well, for she will be the Queen of England.” It must be remembered, however, that at this time there was no certainty that the children of the Duke and Duchess of Clarence would not survive the perils of infancy; moreover, if the Duke of Kent had lived to have a son, the boy would have become the heir in preference to his sister. The Duke’s strongly marked feeling of fatherly pride and affection is almost the only trait in his character by which we are able at this distance of time to conjure him up out of the mists of bygone years.[1] This feeling was soon to receive a melancholy illustration. The Duke and Duchess, with their baby daughter, removed from Kensington to Sidmouth to spend the winter of 1819-20. Returning home on a January day, with boots wet with snow, the Duke caught a severe chill from playing with his baby, instead of changing his boots.[2] The illness developed into acute pneumonia, of which he died in January, 1820, leaving his wife a stranger in a strange land, hardly able to speak the English language, sole guardian of England’s future Queen. The Duchess of Kent must have been a woman of considerable strength of character and power of will. She was in an extremely lonely and difficult position. Pecuniarily, her chief legacy from her husband consisted of his debts, which the allowance made then by Parliament was not sufficiently ample to enable her to pay. Her brother, then Prince Leopold, widower of Princess Charlotte, and afterwards King of the Belgians, supplemented her income from his own purse. The Duchess and her children (she had two by her first marriage) were frequently his guests at Claremont and elsewhere, and the Queen speaks of these visits as the happiest periods of her childhood. After a few years the death of the children of the Duke and Duchess of Clarence made it practically certain that the Princess Victoria would become Queen. The Court of George IV. was not one which the Duchess of Kent could frequent with any satisfaction; she was on bad terms with him, and he often threatened to take her child away from her. His character made him quite capable of doing this; he was equally heartless and despotic. Matters were not greatly improved as to personal relations between the Sovereign and herself when William IV. became King; the Princess Victoria did not even attend his coronation. There was a strong feeling of antagonism between the Duchess of Kent and William IV., which occasionally broke out into very unseemly manifestations, especially on the King’s side. His was not a character which could claim respect, and still less evoke enthusiasm. As Duke of Clarence, he had lived for more than twenty years with Mrs. Jordan, the actress, by whom he had ten sons and daughters. His affection for them showed the best side of his character. He did not disown them; they bore the name of Fitz Clarence, and as soon as he was able he provided liberally for them. Greville says that his sons, with one exception,