Childhood at Court, 1819-1914 Read Online Free PDF

health. The Princess was bitterly disappointed. Nothing, she recalled later, could console her – not even her dolls.
    In 1832, shortly after her thirteenth birthday, two important changes took place in the life of the young Princess. She was instructed to keep a diary, which she maintained almost without ceasing until within a few days of her death sixty-eight years later; and she began to undertake extensive travels throughout the country.
    The semi-royal tours, or ‘progresses’, to acquaint her with the country and with her future subjects, were instituted by Conroy. They were arranged without the consent of King William IV, whose entourage at court was predominantly Tory, while that of the Duchess of Kent was mainly Whig. Only too happy to exploit the emotions aroused by the year of the Great Reform Bill, Conroy encouraged citizens to present loyal addresses containing references to the Duchess’s support for the ‘free people’ of England.
    Immediately before the first of these journeys, the Princess was presented with a small leather-backed notebook with mottled covers. The first inscription reads: ‘This Book Mama gave me that I might write the journal of my journey to Wales in it. Victoria, Kensington Palace, July 31st.’ 20 The Princess’s pencil writing is inked over by an adult hand.
    The initial entries were no more than a dry record of events. Meant for the approval of her governess and her mother, they could hardly contain anything that was not strictly factual. The first entry, for Wednesday 1 August 1832, records rather mechanically that
    We left K[ensington] P[alace] at 6 minutes past 7 and went through the Lower-field gate to the right. We went on, & turned to the left by the new road to Regent’s Park. The road & scenery is beautiful. 20 minutes to 9. We have just changed horses at Barnet, a very pretty little town. 21
    Passing through the Midlands, near Birmingham she had her first sight of industrial England:
    We just passed through a town where all coal mines are and you see the fire glimmer at a distance in the engines in many places. The men, women, children, country and houses are all black. . . . The country is very desolate every where; there are coals about, and the grass is quite blasted and black. I just now see an extraordinary building flaming with fire. The country continues black, engines flaming, coals, in abundance, every where, smoking and burning coal heaps, intermingled with wretched huts and carts and little ragged children. 22
    In Wales they visited Anglesey, ‘ dear Plas Newydd’, Caernarvon and Powis Castle. The tour also included three days with the Duke of Devonshire at Chatsworth, and luncheon ‘on splendid gold plate’ with Lord Shrewsbury at Alton Towers. At Oxford they saw the Sheldonian Theatre and the Bodleian Library, where Princess Victoria was shown Queen Elizabeth’s Latin exercise book – ‘when she was of my age (13)’. The journey ended with their return to Kensington Palace on 9 November.
    King William IV was furious, suspecting that the Duchess and Conroy were endeavouring to set up a rival court: the late Duke of Kent had made no secret of his radical sympathies. Distracted by the worries of the Great Reform Bill going through Parliament that year, the publicly impartial but privately Tory King suspected that much harm could be done to the crown. He became ‘so indecent in his wrath’ that those around him feared for his sanity. When the Duchess of Kent and Princess Victoria visited the Isle of Wight in the summer of 1833, he was so angered by the ‘continual popping in the shape of salutes’ to his sister-in-law and niece that he ordered that in future the Royal Standard should be saluted only when the King or Queen was on board.
    Now into her teens, the Princess’s education expanded accordingly. Her tutor filled the whole morning with lessons, including more history and natural philosophy. Science lessons included lectures on alchemy and