Overview

QUEEN VICTORIA TO VIRGINIA WOOLF CONTENTS CHAPTER PASI3S L ANTECEDENTS ...... II. CHILDHOOD ...... 25 III. LOED MjELBOtTBNJE, , .., 71 IV. MARRIAGE . . . ., ., . 134t V. LORD PALMERSTON ., ... VI LAST YEARS OF THE PEINCU CONSORT . . VII. WIDOWHOOD ........ VIII, MR. GlADStONH AND Lo D BEACON FIXXU . X. THJB END ....... 440 EJBIJOCJHAFXIY .. 4Xf 1mm . . ., mi QUEEN VICTORIA CHAPTER I ANTECEDENTS I ON November 6, 1817, died the Princess Char lotte, only child of the Prince Regent, and heir to the crown of England. Her short life had hardly been a happy one. By nature impulsive, capricious and vehement, she had always longed for liberty and she had never possessed it. She had been brought up among violent family quar rels, had been early separated from her disrep utable and eccentric mother and handed over to the care of her disreputable and selfish father. When she was seventeen, he decided to marry her off to the Prince of Orange she, at first, acqui esced but, suddenly falling in love with Prince Augustus of Prussia she determined to break off the Thin . not her first love af fair for she had previatidy carried OE a dbwades tine with a Captain Hess l 2 QUEEN VICTORIA Augustus was already married, morganatieally, but she did not know it, and he did not tell her. While she was spinning out the negotiations with the Prince of Orange, the allied sovereigns it was June, 1814 arrived in London to celebrate their victory. Among them, in the suite of the Emperor of Russia, was the young and handsome Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, He made sev eral attempts to attract the notice of the Princess, but she, with her heart elsewhere, paid very little attention. Next month the Prince Regent, discovering that his daughter was having secret meet ings with Prince Augustus, suddenly appeared upon the scene and, after dismissing her household, sentenced her to a strict seclusion in Windsor Park. God Almighty grant me patience 1 she exclaimed, falling on her knees in aa agony of agi tation then she jumped up, ran down the back stairs and out into the street, hailed a passing cab, and drove to her mothers house IE Bays water. She was discovered, pursued, and at length, yielding to the persuasions of her uncles, the Dukes of York and Sussex, of Brougham and of the Bishop of Salisbury, she returned to Carlton House at two oclock In the morntnff She wm immured at Windsor, but no more heard of the Prince of Orange. Prince ANTECEDENTS 3 too, disappeared. The way was at last open to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg. 1 This Prince was clever enough to get round the Regent to impress the Ministers, and to make friends with another of the Princesss uncles, the Duke of Kent. Through the Duke he was able to communicate privately with the Princess, who now declared that he was necessary to her happi ness. When, after Waterloo, he was in Paris, the Dukes aide-de-camp carried letters backwards and forwards across the Channel. In January 1816 he was invited to England, and in May the marriage took place The character of Prince Leopold contrasted strangely with that of his wife. The younger son of a German princeling, he was at this time twenty-six years of age he had served with dis tinction in the war against Napoleon he had shown considerable diplomatic skill at the Con gress of Vienna s and he was now to try his hand at the task of taming a tumultuous Princess Cold formal in manner, collected inspeech, careful in action, he dominated the wild, impetuous, generous creature by his side. There Cfr grille, II, estop. I 80 Knight, l s gVHxriii and Affftttdtae, nd II, Gwy, 884 jfrtiferf, II, 4 QUEEN VICTORIA was much in her, he found s of which he could not approve. She quizzed, she stamped, she roared with laughter she had very little of that self-command which is especially required of princes her manners were abominable...

Full Product Details

9781406747942

Table of Contents

Reviews

Author Information

Tab Content 6

Customer Reviews

Recent Reviews

Countries Available