Princess, and describes a scene which would be too painful for me to
reproduce, except that it reveals, in a striking manner, Victoria's
tender love for and close sympathy with her mother. It seems that the
King's jealous hostility to the Duchess of Kent had grown with his decay,
and strengthened with his senility, till at last it culminated in a sort
of declaration of war at his own table. The account is given by Greville
_second-hand_, and so, very likely, over-colored, though doubtless true
in the main. The King invited the Duchess and Princess to Windsor to
join in the celebration of his birthday, which proved to be his last.
There was a dinner-party, called "private," but a hundred guests sat down
to the table. The Duchess of Kent was given a place of honor on one side
of the King, and opposite her sat the Princess Victoria. After dinner
Queen Adelaide proposed "His Majesty's health and long life to him," to
which that amiable monarch replied by a very remarkable speech. He began
by saying that he hoped in God he might live nine months longer, when the
Princess would be of age, and he could leave the royal authority in her
hands and not in those of a Regent, in the person of a lady sitting near
him, etc. Afterwards he said: "I have particularly to complain of the
manner in which that young lady (the Princess Victoria) has been kept
from my Court. She has been repeatedly kept from my Drawing-rooms, at
which she ought always to have been present, but I am resolved that this
shall not happen again. I would have _her_ know that I am _King_, and am
determined to make my authority respected, and for the future I shall
insist and command that the Princess do, upon all occasions, appear at my
Court, as it is her duty to do."

This pleasant and hospitable harangue, uttered in a loud voice and an
excited manner, "produced a decided sensation." The whole company "were
aghast." Queen Adelaide, who was amiable and well-bred, "looked in deep
distress"; the young Princess burst into tears at the insult offered to