Archbishop of Canterbury.[1] His memorandum is preserved; it states he has considered the Report, and further, has himself personally examined the Princess. He continues:
“I feel it my duty to say that in my judgment the plan of Her Highness’s studies, as detailed in the papers transmitted to me by command of your Royal Highness, is very judicious, and particularly suitable to Her Highness’s exalted station; and that from the proficiency exhibited by the Princess in the examination at which I was present, and the general correctness and pertinency of her answers, I am perfectly satisfied that Her Highness’s education in regard to cultivation of intellect, improvement of talent, and religious and moral principle, is conducted with so much care and success as to render any alteration of the system undesirable.”
The Princess was gradually and watchfully introduced to public life, and was never allowed to lose sight of the fact that her exalted position carried with it definite and obvious duties. The following speech, delivered at Plymouth in 1832, in answer to a complimentary deputation, may stand as an instance of the view which the Duchess of Kent took of her own and her daughter’s responsibilities:—
“It is very agreeable to the Princess and myself to hear the sentiments you convey to us. It is also gratifying to us to be assured that we owe all these kind feelings to the attachment you bear the King, as well as to his Predecessors of the House of Brunswick, from recollections of their paternal sway. The object of my life is to render the Princess worthy of the affectionate solicitude she inspires, and if it be the Will of Providence she should fill a higher station (I trust most fervently at a very distant day), I shall be fully repaid for my anxious care, if she is found competent to discharge the sacred trust; for communicating as the Princess does with all classes of Society, she cannot but perceive that the greater the diffusion of Religion, Knowledge, and the love of freedom in a country, the more orderly, industrious, and wealthy is its population, and that with the desire to preserve the constitutional Prerogatives of the Crown ought to be co-ordinate the protection of the liberties of the people.”
The strictness of the régime under which the Princess was brought up is remarkable; and it is possible that her later zest for simple social pleasures is partly to be accounted for by the
- ↑ Dr William Howley.
