Princess Victoria,
therefore, was recognised by Parliament as heir-presumptive; and the
Duchess of Kent, whose annuity had been doubled five years previously,
was now given an additional L10,000 for the maintenance of the Princess,
and was appointed regent, in case of the death of the King before the
majority of her daughter. At the same time a great convulsion took
place in the constitution of the State. The power of the Tories, who had
dominated England for more than forty years, suddenly began to crumble.
In the tremendous struggle that followed, it seemed for a moment as if
the tradition of generations might be snapped, as if the blind tenacity
of the reactionaries and the determined fury of their enemies could have
no other issue than revolution. But the forces of compromise triumphed:
the Reform Bill was passed. The centre of gravity in the constitution
was shifted towards the middle classes; the Whigs came into power; and
the complexion of the Government assumed a Liberal tinge. One of the
results of this new state of affairs was a change in the position of
the Duchess of Kent and her daughter. From being the protegees of an
opposition clique, they became assets of the official majority of the
nation. The Princess Victoria was henceforward the living symbol of the
victory of the middle classes.

The Duke of Cumberland, on the other hand, suffered a corresponding
eclipse: his claws had been pared by the Reform Act. He grew
insignificant and almost harmless, though his ugliness remained; he was
the wicked uncle still--but only of a story.

The Duchess's own liberalism was not very profound. She followed
naturally in the footsteps of her husband, repeating with conviction the
catchwords of her husband's clever friends and the generalisations
of her clever brother Leopold. She herself had no pretensions to
cleverness; she did not understand very much about the Poor Law and the
Slave Trade and Political Economy; but she hoped that she did her
duty; and she hoped--she ardently hoped--that the same might be said of
Victoria. Her educational conceptions were those of Dr. Arnold, whose
views were just then beginning to permeate society. Dr. Arnold's object
was, first and foremost, to make his pupils "in the highest and truest
sense of the words, Christian gentlemen," intellectual refinements might
follow. The Duchess felt convinced that it was her supreme duty in life
to make quite sure that her daughter should grow up