There had always been whispers about the Kensington clique or the Kensington camarilla, and from this time forward those who a year or two before would have been prominent members of the Orange League never lost an opportunity of gibing at and traducing the foreigners who surrounded the Princess on the score of intrigue and cupidity. What was the motive of all the outcry it is difficult to say, but when now and then it seemed necessary to give it some form, it nearly always resolved itself into a hatred or terror of Popery. Those who shouted so much seemed to be unaware that, while they expressed loyalty to the Duchess, it was her own brother whom they so violently traduced, and that she was as foreign as he, while Victoria had the same blood and the same traditions. However, discrimination cannot be expected of political fanatics, for whatever happens can be made to fit any theory by those interested.
The politicians of others countries looked on and wondered, and sometimes dug some fact out of history with which to urge the grumblers onward. Thus the Gazette de France gravely published an article in 1836 to prove that King William was a mere impostor, and that the Princess Victoria had no right of succession, the only legitimate Queen of England being Mademoiselle de Berry. This is how the writer of the article proved it; and if there had been no law concerning the Protestant succession, and also, I think, if James II. had left no son, he would have been right. But they are rather big “ifs”:—
(i) Henrietta, daughter of Charles I.
(ii) Anne-Marie of Orléans, daughter of Henrietta.
(iii) Victor Amédée III., King of Sardinia and Duke of Savoy, son of Anne-Marie.
(iv) Marie-Thérèse of Savoy, daughter of Victor Amédée.
(v) Louis-Antoine, Duc d’Angoulême, Comte d’Artois, son of Marie-Thérèse.
(vi) In default of direct issue the right of succession would go to Mademoiselle de Berry, daughter of the Duc de Berry, and niece of the Duc d’Angoulême.
The article concluded with:—“Monseigneur the Duc d’Angoulême, for the Catholics of Ireland, Scotland, and England, ought incontestably to be considered King of Great Britain, and Mademoiselle heiress presumptive to the Crown, in the place and instead of William IV. and the Princess Victoria, who reigns only by virtue of a Protestant law of usurpation and revolution.”
However, the energetic anti-Catholic gentlemen in England were perfectly well aware that England—and, incidentally, themselves—were quite safe from the rule of any Catholic monarch, and though they used a thing like this as a peg upon which to hang their diatribes, they did it with tongue in cheek—and a very bad-tempered cheek, too.