Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen — Volume 1

Sarah Tytler

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• Publié par: pheam
• Publié le: 08 décembre 2010
• Nombre de lectures: 37
• Langue: English

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Life of Her Most
Gracious Majesty the Queen V.1., by Sarah Tytler
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Title: Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen
V.1.Author: Sarah Tytler
Release Date: November, 2004 [EBook #6910]
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Edition: 10
Language: English
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG
EBOOK LIFE OF QUEEN VICTORIA V1 ***
Produced by Arjan Moraal, Juliet Sutherland,
Charles Franks and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team.
LIFE OF HER MOST
GRACIOUS MAJESTYTHE QUEEN
BY SARAH TYTLER EDITED, WITH AN
INTRODUCTION, BY LORD RONALD GOWER,
F.S.A.
IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. I.
Entered according to Act of Parliament of Canada,
in the year Eighteen Hundred and Eighty-five, by
GEORGE VIRTUE, in the office of the Minister of
Agriculture.PREFACE.
I have been asked to write a few words of preface
to this work.
If the life-long friendship of my mother with her
Majesty, which gained for me the honour of often
seeing the Queen, or a deep feeling of loyalty and
affection for our sovereign, which is shared by all
her subjects, be accepted as a qualification, I
gratefully respond to the call, but I feel that no
written words of mine can add value to the
following pages.
Looking over some papers lately, I found the
following note on a sketch which I had accidentally
met with in Windsor Castle—a coloured chalk
drawing, a mere study of one of the Queen's
hands, by Sir David Wilkie, probably made for his
picture now in the corridor of the Castle,
representing the first council of Victoria. Of this
sketch I wrote as follows:—
"I was looking in one of the private rooms at
Windsor Castle at a chalk sketch, by Sir David
Wilkie, of a fair, soft, long-fingered, dimpled hand,
with a graceful wrist attached to a rounded arm.
'Only a woman's hand,' might Swift, had he seen
that sketch, have written below. Only a sketch of a
woman's hand; but what memories that sketch
recalls! How many years ago Wilkie drew it I know
not: that great artist died in the month of June,1841, so that more than forty years have passed,
at least, since he made that drawing. The hand
that limned this work has long ago suffered 'a sea
change.' And the hand which he portrayed? That is
still among the living—still occupied with dispensing
aid and comfort to the suffering and the afflicted,
for the original is that of a Queen, beloved as
widely as her realms extend—the best of
sovereigns, the kindest-hearted of women."
To write the life of Queen Victoria is a task which
many authors might well have felt incompetent to
undertake. To succeed in writing it is an honour of
which any author may well be proud. This honour I
humbly think has been realised in the work of
which these poor lines may form the preface.
RONALD GOWER.CONTENTS
VOL. I.
CHAP.
I. Sixty-Three Years Since.
II. Childhood.
III. Youth.
IV. The Accession.
V. The Proroguing Of Parliament, The Visit To
Guildhall; And The
Coronation.
VI. The Maiden Queen.
VII. The Betrothal.
VIII. The Marriage.
IX. A Royal Pair.
X. Royal Occupations.—An Attempt On The
Queen's Life.
XI. The First Christening.—The Season Of 1841.
XII. Birth Of The Prince Of Wales.—The Afghan
Disasters.—Visit Of The
King Of Prussia.—The Queen's Plantagenet
Ball.
XIII. Fresh Attempts Against The Queen's Life.—
Mendelssohn.—Death Of
The Duc D'Orleans.
XIV. The Queen's First Visit To Scotland.
XV. A Marriage, A Death, And A Birth In The Royal
Family.—A Palace
Home.
XVI. The Condemnation Of The English Duel.—Another Marriage.—The
Queen's Visit To Chateau D'Eu.
XVII. The Queen's Trip To Ostend.—Visits To
Drayton, Chatsworth, And
Belvoir.
XVIII. Allies From Afar.—Death And Absence.—
Birthday Greetings.
XIX. Royal Visitors.—The Birth Of Prince Alfred.—
A Northern Retreat.
XX. Louis Philippe's Visit.—The Opening Of The
Royal Exchange.CHAPTER I. SIXTY-THREE
YEARS SINCE.
The 24th of May, 1819, was a memorable and
happy day for England, though like many such
days, it was little noticed at the time. Sixty-three
years since! Do many of us quite realise what
England was like then; how much it differed from
the England of to-day, even though some of us
have lived as many years? It is worth while
devoting a chapter to an attempt to recall that
England.
A famous novel had for its second heading, "'Tis
sixty years since." That novel—"Waverley"—was
published anonymously just five years before 1819,
and, we need not say, proved an era in literature.
The sixty years behind him to which Walter Scott—
a man of forty-three—looked over his shoulder,
carried him as far back as the landing of Prince
Charlie in Moidart, and the brief romantic campaign
of the '45, with the Jacobite songs which
embalmed it and kept it fresh in Scotch memories.
The wounds dealt at Waterloo still throbbed and
burnt on occasions in 1819. Many a scarred
veteran and limping subaltern continued the heroes
of remote towns and villages, or starred it at Bath
or Tunbridge. The warlike fever, which had so long
raged in the country, even when ruined
manufacturers and starving mechanics werepraying for peace or leading bread-riots, had but
partially abated; because whatever wrong to trade,
and misery to the poor, closed ports and war
prices might have meant, the people still depended
upon their armed defenders, and in the hardest
adversity found the heart to share their triumphs,
to illuminate cities, light bonfires, cheer lustily, and
not grudge parliamentary grants to the country's
protectors. The "Eagle" was caged on his rock in
the ocean, to eat his heart out in less than half-a-
dozen years. Still there was no saying what might
happen, and the sight of a red coat and a sword
remained cheering—especially to soft hearts.
The commercial world was slowly recovering from
its dire distress, but its weavers and mechanics
were blazing up into fierce, futile struggle with the
powers by which masses of the people believed
themselves oppressed. If the men of war had no
longer anything to do abroad, there was great fear
that work might be found for them at home. All
Europe was looking on in the expectation that
England was about to follow the example of
France, and indulge in a revolution on its own
account—not bloodless this time.
Rarely since the wars of the Commonwealth had
high treason been so much in men's mouths as it
was in Great Britain during this and the following
year. Sedition smouldered and burst into flame—
not in one place alone, but at every point of the
compass. The mischief was not confined to a
single class; it prevailed mostly among the starving
operatives, but it also fired minds of quite another