The Duchess, her mother, seems to
have given her all needful change of air and scene, though always
maintaining; habits of study, and an admirable system of mental and moral
training; for the child's constitution seems to have strengthened year by
year, and in spite of one or two serious attacks of illness, the
foundation was laid of the robust health which, accompanied by rare
courage and nerve, has since so marked and blessed her life. A writer of
the time speaks of a visit paid by her and her mother to Windsor in 1829,
when the child was about seven years old, and states that George IV., her
"Uncle King," was delighted with her "charming manners."
It was about this visit that her maternal grandmamma at Coburg wrote to
her mamma: "I see by the English papers that Her Royal Highness the
Duchess of Kent went on Virginia water with His Majesty. The little
monkey must have pleased and amused him, she is such a pretty, clever
child."
To think of the great Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, and
Empress of India, being called "a little monkey"! Grandmammas will take
such liberties. Three or four years later, according to that spicy and
irreverent chronicler, Charles Greville, the little Princess was not
pretty.
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