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About half-past one an open carriage drawn by four greys, preceded by two outriders, and followed by an open barouche, drawn by four bays, drove up from her Majesty's mews, Pimlico, and stopped before the grand entrance to the Duchess of Kent's apartments. The Queen, accompanied by the Duchess of Kent and Baroness Lehzen, almost immediately got into the first carriage.
She sat; she walked; she prayed; she carried about an orb that was almost too heavy to hold; the Archbishop of Canterbury came and crushed a ring upon the wrong finger, so that she was ready to cry out with the pain; old Lord Rolle tripped up in his mantle and fell down the steps as he was doing homage; she was taken into a side chapel, where the altar was covered with a table-cloth, sandwiches, and bottles of wine; she perceived Lehzen in an upper box and exchanged a smile with her as she sat, robed and crowned, on the Confessor's throne.
Victoria's governess was for many years the accomplished Baroness Lehzen, who had also been the chief instructress of her sister, Feodore. Until she was twelve years old, her masters were also German, and she is said to have spoken English with a German accent. After that time her teachers, in nearly all branches, were English.
By some, this was attributed to Lehzen's influence; but, if that was so, Lehzen had a willing pupil; for the slightest infringements of the freezing rules of regularity and deference were invariably and immediately visited by the sharp and haughty glances of the Queen. Yet Her Majesty's eyes, crushing as they could be, were less crushing than her mouth.
The voluble, shrewd daughter of the pastor in Hanover, lavishing her devotion on her royal charge, had reaped her reward in an unbounded confidence and a passionate adoration. The girl would have gone through fire for her "PRECIOUS Lehzen," the "best and truest friend," she declared, that she had had since her birth.
She rewarded his past services with liberality: he was given a baronetcy and a pension of L3000 a year; he remained a member of the Duchess's household, but his personal intercourse with the Queen came to an abrupt conclusion. It was clear that these interior changes whatever else they might betoken marked the triumph of one person the Baroness Lehzen.
When she was buying toys at Tunbridge Wells, her wishes outran her little purse, and the box for which she could not pay was not carried away on credit, but set aside for her to fetch away when the next quarter-day would renew her allowance. Fraeulein Lehzen says, 'The duchess wished that when she and the princess drove out, I should sit by her side, and the princess at the back.
On her death, so late as 1870, her old pupil recorded of her, in a passage in the Queen's journal, which is given in the "Life of the Prince Consort," "My dearest, kindest friend, old Lehzen, expired on the 9th quite gently and peaceably.... She knew me from six months old, and from my fifth to my eighteenth year devoted all her care and energies to me with the most wonderful abnegation of self, never even taking one day's holiday.
But sometimes when her mother had to stay at home, she was allowed to go out driving all alone with her dear Feodora and her dear Lehzen, and she could talk and look as she liked, and it was very delightful. The visits to Claremont were frequent enough; but one day, on a special occasion, she paid one of a rarer and more exciting kind.
Had the Prince forgotten the noble aims to which his life was to be devoted? And was he going to allow himself, his wife, his family, his whole existence, to be governed by Baroness Lehzen? The latter consideration was a potent one. Albert had never been accustomed to giving way; and now, more than ever before, it would be humiliating to do so.
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