Page:Dictionary of National Biography. Sup. Vol III (1901).djvu/409

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Victoria
395
Victoria

should as queen assume the style of Elizabeth II, and repeated the old complaint that the name Victoria did not accord with the feelings of the people. The princess had, however, already taken a violent antipathy to Queen Elizabeth, and always deprecated any association with her. An amendment to reduce the new allowance by one half was lost, and the government's recommendation was adopted (Hansard, 3rd ser. v. 691, 654 seq.) Greater dignity was thus secured for the household of the Duchess of Kent and her daughter, although the duchess regarded the addition to her income as inadequate to the needs of her position. The Duchess of Northumberland (a granddaughter of Clive) was formally appointed governess of the princess, and her preceptor Davys was made dean of Chester. She was requested to attend court functions. On 20 July 1830, dressed in deep mourning with a long court train and veil reaching to the ground (Bülow, p. 191), she followed Queen Adelaide at a chapter of the order of the Garter held at St. James's Palace. A few months later she was present at the prorogation of parliament. On 24 Feb. 1831 she attended her first drawing-room, in honour of Queen Adelaide's birthday. The king complained that she looked at him stonily, and was afterwards deeply offended by the irregularity of her attendances at court. She and her mother were expected to attend his coronation on 8 Sept. 1831, but they did not come, and comment on their absence was made in parliament.

With the apparent access of prosperity went griefs and annoyances which caused passing tears, and permanently impressed the princess's mind with a sense of the 'sadness' of her youth. In 1828 her constant companion, the Princess Féodore of Leiningen, left England for good, on her marriage, 18 Feb., to Prince von Hohenlohe-Langenburg, and the separation deeply pained Victoria. In 1830 alarm was felt at Kensington at the prospect of Prince Leopold's permanent removal to the continent. Both mother and daughter trusted his guidance implicitly. The princess was almost as deeply attached to him as to her mother. Although he declined the offer of the throne of Greece in 1830, his acceptance next year of the throne of Belgium grieved her acutely. As king of the Belgians, he watched her interests with no less devotion than before, and he was assiduous in correspondence: but his absence from the country and his subsequent marriage with Louis Philippe's daughter withdrew him from that constant control of her affairs to which she and her mother had grown accustomed. Two deaths which followed in the Saxe-Coburg family increased the sense of depression. The earlier loss did not justify deep regrets. The Duchess of Kent's sister-in-law, the mother of Prince Albert, who soon after his birth had been divorced, died in August 1831. But the death on 16 Nov. of the Duchess Dowager of Saxe-Coburg, the Duchess of Kent's mother and the princess's godmother and grandmother, who took the warmest interest in the child's future, was a lasting sorrow.

The main cause of the Duchess of Kent's anxieties at the time was, however, the hostile attitude that William IV assumed William IV's treatment of her and her mother.towards her. She had no reason to complain of the unconventional good humour which he extended to her daughter, nor would it be easy to exaggerate the maternal solicitude which the homely Duchess of Clarence, now become Queen Adelaide, showed the princess. But the king resented the payment to the duchess of any of the public consideration which the princess's station warranted. The king seems to have been moved by a senile jealousy of the duchess's influence with the heiress presumptive to the crown, and he repeatedly threatened to remove the girl from her mother's care. When the two ladies received, in August 1831, a royal salute from the ships at Portsmouth on proceeding for their autumn holiday to a hired residence, Norris Castle, Isle of Wight, William IV requested the duchess to forego such honours, and, when she refused, prohibited them from being offered. Incessant wrangling between him and the duchess continued throughout the reign.

From a maternal point of view the duchess's conduct was unexceptionable. She was indefatigable in making her daughter acquainted with places of interest in England. On 23 Oct. 1830 the princess opened at Bath the Royal Victoria Park, and afterwards inaugurated the Victoria Drive at Malvern. From 1832 onwards the duchess frequently accompanied her on extended tours, during which they were the guests of the nobility, or visited public works and manufacturing centres, so that the princess might acquire practical knowledge of the industrial and social conditions of the people. William IV made impotent protests against these 'royal progresses,' as he derisively called them. The royal heiress was everywhere well received, took part for the first time in public functions, and left in all directions a favourable impression. Municipal corporations invaria-