Queen regent

“ Therefore, while replying to the remonstrances of the king of France, Queen Mary, and the queen regent with the same emphatic expression of his desire for ‘the quietness of the realm,’ and with the assurance that if the queen regent would accede to the reasonable demands of the reformers, he would do his utmost to support her authority, Lord James was doing his utmost to obtain the help of Elizabeth to expel the French from Scotland, and thus leave the queen regent without the only support that could maintain her in power. ”

“ She granted concessions to the inhabitants of Oléron (to women as to men) even down to the reign of John (1 John; see “Rymer’s Fœdera”) . Edward III. found his Queen Philippa a Queen Regent worthy of himself. Henry V. appointed his mother as Regent in his absence, and even Henry VIII., when he went abroad on his last French War, left his Queen, Catherine Parr, Governor of the Kingdom. I have gone through their correspondence in the Public Record Office, and it bears ample testimony to her capability and his trust in her judgment. ”

“ The experience of protectorates, they said, had been uniformly unfortunate, and should the queen die leaving an heir, Philip should be regent of the realm during the minority; if obliged to be absent on the Continent, he might himself nominate his deputy; [431] and so long as it should be his pleasure to remain in England, his person should be under the protection of the laws of high treason.
Taking courage from the apparent disposition of the House, the friends of the court proposed that, should the queen die childless, the crown should devolve absolutely upon him for his life. ”

“ No doubt his activity was founded on conscientiousness, for many able men of the period were to be found who were by no means violent partisans, yet who were ready to maintain that, according to the constitutional law, the right of exercising the power of regent in the case of incapacity on the part of the reigning sovereign rested in the next heir, the Prince of Wales.103 There is as little doubt as to the Queen’s having looked with considerable disfavour on all who held such sentiments. ”

“ The parent of the infant sovereign, Prince Albert, was appointed Regent, with the cordial approval of the nation; the dissent of the Queen's uncle, the Duke of Sussex who, with a very misplaced ambition, urged instead the appointment of a Council of Regency, of which he hoped to become the most influential member, only serving to make the unanimity of the rest of the Parliament more conspicuous. ”

“ In this disagreeable dilemma, it was resolved by the cabal to send the Queen to a convent, until her favourite had been arrested and imprisoned; to declare the Prince of Asturias Regent during the King's illness (His Majesty then still suffered from several paralytic strokes) , and to place men of talents and patriotism in the place of the creatures of the Prince of Peace. As soon as this revolution was organized, the Queen would have been restored to full liberty and to that respect due to her rank. ”

“ In May, 1729, his Majesty declared his intentions of visiting his German dominions, and leaving the Queen as Regent. His design in going to Germany was to compromise some differences that had lately arisen between the Regency of Hanover and the King of Prussia; and about this time the Duke of Mecklenburgh was deposed by the Emperor, for his cruelty, tyranny, and oppression. By the fall of Emperors and Kings it is that we learn the Omnipotence of the Almighty, whose arm strengthens and supports the crown of the righteous and takes away the kingdom from unjust Princes. ”

“ The Queen, the Prince Regent, and the Lord Chancellor took sweet counsel together on the subject, and their unanimous opinion was that Mademoiselle must still continue in statu pupillari, at all events until she came of age. The young lady was rebellious, but the higher authorities were too strong for her, and, with many sighs, she had to give in, and accept the inevitable in the shape of the Duchess of Leeds as governess. ”

“ The partizans of Opposition are, however, still circulating, with great industry, the idea that the Prince of Wales has positively declared his resolution not to accept the Regency under any restrictions whatever. I take this, however, to be nothing more than a bully, intended to influence votes in the House of Commons. If, however, he should be so desperate, I should hope there would be every [Pg 41] reason to believe that the Queen would be induced to take the Regency, in order to prevent the King's hands from being fettered for the remainder of his life. ”

“ The ambition of the queen and her family alarmed the princes and the nobility: Gloucester, Buckingham, Hastings, and many more had checked those attempts. The next step was to secure the regency: but none of these acts could be done without grievous provocation to the queen. As soon as her son should come of age, she might regain her power and the means of revenge. ”

“ One would almost say that the conspicuous success of that union, the blessing that it brought with it to the nation, had set a new fashion to royalty. There is quite a romantic charm about the first marriage which broke the royal home-circle of England—that of the Queen's eldest child and namesake, Victoria, Princess Royal, with Prince Frederick William, eldest son of the then Prince of Prussia, whose exaltation to the imperial throne of Germany lay dimly and afar—if not altogether undreamed of by some prophetic spirits—in the future. ”

“ The Queen now unwillingly undertook the regency, a task imposed on her by her late husband. For awhile she administered the laws, and guided public measures, with a wise and impartial spirit: but at length wearied with groundless animadversions, she grew timid of her own counsels, and gladly transferred the{10} reins of government into the hands of cardinal Henry. ”

“ The queen replied, 'He must be so noble that all men shall worship him, so great that I shall never think I have made him king, so rich that none shall ever say I enriched him, so beautiful that the angels of God shall desire to behold him. If ye can find such a prince, he shall be my husband and the lord of my heart.' Now, near the queen's palace there lived a poor old hermit in a cave, and that very night the holy Mother of God appeared to him, and told him the King who should be lord of the queen's heart was none other than her Son. ”

“ Old Sabel was on the spot before the earliest church-bell had begun to toll. The rifle-king’s crown-treasury could afford to appoint her hereditary mistress of the kitchen, under Lenette, for a kreuzer or two and a plate or so of victuals; but the queen looked upon her as a superfluity and coadjutor, or auxiliary queen. A king on the chessboard gets two queens whenever a mere ordinary pawn gets moved on to the place of royalty, one of the royal squares (though he has not lost his first consort) ; and indeed it is just the same when it happens under the canopy of a throne. ”

“ To throw down one's glove before a man was to challenge him to a combat. At the coronation of Queen Elizabeth, as of many other sovereigns of England, the "Queen's champion," a knight in full armor, rode into the great hall and threw down his glove, crying, "If there be any manner of man that will say and maintain that our sovereign Lady, Queen Elizabeth, is not the rightful and undoubted inheritrix to the imperial crown of this realm of England, I say he lieth like a false traitor, and therefore I cast him my gage." ”

“ And so, as the great Victorian epoch rolls away into the deep shadow of the past, the Empire rests as it were on a rainbow-edge between the storm and sunshine, grief and hope,—grief for the Monarch that was, hope for the Monarch that is. One invaluable influence Edward VII brings with him to the Throne in his Queen-Consort, the “sea-king’s daughter from over the sea,” whom we all love and admire with a boundless love and admiration. Never has there been a more exquisite woman than the beautiful Princess whom we now55 call Queen Alexandra ”

“ It is enough to state that the secret unhappiness of the Queen at not yet having the assurance of an heir was by no means weakened by the impatience of the people, nor by the accouchement of the Comtesse d’Artois of the Duc d’Angouleme. While the Queen continued the intimacy, and even held her parties at the apartments of the Duchess that she might watch over her friend, even in this triumph over herself, the poissardes grossly insulted her in her misfortune, and coarsely called on her to give heirs to the throne! ”

“ It was the mask she was compelled to wear at Court at the old King’s command. Her nature was the reverse of haughty, yet the artificiality of palace life made it necessary for the Crown Princess to be as unapproachable as the Queen herself. ”

“ Resignation, abdication, and regency are words openly pronounced. The young King is despised, and the young Queen is not popular or the Dowager Queen either. In short, their position is quite precarious. ”

“ The Commons, in presenting him on his accession with the usual grant of tonnage and poundage, took the liberty to add their desire that he would "take to wife and consort the Princess Elizabeth, which marriage they hoped God would bless with a progeny of the race of kings," (de stirpe regum [50] , the united race, perhaps, is meant) . But it was not until a pretender to the throne had shaken the regal authority to its base, that, eighteen months after his [Pg 49] marriage, he prepared for the coronation of his queen. ”

“ During those troublous times, when some men's hearts were failing them for fear, and some men's were madly panting for the fray, asking nothing better than to see the Lion of England pitted against the Bear of Russia, the Prince was in some quarters most violently and viciously assailed, as a designing, dangerous "influence behind the throne"—treacherous to England, and so to England's Queen. ”

“ If the coronation of a king, important as he held it to be, proceeded from the sovereign will, à fortiori it must be so with that of a queen- [Pg 318] consort. The rights of the queen-consort did not proceed from any coronation; they flowed from her relationship to the sovereign. Her rights were complete and absolute without any coronation. Nor was it essential to the people, for the queen-consort occupied no political station. This view of the right was strengthened by the important preamble of William and Mary, which settled the coronation oath. ”

“ The king frowned, and his wrathful look encountered the friendly and submissive countenance of the earl. “You know I hate these covert attacks,” said he. “If you can tax the queen with any crime, well now, do so. If you cannot, hold your peace!”
“The queen is a noble and virtuous lady,” said the earl, “only she sometimes permits herself to be led away by her magnanimous spirit. Or how, your majesty, can it possibly be with your permission that my lady the queen maintains a correspondence with Anne Askew?” ”

“ In her honour there was a grand new throne erected at Buckingham Palace, a gorgeous affair of crimson velvet, gold lace, gold fringe and ropes and tassels. Merrily the young Queen tried it, and with a gay laugh exclaimed, "It is quite perfect! I never sat on a more comfortable throne in my life!"
One of the things which Victoria most enjoyed was dealing with cases where stern military discipline should have been used, as in the case of a court martial which was presented to her by the Duke of Wellington to be signed. ”

“ In the first place, years must elapse before the “Infanta-Queen,” as the little princess was called, would be able to bear an heir to the throne, and should Louis XV. die without male issue, their enemy, the Duc de Chartres, would become King. In the second, should the [333] Infanta succeed in gaining any influence over the young monarch’s mind, that influence would certainly be exploited by Philip V. to bring about the dismissal of Monsieur le Duc and the elevation of the Orléans. ”

“ The only person who was not quite happy was the King's brother, the heir presumptive, who would have been king one day had the baby not been born. But as his majesty was very kind to him, and even rather sorry for him—insomuch that at the Queen's request he gave him a dukedom almost as big as a county—the Crown-Prince, as he was called, tried to seem pleased also ”

“ The expedients proposed instead of the Bill of Exclusion in this parliament, were that the whole government, upon the death of Charles II., should be vested in a regent, the Princess of Orange, and if she died without issue, then the Princess Anne should be regent. But if James, Duke of York, should have a son educated a Protestant, then the regency should last no longer than his minority, and that the regent should govern in the name of the father while he lived ”

“ The Council of Regency which began to sit as soon as the Queen died, acted like a council of the Holy Office. Whoever looked on the face of the nation saw everything quiet; not one of those symptoms appearing which must have shown themselves more or less at that moment if in reality there had been any measures taken during the former reign to defeat the Protestant succession. His Majesty ascended the throne with as little contradiction and as little trouble as ever a son succeeded a father in the possession of a private patrimony. ”

“ It was a noble spectacle to behold a young Queen, at a time when scarce a monarch in Europe was secure on his throne, setting out with her illustrious consort and family to make a royal progress through her dominions, and selecting for the first place of her visit the island which had so recently raised the standard of rebellion against her government, and for the next the city which had first in the empire responded to the cry of treason raised in Paris, on the overthrow of the throne of Louis Philippe. ”