[Illustration: HER MAJESTY THE QUEEN. _From a Photograph by Mr. Walery, London_] THE LIFE AND TIMES OF QUEEN VICTORIA. BY ROBERT WILSON. Illustrated. VOL. I. [Illustration] CASSELL & COMPANY, LIMITED: _LONDON, PARIS & MELBOURNE_. [ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.] EDITORIAL NOTE. The first Eleven Chapters of this Work are from the pen of the late MR. EDMUND OLLIER, to whom the Publishers originally entrusted the commission to write it--a commission which he was compelled to resign by the illness which terminated in his lamented death. CONTENTS. CHAPTER I. EARLY YEARS OF THE PRINCESS VICTORIA. PAGE A Remarkable Visit to Kensington Palace--Death of King William IV.--Details of his Last Days--Parliamentary Eulogies on his Character--Progress in the Last Half-Century--Ancestry of Queen Victoria--Her Descent Traced to Odoacer, King of Italy--Saxon Ancestors of her Majesty--Liberal Views of the Duke of Kent, Father of the Queen--State of the Succession after the Death of the Princess Charlotte--Marriage of the Duke of Kent, and Birth of the Princess Victoria--Christening at Kensington Palace--The Name “Victoria,” and its Associations--Death of the Duke of Kent--Kensington Palace in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries--Early Training of Victoria by her Mother--Child-Life of the Princess--False Rumours of Ill-Health--Anecdotes of Juvenile Years--The Princess and George IV.--Accession of William IV.--The Regency Bill--Prince Leopold and the Throne of Belgium--Studies of the Princess--Her Life of Retirement--Home Tours in Various Parts of England--Visit to the Cotton Mills of the Messrs. Strutt at Belper--Reception at Oxford and at Southampton--Benevolence to an Actress--Her Royal Highness Declared of Age on the 24th of May, 1837 1 CHAPTER II. EARLY EVENTS OF THE NEW REIGN.