Page:Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria (IA lifeofhermajesty01fawc).pdf/30

22 the Princess Victoria was still a minor, although the right thing was done, and the Duchess was named Regent, the old feeling of hostility was not removed between herself and the King and his brothers, and during nearly the whole of William IV.'s seven years' reign there were constant bickerings and disputes between Windsor and Kensington. Matters were made worse by William's love of making speeches, in which he set forth, with more vigor than dignity, his grievances, or what he considered such. Greville says he had a passion for speechifying, and had a considerable facility in expressing himself, but that what he said was generally useless or improper. An instance in point is to be found in the "Life of Archbishop Tait," who wrote in his diary, December 4th, 1856, that Dr. Langley told him that when he did homage to William IV. on his first appointment as Bishop, no sooner had he risen from his knees than the King suddenly addressed him in a loud voice thus: "Bishop of Ripon, I charge you, as you shall answer before Almighty God, that you never by word or deed give encouragement to those dd Whigs, who would upset the Church of England." Even when proposing the Princess Victoria's health and speaking kindly of her, he could not resist the public announcement that he had not seen so much of her as he could have wished (Aug., 1836). On another occasion, he loudly and publicly expressed to the Duchess his strong disapprobation of her having appropriated apartments at Kensington Palace beyond those which had been assigned to her, and spoke of what she had done as "an unwarrantable liberty." A still worse outbreak shortly followed. At his birthday banquet in 1836, in the presence of a hundred people, with the Duchess of Kent sitting next to him and the Princess Victoria opposite, he expressed with