Queen Victoria | Page 5

again, even on the supposition that he divorced his
wife and re-married, become the father of a family. Besides the Duke
of Kent, who must be noticed separately, the other brothers, in order of
seniority, were the Dukes of York, Clarence, Cumberland, Sussex, and
Cambridge; their situations and prospects require a brief description.
The Duke of York, whose escapades in times past with Mrs. Clarke and
the army had brought him into trouble, now divided his life between
London and a large, extravagantly ordered and extremely
uncomfortable country house where he occupied himself with racing,
whist, and improper stories. He was remarkable among the princes for
one reason: he was the only one of them--so we are informed by a
highly competent observer--who had the feelings of a gentleman. He
had been long married to the Princess Royal of Prussia, a lady who
rarely went to bed and was perpetually surrounded by vast numbers of
dogs, parrots, and monkeys. They had no children. The Duke of
Clarence had lived for many years in complete obscurity with Mrs.
Jordan, the actress, in Bushey Park. By her he had had a large family of
sons and daughters, and had appeared, in effect to be married to her,
when he suddenly separated from her and offered to marry Miss
Wykeham, a crazy woman of large fortune, who, however, would have
nothing to say to him. Shortly afterwards Mrs. Jordan died in distressed
circumstances in Paris. The Duke of Cumberland was probably the
most unpopular man in England. Hideously ugly, with a distorted eye,
he was bad-tempered and vindictive in private, a violent reactionary in
politics, and was subsequently suspected of murdering his valet and of
having carried on an amorous intrigue of an extremely scandalous kind.
He had lately married a German Princess, but there were as yet no
children by the marriage. The Duke of Sussex had mildly literary tastes
and collected books. He had married Lady Augusta Murray, by whom
he had two children, but the marriage, under the Royal Marriages Act,
was declared void. On Lady Augusta's death, he married Lady Cecilia
Buggin; she changed her name to Underwood, but this marriage also

was void. Of the Duke of Cambridge, the youngest of the brothers, not
very much was known. He lived in Hanover, wore a blonde wig,
chattered and fidgeted a great deal, and was unmarried.
Besides his seven sons, George III had five surviving daughters. Of
these, two--the Queen of Wurtemberg and the Duchess of
Gloucester--were married and childless. The three unmarried
princesses--Augusta, Elizabeth, and Sophia--were all over forty.
III
The fourth son of George III was Edward, Duke of Kent. He was now
fifty years of age--a tall, stout, vigorous man, highly-coloured, with
bushy eyebrows, a bald top to his head, and what hair he had carefully
dyed a glossy black. His dress was extremely neat, and in his whole
appearance there was a rigidity which did not belie his character. He
had spent his early life in the army--at Gibraltar, in Canada, in the West
Indies--and, under the influence of military training, had become at first
a disciplinarian and at last a martinet. In 1802, having been sent to
Gibraltar to restore order in a mutinous garrison, he was recalled for
undue severity, and his active career had come to an end. Since then he
had spent his life regulating his domestic arrangements with great
exactitude, busying himself with the affairs of his numerous dependents,
designing clocks, and struggling to restore order to his finances, for, in
spite of his being, as someone said who knew him well "regle comme
du papier a musique," and in spite of an income of L24,000 a year, he
was hopelessly in debt. He had quarrelled with most of his brothers,
particularly with the Prince Regent, and it was only natural that he
should have joined the political Opposition and become a pillar of the
Whigs.
What his political opinions may actually have been is open to doubt; it
has often been asserted that he was a Liberal, or even a Radical; and, if
we are to believe Robert Owen, he was a necessitarian Socialist. His
relations with Owen--the shrewd, gullible, high-minded, wrong-headed,
illustrious and preposterous father of Socialism and Co-operation--were
curious and characteristic. He talked of visiting the Mills at New
Lanark, he did, in fact, preside at one of Owen's public meetings; he
corresponded with him on confidential terms, and he even (so Owen
assures us) returned, after his death, from "the sphere of spirits" to give
encouragement to the Owenites on earth. "In an especial manner," says

Owen, "I have to name the very anxious feelings of the spirit of his
Royal Highness the Late Duke of Kent (who early informed me that
there were no titles in the