Sketch of the Princess Charlotte—Her Love for her Mother—Anecdotes—Her
Happy Girlhood—Her Marriage with Prince Leopold—Her Beautiful Life at
Claremont—Baron Stockmar, the Coburg Mentor—Death of the Princess
Charlotte.

It seems to me that the life of Queen Victoria cannot well be told without a prefacing sketch of her cousin, the Princess Charlotte, who, had she lived, would have been her Queen, and who was in many respects her prototype. It is certain, I think, that Charlotte Augusta of Wales, that lovely miracle-flower of a loveless marriage, blooming into a noble and gracious womanhood, amid the petty strifes and disgraceful intrigues of a corrupt Court, by her virtues and graces, by her high spirit and frank and fearless character, prepared the way in the loyal hearts of the British people, for the fair young kinswoman, who, twenty-one years after her own sad death, reigned in her stead.

Through all the bright life of the Princess Charlotte—from her beautiful childhood to her no less beautiful maturity—the English people had regarded her proudly and lovingly as their sovereign, who was to be; they had patience with the melancholy madness of the poor old King, her grandfather, and with the scandalous irregularities of the Prince Regent, her father, in looking forward to happier and better things under a good woman's reign; and after all those fair hopes had been coffined with her, and buried in darkness and silence, their hearts naturally turned to the royal little girl, who might possibly fill the place left so drearily vacant. England had always been happy and prosperous under Queens, and a Queen, please God, they would yet have.

The Princess Charlotte was the only child of the marriage of the Prince Regent, afterwards George IV., with the Princess Caroline of Brunswick, Her childhood was overshadowed by the hopeless estrangement of her parents. She seems to have especially loved her mother, and by the courage and independence she displayed in her championship of that good- hearted but most eccentric and imprudent woman, endeared herself to the English people, who equally admired her pluck and her filial piety—on the maternal side. They took a fond delight in relating stories of rebellion against her august papa, and even against her awful grandmamma, Queen Charlotte. They told how once, when a mere slip of a girl, being forbidden to pay her usual visit to her poor mother, she insisted on going, and on the Queen undertaking to detain her by force, resisted, struggling right valiantly, and after damaging and setting comically awry the royal mob-cap, broke away, ran out of the palace, sprang into a hackney-coach, and promising the driver a guinea, was soon at her mother's house and in her mother's arms. There is another—a Court version of this hackney-coach story—which states that it was not the Queen, but the Prince Regent that the Princess ran away from—so that there could have been no assault on a mob-cap. But the common people of that day preferred the version I have given, as more piquant, especially as old Queen Charlotte was known to be the most solemnly grand of grandmammas, and a personage of such prodigious dignity that it was popularly supposed that only Kings and Queens, with their crowns actually on their heads, were permitted to sit in her presence.

As a young girl, the Princess Charlotte was by no means without faults of temper and manner. She was at times self-willed, passionate, capricious, and imperious, though ordinarily good-humored, kindly, and sympathetic. A Court lady of the time, speaking of her, says: "She is very clever, but at present has the manners of a hoyden school-girl. She talked all sorts of nonsense to me, but can put on dignity when she chooses." This writer also relates that the royal little lady loved to shock her attendants by running to fetch for herself articles she required—her hat, a book, or a chair—and that one summer, when she stayed at a country-house, she would even run to open the gate to visitors, curtsying to them like a country lassie. The Earl of Albemarle, who was her playmate in childhood, his grandmother being her governess, relates that one time when they had the Prince Regent to lunch, the chop came up spoiled, and it was found that Her Royal Highness had descended into the kitchen, and, to the dismay of the cook, insisted on broiling it. Albemarle adds that he, boy-like, taunted her with her culinary failure, saying: "You would make a pretty Queen, wouldn't you?" At another time, some years later, she came in her carriage to make a morning-call at his grandmother's, and seeing a crowd gathered before the door, attracted by the royal liveries, she ran out a back-way, came round, and mingled with the curious throng unrecognized, and as eager to see the Princess as any of them.

Not being allowed the society of her mother, and that of her father not being considered wholesome for her, the Princess was early advised and urged to take a companion and counsellor in the shape of a husband. The Prince of Orange, afterwards King of the Netherlands, was fixed upon as a good parti by her royal relatives, and he came courting to the English Court. But the Princess did hot altogether fancy this aspirant, so, after her independent fashion, she declined the alliance, and "the young man went away sorrowing."

One of the ladies of the Princess used to tell how for a few minutes after the Prince had called to make his sad adieux, she hoped that Her Royal Highness had relented because she walked thoughtfully to the window to see the last of him as he descended the palace steps and sprang into his carriage, looking very grand in his red uniform, with a tuft of green feathers in his hat. But when the Princess turned away with a gay laugh, saying, "How like a radish he looks," she knew that all was over. It is an odd little coincidence, that a later Prince of Orange, afterwards King of the Netherlands, had the same bad luck as a suitor to the Princess or Queen Victoria.

Charlotte's next lover, Leopold, of Saxe-Coburg, an amiable and able Prince, was more fortunate. He won the light but constant heart of the Princess, inspiring her not only with tender love, but with profound respect. Her high spirit and imperious will were soon tamed to his firm but gentle hand; she herself became more gentle and reasonable, content to rule the kingdom of his heart at least, by her womanly charms, rather than by the power of her regal name and lofty position. This royal love- marriage took place in May, 1816, and soon after the Prince and Princess, who had little taste for Court gaieties, went to live at Claremont, the beautiful country residence now occupied by the young Duke of Albany, a namesake of Prince Leopold. Here the young couple lived a life of much domestic privacy and simplicity, practicing themselves in habits of study, methodical application to business, and wise economy. They were always together, spending happy hours in work and recreation, passing from law and politics to music and sketching, from the study of the British Constitution to horticulture. The Princess especially delighted in gardening, in watering with her own hands her favorite plants.

This happy pair had an invaluable aid and ally in the learned Baron Stockmar, early attached to Prince Leopold as private physician, a rare, good man on whom they both leaned much, as afterwards did Victoria and Albert and their children. Indeed the Baron seems to have been a permanent pillar for princes to lean upon. From youth to old age he was to two or three royal households the chief "guide, philosopher, and friend"—a Coburg mentor, a Guelphic oracle.

So these royal lovers of Claremont lived tranquilly on, winning the love and respect of all about them, and growing dearer and dearer to each other till the end came, the sudden death of the young wife and mother,— an event which, on a sad day in November, 1817, plunged the whole realm into mourning. The grief of the people, even those farthest removed from the Court, was real, intense, almost personal and passionate. It was a double tragedy, for the child too was dead. The accounts of the last moments of the Princess are exceedingly touching. When told that her baby boy was not living, she said: "I am grieved, for myself, for the English people, but O, above all, I feel it for my dear husband!" Taking an opportunity when the Prince was away from her bedside, she asked if she too must die. The physician did not directly reply, but said, "Pray be calm."

"I know what that means," she replied, then added, "Tell it to my husband,—tell it with caution and tenderness, and be sure to say to him, from me, that I am still the happiest wife in England."

It seems, according to the Queen, that it was Stockmar that took this last message to the Prince, who lacked the fortitude to remain by the bedside of his dying wife—that it was Stockmar who held her hand till it grew pulseless and cold, till the light faded from her sweet blue eyes as her great life and her great love passed forever from the earth. Yet it seems that through a mystery of transmigration, that light and life and love were destined soon to be reincarnated in a baby cousin, born in May, 1819, called at first "the little May-flower," and through her earliest years watched and tended as a frail and delicate blossom of hope.