The Kensington District

by G. E. Mitton

In her gardens the fair Queen walked with her bevy of maids of honour, that bevy which has always been renowned for its beauty, herself the fairest of all. These fascinating, light-hearted girls grew up in an age of coarseness and vice, and were surrounded by temptation, which all, alas! did not resist, in spite of their royal mistress's example and courage. It was an age of meaningless gallantry and real brutality; the high-flown compliment and pretended adoration covered cynical intention and unabashed effrontery. Caroline herself preserved an untainted name, and her influence must have been a rock of salvation to the giddy, laughing girls. Leigh Hunt, quoting from the "Suffolk Correspondence," thus summarizes these maids: "There is Miss Hobart, the sweet tempered and sincere (now become Mrs. Howard, afterwards Lady Suffolk); Miss Howe, the giddiest of the giddy (which she lived to lament); Margaret Bellenden, who vied in height with her royal mistress; the beautiful Mary Bellenden, her sister, who became Duchess of Argyll; Mary Lepel, the lovely, who became Lady Hervey; and Anne Pitt, sister of the future Lord Chatham, and as 'like him as two drops of fire.'"

Caroline's devotion to her insignificant little lord and master, and the eagerness with which she hastened on foot to meet him, running across the Gardens, on his return from the Continent, have been made the subject of satire. She was generally accompanied by her five daughters, a pathetic little band, cramped in the fetters of royalty, so stringent toward their sex. Portraits of two of them may be seen in the Palace.

Caroline did not die at Kensington, though her husband did, after having survived her more than twenty years, and having in the meantime discovered her inestimable worth. At this time the Gardens were open to the public on Saturdays by Queen Caroline's orders, and were a favourite parade, though, as everyone was requested to appear in "full dress," the numbers must have been limited. The principal promenade was the Broad Walk, which Caroline herself had caused to be made. We can picture these ghosts of the past, with their gay silks and satins, the silver-buckled shoes with coloured heels, the men in their long waistcoats, heavily skirted coats, and three-cornered hats—very fine beaux, indeed; and the women stiffly encased in the most uncomfortable garments that ever the wit of mortal devised, holding their heads erect, lest the marvellous pyramids, built up with such expenditure of time and money, should topple over, and, in spite of all disadvantages, looking pretty and piquant. It was a crowd not so far removed from us by time, so that we can attribute to the men and women who composed it the same feelings and sensibilities as our own. And yet they were very far removed from us in their surroundings, for many of the things that are to us commonplace would have been to them miraculous, so that they seem more different from us of a hundred years later than from those who preceded them by many hundreds of years. It is this mingling of a life we can understand, with circumstances so different, that gives the eighteenth century its predominant and never-dying charm.

In 1798 we hear of a man being accidentally shot while the keepers were hunting (presumably shooting) foxes in Kensington Gardens.

In the Palace itself the state apartments are now open to the public every day of the week except Wednesdays. This admittance was granted by Queen Victoria in commemoration of her eightieth year. Previously to this time the Palace had been allowed to fall into decay, and it needed a large grant from Parliament to put it into repair again. The state rooms, which are on the second floor, are well worth a visit, and the names of each, such as "Queen Mary's Gallery," "Queen Caroline's Drawing-room," and "King's Privy Chamber," are above the doors, as at Hampton Court. These rooms are nearly all liberally supplied with pictures, many of which were restored from Hampton Court after having been previously taken there. We see here the winsome face of the poor little Duke of Gloucester (p. [72]), handsome Queen Caroline, sardonic William, and the family group of the children of Frederick, Prince of Wales. The selection has been made with judgment, and every picture speaks to us of the reigns most closely connected with the Palace. It is well to note the view eastward from the King's Drawing-room, which comes as a surprise. The outlook is over the Round Pond and down a vista of trees to the Serpentine, and gives a surprising effect of distance. The rooms that will always attract most attention, however, are those which were occupied by Queen Victoria as a child.

When the Duke and Duchess of Kent came to Kensington Palace seven months after their marriage, the fact that a child of theirs might occupy the English throne was a possibility, but a remote one. George III. was then on the throne; the daughter and only child of his eldest son, Princess Charlotte, had died a year previously, and it was natural that after this event the succession should be considered in a new light. The next son, William, Duke of Clarence, had carried on a lifelong connection with Mrs. Jordan, by whom he had ten children, and when the death of his elder brother's only child made him heir to the throne, it was necessary for him to contract a more suitable alliance, so with great reluctance he married Adelaide, daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg Meiningen, in 1818. Frederick, Duke of York, the next in age, had been married for many years, but his union had proved childless. He is the Duke commemorated in the column in Waterloo Place, and also in the soldier-boys' school at Chelsea.

Therefore the birth of a daughter to the Duke of Kent, the fourth son, at Kensington Palace on May 24, 1819, was an event of no small importance. The room in which the Princess was born was one on the first floor, just below the King's Privy Chamber, and it is marked by a brass plate. This is not among the state apartments shown to the public, but the little room called the Nursery, in which the young Princess played, and her small bedroom adjoining, lie in the regular circuit made by visitors through the rooms.

The Duke died less than a year after his daughter's birth, so there were no small brothers or sisters to share the Princess's childhood; but her stepsister, Princess Feodore, her mother's child, was much attached to her, and might often be seen walking or driving with her in the Gardens. The Nursery has a secondary association, for the Duke and Duchess of Teck lived for some time at Kensington Palace, and it was in this room that their daughter, the present Princess of Wales, was born.

The chief objects in the room are the dolls' house and other toys, all of the plainest description, with which Princess Victoria played as a child. There was no extravagance in her bringing up. Her mother was the wisest of women, and made no attempt to force the young intellect to tasks beyond its powers, nor did she spoil the child by undue indulgence. Early rising, morning walks, simple dinner, and games, constituted the days that passed rapidly in the seclusion of Kensington. When the young Princess had turned the age of five, her lessons began under the superintendence of Fräulein Lehzen, the governess of Princess Feodore, who was afterwards raised to the peerage as Baroness Lehzen. Though the second of the children of the Duke of Clarence had died before Victoria was three years old, and thus her chance of the throne was greatly increased, she was not made aware of her prospects until much later. The Princess Sophia, daughter of George III., lived in Church Street close by, at York House, and the Duke of Sussex, a younger son of George III., lived with his morganatic wife, called the Duchess of Inverness, in a set of apartments in the Palace. The rooms they occupied are those now tenanted by the Duke and Duchess of Argyll; thus aunts and an uncle were constantly sharing the simple pleasures of the little family circle.

The singularly plain little bedroom near to the Nursery in the Palace is that which Princess Victoria occupied during all her happy childhood, and it was here that she was awakened to meet the Archbishop and Minister who brought her the news that her great inheritance had come upon her. The death of the Duke of York had already cleared the way to the throne, and as the years went by and the Duke of Clarence had no more children, it was seen that the little girl who played at Kensington must, if she lived, be Queen of England. When George IV. died, when she was eleven years old, her prospects were assured, and since that time she had been prepared for her future position. William IV.'s short reign of only seven years seated her on the throne when she had just passed her eighteenth year. The account of her being awakened in the early morning by messengers bearing a message of such tremendous import, her hasty rising, and stepping through into the Long Gallery with her hair falling over her shoulders, and only a shawl thrown around her, is well known to everyone.