Queen Victoria As I Knew Her by Martin

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QUEEN VICTORIA

QUEEN VICTORIA AS I KNEW HER

SIR THEODORE MARTIN

K.C.B., K.C.V.O.

For Private Circulation

WILLIAM BLACKWOOD AND SONS EDINBURGH AND LONDON MCMI

_All Rights reserved_

_Stifle the throbbing of this haunting pain, And dash this tearful sorrow from the eyes! She is not dead! Though summoned to the skies, Still in our hearts she lives, and there will reign; Still the dear memory will the power retain To teach us where our foremost duty lies, Truth, justice, honour, simple worth to prize, And what our best have been to be again._

_She hath gone hence, to meet the great, the good, The loved ones, yearn'd for through long toilsome years, To share with them the blest beatitude, Where care is not, nor strife, nor wasting fears, Nor cureless ills, nor wrongs to be withstood; Shall thought of this not dry our blinding tears?_

Published in the 'Nineteenth Century,' February 1901.

QUEEN VICTORIA AS I KNEW HER.

CHAPTER I.

My personal introduction to Queen Victoria was due to the circumstance of my being chosen by Her Majesty to be the biographer of the Prince Consort. The obvious difficulties of that task, to which I looked forward with grave apprehension, could not have been successfully overcome but for the personal confidence early reposed in me by the Queen, which led not only to her placing unreservedly at my disposal the very complete collections made by the Prince Consort of confidential State and other papers connected with Her Majesty's reign, but also to the frank communication of such personal details as, while they illustrated the character of the Prince, threw the strongest light upon that of the Queen herself.

After my book was completed, the same confidential relations continued. This gave me such unusual opportunity of observing Her Majesty's qualities of mind and heart, that I am tempted to place on record so much of what I saw as may without impropriety be told. What she was as a Sovereign will be for historians to tell; it is only of the woman as she became revealed to me that I would speak, using, where I may, her own words, as I find them in looking back upon the very voluminous correspondence with which I was honoured through many years. The endearing qualities of the Queen have been acknowledged by all who knew her. They secured for her what might be truly called the affectionate devotion of the men and women of her Court. I belonged to the outer world, but by no one were these qualities more warmly felt than by myself; for to the end, when the work which first brought me into contact with Her Majesty had long been completed, her gracious kindness and trust were vouchsafed to me with a constancy that knew no shade of change.

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