The first day of Victoria’s accession he writes:
“She appears to act with every sort of good
taste and good feeling, as well as good sense, and
nothing can be more favorable than the impression she
has made, and nothing can promise better than her
manner and conduct do... William IV. coming to
the throne at the mature age of sixty-five, was so
excited by the exaltation that he nearly went mad...
The young Queen, who might well be either dazzled
or confounded with the grandeur and novelty of her
situation, seems neither the one nor the other, and
behaves with a propriety and decorum beyond her years.”
Doubtless nature was kind to Victoria in the elements
of character, but she must have owed very much of
this courage, calmness, modesty, simplicity, candor,
and sterling good sense to the peculiar, systematic
training, the precept and example of her mother, the
much-criticised Duchess of Kent, so unpopular at the
Court of the late King, and whom Mr. Greville had
by no means delighted to honor. Ah, the good,
brave Duchess had her reward for all her years of
patient exile, all her loving labor and watchful care,
and rich compensation for all criticisms, misrepresentations,
and fault-finding, that June afternoon, the day of
the Proclamation, when she rode from the Palace of
St. James to Kensington with her daughter, who had
behaved so well—her daughter and her Queen!
WOMANHOOD AND QUEENHOOD.
The sovereignty of England and Hanover severed forever—Funeral
of King William IV. at Windsor—The Queen
and her household remove to Buckingham Palace—She
dissolves Parliament—Glowing account of
the scene by a contemporary Journal—Charles
Sumner a spectator—His eulogy of the Queen’s
reading.
Ever since the accession to the throne of Great Britain
of the House of Brunswick, the Kings of England had
also been Kings of Hanover. To carry on the two
branches of the royal business simultaneously must
have been a little difficult, at least perplexing.
It was like riding a “two-horse act,”
with a wide space between the horses, and a wide difference
in their size. But the Salic law prevailed in
that little kingdom over there; so its Crown now gently
devolved on the head of the male heir-apparent, the
Duke of Cumberland, and the quaint old principality
parted company with England forever. That is
what Her Majesty, Victoria, got, or rather lost, by
being a woman. A day or two after her accession,
King Ernest called at Kensington Palace to take leave
of the Queen, and she dutifully kissed her uncle and
brother-sovereign, and wished him God-speed and the
Hanoverians joy.
