Childhood at Court, 1819-1914 by John Van der Kiste Read Free Book Online Page A

Duchess of Kent, who had given her daughter ‘maternal nourishment’ supported his argument, but she would not be swayed. It has been suggested that her main influence in the matter was that of Lehzen, who told her of the old wives’ tale prevalent in Germany that hereditary taints were passed on through the mother’s milk. 5 Breast-feeding was considered unusual for a lady at the time of the Queen’s accession, but by the 1840s manuals on childcare were recommending the practice, and it became popular among the aristocracy.
    King Leopold had correctly predicted that the Princess Royal would be the first of several children in the royal nurseries, and told his niece so. She did not welcome the prospect:
    I think, dearest Uncle, you cannot really wish me to be the ‘Mamma d’une nombreuse famille,’ for I think you will see with me the great inconvenience a large family would be to us all, and particularly to the country, independent of the hardship and inconvenience to myself; men never think, at least seldom think, what a hard task it is for us women to go through this very often . 6
    To her sometimes ill-concealed fury the Queen discovered, about the time of the christening, that she was ‘in for it’ again. Her first pregnancy had been comparatively easy, but the summer of 1841 was a difficult one, not least because of the fall of the government and the resignation of her beloved mentor Lord Melbourne. His successor, Robert Peel, was particularly admired by Prince Albert – who was at pains to keep the crown above party politics – but at first the Queen treated him with hostility.
    Prince Albert was very protective of his daughter, or ‘Pussy’ as her parents affectionately called her for the first few years of her life. Before her birth he had asked Queen Adelaide why her little girls had died in infancy. The Queen Dowager told him that they had been weak from the start, slow to gain weight, and uninterested in their food. He watched cautiously for similar signs in the Princess Royal, and was relieved that she appeared to thrive at first. He was equally apprehensive that she might be killed in a carriage accident. Having seen a young Coburg cousin killed by a bolting horse, and mindful of the bad state of English roads, his fear of accidents bordered on the obsessive. When the court went to Windsor for Christmas, he held his month-old baby in his arms himself, warning the coachman repeatedly to watch out for ice or pot-holes on the journey.
    He adored his daughter and visited her several times in the day, oblivious to stony looks from the nurses and gentle teasing from the Queen. ‘I think you would be amused to see Albert dancing her in his arms,’ she wrote to King Leopold (5 January 1841); ‘he makes a capital nurse (which I do not, and she is much too heavy for me to carry), and she always seems so happy to go with him.’ 7
    The inner circle at court who saw the Princess Royal could testify that she was thriving. Outside, people were less certain. The Queen’s Lady of the Bedchamber, Sarah, Lady Lyttelton, was alarmed at (and partly convinced by) the spate of rumours sweeping London – that the baby heir to the throne was blind, deaf, dumb, an imbecile, or deformed. As nobody outside the family and household ever saw her, public imagination was bound to run riot. Not until she strolled through the grounds of Windsor Castle one summer day did she come across a baby being taken out in her pram. The little blue-eyed girl, ‘absurdly like the Queen’, was evidently a fine child in every way. Lady Lyttelton suggested that she should be seen by the public. She was therefore taken for regular rides in the carriage, clapping her tiny hands and chuckling as the crowds pressed close, captivated by the chubby figure in white muslin dress and Quaker bonnet. Lady Lyttelton remarked with amusement that before long she would have seen every pair of teeth in the kingdom.
    Unfortunately, after a few months the