CHAPTER V.

King William jealous of Public Honors to Victoria--Anecdote--The unusual
Studies of the Princess--Her Visits to the Isle of Wight--Laughable
Incident at Wentworth House--Anecdote related by her Music-teacher--
Unwholesome adulation of the Princess--Reflections upon the curious
isolation of her Social Position--Extract from one of her later Letters.


The indifference of the Duchess of Kent to the heavy pomps and heavier
gayeties of his Court so offended his unmajestic Majesty, that he finally
became decidedly inimical to the Duchess. Though he insisted on seeing
the little Princess often, he did not like the English people to see too
much of her, or to pay her and her mother too much honor. He objected to
their little journeys, calling them "royal progresses," and by a special
order put a stop to the "poppings," in the way of salutes, to the vessel
which bore them to and from the Isle of Wight--a small piece of state-
business for a King and his Council to be engaged in. The King's
unpopular brother, the Duke of Cumberland, was also supposed to be
unfriendly to the widow of a brother whom he had not loved, and to the
child whom, according to that brother, he regarded from the first as an
"intruder," and who certainly at the last, stood between His Royal
Grossness and the throne--the throne which would have gone down under
him. Yet, in spite of enmity and opposition from high quarters, and
jealousy and harsh criticism from Court ministers and minions, the
Duchess of Kent, who seems to have been a woman of immense firmness and
resolution, kept on her way, rearing her daughter as she thought best,
coming and going as she felt inclined.

Victoria's governess was for many years the accomplished Baroness Lehzen,