Part 1

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THE CHILDHOOD OF DISTINGUISHED WOMEN.

THE CHILDHOOD OF Distinguished Women.

BY SELINA A. BOWER, AUTHOR OF "FROM ADVENT TO ADVENT."

LONDON: JARROLD & SONS, 3, PATERNOSTER BUILDINGS. [_ALL RIGHTS RESERVED._]

_To be had also from the Author._ ADDRESS--MRS. BOWER, RINGLAND VICARAGE, NORWICH.

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.

PAGE.

WINDSOR CASTLE _Frontispiece_

THE TOWER OF LONDON 24

GREENWICH HOSPITAL 36

INCHMAHOME 48

NORWICH CATHEDRAL (copied from a photograph, by permission) 60

ST. CLEMENT'S CHURCH, NORWICH 72

The Childhood of Distinguished Women.

I.

THE PRINCESS ALICE.

The Princess Alice was the second daughter and third child of our own beloved Queen Victoria and the late Prince Consort, "Albert the Good."

Our deepest sorrowful interest has recently been excited by the touching and sudden way in which this lovely and gifted woman has been called from her home on earth to her eternal home in heaven.

The Princess was born on April 25th, 1843, and was very gladly welcomed by the warm, true mother's heart of Her Majesty, who has ever shown and expressed the deepest love for her happy circle of girls and boys.

The first incident in the babyhood of the Princess Alice which attracts attention is the record of her christening. It was a very brilliant one, the Archbishop of Canterbury officiating, on June 2nd. The sponsors were the late King of Hanover, Ernest, the present Duke of Coburg, and the Princesses Sophia, Matilda, and Feodora.

We will give the Queen's own words about the important choice of the royal infant's names; Her Majesty thus writes:--"Our little baby is to be called Alice, an old English name, and the other names are to be Maud (another old English name, and the same as Matilda) and Mary, as she was born on Aunt Gloucester's birthday." Again, in writing to her uncle, the Queen's account of the little Princess's conduct was that "little Alice behaved extremely well."

When quite a young child, the Princess Alice was remarkably quick, and earnestly enjoyed the acquirement of all the knowledge suitable to her years, and soon displayed intellectual talent of a high order.

Peculiarly sweet and amiable in her disposition, and patient and untiring in her love, the young Princess was a favourite in the royal nursery and schoolroom.

Her illustrious father found her when even a child as to age, quite his companion as to comprehension and mental capacities.

Two very special characteristics place the beloved Princess Alice in the highest range of distinguished women, and call for the deepest regard and respect from all hearts.

From her earliest youth, whatever was learned by her was _thoroughly_ acquired, quietly and completely mastered, definitely and decidedly finished. And with her highly-refined, cultivated, and capacious mind, she also combined every domestic and feminine grace and duty, and was the useful, helpful English maiden, as well as singularly intellectual.

"In her teens," the Princess was pronounced to be "one of the most accomplished young ladies in England."

When the Queen visited Scotland in 1844, the Princess was too young to accompany the royal party, and Her Majesty thus writes of the separation. Just when they were ready for the journey, "Alice and the baby (Prince Alfred) were brought in, poor little things, to wish us good-bye."

But in the course of a few years, all the children were able to participate in the Scotch journeys, and the Princess Alice became the constant companion of the Queen, riding with her over the lovely hills on ponies; visiting the poor women in the cottages, calling at the shop to purchase comforts for them; and at various times climbing the ascents to Feithort, or up Morven, Loch-na-Gar, and Ben Mac Dhui. This latter ascent was made through the dank mountain cloud; but this did not daunt the royal travellers, the Queen recording--"However, I and Alice rode to the very top, which we reached a few minutes past two; and here, at a cairn of stones, we lunched in a piercing cold wind.... Luncheon over, Albert ran off with Alice to the ridge to look at the splendid view, and sent for me to follow."

In December, 1861, Prince Albert was attacked by the terrible disease which eventually proved fatal. The Princess Alice, although only seventeen, was the constant, unwearied nurse of her well-loved parent, and tended and watched him with the strongest filial love. To the last she kept her post, and when her aid and gentle care were no more needed, for he had passed away, she turned to soothe, comfort, and support her beloved mother with womanly and dutiful affection.

On the 1st of July, 1862, the Princess Alice married Prince Louis of Hesse, and proved a pattern wife and mother. But in 1878, her own little household group was smitten with diphtheria, and in nursing and caressing her darling children, she caught the disease herself. One child preceded her, the Princess Mary, who died November 16th, and on December 14th, the anniversary of her honoured father's death, she, too, was summoned home.

The changes and sorrows of life, and, perhaps, especially the death, of a darling little one, who fell from a window, in 1873, and was killed by the fall, had been blessed to her by the Holy Spirit of God; and scenes of family sickness and bereavement seem to have led the endeared Princess Alice to that loving and sympathizing Saviour who is ever ready to save the heart that fully trusts in Him.

The whole English nation mourned for her, as for one near and dear to each, and a solemnity pervaded all classes, though Christmas was at hand.

Possibly the anticipation of Christmastide had been bright in her own loving spirit: if so, that anticipation was realized, for the first Christmas in heaven with Jesus Himself must indeed surpass the most joyous and happy one ever spent on earth.

In Memoriam.

THE PRINCESS ALICE, WHO DIED DEC. 14th, 1878.

She is taken to celebrate Christmastide, In Emmanuel's land of light; The notes of her carol swell far and wide, And her raiment is lustrous white.

Introduced to the happy, and blood-bought throng, For whom Jesus, the Christ, was born, How sweetly will echo her triumph song, On the Heavenly Christmas morn!

And the day she was taken was linked in love, By fond memory's silver chain, With him who had entered the Home above, Which knows neither parting nor pain. At the dawn of the wintry, and short, dark day, The angel of death hovered near, To herald the sorrowful mother away, From trouble, and trial, and tear.

Let us mingle our prayers, asking God to bless, With earnest, affectionate cry, Our well-beloved Queen, in her new distress, Her comfort our God can supply. May she treasure the thought with tremulous praise, That those who were lent, and not given, Are joining with us in the angels' lays, And keeping their Christmas in Heaven!

_Montacute, Ilminster, Somerset, Christmas, 1878._

II.

MRS. HANNAH MORE.

Mrs. Hannah More spent her happy childhood at Stapleton, near Bristol; and her early girlhood in Bristol itself, as a pupil in the school of her three elder sisters.

Besides these three sisters, whose names were Mary, Betty, and Sally, there was also one younger than Hannah herself, named Patty.

The five little girls were the children of a Mr. Jacob More, the head master of a foundation school at Stapleton.

Mr. More had married the daughter of a farmer, who had been carefully brought up, and possessed considerable mind and also great judgment.

Hannah was born in 1745, and, together with her four sisters, learned to read at home, the mother herself teaching them.

It is not difficult to picture that happy home, with all its quiet influence of love, for the five little girls appear to have been good children, very affectionate to each other, and would form a sweet, bright group as they stood with respectful attitude and intelligent faces round the kind mother, and repeated with interest and earnest emulation, the familiar "A, B, C."

Presently, something more than this was needed, but books were scarce. Mr. More had been educated for the Church, but his desire to be a clergyman was frustrated. He removed from Norfolk, his native county, and in his transit to Stapleton, which in those days was a long and difficult journey, he lost the greater part of his library. He therefore endeavoured to supply from memory, information and instruction to his five daughters, and Hannah was always extremely delighted to stand by her father's knees and listen to his stories of Grecian and Roman history, and also to gain thus from him a fair amount of classical learning.

The nurse who assisted the busy mother with her happy charge, had lived for some time in the family of Dryden, and often interested and amused Hannah and her sisters with accounts of the poet.

When Mr. More found that Hannah evinced such a desire for information, he began to teach her Latin and Mathematics; but as she outstripped all his pupils in the foundation school with extreme rapidity, the father, fearing that it might tend to make Hannah unfeminine, ceased these instructions. They seem, however, to have been supplemented by a different mode of education. The parents were poor, too poor to supply all the requirements of so large a family. Very wisely they determined that the children should be trained to support themselves. Miss More was, therefore, sent to a good school in Bristol, as a weekly boarder, and every Saturday, on her return home, she was required to teach her four sisters _all_ that she had learned in the week!

When this sister was twenty years old, she, together with Betty and Sally, opened a school themselves in Bristol; and Hannah, then twelve years of age, and Patty were sent as pupils.

On one occasion Hannah was taken ill, and Dr. Woodward, evidently a literary man of that time, was sent for to attend her. But so great was her conversational power, that the kind doctor forgot the purpose for which he came. After some time, he took his leave, but exclaimed, presently, "Bless me! I forgot to ask the girl how she is to-day!"

This remarkable talent, thus early developed, was one of Mrs. Hannah More's charms through life, and existed to the last lingering days of an intelligent old age.

Hannah's other great talent, as a writer, was also early and fully indicated. As a mere child, she would scribble poems and prim essays upon every scrap of available paper, and a story is told of her, that she had one grand ambition constantly before her young life, and that was to be old enough to "possess a whole quire of paper!" As a schoolgirl, Dr. Johnson, the elder Sheridan, and the astronomer Ferguson, seem to have been on terms of some intimacy, and exercised a talented influence upon the strong sense and mental capacity of Hannah More.

England was experiencing change during the younger years of this well-known and justly honoured writer; the upper circles of society were gay and semi-infidel in principle, disposed to laugh at, and ridicule anything of a religious character; the lower were so intensely ignorant that they devoted themselves to indolence and vice. But already Wesley and Whitefield were preaching the simple gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ, and, through the influence of His Holy Spirit, awakening numbers to study, appreciate, and rise to the full reception of the truth as it is in Him.

Mrs. Hannah More threw her literary influence and ability into the effort to raise and benefit her fellow-countrymen; though I am not aware that, during her early years, she in any way displayed personal and positive perception of the great love of that Heavenly Father who provided the special salvation and restoration so singularly suited to the wants and capacities of every child of man. But her evident respect for religion is singularly shown in the apparent sorrow that any disregard should be manifested towards God's Word; she once remarked, with emphatic disapproval, "We saw but one Bible in the parish of Cheddar, and that was used to prop a flower-pot!" She died in 1833, at the age of eighty-eight.

III.

LADY JANE GREY.

Henry Grey was the Marquis of Dorset, and married Frances Brandon, the daughter of the Duke of Suffolk and his beautiful wife, Mary, the sister of Henry VIII. This Mary was for three months Queen of France; and when Louis XII. left her a widow, she was again married, almost immediately, to Charles Brandon, Duke of Suffolk. Their child Frances was the mother of Lady Jane Grey, who was born in 1537. There were two other little girls younger than Lady Jane, Katherine and Mary.

All the three children were treated with very great severity, which was not unusual at that time. Lady Jane, perhaps because she was the eldest girl, was expected to be quite perfect in her manners, movements, and in all that she said; to use her own striking expression, to do everything "Even so perfectly as God made the world."

Her parents enforced obedience by threatening and taunting her; and also by literal _pinching_ and _nipping_, besides still more severe and revolting bodily punishments, which worried and fretted the gentle, noble child, almost past endurance.

However, probably partly owing to all this torture, Lady Jane derived her pleasures from far higher sources than her years warranted.

Her tutor, Mr. Elmer, unlike her parents, was extremely gentle and kind; and when with him the child became perfectly free and happy, learning her lessons with great patience, care, and interest, and enjoying that true cultivation of mind, which is the result of all study that is rendered attractive.

Mr. Elmer had abundant reward for his toil, in winning and retaining the affection and respect of his young pupil; and also in the rapidity with which she mastered, not only the usual routine of general knowledge, but the higher forms of classical learning. In Greek especially she was proficient, and Plato was to her more interesting than any story book.

When her father, who was at this time made a Duke, was out with the Duchess and friends, hunting in the park, Lady Jane preferred remaining in her bedroom with her books, and, on being questioned why she did not join the party in their sport in the park, she replied that such amusements were but "shadow."

The surroundings of her home life were not congenial to the natural gentleness and sweetness of her disposition, and this, with perhaps also her love of the Greek language, led the young girl to study deeply, and to love God's Holy Word, and very shortly before her sorrowful death, she sent her Greek Testament to her sister Katherine, as the most precious gift which she could offer. The truths of that Word fell softly into the heart that yearned for love, and the salvation and sympathy of the Saviour seems to have been accepted by Lady Jane in her earliest years, and evidently proved her support and consolation in the tragedy that closed her young life here, as well as during the six months' previous imprisonment in the Tower.

Born, as she was, in transition times, Lady Jane quickly formed her own judgment, and was thoroughly Protestant in her faith. She was often with her cousin, Edward VI., and her decided opinions upon the Reformation, together with her arguments in its support, and her dislike to the Romish errors which they both condemned, made the boy-monarch respect her highly, and there was a warm attachment between the youthful cousins.

Her childhood had scarcely faded into early girlhood, when Lady Jane became the bride of Lord Guildford Dudley, fourth son of the Duke of Northumberland. There was a treble marriage; Lady Jane and her two sisters were married at the same time at Durham House, Lady Jane, the eldest, being only fifteen years of age!

The rest of her sad story is quickly told. Owing to the ambition of her own father, and her husband's father, after the death of King Edward, she was, sorely against her own will, induced to claim the English crown. It was long before she yielded to the persuasion of Archbishop Cranmer, and, when she did so, it was with many tears, and these words, "If this right be truly mine, O gracious God, give me strength so to rule as to promote Thy honour, and my country's good!" Queen Mary, the right heir, was duly crowned, and, after ten days, Lady Jane Grey was informed by her own father that she was not, in reality, Queen. She was subsequently sent to the Tower, and after six months' imprisonment, the sentence of death was carried out on February 12th, 1554.

Three short days were allowed for immediate preparation, during which Lady Jane calmly wrote to her father, and conversed with Dr. Feckenham, who tried to induce her to become a Romanist. This she firmly declined, though she did so with the greatest sweetness.

Her last words are evidence of her hope and trust; as she laid her head upon the block, she said, in trembling tones, "Lord Jesus! receive my spirit!" and the short life of earth was merged in the eternal life of Heaven!

IV.

SELINA, COUNTESS OF HUNTINGDON.

Not very far from Ashby-de-la-Zouch, in Leicestershire, there is now a fine Gothic building, where the old mansion of the Hastings family formerly, and for centuries, had stood. The situation is lovely, for Donnington-park, with its large forest trees and magnificent old oaks, forms a more than usually beautiful surrounding to the extensive and immediate grounds. Those, to the north, were precipitous, and the broken craggy ground, with hanging woods, give additional charm to the sweeping valleys and alternating hills.

To this venerable old English home, Lady Selina Shirley came, as the bride of Theophilus Hastings, ninth Earl of Huntingdon, when she was nearly twenty-one, from her own adjacent home, Stanton Harold, which lay between Donnington-park and Ashby-de-la-Zouch.

The two homes thus near, were singularly similar. For the home of Lady Selina's childhood was also a fine old edifice, very massive, with noble and spacious apartments, standing in the midst of an extensive park, with soft, swelling hills, and still softer green-clad vales. The tasteful grounds, too, were rendered more attractive by a large ornamental lake, which clearly mirrored a handsome stone bridge, as it lay peacefully resting against the sloping lawn. The church, with its pretty tower, adjoined the house, and Sunday after Sunday, the child, as she sat or stood in the old family pew, became familiar with the long inscriptions that were on the monuments of her own ancestors, and which plainly indicated that all, whatever the rank and station, must pass from the present to a future state.

The Shirley family was celebrated for two specialities--the purity of its genealogy, which could be traced up to the time of Edward the Confessor; and the piety of its most distinguished members, which, as it arose from a living faith in an eternal Saviour, must result in a future, which no human calculation can limit to its possessors, and in an infinite and everlasting life through Him alone.

The grandfather of Lady Selina Shirley had twenty-seven children, her father being the second son. She was born at Stanton Harold, on the 24th August, 1707. Two sisters, one older and one younger, shared the nursery with Lady Selina, and participated in the play, the happy strolls in the park, and presently in the early lessons. Elizabeth, the eldest, became the celebrated Lady E. Nightingale, and Mary, the "baby" of the family, was afterwards Viscountess Kilmorey.

Lady Selina was decidedly talented, very benevolent, unusually grave and serious, and extremely graceful. Though not strictly beautiful, yet the large, bright eyes, the well-formed mouth, and the bold, intellectual brow, when illumined by the animation of the ardent spirit, were far more attractive than those perishing charms which exist only in features and externals.

She was a sensitive child, as well as serious, and often went alone to a small room to pray, and in childish, earnest fervour she would pour out every little trouble into the ear of that Father in heaven who listens to each whisper of distress.

When the Lady Selina was nine years old, a child just her own age died, and the passing funeral attracted her notice. She followed to the grave; listened to the beautiful and solemn service; heard those thrilling words, as the body was slowly lowered, "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust." Her eyes filled with tears, and, awe-struck and frightened, the young girl earnestly asked God to prepare her for her last hour, that she might die happily and without alarm. After this, she would often go to that little grave to think, to weep, to pray, and was much impressed with this first realization of death!

On December 25th, 1717, her grandfather died, and this deepened those impressions, adding earnestness to her prayers, and strengthening her seriousness, although it was not until nearly ten years after her marriage that she became personally interested in the love of the Saviour, and sought full salvation through His work; and by the power of the Holy Spirit became a decided disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ.

Lady Selina was very highly educated, being trained with extreme care, for her social position, and her naturally high intellect, and evident talent, were developed by sound instruction in all the various branches of interesting study. Her retentive memory and brilliant fancy availed themselves of all the knowledge presented to them; and even when quite young, her sound understanding and clear judgment were beyond her years, as they appeared in the conversation and observations in which she took part.

Probably all this was preparing her for those peculiar efforts in the religious world, with their lasting influences, which have made Selina, Countess of Huntingdon, a truly distinguished woman.

But it was the grace of God alone which influenced her to utilize all this preparation; and that grace; having first filled her heart with a deep sense of sin, and of the utter insufficiency of her own ability to procure salvation, then led her to the most unbounded and simple trust in Jesus. Her love and gratitude made her anxious to work for Him; and her own peace rendered her desirous that others too should possess like peace. Thus the whole of her energy was directed to seek the honour and glory of her Saviour, and the safety of every sinner through Him.

During her last illness the Countess often repeated, "I long to be at home! My work is done! I have nothing to do but to go to my heavenly Father;" and almost her last words were, "I shall go to my Father to-night."

She entered that Father's heavenly presence on June 17th, 1791, in the eighty-fourth year of her age.

V.

QUEEN ELIZABETH.

Queen Elizabeth, who was the second daughter of King Henry VIII., was born at Greenwich on the 7th of September, 1533, in a tapestry-covered chamber in the palace. This tapestry represented the parable of the Ten Virgins, and the half-unconscious eyes of the royal infant often rested upon the hazy blue dresses of the quaint maidens with their odd little lamps, as the days of early babyhood went softly by.