th:—

"What dismal times are these. … Augustus, Clementine, Nemours, and the Duchess of Montpensier, have come to us one by one like people shipwrecked. Victoire, Alexander, the King, the Queen, are still tossing on the waves, or have drifted to other shores. … France is in flames; Belgium is menaced. We have a ministerial, money, and tax crisis; and Victoria is on the point of being confined. My heart is heavy."

It was in this depression that the courageous heart of the loving woman cheered and sustained that of her husband. As soon as she was able to write after the birth of the new baby, she wrote to her uncle Leopold:—

"From the first I heard all that passed; my only thoughts and talk were politics. But I never was calmer, quieter, or less nervous. Great events make me calm; it is only trifles that irritate my nerves."

The letter in which the Prince announced to Stockmar the birth of Princess Louise contains an expression which invites criticism; he writes: "I have good news for you to-day. Victoria was safely delivered this morning, and though it be a daughter, still my joy and gratitude are very great," &c. The Prince is only responsible for the sentiment, not for the italics; but why should it be necessary to write in this way of the birth of a daughter even in the dark backward and abysm of time of 1848? Mr. George Meredith writes of one of his heroines that she had never gone through the various nursery exercises in dissimulation, and "had no appearance of praying forgiveness of men for the original sin of being a woman." But here we have an even more perverted sentiment than that presented by a woman apologizing for being a woman; it is black ingratitude for one of the best gifts God gives to man when either father or mother begrudges a welcome to a new baby on account of its sex. The Queen, we gather, did not give little girls a grudging welcome to this world; on the birth of her first granddaughter, the Princess Charlotte of Prussia, in 1860, she wrote of the news that "Vicky had a daughter." "What joy! Children jumping about—every one delighted." The Prince, too, on this occasion wrote to the Princess Royal of her little daughter as "a kindly gift from heaven," and even says, "Little maidens are much prettier than boys. I advise her to model herself on her Aunt Beatrice."

The birth of Prince Arthur, in 1850, has been already mentioned. He was a magnificent child, and the Queen took all a mother's pride in his beauty and his rapid growth. When Lady Canning was in waiting she tells us of many private visits by the Queen to her in her room to talk about politics and to show the beauty of the latest new baby; and of Prince Arthur in particular she wrote on September 1st, 1850: "The children … are grown very nice and pretty. Prince Arthur is a magnificent child, and the Queen is quite enchanted to find he is bigger than the keeper's child at Balmoral of the same age, whose measurements she carefully brought back. He has the Royal look I have heard grandmamma talk about, which I think she said was so remarkable in the Queen when a baby."

The two youngest of the Queen's nine children, Prince Leopold and Princess Beatrice, were born respectively on 7th April, 1853, and on 14th April, 1857. The Queen's letter announcing Prince Leopold's name to her uncle has already been quoted (see p. 24). She said it would recall the days of her childhood to hear "Prince Leopold" again; among his other names the little Prince was given that of Duncan, in "compliment to dear Scotland." His delicate constitution was a source of anxiety from very early years. He was the only one of the flock of Royal children whose health was not good. It fell to the happy lot of the Princess Beatrice to be the special pet and plaything of her father during the last years of his life, and also, as we all know, to be the companion and solace of her mother in later years when all her other daughters had married and left her. There are numerous instances in the later volumes of the "Prince Consort's Life" of his delight in his youngest daughter, "the most amusing baby we have had." He constantly wrote about her droll ways and sayings to his married daughter in Berlin. Thus in July, 1859, he wrote: "The little aunt makes daily strides, and is really too comical. When she tumbles she calls out in bewilderment, 'She don't like it, she don't like it!' and she came into breakfast a short time ago (with her eyes full of tears) moaning, 'Baby has been so naughty, poor baby so naughty,' as one might complain of being ill, or having slept badly," &c.

In the seventeen years from 1840 to 1857 the Queen had had nine children, all but one of good physical constitution, all without exception of sound mind, and several very markedly above the average in intellectual vigor and capacity. She herself bore the strain of her confinements without any permanent deterioration of her natural vigor. The entry in the "Prince Consort's Life" in reference to the Queen's health after the birth of her children usually is, "The Queen made a rapid recovery, and was able within a few days to report her convalescence to her uncle at Brussels," or, "The Queen's recovery was unusually rapid." Attention is drawn to these facts in order to controvert the view put forward by the late Mr. Withers Moore, Sir James Creighton Browne, and others, that intellectual activity on the part of women is to be discouraged because it is supposed to be incompatible with the satisfactory discharge of the functions of maternity. The Queen throughout the whole of her married life down to the present time, when she has considerably passed the proverbial three-score years and ten of the allotted span of man's existence, has been immersed in political work, often involving decisions of first-rate importance; she has therefore preserved her vigor of mind and power of work unimpaired; and it is not unfair to conclude that old age has come upon her "frosty but kindly," partly because she never was satisfied to regard her maternal duties on their physical side only. A cow, a dog, or a lioness has the physical functions and passions of maternity developed in all their beauty and perfection; but a human mother has to aim at being all that animals are to their young, and something more; if not, she is apt to get into the trough of the wave of mere animalism, and in this case her children will find, when they lose their babyhood, they lose their mother too. The Queen has always as a mother set the best example to her subjects in this respect. Her motherhood has been no mere craze of baby worship. She has ever kept in view high aims for her children and grandchildren, encouraging them to accept nobly the responsibilities and duties of their position. In one of Princess Alice's letters to her mother, written in 1870, she replies to a letter from the Queen upon the bringing up of the little family at Darmstadt; the letter is interesting as throwing a light upon the Queen's own aims in the education of her children. The Princess writes:—

"What you say about the education of our girls I entirely agree with, and I strive to bring them up totally free from pride of their position, which is nothing save what their personal worth can make it. I read it to the governess, thinking how good it would be for hear to hear your opinion. … I feel so entirely as you do on the difference of rank, and how all important it is for princes and princesses to know that they are nothing better or above others, save through their own merit; and that they only have the double duty of living for others and being an example good and modest. This I hope my children will grow up to."

We are not, however, left to infer from the Princess's letters what were the Queen's views on the education of her children; the "Prince Consort's Life" contains several memoranda written by Her Majesty herself on the subject. One of these, written in 1844, says: "The greatest maxim of all is—that the children should be brought up as simply and in as domestic a way as possible; that (not interfering with their lessons) they should be as much as possible with their parents, and learn to place their greatest confidence in them in all things." The religious training of the children was given, as much as circumstances admitted, by the Queen herself; it was based on endeavoring to implant in the children a loving trust in God as their Father, avoiding all extreme views, and not entering upon the differences of creed. Her Majesty does not approve of the Athanasian Creed forming part of the Church service, and does not suffer it to be read in her chapels. The Queen's children were not taught to dwell on the supernatural features of the Christian religion, but rather upon the pure and comprehensive morality which it teaches as its essential and indestructible element; they were taught that the conditions of belief in the former may and did vary in various stages of human development, but that the latter was the bed-rock on which the whole structure was founded.

The Queen and Prince, like other parents, took the keenest and most intense delight in the evidence given from time to time that their children had gifts of mind which would have fitted them to excel in whatever position of life they had been placed. Frequent reference will be found in the following pages to their pride in the remarkable intellectual gifts of the Princess Royal, who was described while still a young girl as having "a statesmanlike mind." Their boys were trained as carefully as if no royal road to distinction lay open to them. On returning from their first visit to their married daughter in Prussia in 1858, the Queen and Prince were met by the "delightful news that Affie" (Prince Alfred, aged 14) "had passed an excellent examination" (into the Navy) "and had received his appointment." He met his father and mother at the private pier at Portsmouth "in his middie's jacket, cap, and dirk, half blushing and looking very happy. He is a little pulled down from these three days' hard examination, which only terminated to-day. … We felt very proud, as it is a particularly hard examination."

1. The Queen visited Ireland again in 1853 to open the International Exhibition in Dublin; and a third time in 1861, when the Prince of Wales was going through a course of military training at the Curragh.