The Empress Frederick: a memoir. Anonymous
Still, a good deal of the rough humour lavished on the Princess was kindly in its intention, though sometimes there was a sting in the tail. For instance, Melbourne, the Prime Minister, was shown as nurse, proudly presenting the Princess Royal to John Bull: “I hope the caudle is to your liking, Mr. Bull. It must be quite a treat, for you have not had any for a long time.” John Bull replies: “Well, to tell you the truth, Mother Melbourne, I think the caudle the best of it, for I had hoped for a boy.”
Melbourne’s fatherly devotion to the Queen was indeed a piece of luck for the caricaturists of the day. A cartoon entitled “Old Servants in New Characters” shows him dressed as a nurse with the infant Princess in his care; she is sitting in a tiny carriage, with Lord John Russell as outrider.
It was arranged that the christening should take place in London on February 10, the anniversary of the Queen’s marriage, the infant receiving the names of Victoria Adelaide Mary Louise. Even the christening of the Princess Royal inspired a long satirical poem. One verse ran:
“This is the Bishop, so bold and intrepid,
A-making the water so nice and so tepid,
To christen the Baby, who’s stated, no doubt,
Her objection to taking it ‘cold without.’”
The sponsors were Prince Albert’s brother, the Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (represented in his absence by the Duke of Wellington), the King of the Belgians, the Queen Dowager (Adelaide), the Duchess of Gloucester, the Duchess of Kent, and the Duke of Sussex. Lord Melbourne remarked of the Princess to the Queen next day: “How she looked about her, quite conscious that the stir was all about herself! This is the time the character is formed!” The Prime Minister would have agreed with Stockmar’s view that a man’s education (and presumably also a woman’s) begins with the first day of life.
Prince Albert sent a vivid account of the ceremony to the venerable Dowager Duchess of Gotha:
“The christening went off very well. Your little great-grandchild behaved with great propriety, and like a Christian. She was awake, but did not cry at all, and seemed to crow with immense satisfaction at the lights and brilliant uniforms, for she is very intelligent and observing. The ceremony took place at half-past six P. M., and after it there was a dinner, and then we had some instrumental music. The health of the little one was drunk with great enthusiasm. The little girl bears the Saxon Arms in the middle of the English, which looks very pretty.”
The Princess Royal, like her brothers and sisters, led an ideal childhood. All through her later life she often referred to the unclouded happiness of these early years, and it comes out equally clearly in the published correspondence of her sister, Princess Alice. In this matter both Prince Albert and Queen Victoria were in advance of their time, and the Prince, especially, perceived, what was not then at all generally believed, that children could be made happy without being spoiled.
Perhaps the most sensible decision of the parents was that the Royal children should come in contact as little as possible with the actual life of the Court. Not that the tone of the Court was bad; on the contrary, it was singularly high, but the Queen and Prince Albert knew the subtle danger of even innocent petting and flattery on young and impressionable minds.
So it was that the Royal children had very little to do with the Queen’s ladies-in-waiting—indeed they were only seen by them for a few moments after dinner at dessert, or when driving out with their parents. The Queen and the Prince entrusted the care of their sons and daughters exclusively to persons who possessed their whole confidence, and with whom they could be in constant direct communication. Both were kept regularly informed of the minutest details of what was being done for their children, and as the princesses grew older they had an English, a French, and a German governess, who were, in their turn, responsible to a lady superintendent.
It has been the custom of late to speak as if the children of Queen Victoria had been over-educated and over-stimulated. This was at least partly true of their infancy, but if they had been really over-educated, they would not have turned out as well as they did later, nor would they have all delighted in looking back with fond reminiscence to their earliest years.
The Princess Royal was soon recognised by all those about her as intellectually the flower of the happy little flock. She was clever, self-willed, and high-spirited; learning everything that was put before her with marvellous intelligence and rapidity. Her dearest friend and companion was her sister, the sweet-natured, pensive Princess Alice, who was next in age, after the Prince of Wales, to herself. The two lived for some years a life which was exactly alike. They shared the same lessons, the same amusements, the same interests; both had a strong love of art and of drawing; both were, if anything, over-sensitively alive to the claims of duty and of patriotism.
Naturally the most detailed and accurate impression of the Princess Royal’s childhood is to be derived from the correspondence of Sarah Lady Lyttelton, who was appointed Governess to the Royal children in April 1842.
This lady, who was then approaching her fifty-fifth birthday, was the daughter of the second Earl Spencer, and sister of that Lord Althorp who was a member of Lord Grey’s Reform Ministry, and who played a notable part in politics rather by his strength of character than by any commanding ability. Lady Sarah married the third Lord Lyttelton in 1813. It is interesting to recall that her son, afterwards the fourth Lord Lyttelton, married Mrs. Gladstone’s sister, Miss Glynne. Sarah Lady Lyttelton was widowed in 1837 after a singularly happy married life, and soon afterwards Queen Victoria appointed her a lady-in-waiting.
When, some four years later, she was given the responsible post of Governess to the Royal children, she was already very well known to the Queen and the Prince Consort, as well as to their closest adviser. Lord Melbourne, for instance, heartily approved the appointment, declaring that no other person so well qualified could have been selected.
The picture of the Princess Royal which her guardian draws in these letters is one of an extraordinarily winning though precocious child, and if it seems to modern judgment that the precocity was rather too much stimulated, it must be remembered that we are back in the ‘forties, when a scientific study of the psychology of infants was not dreamed of. Moreover, it is abundantly evident that the little Princess had such a way with her, “so innocent arch, so cunning simple,” that it must have required no ordinary resolution to avoid spoiling her, while even the most scientific modern expert would probably have found it very hard to draw the line between over-stimulation and proper encouragement of her remarkable intelligence.
Lady Lyttelton had her first glimpse of the Princess Royal in July 1841. She describes her as a fine, fat, firm, fair, Royal-looking baby, “too absurdly like the Queen.” Her look was grave, calm, and penetrating, and she surveyed the whole company most composedly. She was shown at her carriage window to the populace; and Lady Lyttelton, noting the universal grin in all faces, declares that the baby will soon have seen every set of teeth in the kingdom!
Some months later she records that “the dear Babekin is really going to be quite beautiful. Such large smiling soft blue eyes, and quite a handsome nose, and the prettiest mouth.” The child early acquired the appropriate pet name of “Pussy,” while she herself, finding Lady Lyttelton’s name too large a mouthful, simplified it to “Laddle.”
It may be here recorded that an absurd rumour had been circulated that the Princess Royal had been born blind, and it was this and other foolish gossip which first induced the Queen, at the suggestion of Prince Albert, to issue an official Court Circular, which has been continued ever since.
The Queen had the baby constantly with her, and thought incessantly about her, with the result that the child was perhaps rather over-watched and over-doctored. She was fed on asses’ milk, arrow-root, and chicken broth, which were measured out so carefully that Lady Lyttelton fancied she left off hungry. Lady Lyttelton, indeed, had some experience of this dieting craze, for her brother, Lord Althorp, at one time, when he had a terror of getting fat, used to weigh out his own breakfast every morning, and when he had consumed the tiny allowance used to hasten out of the room lest he should be led into temptation!
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