The Express.
London, England, 1861-03-18 00:00:00

(Stamped, ld. Additional.) [TWOPENCE.

March, and that &daughter to the Duke of Clarence
was born and died the next day ; while the present
King of Hanover was born at Berlin in May. But
the Duke and Duchess of Kent desired that their
child should be a native of England, and cambric
in April, 1819, the Princess Victoria being born at
Kensington Palace, on the 24th of the next month.
The year 1819 was full of public distress and dis-
turbance from end to end ' • but it removed all ap-
prehension about heirs of the crown in the next
generation. There was no longer a fear that we
should be governed by a succession of childless old.
men.

For the sake of a mild winter for the infant, the
Duke removed his household to Sidmouth in No-
vember. 011 the 13th of January he took a long
walk with Captain (afterwards Sir John) Conroy,
and both got their feet wet. Captain Conroy en-
treated the Duke to change his boots, but he was
playing with his infant, and delayed too lung. He
was ill at night, in a high fever the next morning,
and died on the 23rd of pulmonary iuflaiumation.
For five nights the Duchess never left his bedside,
and from the second day of the illness she was
supported and aided by Prince Leopold, who
went to her at mire, and relieved her after-
wards of all external cares, till elm was
again settled at Kensington Palace. Hy the
Duke& will, her duty was laid out few the beet
' years of her life. " I do nominate, constitute, and
appoint my beloved wife Victoire, Duchess of Kent,
to be sole guardian of our dear child, the Princess
Alexandrine Victoire, to all intents and for all
purposes whatever." When she received, by depu-
tations, the addresses of condolence uttered by the
two houses of parliament, the infant was in her
arms ; and the study of her life from that day for-
ward was to establish a mutual understanding and
accord between the people of England and the
Princess who would probably stand in the closest
possible relation to them hereafter.
This was a task of extreme and extraordinary
difficulty, owing to the complications and uncer-
tainties of the case. If it is difficult in a case of
presumptive heirship in private life to decide how
to educate a boy, whether for probable
wealth or possible poverty ; it is infinitely
more so when the question is between
the possession of a crown and the dull and aimless
life of a subject Prince—and yet more, Prino.ss.
In the former case it may be said, " Educate your
son thoroughly for the lower career, and he will
do very well in the higher ;" but to reign over a
kingdom requires a training so special as to unfit
the heir to enjoy the private life of princes. For
many years the lot of the Princess was in suspense ;
and seldom has a mother undergone such wear and
tear of anxiety and responsibility as the Duchess of
Kent sustained on this account. The question of
the succession was simplified from time to time :
but it was not till within a few months of her acces-
sion that there was anything like security that the
Princess would ever be Queen of England.
The old King died six days after the Duke of
Kent, and the next thing was a prevalence of
rumours about George IV. gutting a divorce after
all. In " Lurd Eldon's Life" (H. p. 305), we are
shown, by a letter of the Prince Regent's, how
eager he was for this divorce within two months of
his daughter's death. His vehement self-will about
"unshackling himself" brought matters to such a
pass in 1820 that there were few people iu England
who did not fully expect to see Queen Caroline put
away, and the King married again in the course of
the year. There was in fact, a majority of nine in
favour of the Bill (which was one of divorce as well
as degradation) ; but even the King did not venture
to proceed upon this. It was only for a few
months that the matter seemed settled ; for the
Queen died in August of the next year, and the
marriage of the King was repeatedly rumoured,
before popular expectation turned to the royal
brothers. At the end of 1820, another daughter,
who was named Elizabeth, in consideration of her
prospects, was born to the Duke of Clarence, but
the child died in infancy. Iu 1827 the Duke of
York died ; and in 1830, the King.
This ushered in a new period in the function of
the Duchess of Kent. For the first ten years of
her child's life she had lived retired, and had pro-
vided for the physical health and educational train-
ing of the Princess with all simplicity as well as
completeness. All that was known was that the
Princess was met, even on cold and windy days,
dressed and in exercise in good pedestrian style—
crossing a heath perhaps, with her young com-
panions, in thick shoes and stout duffle cloak—or
that she was reared in as much honesty and care
about money matters as any citizen's child. It
became known at Tunbridge-wells that the Princess
had been unable to buy a box at a bazaar,
because she had spent her money. At this
bazaar, she had bought presents for almost
all her relations, and had laid out her last shilling,
when she remembered one cousin more, and saw a
box, priced half-a-crown, which would suit him.
The shop people of course placed the box with the
other purchases; but the little 'ally's governess
admonished them, by saying, " No ; you see the
Princess has not got the money, and therefore, of
course, she cannot buy the box." This being per-
ceived, the next offer was to lay by the box till it
could be purchased ; and the answer was, "0 well,
if you will be so good as to du that " and the
thing was done. On quarter day, before seven in
the morning, the Princess appeared on her G.eakey
to claim her purchase. AlltalOtell like these, ap-
parently small, have large meanings ; and in such
traits people saw promise of the rectitude and ele-
vated economy which have made the mother of
our large royal family respected by the people
whose need and oonveuience she has so admirably
respected.
She was eleven years old when William IV. sent
his first message to parliament, in which there was no
allusion to the appointment of a regency. In case
of his death without such a provision being made,
she would have been sovereign, with full powers at
once, as the minority of a sovereign is not recog-
nised by our laws. There was another consideration
which must have aggravated the anxiety of the
watchful mother—that the next eldest uncle was
the Duke of Cumberland. Little as could be said
about this, the thought was in almost all minds
that the Princess would not be altogether safe in
her seat without the protection of a regency. The
only apparent exceptions were the ministers,
who said a great deal about the excellent health
and probable long life of their master—
an infirm old man of sixty-five. The
danger was allowed to exist till the new
parliament met in November, when • Regency
Bill provided that, in case of no posthumous issue
of the King appearing, in which case the Queen
was to be regent, the Duchess of Kent should be
regent (unites she married a foreigner) till the
Princess Victoria came of age. Still there were
uncertainties. The King might have children, and!
mysterious dangers seemed to impend from the
Duke of Cumberland, the extent of which became I
revealed to the astonished nation in 1835, when • I
committee of inquiry, obtained by Mr. Hume,
brought to light • scheme for setting aside the sue-
cession, which it would be scarcely powible to be-
lieve now, but for the substantial documentary
evidence which remains in our hands. The Orange
leaders had got it into their heads that the Duke
of Wellington meant to seize the crown, and that ;
the right thing to be done in opposition was
to make the Duke of Cumberland king. 1
Letters were produced which proved that
the notion of certain friends and tools
of the future King of Hanover was that it would
be necessary to declare King William insane, and
the Princess disqualified for reigning by being a
minor and a woman. Under the explosion of loyalty
thus caned ou behalf of a good-natured old king
ands fatherless princess, Orangeism and its leader
' promised whatever was required, and disappeared
from public notice. All was safe after 1836 ; but ;
the preceding five years must have been heavily

weighted with care to the guardian of the pre-
sumptive heiress of the throne.
The Primas was now becoming known, more or
less, to her future people. She had not appeared
at the last coronation ; and the plea was that her
health required her residence in the Isle of Wight
at that time, when she was indeed too young for a
scene where she must have filled so oon-
spicuous a station. It was believed, too,
that she had but recently become aware of
her regal destination. But her guardian
perceived that the time had arrived for procuring
for her the advantages of travel, and of intercourse
with superior minds. Iu 1831 began a series of
tours—the first comprehending the oldest of our
cities—Chester, several cathedrals, some noblemen's
seats, and, finally, the University of Oxford. By
degrees she became thus accustomed to the gaze of
a multitude, and the homage of strangers, and for-
malities of processions, addresses, and, generally„
the observances which must occupy a large portion
of her life. At the same time the Duchess adopted
the practice of inviting to Kensington travellers
and voyagera, men of science and other persona
di tiogni4ed in the intellectual world, from whom
the Princess might gather various information more
freshly than from books—an experiment sometimes
fowl rather awkward at the moment by all parties,
but well intended{ and probably of considerable
use. The few years of the preceding reign were in-
dustriously employed.
They were not free from heevyand various cares.
The expenses ci such a method were so great that
the debla of the Duchess became almost as onerous
as those of her husband. Eucroachments were
made which she thought it more politic to yield to
than to resist, and the petitions for subscriptions
for everything, from blind asylums to racing cups,
would have exhausted an income ten times more
royal. The Duchess's reliance (afterwards justi-
fied) was that the Queen would pay the debts in-
curred in her preparation for sovereignty. After
her accession, and when nobly portioned for a
maiden Queen, the dutiful sdkughter paittoff her
father's debts in the first year, in the joint names
of the Duchess and herself, and her mother's in
the next. But there were troubles more wearing
than those of insufficient income. It was a matter
of extreme nicety to claim due observance
for the Princess without insisting on too much ;
and it was inevitable that some parties, and pro-
bable that all, would be displeased. There was the
same danger about the exercise of authority over the
Princess herself ; and a long series of troubles heuoe
arose. The free and easy style of life in the King's
family, where the King and Queen and all the
Fitzclarences disliked formality, and lived very
much like quiet people of other ranks, did not
always suit the notions of the DuCheas of Kent as
to the observance which her daughter's presto°s
should command, and hence coolnesses areas which
could not be concealed from the public. We,
however, have only to bear in mind, in reviewing
the life of the Duchene of Kent, that she had much
to suffer in the discharge of a function by which
the nation has largely benefited. When her task
seemed to beclosed, and she might have hoped to
rest on the result of her labours and her anxieties,
she had some bitter griefs to endure, some few
dreary years to pass before she tasted that repose
which she had so well earned and in which her
latter years were passed.
The day at last dawned for which she had lived
so devotedly for so many years ; and it found her
wakeful and prepared. The early sun was shining
in, that Midsummer morning—it was before five
o'clock on the 20th of June—when the doors
of the palace were thrown open to admit
the Primate, the royal physician, and the Lord
Chamberlain who came to greet the Princess as
Queen. The Dacha's and her daughter were stand-
ing ready for the announoement, and prepared for
the trying transactions of the day. From the day
when Prince Albert entered upon the scene, and,
yet more, from the hour when Sir Robert
Peel assumed Lord Melbourne's place as the
Queen's chief adviser, everything brightened
to the Duchess of Kent. The Queen has never
been more heartily cheered than when, instantly
after the first of Use silly pistol-shots which were at
one time discharged at her by stupid boys to make
themselves famous, she altered the course of her
drive, and went to inform her mother of the
attempt in person, before she could be alarmed by
the rumour of it. That was in 1840. The latter
years of the venerable Duchess have been filled
with interest and with cheerfulness by the arrival
of a long succession of grand children, by their
growth and expansion into promise of various kinds,
and by the early settlemeut in life of the eldest.
At the marriage of the Princess Royal, her grand-
mother was observed to be much altered,
and to be in very delicate health. She had
sustained the shock of her son's death a
year or two before ; and her life had been
on the whole one of wear and tear which rendered it
somewhat surprising that she should have passed
the old three-score years and ten. She accomplished,
with little flagging, the periodical removals to Scot-
land, the Isle of Wight, Windsor, and London,
which were as regularly established for her as for the
court ; and, bodily affliction apart, her old age was
a happy one, many of its hours being passed in her
royal daughter's presence, and many more cheered by
the affectionate attentions of her grandchildren. As
for the people of England, they received her with
manifest respect, wherever she appeared ; and she
must have been almost tired of hearing, for many
years before her death, that that respect was offered
as her due for the bow she had conferred on the
nation in the virtues of her daughter. The same
thing must be told once more, however, though her
ear is now dead to human praise. It must be told
in history.

CHURCH PATRONACIL —Our ooneereatise con-
temporary the Hunting Herald, who usually grows siva
lutionary as his pasty comes within sight of Doming-Meet,
has just printed the following statement, which many
readers will think subversive and highly dangerous :—" This
living of Sutton, in the Isle of Ely, nominally is in the pa-
tronage of the dean and chapter of Ely, but really is in the
absolute gift of one of their number, the Rev. E. B. Sparks,
canon of Ely, registrar of the diocese, rector of Feltwell
(t,7001.), and vicar of Littleport (2,001 N.) Need I say that
this unfortuaate pauper is a son of the renowned Bishop
Spark's' (I may observe, in passing, that this rev. ;enfla-
me, his brother, and his brother-m.l'w, have received •
good deal more than half a million of money out of the
church to preferments alone, irrespective of lands, Imes,
reversions, fie.) This living of Sutton was formerly an-
nexed to the mother church of Ph* ; and the present
the Bev. E. B. Sparke, has Rte ties than fire times
Ctdmtlie pleasure of presenting it to one or other. (He war
appointed canon soon after be was out of his teens.) On
every coomion he appointed a relation of his own or his
wife's; on no one occasion did he present a man who had as
good claims as the maligned Mr. Cheese. The other day
the living fell vacant, and Canon Sparke appointed a young
man (his wife's nephew) whose only otherdium is that he is
• poor's son, and was plucked at Cambridge. The living,
ought to add, is only abaft 1,3001. a year, with a splendid
house and grounds."
INTIANATIONAL EXHIBITION OF 1862. —The
committee formed for the purpose of advising her Eajesty.'s
commissioners as to the period of art to be represented in
the exhibition. met no Saturday in the groat room of the
Society of Arts, in the Adelpbi. There were present the
Marquis of Lanslovrne, Fail Spencer, Earl Staubope, Lord
'hostas, Lord Elcho, H.P., Sir Charles L. kastlaker
P.8.A., C. B. Cotherell, Eni., R.A., Lev. E. Coleridge,
H. T. Hope, Esq., F. Y. Hurlstone, ENT, John Ruskin,
Esq., J. Stern, Esq., W. Stirling. Eaq., hf.P., 'Tom Taylor,
Esq., and W. Well; Esq. A discussion ensued, in which
all present took pork and various periods were suggested for
consideration. The committee meet again on Wednesday
next, at 12 o'clock, for final decision.
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