Queen Victoria eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 326 pages of information about Queen Victoria.

Queen Victoria eBook

This eBook from the Gutenberg Project consists of approximately 326 pages of information about Queen Victoria.

Her troubles, however, were not over when she had shaken the dust of Windsor from her feet.  In her own household she was pursued by bitterness and vexation of spirit.  The apartments at Kensington were seething with subdued disaffection, with jealousies and animosities virulently intensified by long years of propinquity and spite.

There was a deadly feud between Sir John Conroy and Baroness Lehzen.  But that was not all.  The Duchess had grown too fond of her Major-Domo.  There were familiarities, and one day the Princess Victoria discovered the fact.  She confided what she had seen to the Baroness, and to the Baroness’s beloved ally, Madame de Spath.  Unfortunately, Madame de Spath could not hold her tongue, and was actually foolish enough to reprove the Duchess; whereupon she was instantly dismissed.  It was not so easy to get rid of the Baroness.  That lady, prudent and reserved, maintained an irreproachable demeanour.  Her position was strongly entrenched; she had managed to secure the support of the King; and Sir John found that he could do nothing against her.  But henceforward the household was divided into two camps.(*) The Duchess supported Sir John with all the abundance of her authority; but the Baroness, too, had an adherent who could not be neglected.  The Princess Victoria said nothing, but she had been much attached to Madame de Spath, and she adored her Lehzen.  The Duchess knew only too well that in this horrid embroilment her daughter was against her.  Chagrin, annoyance, moral reprobation, tossed her to and fro.  She did her best to console herself with Sir John’s affectionate loquacity, or with the sharp remarks of Lady Flora Hastings, one of her maids of honour, who had no love for the Baroness.  The subject lent itself to satire; for the pastor’s daughter, with all her airs of stiff superiority, had habits which betrayed her origin.  Her passion for caraway seeds, for instance, was uncontrollable.  Little bags of them came over to her from Hanover, and she sprinkled them on her bread and butter, her cabbage, and even her roast beef.  Lady Flora could not resist a caustic observation; it was repeated to the Baroness, who pursed her lips in fury, and so the mischief grew.

(*) Greville, IV, 21; and August 15, 1839 (unpublished).  “The cause of the Queen’s alienation from the Duchess and hatred of Conroy, the Duke (of Wellington) said, was unquestionably owing to her having witnessed some familiarities between them.  What she had seen she repeated to Baroness Spaeth, and Spaeth not only did not hold her tongue, but (he thinks) remonstrated with the Duchess herself on the subject.  The consequence was that they got rid of Spaeth, and they would have got rid of Lehzen, too, if they had been able, but Lehzen, who knew very well what was going on, was prudent enough not to commit herself, and who was, besides, powerfully protected by George IV and William IV, so that they did not dare to attempt to expel her.”

V

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Queen Victoria from Project Gutenberg. Public domain.