This conclusion was gratifying in all respects, not the least so in its testimony to the respect which the Prince's conduct had already called forth. "Three months ago they would not have done it for him," Lord Melbourne told the Queen. "It is entirely his own character." It was also a pleasant proof of the goodwill of the Tories, whom the Prince had done everything in his power to conciliate, employing his influence to impress upon the young Queen the constitutional attitude of impartiality and neutrality towards all political parties.
There was a corresponding withdrawal of the absurd opposition to Prince Albert's taking his place by the Queen's side on all State occasions. "Let the Queen put the Prince where she likes and settle it herself, that is the best way," said the Duke of Wellington cordially. A lively example of the great Duke's want of toleration for the traditions of Court etiquette is given in a note to the "Life of the Prince Consort." The late Lord Albemarle, when Master of the Horse, was very sensitive about his right in that capacity to sit in the sovereign's coach on State occasions. "The Queen," said the Duke, when appealed to for his opinion, "can make Lord Albemarle sit at the top of the coach, under the coach, behind the coach, or wherever else her Majesty pleases."
On the 11th of August the Queen prorogued Parliament, accompanied by her husband for the first time. The following day the Court left for Windsor. The Prince was very fond of the country, and gladly went to it. The Queen, in her early womanhood, had been, as she said, "too happy to go to London, and wretched to leave it." But from the time of her marriage she shared her husband's tastes, and could have been "content and happy never to go to town." How her Majesty has retained the love of nature, which is a refuge of sorrow as well as a crown of happiness, we all know.
In the mornings at Windsor there were shooting in the season, and a wider field for landscape gardening for the Prince before he took to farming. In the evening there were occasional great dinners and little dances as in London. The young couple dispensed royal hospitality to a succession of friendly visitors, who came to see with their own eyes the bright palace home. The King and the Queen of the Belgians rejoiced in the fruits of his work. The Princess of Hohenlohe, herself a happy wife and mother, arrived with her children to witness her sister's felicity. Queen Adelaide did not shrink from revisiting Windsor, and seeing a beloved niece fill well King William and his consort's place.
Prince Albert's birthday was celebrated in England for the first time; there were illuminations in London; down at Windsor the day was kept, for the most part, in the simple family fashion, which is the best. The Prince was awakened by a musical reveille; a German chorale, chosen with loving, ungrudging care, as the first thing which was to greet him, was most certain, on that day of all others, to carry him back in spirit to his native country.
The family circle breakfasted by themselves in a favourite cottage in the park. Princess Feodora's children were in masquerade as Coburg peasants, doubtless hailing the Coburg Prince with an appropriate greeting. In the afternoon, in the fine weather, the Prince drove out the Queen; in the evening, "there was rather a larger dinner than usual."
On the 11th of September the Prince was formally sworn a member of her Majesty's Privy Council. And so conscientiously anxious was he to discharge worthily every duty which could be required of him, that, in the greater leisure of Windsor, he not only read "Hallam's Constitutional History" with the Queen, he began to read English law with a barrister.
In the meantime, an old historical figure, Princess Augusta of England, who had appeared at the Queen's marriage, lay terribly ill at Clarence House. She died on the 22nd of September, having survived her sister, Princess Elizabeth, the Landgravine of Hesse Homburg, only eight months. Princess Augusta carried away with her many memories of the Court of George III. By a coincidence, the lady who may almost be called the Princess's biographer, at least whose animated sketches and affectionate praises of her "dear Princess Augusta" were destined to give the world of England its principal knowledge of an amiable princess, died at a great age the same year. Madame D'Arblay, as Miss Burney, the distinguished novelist, had been appointed in 1786, in a somewhat whimsical acknowledgement of her talents and services to the reading world, one of the keepers of Queen Charlotte's wardrobe. In this office she resided at Court for five years, and she has left in her diary the most graphic account which we have of the English royal life of the day. "Evelina" and "Cecilia" were old stories even in 1840; it was more than fifty years since Madame D'Arblay had taken royal service, and now her best-beloved young patroness had passed away an aged woman, only a few months later than the gifted and vivacious little keeper of the robes, whose duties, to be sure, had included reading habitually to the Queen when she was dressing, and sometimes to the Court circle. Princess Augusta's funeral went from her house of Frogmore at seven o'clock in the evening of the 2nd of October, one of the last of the night funerals of a past generation, and she was buried with the customary honours in St. George's Chapel, Windsor. Frogmore became from that time the country residence of the Duchess of Kent.
In November the Court returned to Buckingham Palace for the Queen's accouchement. Baron Stockmar, at the Prince's earnest entreaty, came to England for the event, though he remained then as always in the background. On the 21st of November the Princess Royal was born, the good news being announced to London by the firing of the Tower guns. The Cabinet Ministers and Officers of State were in attendance in an adjoining room, and the new-born child, wrapped in flannel, was carried by the nurse, escorted by Sir James Clark, into the presence of those who were to attest her birth, and laid for a moment on a table before them. Both mother and child were well, and although a momentary disappointment was felt at the sex of the infant, it did not detract from the general rejoicing at the Queen's safety with a living successor to the throne. It was said at the time, kindly gossips dwelling on the utterance with the utmost pleasure, that on the Prince expressing a fear that the people might be disappointed, the Queen reassured him in the most cheerful spirit, "Never mind, the next shall be a boy," and that she hoped she might have as many children as her grandmother, Queen Charlotte.
A fresh instance of a diseased appetite for notoriety, grafted on vagrant youthful curiosity and restless love of mischief, astonished and scandalised the English world. On the day after the birth of the Princess Royal a rascally boy named Jones was discovered concealed under a sofa in a room next to the Queen's. The offender was leniently dealt with in consideration of his immature years, but again and again, at intervals of a few months, the flibbertigibbet turned up in the most unlooked-for quarters, impudently asserting, on being questioned, that he had entered "the same way as before," and that he could, any time he pleased, find his way into the palace. It was supposed that he climbed over the wall on Constitution Hill and crept through one of the windows. But he could hardly have done so if it had not been for the confused palace management, for which nobody was responsible, with its inevitable disorder, that had not yet been overcome. The boy had to be committed to the House of Correction as a rogue and vagabond for three months. Afterwards he served on board one of her Majesty's ships, where his taste for creating a sensation seems to have died a natural death.