“The Prince bears a striking resemblance to his mother, and, differences apart, is in many respects both in body and mind cast in her mould. He has the same intellectual quickness and adroitness, the same cleverness, the same desire to appear good-natured and amiable to others, and the same talent for fulfilling this desire, the same love of espiègleries and of treating things and men from the comical side, the same way of not occupying himself long with the same subject.
“His constitution cannot be said to be a strong one, though I believe by careful attention to diet he could easily strengthen it and give it stamina. After exerting himself, he often for a short time appears pale and exhausted. He dislikes violent exertion, and both morally and physically tries to save himself. Full of the best intentions and noblest designs, he often fails in carrying them into practice.
“His judgment is in many subjects beyond his years, but, up to the present time, he has not shown the least possible interest in political matters. Even the most important events of this kind never, even at the time of their taking place, induce him to read a newspaper. He has, as it is, a perfect horror of all foreign newspapers, and says that the only readable and necessary paper is the Augsburger Allgemeine, and even this he does not read through. In the matter of les belles manières there is much to desire. This deficiency must be principally laid to the account of his having in his earliest years been deprived of the intercourse and supervision of a mother and of any cultivated woman. He will always have more success with men than with women. He is too little empressé with the latter, too indifferent, and too reserved.”
As a matter of fact, Prince Albert was too reserved with men as well as with women, and to this must be attributed the fact that he was never really popular in England.
The Morning Post of August 22nd made a premature announcement of the marriage;—“A matrimonial alliance is about to take place between Her Britannic Majesty and His Serene Highness Prince Albert Francis,” &c. Even in those days it seems that the newspapers were so eager to be first with their news that they sometimes went a long way ahead of events.
It was not until October 10th that Albert and his brother arrived at Windsor, the Prince presumably not knowing what his fate was likely to be, but resolved to tell the Queen that if she did not then make up her mind he would no longer be able to await her decision. This pronouncement must have been caused by the intelligent tutorial instructions of Leopold, for Albert had only then just attained his twentieth birthday, and could scarcely have feared a life of obscurity if his cousin declined to take him as her husband.
On the 14th of the month Victoria gave a ball, and at that she openly showed him a sign of her preference by taking some flowers from her bouquet and offering them to him. There being no buttonhole in which to place them, Albert took out a penknife, cut a hole in his uniform, and fixed the flowers over his heart. The next day the Queen sent for her cousin to come to her private room, and there—to quote Albert’s words when writing to his grandmother, the Dowager Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha—she declared, “in a genuine outburst of love and affection, that I had gained her whole heart, and would make her intensely happy if I would make the sacrifice of sharing her life with her; for she said she looked on it as a sacrifice; the only thing that troubled her was that she did not think she was worthy of me. The joyous openness of manner in which she told me this quite enchanted me, and I was quite carried away by it.”
Both the young people poured out their hopes to Stockmar, who was in Germany at the time. “Albert has completely won my heart,” wrote the Queen, “and all was settled between us this morning.... I feel certain he will make me very happy. I wish I could say I felt as certain of my making him happy, but I shall do my best.” Albert enthused: “Victoria is so good and kind to me that I am often puzzled to believe that I should be the object of so much affection.... More, or more seriously, I cannot write. I am at this moment too bewildered to do so.”
But even in this matter of the heart Victoria’s sense of her exalted position never left her. When talking to the Duchess of Gloucester about making the declaration before Parliament, the old lady asked her if it was not a very nervous thing to do, upon which she answered, “I did a much more nervous thing a while ago. I had to propose to Albert.” Then she went on to explain that of course it would not have been possible for him to have proposed to the Queen of England; “he would never have presumed to have taken such a liberty.”
This is almost too good to be true, but as it is given in the Peel papers it may be regarded as reliable. To have loved a man and to have spoken of him in this way seems incredible; only a very young and inexperienced person could have done it, for the lover does not weigh etiquette against an honest expression of love. However, Her Majesty was truly young in her love and in her love-making, and had much to learn concerning the inner sentiments of life. That she learned it all through we believe, for we are told that her love for the man whom her uncle chose for her deepened and widened, so that her marriage was as happy as the most kind-hearted could have wished.