A few days later her father wrote to Stockmar: “She manifested towards Fritz and ourselves the most childlike simplicity and candour. The young people are ardently in love with one another, and the purity, innocence, and unselfishness of the young man have been on his part touching.” To Mr. Perry, his English tutor at Bonn, the Prince declared that his engagement was not politics, nor ambition, “It was my heart.”
At the time of her engagement the Princess Royal was not yet fifteen, and it was arranged that the marriage should take place in two years and three months.
In one respect the Princess was singularly fortunate. In the majority of Royal marriages, the bride has not only to make her home in a country where everything will be foreign to her, but she is sometimes even ignorant of the language, manners, and customs which she will have henceforth to adopt as her own.
The Princess Royal, however, had to undergo no such sudden initiation. To her Germany was in truth a second fatherland, if only as the birthplace of her beloved father. She had been as familiar with the German as with the English language from her birth, constantly writing long letters to German relations and friends, and keeping up—to give but one instance—a close correspondence with her parents’ trusted friend, Baron Stockmar, who had for her the greatest affection and admiration.
In a letter quoted in his memoirs Stockmar says: “From her youth upwards I have been fond of her, have always expected great things of her, and taken all pains to be of service to her. I think her to be exceptionally gifted in some things, even to the point of genius.”
This familiarity with the German language was very well as a foundation, but Prince Albert considered that there was much to build on it. The whole of the Princess’s education was now arranged solely with a view to the life she was to lead as wife of the Prussian heir-presumptive. In addition to giving her, for an hour every day, special instruction in German political and legal institutions and sociology, Prince Albert made her henceforth his intellectual companion, preparing her as if she was destined to be a reigning sovereign rather than a queen consort. Not only did he discuss with her all current international questions, but he read her the long political letters he received daily from abroad, and discussed with her what he should write in reply.
It was indeed a mental training which, particularly in those ‘fifties which now seem so remote from us, would have been deemed only appropriate for the cleverest of boys in a private station. But Prince Albert had long known that his daughter was a good deal cleverer than most boys, and he was really running no risks in subjecting her to this intelligent preparation for her high destiny. As much as he could, he taught her himself, and such teaching as was entrusted to others he supervised with conscientious care.
In one of his letters to his future son-in-law, the Prince wrote: “Vicky is learning many and various things. She comes to me every evening from six to seven, when I put her through a kind of general catechising. In order to make her ideas clear, I let her work out subjects for herself, which she then brings to me for correction. She is at present writing a short compendium of Roman history.”
In order to give the Princess a clear picture of German policy—or rather of German policy as Prince Albert then hoped it would become, that is, broad and liberal in conception and aim—he set her to translate a German pamphlet published at Weimar. This essay by J. G. Droysen, entitled “Karl August und die Deutsche Politik,” would be counted rather stiff reading even by experts. But the Princess seems to have done her task admirably, and the proud father sent the manuscript to Lord Clarendon, who was genuinely impressed by the way it had been translated. He wrote back to the Prince:
“In reading Droysen I felt that the motto of Prussia should be semper eadem, and in thinking of his translator I felt that she is destined to change that motto into the vigilando ascendimus of Weimar.”