GIBING AT KINGS

Evening Star, Issue 19724, 26 November 1927, Page 17

GIBING AT KINGS

GREVILLE DIARY EXTRACTS DID EMPEROR WOO VICTORIA 7 Diarists are not always entirely reliable (says the Sydney ‘Sun’), as they, no less than the historian, bring to their commentaries on current facts their personal lilies _ and dislikes. lu fact, the writer of a scandalous diary in which the secrets of Courts, Cabinets, Kings, Queens, and others are disclosed, must usually be taken with a grain of salt. The ‘ Greville Diary ’ is not new. The edition now under discussion is interesting because many suppressions mad© on behalf of highly-placed folk then alive are now added, and the full venom, or accuracy—the reader may take Ins choice —of the diarist is discovered. The author certainly was in the position to know things, being in constant and personal touch with the folk whose doings ho set down in this work—a work presumably no more intended lor contemporary publication than that of the still greater diarist Pepys, and this being so, there is a certain assumption of his good faith. The most' interesting portions of the diary are, of course, those which deal with Queen Victoria, whom he apparently did not like, and who certainly was not fond of him. We get a petty little gossip incident like this:— TRAPPING JDAMES.

The Prince Consort' and Queen . . . had suspected a certain footman of giving information to the newspapers, and they laid a trap to discover if their suspicions were correct. At dinner, when this man was waiting, they said they were going somewhere, when they had no idea of going, and the next day they found this project announced in a paper. So then they were sure of the culprit, and dismissed him. Nothing could be more ridiculous. _ It hardly measures up to one s idea of Kingly and Queenly dignity, but it is .splendidly natural. It was natural, too, that the “ horror of Queen \ ictoria surpassed the resources of language ” at the edition, expurgated, as it was, which stirred England in 1874; “a scurrilous journal,” she called it— 1 “very offensive and disloyal towards the Sovereigns he served.” Greville, of course, wrote as a very great patrician of an ancient lino of folk whom ho regarded as a litU© bourgeois. “King William IV., ho writes, “if ho had been bora in a private station, would have passed through life unobserved like millions of other men, looked upon as possessing a good-natured and affectionate disposition, but without either elevation ot mind or brightness of intellect, . . Ho resided at Bushey with Airs Jordan, and brought up his many children with very tender affection; with them ana for them, ho seemed entirely to live. The cause of his separation from Mrs Jordan has not been explained, but it probably arose from his desire to hotter Ins condition by a good marriage, and lie wanted to marry Miss Wykeham, a half-crazy woman of largo fortune on whom ho afterwards conlcrrcd a peerage.” KINDLY TO WILLIAM. “Never,” goes on the genial diarist, “was elevation like that of King William IV. His life had been passed in obscurity and neglect, in miserable poverty, surrounded by a numerous progeny of bastards-, without consideration of friends, and he was ridiculous from his grotesque ways } and little meddling curiosity. . . . Princess Victoria was a snoiv, vulgar-looking child upon her 'hrst appearance at a drawing room. The tale of how the Queen manoeuvred Palmerston’s dismissal is full of conviction. And how ho hit back. Prince Albert was the whipping boy. The Press, urged by Palmerston, gave the “ angel husband” a very bad time. Most extraordinary rumors went abroad: — “It was currently reported in midland and northern counties, and actually stated in a Scottish paper, that Prince Albert had been committed to the Tower, and there were people found credulous and foolish enough to believe it. It only shows how much malignity there is amongst the masses, which a profligate and impudent mendacity can stir up.” HE KNEW WOMEN. Even Queens cannot resist flattery. On August 21, 1855. the diarist tells of the Queen’s visit to Pans. “ Clarendon says that tho Queen was delighted with everything, and especially with the Emperor himself, who, with perfect knowledge of woman, had taken the surest way to ingratiate himself with her, by making love to her. This, it seems, he bep-an when he was in England, and followed it up in Paris. As his attentions tickled her vanity without shocking or alarming her modesty, and the novelty of it (for she never had any love made to her before) made it very pleasant, his success was complete. After her visit the Queen talked it all over with Clarendon, and said: ‘lt is very odd, but the Emperor knows everything I. have done and where I have been since 1 was twelve years old; he oven recollects how I was dressed, and a thousand little details it is extraordinary ho should be acquainted with.’ ‘Le Coquin! thought I,’ said Clarendon to me. He lias evidently been making love to her.” Greville had a good word for the Prince Consort, whom he, describes as “ very intelligent and highly cultivated.” and “with a thoughtful mind.” “The Princess Royal is very clever, strong in body and mind; the Prince of Wales weaker and more timid, and the Queen says he is a stupid boy, but the hereditary and unfailing antipathy of sovereigns to their heir-apparent seems this early to be taking root, and the Queen does not much like the child.” . But, after all, her severity was only for his good, for we read; HIS MOTHER’S LETTER. “London. November 4, 1858: I hear the Queen has written a letter to the Prince of Wales announcing to him his emancipation from parental authority and control, and that it is one of the most admirable letters she has ever penned. She tells him that he may have thought the rule they adopted for his education was a sc. rc one, but that his welfare was their only object, and well knowing to what seductions of flattery he would eventually be exposed, they wished to prepare and strengthen his mind against them, that he was now to consider himself his own master, and that they would never intrude any advice upon him, though always ready to give it when he thought fit to seek it. It was a very long letter, all in that tone, and it seems to have made a profound impression on the Prince, and to have touched_ his feelings to the quick. He brought it to Gerald Wellesley in floods of tears, and the effect it produced is a_ proof of the wisdom which dictated its composition.”