Victoria

by Anna Kirwan

  Lehzen gave me many, MANY Juvenile Theatre character sheets to paint, as well as scripts for The Casket of Gloriana, also, The Fairy of the Oak, or Harlequin’s Regatta, and Beauty and the Beast (as performed by the Royal Coburg Theatre).

  Stocky gave me a clever bank of cast metal, a soldier that shoots a sixpence or a penny at a bear. The bear’s mouth and the soldier’s jacket are painted red. The soldier reminds me of Charles’s toy soldiers, which have my Papa’s among them as well as his Papa’s. Charles has them with him in Leiningen, I believe. I wish they were only packed away here at Kensington. I should like to play with them sometimes.

  Mamma gave me a v VERY PRETTY Italian wax doll with REAL hair and eyes that can be opened and closed with a little wire on her back that sticks out through her dress, which is pink silk with rosettes. I am not sure what I should name her.

  Mr Westall gave me a watercolour his father brought back from Australia. It is of a sort of marsupial squirrel, v darling and quaint. The picture is in a fine little mahogany frame. I know Mr Westall must treasure his Father’s work, and so I am v moved by this gift.

  I gave Mr Westall three of my best pieces. The sketch of himself is for him to give to his dear sister, who has not been well. The view of Hampstead is for him to keep, because he will be amused when he remembers the day we worked on it. And the painting of Hagar and Ishmael is for him to send to the Bible Society in Auckland. I signed it Princess Victoria delineavit Kensington Palace. That means that I drew it. Mr Westall says the Society will hold a lottery and sell my painting to raise funds for their support. I think that is v clever.

  Later

  Wassailers came a-caroling from Esher, and Uncle had them in and gave them rum punch and lamb’s wool, which is hot, spiced ale and wine frothed up with mashed apples. They sang six-part harmony on some carols.

  We had consommé royale with custard cubes, served up in my Princess Aunt Lottie’s great silver tureen, which I admired. Also, roast goose with chestnut and sausage dressing, as well as roast beef and Yorkshire pudding, and fig cake, and mince pies, and I don’t know what all. I had hazelnuts, sugared and gilded, marzipan pigs, and striped peppermint drops.

  30 December

  Toire and O’Hum went to Bishop Fisher’s at Salisbury to celebrate with their own family.

  14 January 1830

  How strange it is to write the year. I almost had it wrong. That is why that X is there.

  O’Hum and Toire are here again. Their gift to me is a buffalo-hide riding crop that I shall NOT use on Rosa, EVER.

  16 January

  At breakfast this morning, Mamma gave me my Christmas gifts from my Uncle King and from Uncle Billy and Aunt Adelaide.

  Uncle King sent me a fan with mother-of-pearl sticks and a painted silk scene with tiny silver sequins stitched to it. His note says it is for the opera, and he hopes I will think of him.

  Aunt Adelaide and Uncle Billy sent me baby house furniture, just like Feo. But they sent a music room, with a cunning little piano with real ivory keys and a gilded harp.

  Lehzen was v distressed that I could not send them my thank-you letters sooner. But I think Mamma was anxious that Captain Conroy see me open the gifts on his return after Christmas.

  Madame Bourdin said to the Reverend Mr Davys that Captain Conroy advised Mamma not to permit me to open my gifts until he was there. She heard him say it before everyone went home for Christmas. She asked if that is the same as interfering with a message from His Majesty.

  Mr Davys is of a milder temperament than Madame Bourdin. He said Mamma knows what she means to do, and she does so. “And after all … harrumph … Christmas has twelve days.”

  I wanted to say, Christmas has not twenty-two days, though, has it? That is how long I’ve had to wait.

  But I have written my notes now, worded exactly as Mamma and Captain Conroy thought right. Lehzen sent the letters out.

  25 January

  V cold in the rooms out of the sun. The wind is damp in the chimneys and stifles the fires. I was sitting on Mamma’s dressing table bench for Mrs MacLeod to come and do my hair. Lehzen was in the window seat. We had sent for Lutie to put the fire to rights.

  I saw there was a letter that had not burned up, which was caught on the grate, and I honestly did not know if it had been tossed there on purpose, so I took it up and glanced at it. Not meaning to read it, truly, but how could I not when I saw what it was?

  It was from Aunt Adelaide. She counsels Mamma not to take so much advice from Captain Conroy, for he does not know the way things ought to be done, she says. Mamma must let me have other friends besides his family – for I might be a queen in the future!

  That’s all I saw, Feo, but I saw it. I dropped the letter then, and Lutie came and kindled the fire with it.

  But, Feo, I wish my dear aunt would not say such a thing. It must be very painful for her to think so. I could only be queen if Aunt Adelaide has no child, and she probably will. Or if Uncle Cumberland and Georgie and my cousins all were to die first, for my Duke Papa was younger than his brothers, except Uncle Cambridge, I think. Uncle Cambridge is the Governor-General of Hanover, since my Uncle King is Elector but cannot live there and do the governing every day. My cousin George of Cambridge is the same age as Georgie Cumberland and I – I mean, I am in the middle, but we were born the same year. Even supposing I were to rise so high, it would be so far in the future, it scarcely bears thinking of now.

  Aunt Soap says she’s certain, since Uncle Cumberland was in battle, and is “off” sometimes, we owe it to patriotism to be tolerant of him. But I am glad Uncle Billy is older than Uncle Cumberland, and I am glad Aunt Adelaide is a good, young duchess, and will probably have a darling baby soon, and surely a healthy one this time. I do not like to think of Uncle Cumberland as King.

  I am sleepy. There are too many things to think of these days. I said that to Uncle Leopold and he said he understood what I meant by it.

  10 February

  Shall I ever see dear de Spaeth again? It is so unbearable to think one can never be with someone for whom one has such natural affection.

  Indeed, I envy her being with you, Feo.

  16 February

  Uncle Sussex’s birthday. He had a literary evening, which he prefers to a party. He did end up singing Scotch songs at the piano with his children Captain Augustus and Miss d’Este. His voice is quite as splendid as the opera.

  I gave him my drawing of “Cornelia and the Gracchi”, which I did from an etching of an ancient Roman family.

  Uncle was entertained by my sending my Old Testament biblical picture, “Hagar and Ishmael”, to New Zealand. He knows a fellow at the American embassy, who undertakes to get me an autograph from Fenimore Cooper, the author of The Last of the Mohicans. In exchange, I will send Uncle’s friend my painting, “View of the Serpentine in Autumn”. I am v pleased.

  I wish someone would take me to see the wild animal tamer and charmer of deadly cobras that Captain d’Este saw at Astley’s Amphitheatre. It sounds v amusing and informational. An animal trainer must be brave not to be always thinking he may be eaten at any time.

  17 February

  Mamma remarks that my Uncle King’s health lately has been sinking fast. All of us children of his family line must have official guardians voted on by Parliament sometime, I take it. If a grown-up King is too ill to rule, as Grandfather George III was when he was old, there must be a guardian called a Regent to rule for him. And if the next heir is not old enough to rule, there would have to be a Regent the nation could trust.

  According to all Mamma hears, it would be prudent to have my educational progress approved before poor Uncle King grows any worse. That would prove the Kensington System according to which I am being taught is a good one. O’Hum is afraid Uncle King might say Mamma has not taught me in the proper English style. He says His Majesty migh
t take it into his head to put it in his will that Uncle Cumberland should be my guardian, or Uncle Cambridge. They would not do things O’Hum’s way, as Mamma does! Mamma and O’Hum insist she is best to be my Regent. The better to guard my interests in England – that is how she explains it to me. That ought to count for something with His Majesty.

  Oh, fie. I think Mamma is worrying over nothing. Who would take a child from the care of her mother? What stuff!

  Later

  Now I understand. Captain Conroy thinks Mamma should have it in writing, legally binding, that she would be my Regent until I turn eighteen – or twenty-one! I think he expects Parliament will increase her income merely on account of her being named.

  So Mamma is going to devise some examination I will have to endure, to prove the Kensington System is the best way to educate a modern child. I wonder whom she will have to hear me recite my lessons. She says it must be someone more important and impartial than my own instructors, if it is to impress anyone.

  I fear such an examination, Feo. It will be torture to be tested, by strangers, with so much at stake.

  24 February

  I hate Captain Conroy. He is a terrible influence on Mamma, him with his bishop in the family. Mamma has decided my examination will be by the bishops! But of course, not Toire’s great-uncle, old Bishop Fisher, who says whatever one wants to hear and makes himself so friendly and gives one cinnamon lozenges. Mamma is writing to the Bishops of London and of Lincoln, and to Archbishop Howley of Canterbury, inviting them to ask me questions to see if I have studied sufficiently! I am v sorry now for how lazy and slothful I have been with studying my Latin and learning division and multiplication.

  Terrible thought: What if Georgie Cumberland, that awful boy, knows his Latin better than I do? Will the bishops scold me? Is it a sin to answer incorrectly if the bishops have told one to learn something and one forgets? What if they did not tell one directly, but they think one should know it by a certain age? I listen to the sermons every Sunday in church, but one cannot remember all of it. The Bible is a v large book. And so is the History of Great Britain.

  The Bishop of London was with my Papa the morning I was born, and so was Archbishop Howley. Perhaps they will be kind to me for my Papa’s memory’s sake.

  But I do not see why the Reverend Mr Davys cannot report to them what sort of scholar I am. He knows what I have learned and what I am only now learning. He knows about the Kensington System. He knows I work at my lessons every day except the Sabbath. Even when we were on holiday, I did my studying.

  Mr Davys recommended I fortify my fainting heart by reading the Bible story about Daniel in the lion’s den. I did so, and it says Habakkuk made pottage (that means bean soup, I think) and took it to Daniel. I don’t see how that’s supposed to make me feel better.

  Later

  I have been trying to be brave about my examination. But I know I am not sufficiently brave. One thinks of courage as a virtue of the battlefield. I regret that I have already shown myself lacking in this virtue.

  If I had been brave enough to speak to Captain Conroy directly, instead of sending my dear Baroness, perhaps I would have saved Mamma from being hurt and de Spaeth from being banished.

  My conscience is not clear on this matter. I am a mere child, and should not have to govern the behaviour of adults. But I particularly wish not to be a coward. I am a Princess.

  My Mamma is a Duchess who was born a Princess. Captain Conroy does not take orders that he does not like from either of us. Mamma gives him credit for more obedience than he provides. The plain fact is, she obeys him. And if I obey her as I ought, she makes me obey him. That does not seem right.

  It is a problem for which I cannot find the key.

  But I must be brave about being tested. It would be far worse if Uncle Cumberland were to be my guardian.

  28 February

  The Reverend Mr Davys asked if I read Daniel. I said, “Yes.”

  He said, “And what moral has the story?”

  I said, “If one wishes not to be lionized, one should eat a dish of bean pottage?”

  He said he was pretty certain that was not it.

  I ought to stop writing and begin to study my lesson books.

  1 March

  Before the bishops’ questions, the Reverend Mr Davys tells me, we had better do the Monarchs of England: Lancasters, Yorks, and Tudors. We must also discuss William and Mary and the Colonies.

  I said I should like to discuss a question with the bishops that I have in mind about a bit of Scripture. As long as they are listening. (I think I ought to get something for all my trouble, don’t you, Feo?)

  Mr Davys thought they would be charmed to be asked, but he prays me tell him what text I will cite.

  Now I will have to think of a good question.

  2 March

  No good ideas.

  3 March

  Nothing I can ask.

  4 March

  I must come up with something.

  5 March

  Can only think of blockhead questions.

  6 March

  Went to Lambeth Palace, where the Archbishop lives. All the bishops had gathered there. I really do not admire red brick, even when it is aged. Inside, everything is v shining, with lots of wax on the woodwork and brass knobs and so on. One cannot help leaving smudges.

  His Grace the Archbishop Howley seems to be bald. He wears an old-fashioned white wig that leaves his forehead uncovered all the way back to a place about even with the front of his ears. The effect is that his face is like a very large hard-boiled egg with a napkin laid across the top to keep it warm.

  (When I reread what I have written, it sounds as if it is an amusing sight. However, it is not. Foolish though it was, I felt again my childhood horror that His Grace intended somehow to set me afire!) Yet he was not unkind to me.

  The Right Reverend Bishop of London has thick, white hair of his own. He is shaped rather plump, like a hot chocolate pot, but billowy. His Grace the Bishop of Lincoln has wiry umber hair, a moderate amount of it, and piercing, small, dark eyes. He clears his throat every now and then in a most startling fashion that sounds a good deal as if he is growling. He did not smile much all afternoon. (I attempted a smile toward him, but v quickly saw he disapproved of it.)

  Mamma was wearing a dark grey cashmere coat with black fur trim and a visiting suit of heavy grey silk sultana. She looked v beautiful, probably the most beautiful, sad lady widow they ever saw.

  I was wearing a white twill merino frock with blue velvet bows and Swiss buttons. I think it is v infantile, but no one cares for my opinion. And my long, blue pelisse (one of my favourite cloaks), and my fisher-fur muff, but, of course, I took them off once we were inside, out of the cold.

  At first, I think, Their Graces were not certain how to begin. We sat down. The chairs in Archbishop Howley’s study are large and hard, upholstered with dark green plush that is faded to burnt sienna on the sides facing the windows. I wished Mamma would not be there. However, she was.

  They asked me baby questions. Can I say the Lord’s Prayer? Do I know the name of the river that flows through London? What subjects have my Masters been teaching me?

  I said, “Reading, writing, adding, subtracting, drawing, dancing, music, history, geography, Scripture reading, languages, and orthography.” I might as well not have told them the whole list, because all they heard was the last word, and they tested me from the spelling list Lehzen had provided: instrument; regiment; testament; complexion; phlogiston; antediluvian; scurvy; decorum; account; beaux.

  I got all of them right, because, after all, Lehzen had me study them especially. The archbishop asked me if I know what “decorum” means. They did not appear to care whether I know about flood, fire, or disease. Perhaps they think everyone knows what a regiment is and what a complexion
should be.

  I remarked that “beaux” is really a French word, and then they gave me some French spelling to do. London said, “Fleurs-de-lis,” and Lincoln said, “Aiglon.” London said, “Verrière,” and Lincoln said, “Vérité.” I pronounced them in French and said “lily flowers,” “eaglet,” “stained-glass window,” “truth,” and spelled them. His Grace the Archbishop said my accent is v lovely and like Mamma’s.

  Then London said, “How much German do you speak?” And I remembered the Captain always forbidding us to speak German, so I said, “I read it more accurately than I speak it.” Lincoln said, “If it please Your Highness, say something in German,” and I couldn’t think of ANYTHING clever, so I just said, “Kein Blumenkohl, bitte schön,” and translated it, “No cauliflower, pretty please.” That seemed to be enough. At least, London smiled and said, “Let us see what Your Highness knows about the world, then.”

  Remembering tires me. I’ll write more tomorrow.

  7 March

  On with the tale of my ordeal. We did globes for a bit, capitals, northernmost seaports, ice-free harbours, principal products, forms of government. By and by, they began to open my lesson books, history and arithmetic and also Latin, to search for details on which to question me in the chapters Mamma told them I have mastered.