Life Of Her Majesty Queen Victoria - free ebook by Millicent Garrett Fawcett

LIFE OF HER MAJESTY QUEEN VICTORIA.

BY MILLICENT GARRETT FAWCETT. A decorative flower icon BOSTON: ROBERTS BROTHERS. 1895. Copyright, 1895 , By Roberts Brothers . All rights reserved. University Press: John Wilson and Son, Cambridge, U.S.A....

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PREFACE.

It would have been impossible, within the limits of this little book, to narrate, even in barest outline, all the events of the Queen’s long life and reign. In attempting to deal with so large a subject in so short a space, I have therefore thought it best to dwell on what may be considered the formative influences on the Queen’s character in her early life, and in later years to refer only to political and personal events, in so far as they illustrate her character and her conception of her pol

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CHAPTER I. THE QUEEN’S IMMEDIATE PREDECESSORS.

Every now and then, on the birth of a male heir to any of the great historic kingdoms of Europe, the newspapers and the makers of public speeches break forth into rejoicing and thanksgiving that the country in question is secured from all the perils and evils supposed to be associated with the reign of a female Sovereign. It is of little importance, perhaps, that this attitude of mind conveys but a poor compliment to our Queen and other living Queens and Queen Regents; but it is not a little cur

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CHAPTER II. CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION.

The previous chapter dwelt upon some serious drawbacks to the Queen’s happiness as a child. But if she was unfortunate in living in an atmosphere too highly charged with contention, her childhood was in another respect remarkably fortunate. Very few heirs to the throne have been brought up from infancy with an education carefully designed as a preparation for their future exalted station, combined with almost all the simplicity and domesticity of private life. But this unusual combination was se

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CHAPTER III. ACCESSION TO THE THRONE.

It is not easy to realize that in the lifetime of our own fathers and mothers there was in England a plot to change the succession and secure the crown for the “wicked uncle,” to the exclusion of the rightful heir. The whole story savors of romance, or at any rate of a much earlier period in our history, when John Lackland or Richard the Hunchback cheated their young nephews of crown and life. Yet the evidence of history on this point is unmistakable. In 1835 a plot was discovered and laid bare

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CHAPTER IV. LOVE AND POLITICS.

The first important political event of the Queen’s reign was the insurrection in Canada, which broke out in the late autumn of 1837. The Queen has herself told us that, notwithstanding all King Leopold’s and Stockmar’s instructions, she was at this time an ardent Whig in her political sympathies; but the history of the Canadian insurrection, while ultimately showing the value of colonial self-government as a safeguard against rebellion, demonstrated the wisdom of their maxims that it was the dut

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CHAPTER V. ROCKS AHEAD.

The proverbial troubles that mar the course of true love were not realized in the case of the Queen and Prince Consort, at least so far as their personal relations were concerned. But there were some difficulties and annoyances in store for them from outside influences. A foolish attempt was made to circulate the report that the Prince was a Roman Catholic. When the announcement of the Queen’s intended marriage was made to Parliament, it contained no reference to the Prince’s religious faith, an

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CHAPTER VI. THE PRINCE.

The Queen was married to Prince Albert with every possible circumstance of pomp and magnificence on February 10th, 1840, in the chapel of St. James’s Palace. There was a drenching downpour of rain in the morning, so her subjects, although the sun shone later in the day, did not learn the expression “Queen’s weather” as early as 1840. Any doubts the Prince may have entertained as to the popularity of the marriage with the English people were dispelled by the hearty reception he met with from the

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CHAPTER VII. THE QUEEN AND PEEL.

From the time of the Queen’s accession, the power of the Whig Government under Lord Melbourne had been steadily going down. It sank to zero when they resumed office, in 1839, after Peel had failed to form a Government in consequence of the dispute over the Ladies of the Bedchamber. They had been beaten in the Commons and were in a permanent minority in the Lords; and it was said with justice that they were holding on, in office but not in power, simply to please the Queen. It would have been a d

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CHAPTER VIII. STOCKMAR.

One of the strongest influences, personal and political, in the Queen’s earlier life was that of Baron Stockmar. This remarkable man attained, simply by dint of character, the position of being one of the chief of the unseen political forces of Europe. Without any official political position, he was the friend and confidant of statesmen and princes, and acquired extraordinary influence by his clearness of view and tenacity of purpose in political concerns, joined with personal honesty and disint

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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 Eas

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CHAPTER X. HOME LIFE.—OSBORNE AND BALMORAL.

It has already been remarked that the Queen throughout her reign has shown herself a thorough woman in being a good domestic economist. It was quite in accordance with this trait in her character that she and the Prince very early in their married life set themselves the almost Herculean task of the reform of the Royal Household. They found it in thorough disorganization, replete with confusion, discomfort, and extravagance. Various branches of the domestic service in the palaces were under the

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CHAPTER XI. FORTY-THREE TO FORTY-EIGHT.

The Queen’s first visit to a foreign country took place in September, 1843, when she and the Prince visited Louis Philippe and his family at Château d’Eu, near Tréport. It was not only the Queen’s first visit to France, but the first time since the Field of the Cloth of Gold that an English reigning sovereign had been in France; and even then the meeting of the two sovereigns had taken place on English territory near Calais. The Queen was enchanted with everything she saw. She had to the full al

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CHAPTER XII. PALMERSTON.

With none of her Ministers has the Queen ever been in sharper conflict than with Lord Palmerston. From his third Foreign Secretaryship in 1846 till his dismissal in 1852, the history of their relations was one long struggle. Palmerston considered himself the political inheritor of Canning’s foreign policy, and that he was bound, as the representative of England to foreign Governments, to be the upholder of political liberty and the foe of tyranny and oppression all over Europe. In this he carrie

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CHAPTER XIII. PEACE AND WAR.

The year 1851 was memorable to the Queen, for it brought the opening of the Great Exhibition, the crown of success to prolonged efforts made by the Prince against all kinds of opposition and misrepresentation. When first the project was mooted, hardly any one had a good word to say for it. Members of Parliament in the House of Commons prayed that hail and lightning might be sent from heaven to destroy it; it was bound to be a financial failure; it would ruin Hyde Park; it would bring into London

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CHAPTER XIV. A NATION OF SHOPKEEPERS.

England had hardly drawn breath from the Crimean War when she was face to face with the Indian Mutiny. The first symptoms of the outbreak were observed in February, 1857. By the summer of that year it had attained appalling dimensions; but the gravity of the calamity brought out the tenacity of the English character, and it was gradually realized by the country that no effort and no sacrifice would be too great in order to preserve intact our hold upon India. The Queen realized this at a very ea

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CHAPTER XV. THE VALLEY OF THE SHADOW OF DEATH.

The year 1861 closed the book of the happy wedded life of the Queen. The hand of death lay heavy upon her, and took from her first her mother, and then her husband. The death of her mother was her first very great sorrow. Her half-brother, Prince Charles of Leiningen, had died in 1856; but his life and hers, during his latter years, had lain very much apart, and though she mourned him deeply and truly, he had not made part of her life, and his death could not be to her what the death of her moth

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CHAPTER XVI. DOMESTIC LIFE AFTER 1861.

After the death of the Prince Consort the available materials for a life of Her Majesty are much less ample. It is true that in giving directions to Sir Theodore Martin for writing the Life of the Prince, Her Majesty’s desire was that only so much of her own life was to be revealed as was absolutely necessary for the continuity of the story; but the two lives were so completely one that it was impossible to write an account of one that was not almost equally an account of the other. They realize

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CHAPTER XVII. THE WARP AND WOOF OF HOME AND POLITICS.

Between 1858 and 1885 all the Queen’s nine children married; and every one knows that she took just as much delight and interest in their prospect of forming happy homes of their own as any other mother in her wide dominions could have done. In other words, politics and political responsibilities of the weightiest kind have not unsexed her. In arranging the marriages of her three elder children, Her Majesty had had the advantage of the knowledge and judgment of the Prince Consort. It can hardly

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CHAPTER XVIII. THE QUEEN AND THE EMPIRE.

Reference was made in the last chapter to the celebration of the Queen’s Jubilee in 1887. It was kept with all kinds of appropriate festivals in every part of the British Empire. But the centre and kernel of the whole celebration was the beautiful and touching national ceremony in Westminster Abbey on June 21st. On the same spot where as a young girl the Queen had knelt and had sworn fidelity to the constitution of her kingdom, and to govern according to law, justice, and mercy, the aged Queen a

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THE RIGHT HONORABLE WILLIAM E. GLADSTONE

A Study from Life By HENRY W. LUCY. 12mo. Cloth. Portrait. Price, $1.25. The obvious difficulty of writing within the limits of this volume a sketch of the career of Mr. Gladstone is the superabundance of material. The task is akin to that of a builder having had placed at his disposal materials for a palace, with instructions to erect a cottage residence, leaving out nothing essential to the larger plan. I have been content, keeping this condition in mind, rapidly to sketch, in chronological or

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PRINCE BISMARCK

By CHARLES LOWE, M.A., Author of Alexander III. of Russia, &amp;c. 12mo. Cloth. Portrait. Price, $1.25. This work of Mr. Lowe’s responds fully to the need that has been felt, particularly in this country, for a brief but comprehensive life of Bismarck. It comes to us from an author of acknowledged reputation, who has studied the career of the Iron Chancellor with great care, and undoubtedly possesses knowledge of his subject equal to that of any other person. It is the second biography he ha

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THE GREAT GOD PAN AND THE INMOST LIGHT.

BY ARTHUR MACHEN. KEYNOTES SERIES. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00. A couple of tales by Arthur Machen, presumably an Englishman, published æsthetically in this country by Roberts Brothers. They are horror stories, the horror being of the vague psychologic kind and dependent, in each case, upon a man of science who tries to effect a change in individual personality by an operation upon the brain cells. The implied lesson is that it is dangerous and unwise to seek to probe the mystery separating mind a

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DISCORDS. A Volume of Stories.

By GEORGE EGERTON, author of “Keynotes.” AMERICAN COPYRIGHT EDITION. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00. George Egerton’s new volume entitled “Discords,” a collection of short stories, is more talked about, just now, than any other fiction of the day. The collection is really stories for story-writers. They are precisely the quality which literary folk will wrangle over. Harold Frederic cables from London to the “New York Times” that the book is making a profound impression there. It is published on both

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PRINCE ZALESKI.

BY M. P. SHIEL. Keynotes Series. American Copyright Edition. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00. The three stories by M. P. Shiel, which have just been published in the Keynotes series, make one of the most remarkable books of the time. Prince Zaleski, who figures in each, is a striking character, most artistically and dramatically presented. “The Race of Orven,” the first story, is one of great power, and it were hardly possible to tell it more skilfully. “The Stone of the Edmundsbury Monks” is in somet

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THE WOMAN WHO DID.

BY GRANT ALLEN. Keynotes Series. American Copyright Edition. 16mo. Cloth. Price, $1.00. A very remarkable story, which in a coarser hand than its refined and gifted author could never have been effectively told; for such a hand could not have sustained the purity of motive, nor have portrayed the noble, irreproachable character of Herminia Barton.— Boston Home Journal. “The Woman Who Did” is a remarkable and powerful story. It increases our respect for Mr. Allen’s ability, nor do we feel incline

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