Princess Augusta of Great Britain

“ Footnote 44: The eldest son, the Grand Duke Alexander (1818-1881) , succeeded as Czar Alexander II.
Footnote 45: Lord Seymour (afterwards Duke of Somerset) drafted the Report of the Committee.
Queen Victoria to the Princess of Prussia. [Translation.] Buckingham Palace, 4th March 1855.
Dear Augusta,—The astounding news of the death of your poor uncle the Emperor Nicholas reached us the day before [page 113] yesterday at four o'clock. A few hours previously we had learnt that his condition was hopeless. The news is sudden and most unexpected, and we are naturally very anxious to learn details. ”

“ James’s. The queen was most brilliant in attire; and when she was arrayed, Mr. West233 was allowed to enter the dressing-room, in order to give his opinion of the disposition-of her jewels, which indeed were arranged with great taste and effect.
The three princesses, Princess Royal, Augusta, and Elizabeth, were all very splendidly decorated, and looked beautiful. They are indeed uncommonly handsome, each in their different Way-the princess royal for figure, the Princess Augusta for countenance, and the Princess Elizabeth for face. ”

“ At the date of the Queen's accession, Princess Augusta, a girl of fifteen, was considered old enough to appear with the rest of the royal family at the banquet at Guildhall, and in the other festivities which commemorated the beginning of the new reign. She figures in the various pictures of the Coronation, the Queen's marriage, &c. &c., and won the enthusiastic admiration of Leslie when he went to Cambridge House to take the portraits of the different members of the family for one of his pictures. ”

“ The hereditary Prince was prevailed on to accept Lady Augusta’s hand, with fourscore thousand pounds, an annuity of 5000l. a year on Ireland, and 3000l. a year on Hanover. Fourscore thousand pounds were given with the late Princess Royal414 to the Prince of Orange, but she was a King’s daughter. The Princess Mary415 and Louisa had but forty thousand each.
Lady Augusta was not handsome, but tall enough, and not ill-made; with the German whiteness of hair and complexion, so remarkable in the Royal Family, and with their precipitate, yet thick, Westphalian accent. ”

“ On the failure of the Ducal line of Brunswick, the grandson of Ernest Augustus became heir to their dominions, he and his sons being now the sole male representatives of all the branches of the House of Brunswick, which a few generations ago was one of the most numerous and widely-spread ruling Houses in Germany.1
Footnote 1: Of the daughters of George III., Princess Amelia had died in 1810, and the Queen of Würtemberg in 1828; two married daughters survived—Elizabeth, wife of the Landgrave of Hesse-Homburg, and Mary, who had married her cousin, the Duke of Gloucester, and lived in England. ”

“ In the garden the King met her; she would have fallen at his feet; he prevented and embraced her, and led her into the apartments, where she was received by the Princess of Wales and Lady Augusta: these three princesses only dined with the King. At ten the procession went to chapel, preceded by unmarried daughters of peers, and peeresses in plenty. The new Princess was led by the Duke of York and Prince William; the Archbishop married them; the King talked to her the whole time with great good humour, and the Duke of Cumberland gave her away. She is not tall, nor a beauty; pale, and very thin ”

“ James's, and the Princesses Augusta and Elizabeth came into the apartment. The little monkey, in a fit of renewed lassitude after his cake, had flung himself on the floor, to repose at his ease. He rose, however, upon their appearance, and the sweet Princess Augusta said to the queen, "He has been so good, up-stairs, mamma, that nothing could be better behaved." I could have kissed her for this instinctive kindness, excited by a momentary view of my embarrassment at his little airs and liberties. ”

“ The moment the marriage of the Duke with Lady Augusta Murray was first declared invalid by the ecclesiastical court, Lady Augusta separated from her husband. The latter appears to have borne the separation very philosophically, but he did not marry again during Lady Augusta’s life. In his later days, when his brother, William IV., was King, he married the lady who long survived him under the title of Duchess of Inverness. But a marriage of more importance remains to be noticed. ”

“ Princess Augusta [*] assured us the Queen and themselves never name politics. They say he is so harassed with business they try to draw his mind to trifles—to the farm, the improvements, anything but State affairs. She added: "The Queen is like my good mother—never interferes or even gives any opinion. We may think, we must think, we do think, but we need not speak."
[*] H.R.H. was second daughter of H.M. George III.; born 1768, died 1840.
'Their Majesties are not seen till three o'clock. They breakfast and lunch in their private apartments. ”

“ Princess Augusta, the Queen's cousin, had nearly all the sovereigns of Europe as her suitors thirty years ago: Napoleon mentioned her name in the council where his marriage was decided; none the less she remained single, and, moreover, has become a very pleasant old maid. She was never pretty, but was fresh and bright, with individual points of beauty. Her expression remains kind and attractive. Finally, I made a conquest of Princess Amelia, the King's sister, who writes comedies. She is a witty and imaginative person, and her conversation is lively and sparkling ”

“ There were about fifteen hundred people, but the apartments are large, and there is a very long gallery, so that the crowd did not appear so great. All the young noblemen [101] belonging to the embassy had lilies in their button-holes, and stood on the stairs to present a bouquet to each lady as she came up.
[Towards the end of June, Miss Knight returned to London.]
July 13th.—Dined with Princess Augusta, and afterwards went with her to the Duke of Sussex’s, at Kensington Palace. He gave a dinner to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, and a few people were invited for the evening. ”

“ Before we leave these august personages, let us take one glance at them, as they sit among the audience, "in State." [7]
When their Majesties, with the Prince of Wales, the Princess Royal, and the Princess Augusta, went thus, in state, on October 8, 1783, to see Mrs. Siddons play Isabella, there was much quaint grandeur employed to do them honour. The sovereign and his wife sat under a dome covered with crimson velvet and gold; the heir to the throne sat under another of blue velvet and silver; and the young ladies under a third of blue satin and silver fringe. ”

“ Dear Princess Augusta makes all happy around her.
[On the 13th of August, Miss Knight again left England for Paris, where she remained until the 2nd of October. On that day she started for Germany, and on her arrival at Frankfort, eight days afterwards, received the melancholy news of the death of the Queen-Dowager of Würtemberg, “who expired on Monday, the 6th, at a quarter before two—a dreadful loss to the country where she lived, and to all who knew her.” On the following day, October 11, Miss Knight reached Homburg, and was, as usual, kindly greeted by the Landgrave and Landgravine.] ”

“ Indeed, there are not wanting people who hint that Queen Augusta is not always quite pleased at the manner in which the venerable soldier makes himself agreeable to dames and demoiselles. Certainly the ladies seem to be generally very enthusiastic about his Majesty when they come into acquaintanceship with him, and to the prima donna I have mentioned his kindness and courtesy have been only such as are well worthy of a gentleman and of a king. ”

“ In the month of March something occurred which somewhat moderated the Empress's sufferings. Her daughter-in-law, the Vice-Queen of Italy, gave birth at Milan, on the 17th, to a daughter who was named Josephine Maximilienne Augusta. She it was who was to marry, in 1827, Oscar, Crown Prince and later King of Sweden. "You will hear with pleasure," the Empress wrote Queen Hortense, "of the Princess Augusta's happy delivery. Eugene is delighted with his daughter; his only complaint is that she sleeps too much, so that he can't see her as much as he would like." ”

“ These ladies danced little: but on the other hand, Lady Effingham and Lady Egremont danced much. Then there were the six maids of honour, Lady Bolingbroke—who could not dance because she was in black gloves, and Lady Susan Stewart in attendance upon ‘Lady Augusta.’ The latter was that eldest daughter of Frederick, Prince of Wales, at whose birth there had been such a commotion, and who was commonly called the Lady Augusta, in obedience to her father’s wishes, who was fond of this old-fashioned English style of naming our princesses. ”

“ It should weigh with every man who reads The Four Georges that King George IV. was certainly liked, and was certainly not despised, by Sir Walter Scott. In his later years the old King displayed some little kindness to his niece, the young Princess Victoria, who had succeeded his own daughter as prospective heiress of England. If he saw her but rarely, he now and again betrayed knowledge of her existence, and once took her for a drive in his pony-carriage. ”

“ The Crown Princess, however, went to England at the end of June to be present at the quiet wedding of her favourite sister, Princess Alice, to Prince Louis, afterwards Grand Duke of Hesse. It was solemnised at Osborne on July 1.
On August 14, 1862, a second son, Prince Henry, destined to be Germany’s Sailor Prince, was born. The choice of his name seems to have troubled his grandmother, Queen Augusta. She wrote to her son from Baden: “My dear Fritz, your first letter moved me deeply, because of your affectionate heart, and because of all the particulars it contained about our beloved Vicky. ”

“ The Empress Augusta's long antipathy to him is no secret, and the Chancellor has never had to congratulate himself much on the friendliness of the Crown Prince's and Princess's circle. The ill-will of royal ladies enlists that of many other persons influential in society; but it stands to Bismarck's honor that he has never used newspapers to combat these drawing-room foes. ”

“ Baroness Späth, Lady-in-Waiting to the Duchess of Kent.
[page 19]
The Princess was brought up with exemplary simplicity at Kensington Palace, where her mother had a set of apartments. She was often at Claremont, which belonged to her uncle Leopold, King of the Belgians; holidays were spent at Ramsgate, Tunbridge Wells, Broadstairs, and elsewhere.
WILLIAM IV.
In June 1830 George IV. died, and William IV. succeeded to the Throne. He had no legitimate offspring living; and it consequently became practically certain that if the Princess outlived her uncle she would succeed him on the Throne. ”

“ Your Majesty's favour and protection, afforded to her in this character will probably realise all the expectations of the Grand Duke; and, without acknowledging any positive claim or right, your Majesty would secure the gratitude of the Princess.
Footnote 27: The Princess Mary of Baden had recently married the Marquis of Douglas, eldest son of the Duke of Hamilton. See p. 439. ”

“ She therefore arrived attired in black, the most costly lace covering her beautiful arms and shoulders; but the gentleman who, by the king's orders, was at the station to receive her, expressed his doubts whether the royal and imperial party would not object to so melancholy and mournful an apparel; and on reaching the palace, the artist was kindly invited by the late Princess Charles (sister to the Empress Augusta, and wife of the Emperor's brother) to wear a few gayer-looking things of her own. ”

“ I doubt most of them instead of fearing their compositions should not be understood, should fear they should; they wish they don’t know what, to be read by they don’t know who.”
The next day after the landing of the Princess Augusta came the Prince, and the meeting must have been an exceedingly interesting one to those about them, especially to the populace who loved them both for their amiability, and who cheered themselves hoarse in consequence whenever they caught sight of the pair. ”

“ The turn things have taken remains none the less extraordinary because we have tried to explain it. The Empress Augusta is the leader of the pietistic Junker clique, which, under Frederick William IV., did everything in its power to humiliate her, at a time when she, as Princess of Prussia, lived on the Rhine in a kind of honourable exile, because she was not prepared to humour the romantic visions of her royal brother-in-law. ”

“ Similar criticisms apply to most famous memoirs, like Saint-Simon’s or Lord Hervey’s, written with a view to serving the historian of the future, and with the distinct purpose of giving bias to history.
They do not apply to these diaries of Queen Victoria. The Queen makes no attempt to analyse character or the meaning of events. She never strives after effect. Her statements are just homely descriptions of everyday life and plain references to the people she meets at Kensington or at Windsor. If the young Princess sees a play that pleases her or hears a song that touches her, she says so. ”

“ I think the safest way—excuse my egoism, madam—but if you do me the honour of consulting me, I would beg that it may be addressed to Madame von Beling, my grandmother; she, very certainly, will not lose a moment in putting it into the proper hands."
"What you wish shall be done, my dear child," said the queen, and she added to the despatch:
"This favour has been granted to Queen Augusta by her gracious consort, King William ”