PREFACE.
I have been asked to write a few words of preface to this work.
If the life-long friendship of my mother with her Majesty, which gained
for me the honour of often seeing the Queen, or a deep feeling of loyalty
and affection for our sovereign, which is shared by all her subjects, be
accepted as a qualification, I gratefully respond to the call, but I feel
that no written words of mine can add value to the following pages.
Looking over some papers lately, I found the following note on a sketch
which I had accidentally met with in Windsor Castle--a coloured chalk
drawing, a mere study of one of the Queen's hands, by Sir David Wilkie,
probably made for his picture now in the corridor of the Castle,
representing the first council of Victoria. Of this sketch I wrote as
follows:--
"I was looking in one of the private rooms at Windsor Castle at a chalk
sketch, by Sir David Wilkie, of a fair, soft, long-fingered, dimpled
hand, with a graceful wrist attached to a rounded arm. 'Only a woman's
hand,' might Swift, had he seen that sketch, have written below. Only a
sketch of a woman's hand; but what memories that sketch recalls! How many
years ago Wilkie drew it I know not: that great artist died in the month
of June, 1841, so that more than forty years have passed, at least, since
he made that drawing. The hand that limned this work has long ago suffered
'a sea change.' And the hand which he portrayed? That is still among the
living--still occupied with dispensing aid and comfort to the suffering
and the afflicted, for the original is that of a Queen, beloved as widely
as her realms extend--the best of sovereigns, the kindest-hearted of
women."
To write the life of Queen Victoria is a task which many authors might
well have felt incompetent to undertake. To succeed in writing it is an
honour of which any author may well be proud. This honour I humbly think
has been realised in the work of which these poor lines may form the
preface.
RONALD GOWER.
CONTENTS
VOL. I.
CHAP.
I. Sixty-Three Years Since.
II. Childhood.
III. Youth.
IV. The Accession.
V. The Proroguing Of Parliament, The Visit To Guildhall; And The
Coronation.
VI. The Maiden Queen.
VII. The Betrothal.
VIII. The Marriage.
IX. A Royal Pair.
X. Royal Occupations.--An Attempt On The Queen's Life.
XI. The First Christening.--The Season Of 1841.
XII. Birth Of The Prince Of Wales.--The Afghan Disasters.--Visit Of The
King Of Prussia.--The Queen's Plantagenet Ball.
XIII. Fresh Attempts Against The Queen's Life.--Mendelssohn.--Death Of
The Duc D'Orleans.
XIV. The Queen's First Visit To Scotland.
XV. A Marriage, A Death, And A Birth In The Royal Family.--A Palace
Home.
XVI. The Condemnation Of The English Duel.--Another Marriage.--The
Queen's Visit To Chateau D'Eu.
XVII. The Queen's Trip To Ostend.--Visits To Drayton, Chatsworth, And
Belvoir.
XVIII. Allies From Afar.--Death And Absence.--Birthday Greetings.
XIX. Royal Visitors.--The Birth Of Prince Alfred.--A Northern Retreat.
XX. Louis Philippe's Visit.--The Opening Of The Royal Exchange.
CHAPTER I.
SIXTY-THREE YEARS SINCE.
The 24th of May, 1819, was a memorable and happy day for England, though
like many such days, it was little noticed at the time. Sixty-three years
since! Do many of us quite realise what England was like then; how much
it differed from the England of to-day, even though some of us have lived
as many years? It is worth while devoting a chapter to an attempt to
recall that England.
A famous novel had for its second heading, "'Tis sixty years since." That
novel--"Waverley"--was published anonymously just five years before 1819,
and, we need not say, proved an era in literature. The sixty years behind
him to which Walter Scott--a man of forty-three--looked over his shoulder,
carried him as far back as the landing of Prince Charlie in Moidart, and
the brief romantic campaign of the '45, with the Jacobite songs which
embalmed it and kept it fresh in Scotch memories.
The wounds dealt at Waterloo still throbbed and burnt on occasions in
1819. Many a scarred veteran and limping subaltern continued the heroes
of remote towns and villages, or starred it at Bath or Tunbridge.
