which placed him at a disadvantage, for he
had but recently begun to learn it. The
result of their visit was hardly decisive.
Prince Albert wrote of his cousin as 'very
amiable,' and astonishingly self-possessed,
but parted with her heart-whole. The princess, however, had learned the suggested plan
from her uncle Leopold, whose wishes were
law for her, and on 7 June, after Albert
had left England, she wrote ingenuously to
Leopold that she commended the youth to
her uncle's special protection, adding, 'I hope and trust that all will go on prosperously and well on this subject, now of so much importance to me.' Her views
were uncoloured by sentiment. It was
natural and congenial to obey her uncle.
In the early autumn of 1836 she paid a second visit to the retired tory statesman, Lord Liverpool, who was then living at Buxted Park, near Uckfield, and afterwards spent a quiet month at Ramsgate. The old king was at the moment causing the Duchess of Kent renewed disquietude. The princess had consequently absented herself from court, and the king complained that he saw too little of her. On 20 Aug. 1836, the king's birthday, mother and daughter dined with him at a state banquet, when he publicly expressed the hope that he might live till his niece came of age, so that the kingdom might be spared the regency which parliament had designed for the Duchess of Kent. He described his sister-in-law as a 'person' 'surrounded by evil counsellors,' and unfitted 'to the exercise of the duties of her station.' He asserted that, contrary to his command, she was occupying an excessive number of rooms seventeen at Kensington Palace. He would not 'endure conduct so disrespectful to him.' The princess burst into tears. The breach between the king and her mother was complete.
William IVs hope of living long enough to prevent a regency was fulfilled. Although Coming of age, 24 May 1837. his health was feeble, no serious crisis was feared when, on 24 May 1837, the princess celebrated her eighteenth birthday, and thus came of age. At Kensington the occasion was worthily celebrated, and the hamlet kept holiday. The princess was awakened by an aubade, and received many costly gifts. Addresses from public bodies were presented to her mother. To one from the corporation of London the duchess made, on behalf of her daughter, an elaborate reply. She pointed out that the princess was in intercourse with all classes of society, and, after an indiscreet reference to the slights put on herself by the royal family, spoke volubly of the diffusion of religious knowledge, the preservation of the constitutional prerogatives of the crown, and the protection of popular liberties as the proper aims of a sovereign. The king was loth to withdraw himself from the public rejoicing. He sent his niece a grand piano, and in the evening gave a state ball in her honour at St. James's Palace. Neither he nor the queen attended it, owing, it was stated, to illness. The princess opened the entertainment in a quadrille with Lord FitzAlan, grandson of the Duke of Norfolk, and afterwards danced with Nicholas Esterhazy, son of the Austrian ambassador. In the same month she paid two visits to the Royal Academy, which then for the first time held its exhibition in what is now the National Gallery, Trafalgar Square. She was the centre of attraction. On the first visit she shook hands and talked with Rogers the poet, and, hearing that the actor, Charles Kemble, was in the room, desired that he should be introduced to her. A few days later the king, in a letter addressed personally to her, offered to place 10,000l. a year at her own disposal, independently of her mother. She accepted the offer to her mother's chagrin.
II
No sooner had the celebrations of the princess's majority ended than death put her in possession of the fullest rights that it could confer. Early in June it was announced that the king's health was breaking. On Tuesday, 20 June 1837, at twelve minutes past two in the morning, he died at Windsor Castle. The last barrier between Princess Victoria and the crown was thus removed.
The archbishop of Canterbury, who had performed the last religious rites, at once took leave of Queen Adelaide, and with Lord Conyngham, the lord chamberlain, drove through the early morning to Kensington to break the news to the new sovereign. Accession 20 June 1837. They arrived there before 5 A.M. and found difficulty in obtaining admission. The porter refused to rouse the princess. At length the Baroness Lehzen was sent for, and she reluctantly agreed to warn the princess of their presence. The girl came into the room with a shawl thrown over her dressing-gown, her feet in slippers, and her hair falling down her back. Lord Conyngham dropped on his knee, saluted her as queen, and kissed the hand she held towards him. The archbishop did the like, addressing to her 'a sort of pastoral charge.' At the same
