Page:Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria (IA lifeofhermajesty01fawc).pdf/133

 to her husband. Greville says that one day at Buckingham Palace he proposed to Prince Albert to take a walk with him in the streets. It has already been mentioned why the Prince never went anywhere unattended, and the same reason rendered it undesirable that he should be unaccompanied except by the King of Hanover. He therefore excused himself, saying they would be inconvenienced by the crowd of people. The King replied, "Oh, never mind that. I was still more unpopular than you are now, and I used to walk about the streets with perfect impunity." This little pleasantry was pointed by the fact that a feeling of antagonism against Prince Albert was growing up in certain sections of the community, which a few years later reached quite serious dimensions.

It may be mentioned here that the Queen has all through her life shown herself remarkably free from feeling implacable resentment even against those whose conduct she has at various times most strongly condemned, or against whom she may have been prejudiced. This characteristic, which will be illustrated later by her relations with Lord Palmerston, Lord Beaconsfield, Louis Philippe, and others, was demonstrated now by her magnanimity to her uncle Ernest, King of Hanover. He had plotted against her; had made things uncomfortable for her mother and herself before her accession; had refused, what she particularly valued, to yield precedence to her husband; had, in a dog-in-the-manger spirit, declined, after he became King of Hanover, to give up apartments in St. James's Palace which were wanted for the Duchess of Kent; in short, had lost no opportunity of showing himself unfriendly and disagreeable; yet when her third child was born, Princess Alice, on April 25th, 1843, she invited this uncle, who was a personification of the wicked uncle of fairy tales, to be the new baby's godfather.