Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive in 2008 witii funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation littp://www.arcliive.org/details/earlycourtofqueeOOjerrricli THE EARLY COURT OF QUEEN VICTORIA THE EARLY COURT OF QUEEN VICTORIA BY CLARE JERROLD AUTHOR OF The Fair Ladies of Hampton Court" Etc LONDON EVELEIGH NASH 1912 5l y ^ PREFACE No apology need be made for this book, though perhaps a reason for publishing it may be given. In these pages I have endeavoured to show Queen Victoria in her natural setting during her youth, hoping thereby to present her as a really human person. For twenty-five years at least the tendency among those who write has been so to overwhelm the late Queen with adulation that the ordinary reader turns from the subject in disgust. We are not fit for perfection; we believe that perfection is only an ideal—one which would probably become insufferable were it to de- generate into actuality—and when biographers, whose line, it is true, has been more or less laid down for them, depict Queen Victoria without fault and possess- ing almost preternatural wisdom and virtue, then there must be danger of unpopularity for the great Queen. " As a child my loyalty was upset by the I will be good" story, and in my childish heart I despised the childish utterer of that sentence. The fault of this lay not in the fact that the little Princess made an impul- sive resolution, but in the further fact that that story has been used as an example for other children by all adults who know it. When, at the second Jubilee, I 283592 vi PREFACE wrote an anecdotal life of the Queen, I was amused at the literature through which I had to wade for my facts. Taken in the mass, it became a paean of praise with every trace of real human lovableness erased. Of course, the person really to blame for this in the last resort was the Queen herself. For her one great fault was an exaggerated, indeed a morbid, belief in the infallibility, not of herself as a person, but of the Crown. Nothing angered her more than dissent from, or criticism of, the Crown. It was a curious position, for she practically was the Crown, and therefore the criticism of any public acts of hers, was doubly displeasing to her, as she considered that it was the highest dignity of the State, and not a mere person, which was belittled. Under such pressure—even though it was unspoken its influence was felt—writers wrote naturally that which would please, certainly that which would give no offence ; and they were not so much untrue to fact as vigilant that all adverse matter and circumstance should remain unchronicled. But those who talk of the late Queen do so in an increasing spirit of criticism, and this prompted me to endeavour to show the young Monarch as she really was, surrounded by the somewhat cruel limitations of her time—a girl frank, loving, truthful, and admirable in many ways, yet one in whom the seeds of an undue pride had been planted and most earnestly fostered by those responsible—in spite of which fact, however, a person much more lovable than any counsel of per- fection could possibly have produced. PREFACE vii My materials have been gathered largely from con- temporary journals and newspapers, and among the books to which I am indebted I must mention Lady Bloomfield's " Reminiscences " for some delightful pictures of Queen Victoria's life at the beginning of her reign. Mr. Sidney Lee's admirable "Life" has also been of use; while the correspondence of Her Majesty was more helpful in amplifying or supporting information already gained than in really supplying fresh facts. The trenchant remarks of Charles Greville and the terse, lively, and often amusing criticisms of Thomas Creevy also could not be ignored by any writer about public people in the 'thirties who wished to get a personal impression. Hampton-on-Thames, November, 1911. CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE PRINCESS victoria's RELATIVES I CHAPTER II princess victoria's mother and uncle . .30 CHAPTER III princess victoria's tuition in politics 59 CHAPTER IV princess victoria's suitors . 82 I CHAPTER V QUEEN victoria's ACCESSION I07 CHAPTER VI QUEEN victoria's ADVISERS I32 CHAPTER VII QUEEN victoria's CIRCLE ,' I59 CHAPTER VIII QUEEN victoria's PRIME MINISTER ....... 183 CHAPTER IX QUEEN VICTORIA'S LADIES AND LOVERS 2o8 CHAPTER X QUEEN victoria's DISLOYAL SUBJECTS 238 X CONTENTS CHAPTER XI PAGE QUEEN victoria's TRAGIC MISTAKE 255 CHAPTER XII QUEEN VICTORIA'S LOVE 287 CHAPTER XIII QUEEN VICTORIA'S EARLY MARRIED LIFE 3 12 CHAPTER XIV QUEEN VICTORIA'S TORY MINISTRY 34I CHAPTER XV QUEEN VICTORIA'S HOME 364 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Queen Victoria. (From a painting by W. C. Ross, A.R.A.) Frontispiece Queen Adelaide. (From a painting by Sir William Beechey in National Portrait Gallery) . To face page 36 William IV „ 60 *H.R.H. The Duchess of Kent „ 94 * Lord Melbourne „ 118 King Leopold of the Belgians. (From the drawing by Sir Thomas Lawrence, P.R.A.) .... „ 138 Hon. Mrs. Norton „ 150 * Lord Brougham „ 165 * Harriet, Duchess of Sutherland „ 176 * Sir Robert Peel „ 210 * Lady Tavistock „ 218 * Lady Flora Hastings „ 258 * Lady Portman „ 274 14. H.R.H. Prince Albert. (From a painting by W^inter- halter in the National Portrait Gallery) . „ 314 Queen Victoria. (From the drawing by Drummond, 1842) „ 338 * The Duke of Wellington „ 352 * Baron Stockmar „ 364 N.B. — The illustrations marked with an asterisk (*) are from the collection of Mr. A. M. Broadley. xi — THE EARLY COURT OF QUEEN VICTORIA CHAPTER I PRINCESS victoria's RELATIVES " We are going presently to write our names for the Duchess ol Kent, who has produced a daughter." The Hon. Mrs. Calvert. i8ig. The Duchess of Kent was not a very popular woman with the Guelph family. George IV. hated her, and made her less welcome than he had made her husband, his brother, to whom he intimated early in 1 8 19 that he would no longer be received at Court; William IV. did not like her when he was the Duke of Clarence, but his wife was so sorry for her sister-in- law's misfortunes that she showed her much kindness and affection until, holding the position of Queen her- self, she was obliged to resent the hauteur with which she was treated. The Fitzclarences, who surrounded William IV., had little reason to admire her, and the Tory Ministers found themselves treated by her with only spasmodic politeness. The people in general cared nothing one way or another until the Duchess displayed marked Whig tendencies, and then the Tory Press made a custom of criticising all that she did, 2 THE COURT OF QUEEN VICTORIA and displaying a wonderfully intimate knowledge of her affairs, private and public. For nearly a quarter of a century the life of the Duchess in England was one of stress; indeed, one might repeat of her the oft-repeated words, she " was ever a fighter," for she seemed always at variance with the reigning monarch. She owed the very rare ap- pearance of herself and her daughter in the Court of George IV. to the kind heart of Lady Conyngham, the King's mistress, w^ho thereby earned Victoria's affectionate regard, in spite of her position. Of this lady, by the way, who w^as coarse, fair, dull, and by no means fascinating, and who succeeded Lady Hert- ford in the King's household, some wit said that in taking her George had exchanged St. James for St. Giles. By the time of William IV. the Duchess had become not simply a passive resister but an active agitator, and many scenes of anger took place between her and the King. Both George and William often renewed the threat of taking her child from her that the young Princess might be placed in the hands of someone more complacent to the Royal will. George would really have done this, but that the Duke of Wellington, who was his adviser, always temporised and put off the execution of the threat. When the Duchess became mother to the Queen of England, though things changed they were no better; but the details of the relationship between these two prominent people needs more than a paragraph in explanation. Yet we have much for which to thank the Duchess PRINCESS VICTORIA'S RELATIVES 3 of Kent, in that she brought up her daughter in busi- ness habits, in purity of thought, and in all those virtues which make a good woman. Domestically she was a kind tyrant, necessarily an injudicious one, for tyranny is always injudicious. In following the life of the young Princess one wonders how much the mother, imposing a very restrictive rule upon the child, knew of that child's character. Obedient, dutiful, sub- missive, troubled openly only by occasional fits of rebellion and self-will, did Victoria in her early days ever foreshadow the revulsion against the maternal authority which seized upon her later? One would imagine not, or the Duchess would have become wiser in her treatment. As the girl grew towards womanhood, did she ever betray the growth of resistance, did she show that beneath all the quiet of the exterior lay an autocratic character which was only biding its oppor- tunity?—and did her mother have any suspicion of what might happen between the years 1837 and 1841, which were to be the most anguished of her life, when she would be forced to realise that her too scrupulous care had brought her, not power and honour, but a determined and sustained indifference? When this girl of eighteen was proclaimed Queen of England no one knew whether to be glad or sorry.