We now approach our own time, in which Kew seems more favoured by authors than by artists. An inhabitant still remembered is Sir Arthur Helps, Clerk of the Privy Council, and recorder of those “Friends in Council” who were so familiar to readers of the last generation; nor does the mild wisdom of “Milverton,” “Ellesmere” and the rest, deserve to seem out of date. Perhaps his most enduring work will be the narratives in which he told the dark story of Spanish American conquest, with its dubious heroes. He acted as editor for Queen Victoria’s first confidences in print; and she granted him a residence at Kew Cottage, near the chief gates. To a member of his family whom I count among my friends, I am indebted for threads of information woven into these pages.
I can speak from acquaintance of another Kew resident, Richard Proctor, the well-known writer and lecturer on astronomy, editor of Knowledge and a high authority upon whist, to which his devotion was so sincere that he never would play for money. Yet he won a prize at the card-table, for, as he remarks in one of his disquisitions on the relation of skill and chance, “the lady who was my partner in this game is now my partner for life.” He was destined to end his busy life lamentably, far from Kew, when, having in latter days married an American lady, he transplanted his household gods across the Atlantic. In passing through New York from the South, he had an attack of fever, mistaken, it seems, for the terrible “Yellow Jack” that from time to time scares Uncle Sam, so poor Proctor was turned out of his hotel, and packed off to die in a hospital.
One could tell of other noted authors living at or about Kew, not always in such enviable quarters as that “cottage of gentility” at which Queen Victoria visited Sir Arthur Helps, but perhaps the general reader, who, even in these Radical days, likes to hear about great folk, would take more interest in an aftermath of princely memories.
Our late Queen came to Kew only as a visitor. The widowed Duchess of Kent had quarters given her at Kensington Palace, where she devoted herself to educating her daughter for the crown that would be her almost certain inheritance; and the Princess was carried about on temporary sojourns in different parts of the kingdom, to the marked displeasure of William IV., who did not like to be reminded how he was only a caretaker of the throne. But more than one of the royal family still kept residences at Kew, which, along with her interest in the Gardens, made Queen Victoria no stranger here.
William IV. did not live at Kew after his boyhood, though he showed his favour for the place by enlarging the church. Between his naval service and his accession, he had homes not far off, first at Richmond, then at Bushey Park, in the house turned into a National Physical Laboratory by almost the last public act of Queen Victoria. During the scare of the French invasion, we find the Sailor Prince enrolling himself as a private in the Teddington Volunteers, perhaps a mere honorary enlistment, as elsewhere he is spoken of as commanding a Volunteer force styled the Spelthorne Legion, Spelthorne being the south-western Hundred of Middlesex. Loyal Kew did not fail to have its own company, with the chief gardener as lieutenant, and John Haverfield as Chairman of the Committee appointed at a general meeting of the inhabitants, August 3, 1803. The strength of the company was sixty men, with two drummers, two fifers, a fugleman and an armourer; and there appears to have been no lack of recruits, one of the rules providing that vacancies should be filled up “from those who have offered their services, according to their character and permanent continuance in the Parish.” Discipline was maintained by fines, as in the case of “Every person appearing intoxicated at drill or exercise shall immediately quit the ranks, and be fined one shilling.” This made part of what is spoken of as the King’s Own Regiment, and doubtless it did not want for royal countenance.
When Victoria came to the throne, it is understood that some bigoted Tories inclined towards a plot for raising the cry of “No Popery!” as excuse for giving the Crown to Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, who, without question, succeeded to Hanover. This bigoted and bitter-tongued Prince was the most unpopular of the whole family, so that, on William’s death, the Duke of Wellington advised him to clear out of England as fast as possible, “and take care you don’t get pelted.” He offended his mother by marrying a divorced princess, on whom the moral Queen looked coldly; the scandal-loving Charles Greville reports that one of Her Majesty’s latest seizures was brought on by her wrath when she heard how the Duchesses of Cumberland and Cambridge had embraced each other in Kew Gardens. Ernest was by no means a fool, and seems to have had a good deal of character and courage, but also a perfect itch for rubbing people’s sore points. In his German kingdom he ruled with a high hand, getting his own way more easily than in England, and playing the bully not only with those who opposed him, but with his subservient courtiers, as appears in the reminiscences of his chaplain, Mr. Wilkinson.
The hatred for him in London had come out at the time of a mysterious tragedy enacted (1810) in his apartments at St. James’s, when the Duke was found bleeding from several sword cuts, and in an adjoining room, locked inside, his Piedmontese valet, Sellis, lay dead with his throat cut. The coroner’s jury gave a verdict that Sellis had committed suicide after trying to assassinate his master; but many were inclined to believe that the murder had been “the other way on”; and an unfortunate printer went to prison for publishing such suspicions. A generation later, heads were again shaken over a strange robbery of the registers from Kew Church: men whispered the name of one illustrious parishioner who might have an interest in hiding some record of his youth. Nothing seemed too bad to be believed of this Prince, whose ambition to reign over us, if attained, would probably have turned the kingdom into a republic.
WILD HYACINTHS
The Duke of Cumberland had a house at Kew, which stood at the north-west corner of the Green, and became adapted as the present Herbarium and Library, the new block built after his death in 1851. Here he lived occasionally even while King of Hanover; and here was born his son Prince George, whose birthday was long kept on the Green, as an old inhabitant tells us: “We used to have the climbing-pole, the jumping in sacks, the grinning through horse-collars, the running for shifts, and the pig with a soaped tail, to the infinite delight of the laughter-loving section of the parish.” This British-born Prince was the blind King of Hanover, who, so sadly inheriting one of his grandfather’s infirmities, lived to be dethroned by the Prussian armies, and to retire to a paradise exile among the Austrian lakes, its lovely scenery lost on him, while, like his grandfather, he found comfort in music. I can recall a touching glimpse of him in his latter days as he came out of a London hotel leaning on the arm of an equerry or some such attendant, whose duty, one supposes, would be to nudge his master when any salutations had to be done. A small crowd of butchers’ and bakers’ boys and the like had gathered to stare at the equipage, and the blind King bowed graciously right and left to an unappreciative public, that simply stared at him without the least sign of respect.