For some time after their marriage, the Duke and Duchess of Kent resided abroad, chiefly from motives of economy, the allowance of the former being restricted within narrow limits by the servile Parliament of that day, owing to his political independence. In view, however, of an expected event, the Royal couple returned to England in the latter part of April, 1819, so that their child should be “born a Briton;” and, as we have said, the future Queen of England drew her first breath on the 24th of May. The Duke of Kent had been long estranged from his brother, the Prince Regent; but a reconciliation took place shortly after the birth of the Princess Victoria. The infant was christened on the 24th of June at Kensington Palace, where she had been born; on which occasion, the gold font was brought from the Tower, and the draperies were removed from the Chapel Royal, St. James’s. Chief among the sponsors were the Prince Regent and the Emperor Alexander of Russia, the latter represented by the Duke of York. It was in compliment to the Czar that the infant Princess received Alexandrina as her first name. In subsequent years, however, this Russianised Greek appellation was wisely abandoned, as unfamiliar and unwelcome to English ears, and the far nobler-sounding “Victoria” took its place. The second name, now famous throughout the world, is of course pure Latin, and no more native to our race than Alexandrina. But in a certain sense we are all Latins—we of the West of Europe; and the accents of the Imperial tongue are familiar to our ears. The meaning and sound of “Victoria,” moreover, are strikingly appropriate to the sovereign of a great Empire; and the omen has, on the whole, been happily fulfilled under the sceptre of her Majesty, not merely in the triumphs of war, but also in the victories of peace.
It is not generally known, that, so far as can be inferred from imperfect and obscure records, a monarch bearing the name of Victoria once before held sway in Britain. During the general weakness of the Roman Empire in the second half of the third century, several of the provinces detached themselves from the central authority, and for a while established separate governments. Spain, Gaul, and Britain formed a western realm of immense extent, the capital of which was at Trèves, on the Moselle, then a city of Gallia Belgica; and the sovereignty of this varied region passed in time to an ambitious and energetic woman named Victoria. She is mentioned in the great work of Gibbon; yet little is known of her acts or character. It is probable that she was a resolute and capable despot; but she appears in history as a name, and little else.
For the brief remainder of his life, the Duke of Kent dwelt principally at Claremont, which, but a short time before, had been the residence of the Princess Charlotte and Prince Leopold, and which was rendered sadly memorable by the death of the former. But the unusually severe winter of 1819-20 induced the Duke and Duchess to visit Sidmouth, for the sake of the mild climate of Southern Devonshire. At Salisbury Cathedral, to which he made an excursion during the frosty weather, the Duke caught a slight cold, which, after his return to Sidmouth, became serious, owing, it would seem, to neglect and imprudence. According to the medical custom of those days, the patient was copiously bled, and not improbably owed his death to the exhaustion thus occasioned. He expired on the 23rd of January, 1820, in his fifty-third year; and so small were his means that he left the Duchess and the Princess totally devoid of maintenance. Such was the statement made long afterwards by Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, who was with his sister during the days of her trial and bereavement. Soon after the fatal event, the Prince accompanied the widowed lady to London, where addresses of condolence were voted by both Houses of Parliament. The address of the Commons was presented by Lords Morpeth and Clive, when the Duchess of Kent
CLAREMONT.
appeared with the infant Princess in her arms. The scene was one of the chambers in Kensington Palace; and that historic building can scarcely have witnessed a more affecting interview.
The edifice in which Queen Victoria passed most of her early years, and which yet attracts the interest both of Englishmen and Americans, dates, as a palace, from the time of William III., though, at a rather earlier period, the Finches, Earls of Nottingham, had a mansion on the same spot, of which a small portion is believed to be still existent. The second Earl of Nottingham sold the house and grounds to the illustrious Dutchman who came to rescue us from the Pope and the Stuarts; and his Majesty caused additions to be made to the building by the greatest English architect of that time—Sir Christopher Wren. Successive
DEATH OF THE DUKE OF KENT: PRESENTING THE COMMONS’ ADDRESS OF CONDOLENCE TO THE DUCHESS AT KENSINGTON PALACE. (See p. 8.)
sovereigns, down to George II., still further enlarged the domicile and the grounds; and, for sixty years of the eighteenth century, Kensington Palace was the most brilliant and courtly place in London. All the nobles, statesmen, wits, and beauties of the age assembled in its saloons, or paraded in its gardens. Many are the anecdotes (scandalous and otherwise) connected with this royal home; but there are pleasanter associations too. Tickell, one of the minor literati of the period which we associate with Queen Anne, though it extended into the reigns of George I. and his successor, wrote a pretty fairy tale, in verse, in connection with Kensington Gardens; and Pope may have studied in that courtly enclosure the belles and fops of his “Rape of the Lock.” In the Palace itself, Death was a frequent visitor, as he must be in houses which survive several generations. William III. and Queen Mary, Queen Anne, Prince George of Denmark, and King George II., all died within its walls; and then came an eclipse. The sedate and formal residence, with its stately gardens, fell out of favour with George III., though it is not easy to say why, since his own character inclined him to the formal and sedate. All the glancing lights of wit and beauty faded from its rooms; and, by the earlier years of the present century, the Palace had acquired the sombre and somewhat depressing character inseparable from all old buildings which have seen better days, and from which the laughter and the life of earlier times have passed away.
Such were the surroundings amongst which the Princess Victoria was brought up. They were far from inspiriting; yet they may have helped to form the character of the future Queen, and to give to it an element of gravity, not unbecoming the sovereign of countless myriads. The walls of the apartments were adorned with pictures belonging chiefly to the Byzantine and early German schools; and these probably did much in creating a taste for art. The training of the young Princess was conducted by her mother—a task for which she was admirably qualified. When the Prince of Leiningen died, in 1814, his widow, afterwards the Duchess of Kent, was left the guardian of her young sons, and the ruler of their territory until they came of age. These duties she had performed in a manner the most exemplary; and she afterwards showed equal good sense in the education of the Princess Victoria. The child was taught from her earliest years to rely on exercise and temperance as the best promoters of health; to devote a reasonable amount of time to riding and sailing; to be economical, yet charitable; and, while observing a courteous demeanour towards her inferiors, to keep aloof from the evil influence of parasites. In early years, it was rather the moral than the mental nature of the Princess that was cultivated. The Dowager-Duchess of Coburg wisely wrote to her daughter, in 1823, that it would be better not to force book-knowledge too soon on one so young; and this advice appears to have been followed.
As her Royal Highness grew up, however, she was well grounded in languages, music, and such branches of science as were then thought suitable to ladies. Her general education was afterwards entrusted to the Duchess of Northumberland, wife of the