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, pub-
