BRANDY MRS. LILLY, THE NURSE IN ATTENDANCE AT THE BIRTH OF ALL QUEEN VICTORIA'S CHILDREN From a contemporary "HB" caricature Birth of the Princess Royal business for her. The Queen makes a good recovery and is able to return to Windsor earlier than was expected. Public attention is exercised about the nursery and armorial bearings of the newly born "heiress of England." Mrs. Lilly was in attendance at Buckingham Palace and afforded a new subject for the caricaturist. In December the appointment as nurse of Mrs. Packer is announced, and the Times is able to inform its readers that she was a native of Edinburgh where she was well known as Miss Augusta Gow. She is the daughter of the late Nathaniel Gow of that city, and grand-daughter of the celebrated Neil Gow ('Famous Neil'). Packer studied music at the Royal Academy, London, with the view of becoming a public singer, in which character she appeared in Edinburgh at several concerts." Mrs. Early in the following year the Queen was able to write that her little girl bore "her Saxon arms in the middle of her English coat, which looks very pretty." Her Majesty fully shared Prince Albert's veneration for his long line of Saxon ancestors. The Christmas of 1840 at Windsor was a joyous The taper-lit and gift-laden Christmas-tree, so closely associated with childish days at Rosenau, is now supplemented by the boar's head as well as by the plum-pudding and roast beef of Old England. one. * The Saxon coat-of-arms has horizontal black bars upon a yellow ground, and diagonally across the field is a cognisance which looks like a green coronet stretched out, but is the heraldic representation of a "wreath of rue," which, in Elizabeth's time, in England used to be called the "herb of grace." CHAPTER IV THE BIRTH OF THE PRINCE OF WALES, NOVEMBER 9, 1841 A GENERAL election and a consequent change of Ministry took place during the twelve months which divided the birth of the Prince of Wales from that of his elder sister the Princess Royal. What two years before would have caused the Queen endless worry and anxiety now only occasioned her a feeling of very natural sorrow and regret at losing the services of an old and trusted friend like Lord Melbourne, who had initiated her into the ways and mysteries of her high office. Although the age of "terminological divergences" was still in the dim future, Prince Albert had no fancy for the turmoil of a general election. "The impending dissolution," he wrote, "is now the engrossing topic of interest. It empties purses, sets families by the ears, demoralises the lower classes, and prevents many of the upper whose character wants strength to keep them straight." By this time, however, his sound common sense had prevailed, and the Queen was a convert to his opinion that if Royalty would avoid pitfalls it must eschew politics. In September the Peel Cabinet was formed, and Charles Greville, no longer a hostile critic of the Queen's husband, although he had little sympathy with the Saxon quarterings, makes the following note in his diary of the 4th of that |