When Victoria came to the throne, it is understood that some bigoted Tories inclined towards a plot for raising the cry of “No Popery!” as excuse for giving the Crown to Ernest, Duke of Cumberland, who, without question, succeeded to Hanover. This bigoted and bitter-tongued Prince was the most unpopular of the whole family, so that, on William’s death, the Duke of Wellington advised him to clear out of England as fast as possible, “and take care you don’t get pelted.” He offended his mother by marrying a divorced princess, on whom the moral Queen looked coldly; the scandal-loving Charles Greville reports that one of Her Majesty’s latest seizures was brought on by her wrath when she heard how the Duchesses of Cumberland and Cambridge had embraced each other in Kew Gardens. Ernest was by no means a fool, and seems to have had a good deal of character and courage, but also a perfect itch for rubbing people’s sore points. In his German kingdom he ruled with a high hand, getting his own way more easily than in England, and playing the bully not only with those who opposed him, but with his subservient courtiers, as appears in the reminiscences of his chaplain, Mr. Wilkinson. The hatred for him in London had come out at the time of a mysterious tragedy enacted (1810) in his apartments at St. James’s, when the Duke was found bleeding from several sword cuts, and in an adjoining room, locked inside, his Piedmontese valet, Sellis, lay dead with his throat cut. The coroner’s jury gave a verdict that Sellis had committed suicide after trying to assassinate his master; but many were inclined to believe that the murder had been “the other way on”; and an unfortunate printer went to prison for publishing such suspicions. A generation later, heads were again shaken over a strange robbery of the registers from Kew Church: men whispered the name of one illustrious parishioner who might have an interest in hiding some record of his youth. Nothing seemed too bad to be believed of this Prince, whose ambition to reign over us, if attained, would probably have turned the kingdom into a republic. [Illustration: WILD HYACINTHS]