Page:Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria (IA lifeofhermajesty01fawc).pdf/58



men, her uncles, knelt before her, swearing allegiance and kissing her hand, I saw her blush up to the eyes, as if she felt the contrast between their civil and their natural relations. This was the only sign of emotion which she evinced. Her manner to them was very graceful and engaging; she kissed them both, and rose from her chair and moved towards the Duke of Sussex, who was farthest from her, and too infirm to reach her. She seemed rather bewildered at the multitude of men who were sworn, and who came, one after another, to kiss her hand; but she did not speak to anybody, nor did she make the slightest difference in her manner, or show any in her countenance to any individual of any rank, station, or party. I particularly watched her when Melbourne and the Ministers and the Duke of Wellington and Peel approached her. She went through the whole ceremony, occasionally looking to Melbourne for instruction when she had any doubt what to do, which hardly ever occurred, and with perfect calmness and self-possession, but at the same time with a graceful modesty and propriety particularly interesting and ingratiating. When the business was done she retired as she had entered, and I could see that nobody was in the adjoining room. … Peel likewise said how amazed he was at her manner and behavior, at her apparent deep sense of her situation, her modesty, and at the same time her firmness. She appeared, in fact, to be awed, but not daunted; and afterwards the Duke of Wellington told me the same thing, and added that if she had been his own daughter he could not have desired to see her perform her part better. It was settled that she was to hold a Council at St. James's this day, and be proclaimed there at ten o'clock: and she expressed a wish to see Lord Albemarle, who went to her and told her he was come to take her orders. She said, 'I have no orders to give; you know all this so much better than I do that I leave it all to you. I am to be at St. James's at ten to-morrow, and must beg you to find me a conveyance proper for the occasion.' Accordingly he went and fetched her in State with a great escort. … At twelve o'clock she held a Council, at which she presided with as much ease as if she had been doing nothing else all her life; and though Lord Lausdown and my colleague had contrived between them to make some confusion with the Council papers, she was not put out by it. She looked very well, and though so small a stature, and without much pretension to beauty, the gracefulness of her manner and the good expression of her countenance give her, on the whole, a very agreeable appearance, and with her youth inspire an excessive interest in all who approach her, which I can't help feeling myself. After the Council she received the Archbishops and Bishops, and after them the Judges. They all kissed her hand, but she said nothing to any of them; very different in this from her predecessor, who used to harangue them all, and had a speech ready for everybody."