NEW SIDELIGHT ON QUEEN VICTORIA.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 18091, 26 February 1927, Page 9

NEW SIDELIGHT ON QUEEN VICTORIA .

LETTERS DISCOVERED BY THE DEAN OF WINDSOR. (Special to the “Star ”) LONDON, December 18. “I know’ of no letters, published or unpublished, which reveal Queen \ ictoria so intimately as these." In these words the Dean Oi mdsor describes the correspondence he has discovered between his aunt, Lady Augusta Stanley, and his mother. Lady Frances Baillie, during the years in which Lady Augusta was so intimately associated with the - Queen. Ever since he inherited them, the Dean has been in possession of a mass of Victorian letters so formidable that he only had the courage to tackle them a few months ago. He then found a series of letters, of no fewer than 600,000 words, containing the intimate impressions of such dramatic occasions as:—

The Prince Consort’s death. The Queen's visit to France, and Her early life at Balmoral.

“New Ccacoptian.” Most vital of all are the letters describing the years of Queen V ictoria a retirement as a widow at Windsor, when Lady A.ugusta was the most inti* mate of the Queen’s Ladies. She was indeed in the room during the tragic scene of the Prince Consort’s death.

To a ‘Daily Chronicle” representative the Dean said: “Neither the more sober historians nor those who have chosen the different view of Mr Strachey have revealed Queen Victoria as she appears in this correspondence, through which I have read during the past few months. “Lady Augusta Stanley, daughter of my grandfather, Lord Elgin, who saved the marbles of the Pantheon, was for 20 years in close attendance on the Duchess of Kent and the Queen, until she left the Court to marry Dean Stanley, of Westminster. “This correspondence has given me a new and enlarged conception of Queen Victoria and her era, ot which we are only awakening to a full appreciation.” “Most Unnecessarily.” An interesting sidelight on Queen Victoria’s attitude to the approaching marriage of Lady Augusta and Dean Stanley is given in her own letters, published recently. Writing from Windsor Castle on November 12, 1863. to the King of the Belgians, she says: You will be sorry to hear of two things—first, that I fear the King of Prussia is again molesting poor Fritz, and. secondly that my dear Lady Augusta, at 41, without a previous long attachment, has, most unnecessarily, decided to marry (! !) that certainly most distinguished and excellent man, Dr Stanley! ! It has been my greatest sorrow and trial since my misfortune! I thought she never would leave me 1 She seems, however, to think that she can by his guidance be of more use than before even. She will remain in my service, and be often with me, but it cannot be the same, for her first duty is now to another! “I am poorly and weak,” she add*, “and the days hang heavy on my broken heart.”