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Life of Her Most Gracious Majesty the Queen — Volume 1 by Sarah Tytler
page 48 of 346 (13%)

At three o'clock the party walked in procession to the great saloon
adjoining the vestibule, in which a temporary altar had been fitted up. The
bride was given away by the Duke of Clarence. The ceremony was performed in
the simple Lutheran fashion by a simple Lutheran pastor, Dr. Kuper, "the
chaplain of the Royal German Chapel."

Then came the parting, and the quiet palace-home was stiller and shadier
than ever, when the gracious maidenly presence had gone, when the opening
rose was plucked from the parent stem, and only the bud left.

In 1830 George IV. died, and William, Duke of Clarence, succeeded to the
throne as King William IV. That summer was the last of the Princess's
ignorance of her prospects; until then not even the shadow of a throne had
been projected across the sunshiny path of the happy girl of eleven. She
was with her mother in one of the fairest scenes in England--Malvern. The
little town with its old Priory among the Worcester hills, looks down on
the plain of Worcester, the field of a great English battle.

A dim recollection of the Duchess and the Princess is still preserved at
Malvern--how pleasant and kind they were to all, how good to the poor; how
the future Queen rode on a donkey like any other young girl at
Malvern--like poor Marie Antoinette in the forest glades of Compiegne and
Fontainebleau half a century earlier, when she was only four years older,
although already Dauphiness of France. The shadowy records do not tell us
much more; we are left to form our own conclusions whether the Queen
anticipated her later ascents of Scotch and Swiss mountains by juvenile
scrambles amongst the Worcester hills; whether she stood on the top of the
Worcester or Hereford Beacon; or whether these were considered too
dangerous and masculine exploits for a princess of tender years, growing up
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