Poictiers, but of the vanity of human pride and ambition. It was the last
seaside holiday which the mother and daughter spent together untrammelled
by State obligations and momentous duties, with none to come between the
two who had been all in all with each other. In their absence a storm of
wind passed over London, and wrought great damage in Kensington Gardens.
About a hundred and thirty of the larger trees were destroyed. In the
forenoon of the 29th of November "a tremendous crash was heard in one of
the plantations near the Black Pond, between Kensington Palace and the
Mount Gate, and on several persons running to the spot twenty-five limes
were found tumbled to the earth by a single blast, their roots reaching
high into the air, with a great quantity of earth and turf adhering, while
deep chasms of several yards in diameter showed the force with which they
had been torn up.... On the Palace Green, Kensington, near the
forcing-garden, two large elms and a very fine sycamore were also laid
prostrate."

In the following summer (1837) the Princess came of age, as princesses do,
at eighteen, and it was meet that the day should be celebrated with, all
honour and gladness. But the rejoicings were damped by the manifestly
failing health of the aged King, then seventy-one years of age. He had been
attacked by hay fever--to which he had been liable every spring at an
earlier period of his life, but the complaint was more formidable in the
case of an old and infirm man, while he still struggled manfully to
transact business and discharge the duties of his position. At the Levee
and Drawing-room of the 21st May he sat while receiving the company. By
the 24th he was confined to his rooms, and the Queen did not leave him.

At six o'clock in the morning the Union Jack was hoisted on the summit of
the old church, Kensington, and on the flagstaff at Palace Green. In the
last instance the national ensign was surmounted by a white silk flag on