The early writer who gives this incident sees no youthful tragedy in it, but goes off into pæans of praise for the careful and diligent mother. But it is scarcely to be marvelled at that the Queen in later days wrote of “her sad and unhappy childhood.” Nor can we wonder that from the day of her first regal request to her mother she availed herself of the luxury of one or two quiet hours in each twenty-four to herself in her own room, with a locked door between herself and all the world. For years she clung to this privilege, which every ordinary girl would regard as a right.
A letter written by Princess Féodore in 1843 to Queen Victoria shows how unremitting was the surveillance upon and how deep was the loneliness of the girl up to the time of her accession. Victoria had written from Claremont, and her half-sister answered:—“Claremont is a dear quiet place; to me also the recollection of the few pleasant days spent during my youth. I always left Claremont with tears for Kensington Palace. When I look back upon those years, which ought to have been the happiest in my life, from fourteen to twenty, I cannot help pitying myself. Not to have enjoyed the pleasures of youth is nothing, but to have been deprived of all intercourse, and not one cheerful thought in that dismal existence of ours, was very hard. My only happy time was going out driving with you and Lehzen; then I could speak and look as I liked. I escaped some years of imprisonment, which you, my poor darling sister, had to endure, after I was married. But God Almighty has changed both our destinies most mercifully, and has made us so happy in our homes—which is the only real happiness in this life; and those years of trial were, I am sure, very useful to us both, though certainly not pleasant. Thank God, they are over!”
What would any mother of to-day feel if one of her children, when grown up, could write to another in this way of their childhood? It was a tragedy both for mother and children, only the mother perhaps never realised it, and she did not feel the results of it until the children had escaped her thraldom. “Poor little Victory!” as Carlyle called her, looking back upon this, it is possible to forgive her for her subsequent hardness to her mother, for she could not help it; the hardness had been forced upon her by example and practice in her childish days.
But to understand the life of our late Queen in its youth it is necessary to know its surroundings and background, and for this purpose an account of the Royal family which then existed seems desirable.
King William IV. had, when comparatively young, married a pretty and delightful actress, who was known as Mrs. Jordan. He was a man of clean domestic life, and he persisted in regarding this lady as his lawful wife, and the children she bore to him—nine in all—as his lawful children. When Princess Charlotte died, however, he sacrificed himself—and his wife—upon the altar of expediency, and married Amelia Adelaide Louise Therese Caroline Wilhelmina of Saxe-Meiningen. She was twenty-six, plain, thin, sedate, reserved, and had been brought up in all the useless branches of “polite and useful learning,” thought the correct thing for a lady of her position. She had no leaning towards gaiety, frivolity, or dress, and hated immorality and irreligion. She was, in fact, an “excellent selection,” but she was also one of those people who are invariably described in negatives. Another woman might have had just the same appearance and thoroughly good character, and by adding to it a pleasant manner have been a favourite with everyone. But Adelaide’s manner was bad, and she was generally disliked. William, however, found a good wife in her—though there are some sly allusions to his being hen-pecked—and little Victoria could always depend on kindly affection from Queen Adelaide.
The Duchess of Clarence gave birth to two daughters, both of whom died in infancy, and she seems to have shown no jealousy of the little girl who would take the place which should have belonged to her own child had it lived. She was also always kind to her husband’s exacting and loud-mannered children, the Fitzclarences, receiving them all as constant visitors at Windsor or St. James’s, and making pets of their children. Thus at one time she had Lady Augusta Kennedy and four children staying at Windsor, while Lady Sophia Sydney and three children lived there; there was also a boy of Lady Falkland’s with her. These eight grandchildren of the King’s would play with the King and Queen in the corridor after lunch, and as a visitor to Adelaide once remarked, “It is so pretty to hear them lisp ‘dear Queeny,’ ‘dear King.’”
Yet the conduct of the Fitzclarences to Adelaide was abominable, and Lord Errol—the husband of the third daughter, Lady Elizabeth—who had been appointed Lord Marischal of Scotland, was heard one day speaking in such an unpardonable way of the Queen in a public coffee-house that he was interrupted by cries of “Shame!” from a gentleman present. Colonel Fox, who married Lady Mary, received the appointment of Surveyor General of the Ordnance, and was made Aide-de-Camp to the King. Of the four sons, Lord Munster held several military appointments, received an annual allowance from the Privy Purse, and was given a property by his father-in-law, Lord Egremont. Lord Frederick was a Colonel, and Equerry and Aide-de-Camp to his father. Lord Adolphus was a Captain in the Navy, Groom of the Robes, and Deputy-Ranger of Bushey Park; while Lord Augustus was Chaplain to the King, and held a valuable living at Mapledurham. This family was by no means popular, and was being constantly criticised by the newspapers. Said Figaro in London, in 1832:—“The brutal conduct of the Fitzclarences towards their poor weak old father has gained for them the name unnatural, instead of natural, children.”
It seems to have been agreed generally that the Fitzclarences felt that the time of their harvest must be short, and that therefore it behoved them to make as much hay as possible. They badgered William for honours and promotions, and the King did what he could; he was once heard complaining to one of his admirals of this persecution, adding, “I had at last to make him a Guelphic Knight” (a Hanoverian honour). “And serve him right, your Majesty,” replied the seaman, imagining that some disgrace was implied.
Once when George Fitzclarence demanded to be made a peer and to have a pension, and the King said he could not do it, all the sons struck work, or their pretence of work, thus in high life foreshadowing the doings of the workers of a later time. George actually resigned his office of Deputy-Adjutant-General, and wrote the King a furious letter. This was awkward, because so long as these gentlemen drew their money through sinecures the public was willing to accept them fairly good-temperedly, but as avowed pensioners the outcry against them would have been overwhelming. The matter seems to have been smoothed over by the young man being made Earl of Munster.