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another theory as they were imported into England via Holland. They were succeeded by papier-mâché dolls, which could be moulded and easily painted, and, from about 1830, dolls with porcelain or glazed china heads.
    *Allegations that Princess Victoria had witnessed over-familiar behaviour between Conroy and the Duchess of Kent, and spoken to Späth who then remonstrated with Conroy, remain unproved.

2
‘ Mamma d’une nombreuse
famille ’
    Q ueen Victoria and Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg Gotha were married at the Chapel Royal, St James’s, on 10 February 1840. Early the following morning, the diarist Charles Greville noticed them walking in the park. He thought it ‘strange that a bridal night should be so short’, and concluded that this was no way to provide the country with a Prince of Wales.
    Until they had children, the heir was her uncle Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland and, since the death of King William IV, King of Hanover. Although he proved himself a capable ruler, he was the most unpopular member of the royal family as far as the British public was concerned. He was credited (quite unjustly) with various crimes, including incest with one of his sisters and the murder of his valet, and the Whig government detested his ultra-Tory politics, which they had considered an adverse influence on the last two Kings.
    Greville and the rest of her subjects need not have worried. The Queen hated and dreaded the idea of childbearing, and wanted at least a year of ‘happy enjoyment’ with Albert before any children came along to disturb their tranquillity. Nevertheless, within a few weeks she was enceinte . Her confinement was expected in December, but she went into labour three weeks early. On 21 November 1840, at ten minutes to two in the afternoon, her first child, a daughter, was born at Buckingham Palace.
    The Queen had expressed an objection to having large numbers of people present at the birth to attend as witnesses. Only Dr Locock, the nurse Mrs Lilly, and Prince Albert himself, were present. In the next room were several Cabinet ministers, including the Prime Minister Lord Melbourne, Palmerston, and Lord John Russell, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Bishop of London, and Lord Erroll, Lord Steward of the Household. They heard Dr Locock’s voice through the open door; ‘Oh, Madam, it is a Princess.’ ‘Never mind, the next will be a Prince,’ the Queen declared. The baby was wrapped in flannel, taken into the room and laid upon a specially prepared table for their inspection, then returned to her room to be dressed.
    ‘A perfect little child was born,’ the Queen wrote, ‘but alas a girl and not a boy, as we both had so hoped and wished for. We were, I am afraid, sadly disappointed.’ 1 This disappointment was shortlived. Almost twenty years later, on the birth of her first granddaughter, she would write to the mother (this newly born daughter) that girls were ‘much more amusing’.
    All the Queen’s children were born at home, either at Buckingham Palace or Windsor Castle. The same nurse, Mrs Lilly, assisted her during all nine confinements, and Prince Albert remained by her side most of the time to carry, comfort and assist her, to read and sing, or summarize despatches and deal with visitors throughout the two weeks or so following the birth while she remained in bed.
    As the birth had not been expected until early December, the wet-nurse – Mrs Southey, sister-in-law of the poet – was still at home in the Isle of Wight. A page was sent for her, and brought her over in an open boat from Cowes to Southampton, so she arrived at the Palace by 2 a.m. the following day. The Queen’s dressing-room was fitted up as a temporary nursery, until apartments were ready for the Princess. Among the fittings were a marble and a silver bath, and a cradle in the form of a nautilus.
    Before the end of the Queen’s ‘lying-in’, another child – this time uninvited – was in the Palace. About ten days