GOSSIP ABOUT ROYALTY.
As I sit down to write, on the stormy evening of this twenty-ninth day of January, 1877, I bethink me that it is fifty-seven years to-day since death terminated a life and a reign alike unexampled for their length in the history of English monarchs. King George the Third died on the 29th of January, 1820.
I remember the day perfectly. I, a child not quite five years old, was sitting with my parents in a room, the windows of which looked upon the street of a pleasant town in Kent. Snow was falling fast, and lay thick upon the ground outside. The weather was intensely cold, and we crowded round the fire for warmth and comfort. Suddenly there was a crash: a snowball fell in our midst, and the fragments of a windowpane were scattered in the room. My father rose in anger to go to catch the culprit who had thrown. He was unsuccessful; but in his short visit to the street he had learned some news, for when he returned he told us that the King was dead.
The King dead? I had heard of "the King" of course, but what it was I had never thought of. To me it represented strength and omnipotent protection, but it was an abstraction only; an undefined something of awful portent; and that it could die was very mysterious, and set me wondering what we should do now.
My father explained at once, that the King was only a man; that his sons and daughters, even, were old people now; that one of the sons died only a week ago, and wasn't buried yet; and that this son had left, fatherless, a little baby girl, not much over six months old, who, if she should live, might one day become the Queen of England. Such is my earliest recollection in connection with the illustrious lady who still, happily, sits upon the English throne.
I am an old man now, but I remember that being without a King made me feel very uncomfortable then, particularly at night. A few days afterwards, however, there was a sound of trumpets in the street, and a number of elderly gentlemen, in very queer dresses and curious hats, stopped opposite our window, where one of them, standing upon a stool, read something from a paper. When he had finished, the trumpets sounded again, and I knew there was a new King, for all the people shouted, "God save the King." Then, for the first time since the fatal day, I felt re-assured; and I went to bed that night free from the dread which had been instilled into my mind by a very judicious nurse, that Bonaparte might come in the dark; steal me and my little brother; and cook us for his Sunday dinner.
Soon after this I had frequent opportunities of seeing a veritable Queen. The unfortunate Caroline, wife of George the Fourth, lived at Blackheath, and drove occasionally in an open carriage through the streets of Greenwich, and there I saw her. I have a perfect recollection of her face and figure. A very common-looking red face it was, and a very "dowdy" figure. She wore always an enormous flat-brimmed "Leghorn" hat, trimmed with ostrich feathers. The remainder of her dress was gaudy, and, if one may say so of a Queen's attire, rather vulgar. She was, however, very popular in the neighbourhood; and when, at her great trial, she was acquitted, the town of Greenwich was brilliantly illuminated. I remember, too, how she, having been snubbed at the coronation of her husband, died of grief only three weeks afterwards, and how in that very month of August, 1821, which saw her death, her illustrious spouse set forth, amid much pomp and gaiety, on a festive journey to Ireland.
In October, 1822, I saw the King himself, on his way to embark at Greenwich, for Scotland. I remember a double line of soldiers along the road, several very fussy horsemen riding to and fro, a troop of Cavalry, and a carriage, in which sat a very fat elderly man, with a pale flabby face, without beard or whisker, but fringed with the curls of a large brown wig. That is all I remember, or care to remember, of George the Fourth.
A little more than ten years after that cold January day of which I wrote, this King lay, dying, at Windsor. It was early summer, and I, a boy of fifteen, was one of a group of people who stood in front of a bookseller's shop at Guildford, reading a copy of a bulletin which had just arrived: "His Majesty has passed a restless night; the symptoms have not abated." As I turned away, I overheard a woman say, "The King'll be sure to die; he's got the symptoms, and I never knew anybody get over that." All at once the bells struck up a merry peal, and the Union Jack floated from the "Upper Church" tower. A crowd assembled round the "White Hart," and a dozen post-horses, ready harnessed, stood waiting in the street. Presently there was a sound of hoofs and wheels, and three carriages dashed rapidly up the hill, to the front of the hotel. The people waved their hats and shouted. The glass window of one of the carriages was let down, and a child's face and uncovered head appeared in the opening: it was the Princess Victoria, then eleven years old. A mass of golden curls; a fair round face, with the full apple-shaped cheeks peculiar to the Guelphs; a pair of bright blue eyes; an upper lip too short to cover the front teeth; a pleasant smile; and a graceful bending of the tiny figure as the carriage passed away, left favourable impressions of the future Queen. She had been summoned from the Isle of Wight to be near her uncle; at whose death, a few days after—amid a storm of thunder and lightning, such as had not been known since the night when Cromwell died—his brother, the Duke of Clarence, was proclaimed King, and she became the Heiress Presumptive to the Crown of England.
William the Fourth, with his good Queen, Adelaide, I saw once, as they rode in the great State carriage to the Handel commemoration, at Westminster Abbey, in June, 1834. The King had a good-tempered, simple-looking face, without much sign of intellectual power; the Queen's face was of Grecian shape, and had a thoughtful and intelligent expression. The face and features were good in form, but the complexion was highly coloured, and looked as though affected by some kind of inflammation. They were a quiet, unpretending, well-meaning, and moral couple. They purified the tainted precincts of the Court, and thus rendered it fit for the abode of the youthful and gracious lady who succeeded them.