and asking anxiously if the signature was legible.

In this will, which left the Duchess guardian to the child, and appointed
General Wetherall and Captain Conroy trustees of his estate for the
benefit of his widow and daughter, it is noticeable that the name in each
case is given in the French version, "Victoire." Indeed so rare was the
term in England at this date, that it is probable the English equivalent
had scarcely been used before the christening of the Queen.

The Duke died on the following day, the 23rd of January, 1820. Only six
days later, on the 29th, good old King George expired at Windsor. The son
was cut down by violent disease while yet a man in middle life, just after
he had become the head of a little household full of domestic promise, and
with what might still have been a great public career opening out before
him. The father sank in what was, in his case, the merciful decay of age,
after he had been unable for ten years to fulfil the duties and charities
of life, and after surviving his faithful Queen a year. The language of
the official announcement of the physicians was unusually appropriate: "It
has pleased the Almighty to release his Majesty from all further
suffering." To complete the disasters of the royal family this month, the
new King, George IV., who had been labouring under a cold when his father
died, was seized immediately after his proclamation with dangerous
inflammation of the lungs, the illness that had proved fatal to the Duke
of Kent, and could not be present at his brother's or father's funerals;
in fact, he was in a precarious state for some days.

The Duke of Kent was buried, according to the custom of the time, by
torchlight, on the night of the 12th of February, at Windsor. As an
example of the difference which distance made then, it took nearly a
week's dreary travelling to convey the Duke's body from Woolbrook Cottage,