Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria — John Stuart Mill — John Shaqi
Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria
John Stuart Mill · en
which the Duchess expressed considerable vexation. Afterwards, when
a Regency Bill was brought forward to provide for the event of the
death of the King while the Princess Victoria was still a minor,
although the right thing was done, and the Duchess was named Regent,
the old feeling of hostility was not removed between herself and the
King and his brothers, and during nearly the whole of William IV.’s
seven years’ reign there were constant bickerings and disputes between
Windsor and Kensington. Matters were made worse by William’s love of
making speeches, in which he set forth, with more vigor than dignity,
his grievances, or what he considered such. Greville says he had a
passion for speechifying, and had a considerable facility in expressing
himself, but that what he said was generally useless or improper. An
instance in point is to be found in the “Life of Archbishop Tait,”
who wrote in his diary, December 4th, 1856, that Dr. Langley told him
that when he did homage to William IV. on his first appointment as
Bishop, no sooner had he risen from his knees than the King suddenly
addressed him in a loud voice thus: “Bishop of Ripon, I charge you, as
you shall answer before Almighty God, that you never by word or deed
give encouragement to those d----d Whigs, who would upset the Church
of England.” Even when proposing the Princess Victoria’s health and
speaking kindly of her, he could not resist the public announcement
that he had not seen so much of her as he could have wished (Aug.,
1836). On another occasion he loudly and publicly expressed to the
Duchess his strong disapprobation of her having appropriated apartments
at Kensington Palace beyond those which had been assigned to her, and
spoke of what she had done as “an unwarrantable liberty.” A still worse
outbreak shortly followed. At his birthday banquet in 1836, in the
presence of a hundred people, with the Duchess of Kent sitting next to
him and the Princess Victoria opposite, he expressed with more vigor
than delicacy the hope that he might live nine months longer, so that
the Princess might attain her majority, and the regency of the Duchess
never come into operation. He referred to the Duchess as “a person
now near me who is surrounded by evil advisers, and who is herself
incompetent to act with propriety in the station in which she would
be placed.” A great deal more in the same style followed; “an awful
philippic,” Greville calls it, “uttered with a loud voice and excited
manner.” The King’s animosity against the Duchess was extended to, and
may perhaps have been provoked by, her brother. He had given offence
by calling on Queen Caroline after the conclusion of the evidence
against her in the House of Lords. He appears himself to have thought
the action required an excuse, and says, “But how abandon entirely the
mother of Princess Charlotte, who, _though she knew her mother well_,
loved her very much?” George IV. was furious, and never forgave his
son-in-law. William IV.