The Kents and Leiningens—if I may speak so familiarly of Royal and Serene Highnesses—when away from the quiet home in Kensington, spent much time at lovely Claremont as guests of the dear brother and Uncle Leopold. They seem also to have travelled a good deal in England, visiting watering-places and in houses of the nobility, but never to have gone over to the Continent. The Duchess probably felt that the precious life which she held in trust for the people of England might possibly be endangered by too long journeys, or by changes of climate; but what it cost to the true German woman to so long exile herself from her old home and her kindred none ever knew—at least none among her husband's unsympathetic family—for she was, as a Princess, too proud to complain; as a mother, cheerful in her devotion and self-abnegation.
CHAPTER IV.
Queen-making not a Light Task—Admirable Discipline of the Duchess of
Kent—Foundation of the Character and Habits of the future Queen—Curious
Extract from a Letter by her Grandmamma—A Children's Ball given by
George IV. to the little Queen of Portugal—A Funny Mishap—Death of
George IV.—Character of his Successor—Victoria's first appearance at a
Drawing-room—Her absence from the Coronation of William IV.
Queen-making is not a light task. It is no fancywork for idle hours. It is the first difficult draft of a chapter, perhaps a whole volume, of national history.
No woman ever undertook a more important labor than did the widowed Duchess of Kent, or carried it out with more faithfulness, if we may judge by results.
The lack of fortune in the family was not an unmixed evil; perhaps it was even one of those disagreeable "blessings in disguise," which nobody welcomes, but which the wise profit by, as it caused the Duchess to impress upon her children, especially the child Victoria, the necessity of economy, and the safety and dignity which one always finds in living within one's income. Frugality, exactitude in business, faithfulness to all engagements, great or small, punctuality, that economy of time, are usually set down among the minor moralities of life, more humdrum than heroic; but under how many circumstances and conditions do they reveal themselves as cardinal virtues, as things on which depend the comfort and dignity of life! It seems that these things were so impressed on the mind and heart of the young Victoria by her careful, methodical German mother, that they became a part of her conscience, entered so deeply into the rule of her life that no after-condition of wealth, or luxury, or sovereign independence; no natural desire for ease or pleasure; no passion of love or grief; no possible exigencies of imperial state have been able to overcome or set them aside. The danger is that such rigid principles, such systematic habits, adopted in youth, may in age become, from being the ministers of one's will, the tyrants of one's life.
It seems to be somewhat so in the case of the Queen, for I hear it said that the sun, the moon, and the tides are scarcely more punctual and regular in their rounds and mighty offices, in their coming and going, than she in the daily routine of her domestic and state duties and frequent journeyings; and that the laws of the Medes and Persians are as naught in inexorableness and inflexibility to the rules and regulations of Windsor and Balmoral.
But the English people, even those directly inconvenienced at times by those unbending habits and irrevocable rules, have no right to find fault, for these be the right royal results of the admirable but somewhat unyouthful qualities they adored in the young Queen. They have no right to sneer because a place of honor is given in Her Majesty's household to that meddlesome, old-fashioned German country cousin, Economy; for did not they all rejoice in the early years of the reign to hear of this same dame being introduced by those clever managers, Prince Albert and Baron Stockmar, into the royal palaces, wherein she had not been seen for many a year?
But to return to the little Princess. The Duchess, her mother, seems to have given her all needful change of air and scene, though always maintaining; habits of study, and an admirable system of mental and moral training; for the child's constitution seems to have strengthened year by year, and in spite of one or two serious attacks of illness, the foundation was laid of the robust health which, accompanied by rare courage and nerve, has since so marked and blessed her life. A writer of the time speaks of a visit paid by her and her mother to Windsor in 1829, when the child was about seven years old, and states that George IV., her "Uncle King," was delighted with her "charming manners."
It was about this visit that her maternal grandmamma at Coburg wrote to her mamma: "I see by the English papers that Her Royal Highness the Duchess of Kent went on Virginia water with His Majesty. The little monkey must have pleased and amused him, she is such a pretty, clever child."