By the time of William IV. the Duchess had become not simply a passive resister but an active agitator, and many scenes of anger took place between her and the King. Both George and William often renewed the threat of taking her child from her that the young Princess might be placed in the hands of someone more complacent to the Royal will. George would really have done this, but that the Duke of Wellington, who was his adviser, always temporised and put off the execution of the threat. When the Duchess became mother to the Queen of England, though things changed they were no better; but the details of the relationship between these two prominent people needs more than a paragraph in explanation.
Yet we have much for which to thank the Duchess of Kent, in that she brought up her daughter in business habits, in purity of thought, and in all those virtues which make a good woman. Domestically she was a kind tyrant, necessarily an injudicious one, for tyranny is always injudicious. In following the life of the young Princess one wonders how much the mother, imposing a very restrictive rule upon the child, knew of that child’s character. Obedient, dutiful, submissive, troubled openly only by occasional fits of rebellion and self-will, did Victoria in her early days ever foreshadow the revulsion against the maternal authority which seized upon her later? One would imagine not, or the Duchess would have become wiser in her treatment. As the girl grew towards womanhood, did she ever betray the growth of resistance, did she show that beneath all the quiet of the exterior lay an autocratic character which was only biding its opportunity?—and did her mother have any suspicion of what might happen between the years 1837 and 1841, which were to be the most anguished of her life, when she would be forced to realise that her too scrupulous care had brought her, not power and honour, but a determined and sustained indifference?
When this girl of eighteen was proclaimed Queen of England no one knew whether to be glad or sorry. She was said to be shy, young for her age, and entirely subservient to her mother; indeed, as a person she was practically non-existent. It was the Duchess who counted, and absurd reports had been circulated in the papers as to the Camerilla at Kensington Palace, which aimed at securing Ministerial power on the death of King William. As Victoria went to her Proclamation at St. James’s Palace there was much curiosity shown, and but little cheering done on the way. In the courtyard of the Palace stood a great, observant crowd, silent until given the signal to cheer, and then its voice was led by the roar of Daniel O’Connell, the Liberator, for he considered that the chances, with a Radical faction at Kensington, were now in his favour.
As for the Ministers, they knew no more of the fair Alexandrina Victoria than anyone else, and a contemporary tells us that none of her acquaintances—friends she had scarcely any—none of her attendants at Kensington, had any idea of what lay beneath the quiet, placid exterior, or could prophesy as to what she was capable of doing. Even the Duchess of Northumberland, who had directed her studies for some years, was no better informed; for never during those years had she seen the child alone; there had always been a third person present, either the Duchess or the Baroness Lehzen. Thus while some people regretted the death of a King who, in spite of his peculiarities, was a good man and a great improvement on those who had gone before him, the universal emotion concerning his successor was neither joy nor sorrow, but that of a vivid curiosity.
Victoria was like an enchanted princess, around whom had been drawn a magic circle which rendered her invisible to all eyes. But she could see beyond its range, could watch the forces which made up the world she was about to enter, and learn more of her subjects than they had learned of her. From time to time, while imprisoned in her circle, disturbances from outside had affected her; she had felt some things keenly and despairingly, but with an imperturbable face she had let them pass by; she had been in hot rebellion often, but no one but herself, and perhaps her half-sister, Féodore of Leiningen, knew of it; she had longed for friends and companionship, and had engrossed herself in her studies, those futile studies thought the right thing for the girls of that day. Of these hidden things she did not speak, and she did not cry over them, for in her mother’s house there had been no spot in which she could shed tears unseen.
From the day of her birth to her accession she had scarcely ever been alone for ten minutes at a time! And doting biographers purr over this and say, “What an excellent mother!” Here is a quotation in slipshod style from one such: “The exemplary mother had not allowed her daughter to be scarcely ten minutes together either by night or day out of her sight, except in her infant years during her daily airing and on the very rare occasions of her Royal Highness dining away from home.”
The biographers and gossipers about Victoria agree in speaking of the unremitting surveillance which was exercised over the young Princess. She was imprisoned in a close atmosphere of love and tuition, and was never free to write a letter, to see a friend, or to think her own thoughts without the presence of her mother or the Baroness. It is very probable that for a long time she was unconscious that there was anything unusual in this, but it must have grown terribly burdensome to her, so much so that her first request as a Queen to her mother concerned this very point. She received the oaths of allegiance the day after King William died, and when this trying and tumultuous ceremony was over she sought her mother, allowing her overwrought nerves to find relief in tears, or, in the language of the day, “she flung herself upon her mother’s bosom to weep.” Being soothed into calmness, she said:
“I can scarcely believe that I am Queen of England, but I suppose it is really true.”
On being reassured, she continued:
“In time I shall become accustomed to my change of station; meanwhile, since it is really so, and you see in your little daughter the Sovereign of this great country, will you grant her the first request she has had occasion in her regal capacity to put to you? I wish, my dear mamma, to be left alone for two hours.”