CHAPTER IX.

THE NURSERY.

THE courage of the Queen on the occasion of the attempt by Oxford upon her life was enhanced by the fact that it took place a few months before the birth of her first child. The Queen's natural courage was perhaps fostered on this and other occasions by her having so much to do and to think of besides her own personal concerns. During the months when she was awaiting the birth of her first child, she was up to the eyes in politics. In 1840 there was a premonitory rumbling of the storm in the East, which has so frequently broken the rest of Europe. France was fractious, and imagined herself slighted by England, and in the summer and autumn of 1840 it looked several times as if the two countries were on the brink of war. The Queen, writing to her uncle, the King of the Belgians, said: "I think our child ought to have, besides its other names, those of Turco-Egypto, as we think of nothing else." If it were true that home duties and political duties were incompatible, the Royal children would have had a sadly-neglected childhood; but it is a matter of experience that busy people are usually those who find time for everything, and the Queen and her husband were no exception to the rule. There is probably not a mother in England. who has given more loving thought and care for her children's welfare than Her Majesty has done. The children and her love for and pride in them are. constantly mentioned in the Queen's Journals. In the letters from Princess Alice to the Queen, pub

lished as a memorial of the former, she repeatedly refers to her happy childhood and her desire to pass on a similar training to her own little flock. Under the date of January 1st, 1865, Princess Alice writes. to her mother: "All the morning I was telling Louis (her husband) "how it used to be at home, and how we all assembled outside your dressing-room door to scream in chorus' Prosit Neujahr,' and to give to you and papa our drawings, writings, &c., the busy occupation of previous weeks. Dear papa bit his lip

so as not to laugh."

The Princess Royal, now the Empress Frederick of Germany, was born at Buckingham Palace on November 21st, 1840. Prince Albert was then having a course of reading in English law with Mr. Selwyn; the tutor arrived on November 23d to continue his instructions. The Prince said: "I fear I cannot read any law to-day. . . . But you will like to see the little Princess." He took the lawyer into the nursery, and, taking the little hand of the infant in his own, said, "The next time we read it must be on the rights and duties of a Princess Royal." The Queen made an excellent recovery; then, as always, the Prince was her tender guardian and nurse. No one but himself ever lifted her from her bed to the sofa, and he always helped to wheel her on her bed or sofa to the next room. However occupied he was, "he ever came," writes the Queen, "with a sweet smile on his face." In short, his care of her was like that of a mother, nor could there be a kinder, wiser, or more judicious nurse.

At Christmas this year, Prince Albert naturalized the German custom of Christmas-trees in England; there is probably hardly a child in England who has not appreciated their introduction.

It may be imagined that Stockmar had plenty of

good advice to give the young parents. One of his wise saws was, "A man's education begins with the first day of his life." He undertook in the early years of the Queen's marriage the organization of the nursery department. In one of his letters he says: "The nursery gives me more trouble than the government of a kingdom would do." The Princess Royal was always the child nearest his heart. He had an immensely high opinion of her abilities. "I hold her," he said, "to be exceptionally gifted, even to the point of genius.

Curiously enough, Melbourne was also consulted (1842) by the Queen and Prince upon the organization of the nursery, and the choice of a lady to preside over it.

The Princess showed almost from the day of her birth a very remarkable degree of intelligence. Numerous anecdotes are given of her cleverness and droll sayings as a little girl. The refrain of most of the stories about the Royal children is the Princess Royal's intelligence, and the merry, happy, affectionate disposition of the Prince of Wales. The little. Princess was christened on the anniversary of her parents' marriage, February 10, 1841, and received the names of Victoria Adelaide Mary Louisa. Two days after this, the Prince had a narrow escape of a painful death, for, in skating on the lake in the gardens of Buckingham Palace, he broke through the ice into. deep water. Fortunately the Queen, who was on the bank, did not lose her presence of mind, but did the right thing for affording the Prince the immediate assistance necessary.

The birth of the Prince of Wales followed very soon after that of the Princess Royal. On Lord Mayor's Day, November 9, 1841, the Queen gave birth to her eldest son. Greville notes with some impatience that

the usual formalities were not observed upon this occasion. "From some crotchet of Prince Albert's,' he writes, "they put off sending intelligence . . . till so late that several of the dignitaries whose duty it was to assist at the birth, arrived after the event had occurred, particularly the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord President of the Council." The Queen probably thought that this was one of the customs more honored in the breach than in the observance, and in this the majority of her subjects would agree with her. The Queen's Diary records that on November 21, 1841, the Princess Royal's first birthday, "Albert brought in dearest little Pussy (the Princess Royal) . . . and placed her on my bed, seating himself next her, and she was very dear and good. And as my precious invaluable Albert sat there, and our little love between us, I felt quite moved with happiness and gratitude to God." At Christmas time in this year the Queen's entry is: "To think that we have two children now, and one who enjoys the sight" (of the Christmas-trees) "already, is like a dream." And the Prince, writing to his father on the same occasion, says: "To-day I have two children of my own to give presents to, who, they know not why, are full of happy wonder at the German Christmas-tree and its radiant candles.

It has been already noted how and why Stockmar urged the selection of the King of Prussia as one of the godfathers of the Prince of Wales, and that the King of Hanover was furious at being passed over. He did not easily forget it when he considered himself slighted, and when the Queen, very magnanimously, invited him to be godfather to Princess Alice in 1843, he vindicated his dignity by arriving too late for the christening. He further endeavored to balance the account between his niece and himself by being rude.

to her husband. Greville says that one day at Buckingham Palace he proposed to Prince Albert to take a walk with him in the streets. It has already been mentioned why the Prince never went anywhere unattended, and the same reason rendered it undesirable that he should be unaccompanied except by the King of Hanover. He therefore excused himself, saying they would be inconvenienced by the crowd of people. The King replied, "Oh, never mind that. I was still more unpopular than you are now, and I used to walk about the streets with perfect impunity.' This little pleasantry was pointed by the fact that a feeling of antagonism against Prince Albert was growing up in certain sections of the community, which a few years later reached quite serious dimensions.

It may be mentioned here that the Queen has all through her life shown herself remarkably free from feeling implacable resentment even against those whose conduct she has at various times most strongly condemned, or against whom she may have been prejudiced. This characteristic, which will be illustrated later by her relations with Lord Palmerston, Lord Beaconsfield, Louis Philippe, and others, was demonstrated now by her magnanimity to her uncle Ernest, King of Hanover. He had plotted against her; had made things uncomfortable for her mother and herself before her accession; had refused, what she particularly valued, to yield precedence to her husband; had, in a dog-in-the-manger spirit, declined, after he became King of Hanover, to give up apartments in St. James's Palace which were wanted for the Duchess of Kent; in short, had lost no opportunity of showing himself unfriendly and disagreeable; yet when her third child was born, Princess Alice, on April 25th, 1843, she invited this uncle, who was a personification of the wicked uncle of fairy tales, to be the new baby's godfather.