The Captive of Kensington Palace

Chapter XXII AN IMPORTANT WEDNESDAY IN MAY

At the beginning of May the King’s health deteriorated rapidly. At a public luncheon he was seen to be very ill and looked as though he were about to faint. The Queen was at hand and managed to guide him through the meal and afterwards he did actually faint.

‘You must rest from all functions for a few days,’ she told him; and he was feeling so ill that he allowed himself to be persuaded.

The Duchess was delighted when she heard the news. ‘Not long now,’ she told Sir John, but Sir John, still smarting from that public rebuff, was inclined to be morbid. What Victoria would be like when she reached her majority he was not at all sure. There had been so many signs of rebellion lately. They had kept her almost a prisoner for eighteen years but in doing so they had failed to win her confidence. They should have dismissed that doting Lehzen with her stern ideas of duty and her caraway seeds. Victoria clearly regarded her as the one person in the Palace whom she could trust.

Leopold was keeping her in leading strings but they had to stretch too far across the Channel to be as effective as they might have been. Leopold was the first to realise this and as the great moment was coming nearer and nearer he decided to send Baron Stockmar to England to report on the situation there and guide Victoria.

Stockmar arrived at Kensington Palace to be warmly welcomed by Victoria because he brought letters and messages from Uncle Leopold and in these letters she read that she must love and trust Stockmar for Leopold’s sake.

This she was very ready to do. She had a new idol; she listened to everything he said; she was certain of his wisdom. If he was not Uncle Leopold he was the next best thing.

‘Baron Stockmar,’ she wrote in her Journal, ‘is one of the few people who tell plain, honest truth, don’t flatter and give wholesome and necessary advice, and strive to do good and smooth all dissensions. He is Uncle Leopold’s greatest and most confidential attaché and disinterested friend, and I hope he is the same to me, at least I feel so towards him.’

When she had written that she thought of Lehzen who would read her Journal and think of all the years that they had been together. She wanted Lehzen to know that there would never be another friend for her like her dear Baroness so she added: ‘Lehzen being of course the greatest friend I have.’

Stockmar was delighted with his pupil. Her frank acceptance of him, her innocent belief in him because Uncle Leopold had sent him, and afterwards because she sensed his great qualities, pleased him.

He wrote back to Leopold of his enthusiasm for her. She was bright and intelligent. She was above all aware of her inexperience and eager to learn.

‘England will grow great and famous under her rule,’ prophesied Stockmar.

So during those weeks which she felt to be so momentous Victoria was relieved to have Baron Stockmar close at hand.

At last came that Wednesday in May of the year 1837 which was Victoria’s eighteenth birthday.‘How old!’ she wrote in her Journal. ‘And yet I am far from being what I should be. I shall from this day take the firm resolution to study with renewed assiduity to keep my attention always fixed on whatever I am about and to strive to become every day less trifling and more fit for what, if Heaven wills, I’m some day to be.’

It was a solemn time, waking in the familiar bedroom and thinking: I am now of age. I am no longer a child. Everything will be different from now on.

But first there was a birthday – the most important of them all – to be celebrated. To her delight she suddenly heard the sound of singing beneath her window; and she recognised the voice of George Rodwell, the Musical director of Covent Garden, who had composed a special piece of music for her birthday. She leaned out of the window and clapped her applause.

Lehzen said it was a very pleasant compliment and it was time she dressed.

The presents were laid out on her table and she eagerly examined them and thanked everyone; and the gift which delighted her most perhaps, because it showed that however angry the King might be with her mother he had an affection for her, was the beautiful grand piano which was delivered with His Majesty’s affection and best wishes.

‘Oh, it is beautiful … beautiful!’ she cried; while the Duchess looked at the piano as though it were some loathsome monster.

But Victoria thought: She cannot forbid me to accept it or to play it. She cannot forbid me to do anything now!

It was an intoxicating thought. Freedom! There was no gift quite as desirable as that.

She was realising how important she was. The heiress to the throne and of age!

During the morning the City of London sent a deputation to congratulate the Princess on coming of age. Victoria received it with her mother standing by her side and when she was about to thank them, the Duchess laid a restraining hand on her arm and herself addressed them.

She told them that she, a woman without a husband, had brought up her daughter single-handed and she had never once swerved from her duty nor forgotten the great destiny which awaited the Princess. When her husband had died she had been left alone, not speaking the language, almost penniless with such a great task ahead of her. This she had not shirked …

Oh, Mamma, Victoria wanted to scream. Be silent.

In the afternoon Victoria and the Duchess, with Lehzen, drove through the streets and everywhere the flags were flying in her honour. The day had been declared a public holiday and people thronged the streets, and when her carriage passed a great cheer went up.

And later she went to St James’s for the state ball. She was terrified of how the King would behave towards her mother and she towards him; but in her heart she believed that now that she was of age everything was going to be different.

She was very sorry to learn that the King was unable to attend because he was so ill; and that the Queen was not well enough to come either. Her aunt, the Princess Augusta, received them and she consoled herself that at least there would be no unpleasantness.

She could give herself up to the pleasures of the ball. How delightful to dance to heavenly music. The first dance was with the Duke of Norfolk’s grandson and he danced with great skill and told her she looked beautiful.

There were many other dances and it was a wonderful ball; and when she entered her carriage to return to Kensington the people had come into the courtyard to cheer her.

A wonderful birthday, an amusing ball, but she knew it was more than that. It was the beginning of a new life.